Hello all,
So this has been a pretty great week. It started off with
greenie training which was fun to see all of us newbie missionaries
again but I told you all about that in last weeks letter. Anyways,
after I emailed on tuesday we met with I_, who is an older lady, maybe
in her sixties. The missionaries hadn't met with her in a while so our
lesson was basically a check up and see what her needs are. We got in
there and started teaching and it went well and she basically told us
that she was confused because there are so many churches and how are you
supposed to know which is right so we told her about how Joseph Smith
had the same question. The spirit was super strong but she sort of
brushed it off and I think she mostly wanted to complain to us that life
is hard. We told her about how Heavenly Father knows each of us
perfectly and because Christ suffered for all of our pains and sorrows
He can help us individually. We then told her all about prayer and how
we can tell Heavenly Father all about everything that is confusing or
wrong or hard in life and we asked her if she thought she could do that.
She said she didn't want to but that she wouldn't mind if we prayed. So
Sister Sellers kneeled down and said a beautiful simple prayer asking
Heaveny Father to help her understand her problems and help her to know
what is right. The spirit was so strong and we asked her if she
recognized it and she said she did, but she kept asking us how to know
what was right. We callenged her to pray for herself and we are crossing
our fingers that she did.
On thursday we taught Il_ again.
She is just the sweetest lady ever. She didn't come to church last
sunday so we were worried that she wasn't doing well. When we met with
her though she was doing fantastic. After our past lesson with her she
had decided to follow the Word of wisdom and hadn't had coffee once! And
she had read first Nefi one! our lesson was basically her explaining to
us why that chapter was great and what was important in it. She has
been meeting with the missionaries for a long time now and all of them
have talked to her about baptism but she has always had the same
reaction that she loves meeting with us but she just won't get baptized.
We felt impressed to talk to her again about it and so we talked about
why we are baptized, that it isn't just about becoming members of our
church or because we are wicked people that sin but rather it is our
covenant with God that we are willing to follow Him and Christ. We asked
her what was really worrying her about baptism because she always sort
of dogged the question. But finally she told us that she was worried
because she had never seen a baptism and was worried about what she had
to wear and the water. We found out that a couple of elders in buda have
a baptism soon so we are going to bring her to it and hopefully that
will calm her worries. She said that she would pray about baptism and
she couldn't stop smiling. She is just the sweetest lady ever.
Later
that day after angol óra we hurried back to érd to meet with an_,
é_ and ti_. They dogged us last week so we were happy when é_ called
back saying she wanted to meet with us. Like I_ it had been a while
since they had met with the missionaires so we basically went in to
check up on them and see how they were doing. It turned out to be an
incredible lesson. An_ and é_ are either married or dating, we
couldn't quite figure it out since he had a ring on but she didn't and
then there is her son ti_ who is in his 20s. Ti_ had an accident at
work when he was younger and it affected him pretty bad. He is really
quiet and sort of afraid of strangers so when we first came in he didn't
talk and sort of stood in the doorway, but after we stared talking to
them he came and sat down too. We asked them if they have been reading
the book of mormon and they said a little bit.
They are incredibly busy
people and work a lot . We talked about our purpose as missionaries how
we help people to find faith, repent, be baptized, receive the holy
ghost and endure to the end. They have a ton of faith and we talked
about how important it is to follow Christ and God. We talked a bit
about following the commandments like attending church each sunday.
An_ was all in for it but é_ was a little hesitant because she
works so much that is when she has time to rest, An_ however when she
said that responded that we wouldn't lie to them that there are
promised blessings for following the commandments. Then we talked about
repentance and how it is about returning to God and accepting Christ's
atonement in our lives, and she started tearing up when we talked about
how through Christ's atonement all of our physical problems and
weaknesses can be made right. She talked about how Tibor is always sick
and how it is incredible that Christ understands his pain. We then
talked about baptism and how it is our covenant with God to follow him.
They said that they know that what we have taught is true and that the
feelings they had with meeting with us couldn't be lies so they said
that they wanted to be baptized!! We told them to pray about it still
and work towards the date of March 21st to be baptized. They were super excited and are incredble people.
oh Friday
we had zone training and went out to Buda again. zone trainig was good
and we talked about keeping our lessons simple with strong testimonies
and using the scriptures to back up our teachings. Then after training
we went to this fancy italian resturant. It is cool being here because
food is so cheap. We went with the elders in our district and it was fun
to just talk and eat good food.
Saturday
was a great day of course because it was my birthday!! We had one
lesson lined up with a guy from our angol óra class but that morning the
elders called us and said that he needed to cancel so we were a little
bummed out. That meant that we would have four hours of tracting that
day but it was a really sunny day so we weren't too sad about spending
the day outside. We ate lunch a little early so we would have time to
walk the half an our our to our tracting area.
As we were walking I said
a prayer in my heart asking God that if there was one thing I wanted
for my birthday it was for just one person to talk to that would
actually listen to us. We got out there and decided to tract theis
street with about 60 houses on it. The first few houses weren't
interested but then we talked to this one lady who had met with
missionaries before but she wasn't interested, then we talked to this
old baptist lady who was so confused why we were there and told us to go
talk to people our own age, because they need God more than she does.
