Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Miracle week!

26 May 2015

Hello all! Boldog Kedd!
So this week was one of miracles,

Tuesday- I had my six month as a missionary mark and we had lunch at Anikos, the most amazing member. Last transfer we had lunch with her basically every week but she has been feeling sick lately and has been visiting her son with cancer a lot so its been a really hard time for her. This whole transfer, almost every single day we make sure to pray for her and we have fasted for her to be feeling comforted and happier and this sunday she came up to us in church and said that she has been feeling a little better and wanted us to come and visit her so on tuesday we went with the elders to have lunch with her. We ended up visiting her almost the whole afternoon but I didn't feel bad about it. She has been going through a really hard time and she shouldn't be left alone. We talked a lot about her family and she showed us pictures of all the missionaries that have served here and she told us stories about them. Then she showed us her cherry trees in her back yard and we played with her dog, Jáki a bit. It was really good to help her and we want to try and go back this week to walk her dog for her or something as an excuse to check up on her and make sure she is okay. 
On tuesday we also met this awesome guy on the street that spoke perfect english! His name was ben and he said he learned it in school but we ended up talking about different religions and buddhism and such and it was awesome. He told us a ton of cool places we could visit around Érd so that was cool. We are going to try and meet with him sometime soon. 

Wednesday- We met with the And_ and told them the news about how it is free to get married on weekdays. They were super surprised and are going to figure out how it all works this week. It was a super great lesson. We read a talk about faith and trials and how we need hope with them and it went well. They just freaking need to come to church already! But we are meeting with them tomorrow with János, a member. Later that afternoon we did some look ups and we met with Ágoston and Mária again!! They were curious about where sister sellers had gone to and Sholly got to know them. We had thought it would be just a quick stop by and visit but it ended up being an hour that we talked and they are just so wonderful. Ágoston picked some fresh strawberries from his garden and they said we could come back sometime. So we had planned on it only being a few minute visit but since it ended up being an hour we had to literally run from one end of Érd to the other to make it to the branch house in time for our program with Imre. It is normally about an hour walk from where our tracting area is to the branch house and we had five minutes to try and run to get there. It was a freaking humid and hot day too so we ended up booking it about half way and it was already ten minutes into our program and we were both about to die, running in skirts and such. We found a bus stop and hurried and asked a lady standing there when the bus came and she pointed and said, "thats it right there" and goodness does God ever love us. We got on the bus and only ended up being 15 minutes late for our program instead of the half hour we probably would have been if we had had to run all the way there. It ended up being a good program. We talked about faith and started the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson.

Thursday- Thursday was sister sholly and elder wilcox's year mark so after district meeting we had lunch and it was good. Besides that not too much exciting stuff happened. 




Friday- We looked up a less active member, Papp Márgit. My first program I ever had in the country was with her and we haven't gotten to meet with her since then so it was super cool to see how much I have improved since the first time I met with her. I remember when I first met with her I could barely understand a thing she said and I was struggling to stay awake because of jet lag, but it was cool to see how this time I could follow the conversation and I could really bare my testimony to her about Joseph Smith. 
After meeting with Márgit we met with Orsi at the branch house. Orsi is a master genealogist and Sister Sholly's great grandfather was from hungary so they have been wanting to figure out where in hungary she is from and so that evening they found out that Sholly is from Szeged and Miskolc! It was super cool to see how it really was not accident that Sholly was sent to hungary and to serve in Érd so Orsi could help her find her family. Next week we are going to try and visit the family history center with Orsi to see if we can find any of Sholly's relatives that are still in hungary! 

Saturday- Saturday morning we met with Imre again and taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson. It went really well. He understood the fact that baptism is the gate and that we have to keep the commandments and endure to reach our end goal of eternal life with Heavenly Father. He asked us what the commandments were and how we could keep them and we told him we would teach him that later. It was interesting because in our first program with him he told us that he would probably wait til he was about 50 to be baptized but after this lesson he told us that he wanted to be baptized after he came back from working on the cruise ship. We were both super excited but he then said he wanted to be baptized into the catholic church so we ended up talking to him again about the proper authority and how it is important that the person who baptizes you has the power of the priesthood. He sat a few minutes thinking about it and then asked us how we were baptized and if it was in this church. And we told him and he asked us where we are baptized so we explained it a bit. It ended well and he had a lot to think about. 
 