Then we talked to this atheist lady who basically yelled at us to leave
so we kept walking and then we were coming the last few houses. We
talked to this really cool austrian lady who moved here when she was
little girl. She came out angry at us saying that she was a catholic and
didn't want to change but we were like "oh cool, so you believe in God.
So do we!" and we ended up talking all about why we are here in hungary
and she was really nice in the end. then the last house we knocked on
was this man in his 60s. He was shocked that we were "sisters" and
thought that sister sellers was 15 and was so confused as to why we were
here in hungary, but he didn't have any time to talk to us so he really
wanted us to come back the next day, so we told him we could come back
after church around four. We then walked back to our apartment and made
brownies for my birthday and to plan our next week.
Sunday
was a great day. We had church in the morning and Il_ and her
boyfriend were there and another of our investigators. So it was a great
day. One of the ward members, Or_, is a really sweet girl in her 20s I
think. She is disabled so she walks with a cane but she is really smart
and speaks english very well. She called me on my birthday and was
really sweet and then in church she had a milka bar for me, the oreo
kind, which is one of my favorites. When the primary girls saw it they
were so cute and sort of hid behind sister sellers, spying on the candy
bar so I opened it and gave them each a few pieces. The second counselor
then came up and heard it was my birthday so he gave me a hand shake
and said happy birthday very properly and goofily so then the little
girls copied him and kept shaking our hands saying "happy birthday,
happy birthday!"
Then after church we came back ate some lunch and then
after our studies headed over to visit the man we ran into tracting
again. We were let in by his wife, who was doing dishes. She said that
she was catholic and not interested so she was going to keep doing
dishes. When the man came in he introduced himself as Ag_ and his
wife's name is Má_. Before we left him on saturday we gave him a restoration pamphlet and our phone number. So when we got back on sunday
he said he had read the whole pamphlet and loved it! He basically
taught us the first lesson explaining how much he loved what the
pamphlet said and how much sense it made. He asked us about the book of mormon and we gave him one and he was so excited to read it. We
basically were just there to witness that it was true. Má_ then
brought out suti (or desserts) for us and then sat down and actually
listened too. Ago_ is hard of hearing so má_ had to basically
repeat to him everything we were saying. We talked about how you can
know that what we teach is true by praying and Ag_ said he read in
the pamplet about prayer and he loved it. He said that he had never
really been religious but that five years earlier had started "making up
his own prayers" and hd said that he ended them in Christ's name. So
when he read in the pamphlet that that is how we pray he was stunned. He
had never heard of anyone else praying like that. So we asked him if we
could offer a prayer to sort of show him how we do it. We all bowed our
heads and sister sellers said probably one of the simplest and
prettiest prayers ever.
When we opened our eyes má_ was crying and
ag_ was quiet. They told us that they know that what we teach is
true because why else would two pretty young girls come so far away from
home just to lie to people. Má_ agreed and said that she could see it
in our eyes that what we were teaching was true. Ag_ then got out a
picture of his son and his wife. He asked us why we couldn't have been
here ten years earlier to marry his son but then we stared laughing and
he said "oh right, you would have been nine." haha and then he said
that he wants to keep learning more and he wants his children to hear
what we ahve to say. He said that he wants to read all of the book of
mormon and hear everything we have to say and then if it all makes sense
he told us that he wanted to be a member of our church and be baptized.
We told him that we can absolutely keep teaching him and má_ and we
invited them to come to church and to a ward party on saturday.
They said the would absolutely be there. We then set up with them for
this week and said goodbye. After we turned the corner from their house
we basically freaked out and jumped up and down for joy. Heavenly Father
seriously does answer prayers. If Laci hadn't canceled on us and if we
hadn't eaten lunch a little earlier to get out to our tracting area we
wouldn't have had time to tract the whole street and speak to the last
house. Heavenly Father seriously recognizes our little efforts and gives
us the desires of our hearts. Because we are doing what is right and
striving to be the best missionaires we can He places us in the right
place at the right time to teach those who are prepared to recieve the
truth.
After that we went to have dinner with our elders, who made us
rokos crumpli, which is a sort of potato, kolbas (a type of sausage),
sour cream and paprika amazingness.
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| rokos krumpli |
They put candles in it to celebrate
my birthday which was adorable and we told them all about how incredible
ag_ and má_ are. We then came home and were exausted from good
food and an amazing spirit.
Well that was my week. We really
are blessed when we put in the effort. Heavenly father knew that these
past few weeks have been rough with mostly tracting and having people
yell at us for trying to help them. We feel like aaron in the book of
mormon did when he taught king lamoni. After being spit on, thrown in
jail and yelled at he finally had one man who wanted to listen and
eventually the while kingdom was brought to a knowledge of their God.
The gospel is great and God is real. And I am so stoked to keep teaching
this week and I love being a servant of the Lord.
Love you all and hope you have a good week!
heath nővér
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| our cute little district (lidnow, meek, sellers and me) |
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