After Imre we caught the train to look up a family we found in the area book, the M_. The are the most rendes (basically means orderly or classy) people I have ever taught. So we called Ferenc, the father, during weekly planning last week and we set up for saturday and we were super excited. That morning while we were planning their lesson I was just overwhelmed with the strongest feeling of love for them even though I didn't know them. I seriously felt like I knew them and that they were like my family. When we got there the mother, Anna, opened the gate and lead us into their huge house. We walked into the mud room and two of their kids (anett, 18 and erik, 16) were standing there with perfect posture waiting to greet us. We had to run from the train station to make it to the program on time so we were both out of breath and hot and we felt so silly. Anna gave us slippers to wear and the kids led us up to the kitchen where anna had made lunch for us, this fancy berry sauce meat with potatoes . While we were eating we talked to Anna, who speaks english pretty well, about how they met the missionaries. So I guess 20 years ago, they were living in budapest and the missionaries tracted into them and they had a really good program with them but the elders never came back and then 10 years later, the had moved to Budatétény and a set of elders tracted into them again, they immediately let them in and started meeting with them regularly. They met with them until their original elders got transferred out and then they met with the elders less regularly until they eventually stopped. Anna said that they were excited when we called them because we were girls. She also said that she knew it wasn't an accident that we called when we did. They had had a really hard month last month and when we called it was like a sign from God that He wanted to help them. She said it was funny that every ten years or so the missionaries find them and that when we came in she immediately felt the spirit. By this point she was crying and gosh was the spirit strong. Ferenc then came in and told us that they were ready for us in the dining room with dessert. We then went to their living room/dining room where they had this giant dining room table three pianos and giant white couches and t.v. We ended up talking with Ferenc a lot about how the world has changed and about their first missionaries. It was super great and they asked us a ton about ourselves. It was super great but my hungarian really struggled, but they were so nice and patient with us. We then shared with them Elder Bednar's mormon message about light and revelation and they loved it. They were so surprised with how modern it was and so we showed them lds.org on their computer and how they could watch the most recent conference and it was super great. They are seriously the nicest and most legit people ever and I already feel like they are members they already know so much about the church and love it they just need to start coming again and get baptized! I just feel like it is too good to be true teaching them. They invited us back again for the same time this week and I am so excited to go back. 
 
That evening we had játék est with the Palmerék kids, Ali and Aston. It was really good. I am going to be so sad to leave Ali once I am transferred out. Honestly if I couldn't have done anything here in Érd but helped Ali I will feel like it is enough. We just talked and played Bang with them. Ali was getting kind of sad at the end since we were saying how it is going to be one of the last játék ests before the transfer. It is going to be okay though. She is just such a trooper and has a strong testimony. 

Sunday- We had a couple of great miracles happen on sunday. So first this sweet little less active néni randomly showed up and we set up to meet with her this week. She is seriously so cute and your stereotypical hungarian néni. Second Papp Márgit and her son came! And third and most amazing was that Dávid Sándor came! So Sándor is the father of one of our other young woman, Brigi. He has met with the missionaries for years and was super close to being baptized but then when his wife died he stopped meeting with the missionaries. We have been asking Brigi most of the transfer when we can come visit them but it has never worked out but this week they both came to church and after Sándor and Brigi came up to us and asked when they could meet! So we are meeting with them friday!! 
That evening we met with the gyönygiék, it was really great. We did our little missionary lesson we did with the kövesyék, with the little missionary name tags and it was great. They are just the craziest and funniest family. 
the Gyönygiék (Gyönygi the mom, Eszti, Levente, and little Peti)


Monday- We met with Imre again and this time Attila, our ward mission leader, came. We taught him the plan of salvation and it was really good. He understood it all and he connected the fact that the things we taught him in the last lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ are the things we need to do in this life to make sure we get to the celestial kingdom. And he prayed in the lesson!! He really loves reading from the book of mormon and he says he feels peaceful and calm when he reads it so we told him that it was the spirit!! It was a really great lesson and him and Attila walked out together and Attila called us that night and told us that Imre asked him about the priesthood and why it was important with baptism and so he explained to him why baptism in other churches are not valid because they don't have the priesthood. And I really think Imre is going to progress. I just am frustrated because he is leaving in two weeks to work on the cruise ship but it is all in the Lord's timing and the Lord knows how it will all work out. 

Well, that was my week. I have seriously seen answers to my prayers and fasting this week. I truly love Érd. It is a hard city but I have come to love it. It is amazing to see that love really is the answer and the motive behind everything of worth. It is God's love that allowed us to come to earth and gain bodies. It is Christ's love that allows us to be saved and return to live with God. It is the love of others that allows us to feel loved and it is our love of others that brings us feelings of fulfillment and allows us to be filled with charity to all men. I love being a missionary and it is such a blessing to have the hard times, they truly make the good times that much more sweet. 

I hope you all have a good week and that you can feel God's love for you.

Heath Nővér

Napsi (means sunbeam) our neighbor's shih tzu puppy

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