sziasztok!

22 June 2015

sziasztok!

Monday: We spent the afternoon with an investigator, Gábor's family. He has been investigating the church for about a year now and really wants to be baptized but his parents won't let him. But his dad always comes to angol óra and is super nice. But this week they call it the blooming of the tisza (the river that runs through szeged) because all the may flies. Gábor sr. really loves fishing so he invited us to go fishing with him once the may flies came out so monday we went fishing and it was super great. The tisza is gorgeous but the may flies were disgusting. Basically these creepy big bugs that fly everywhere, pictures to come.

our investigator gábor

the beautiful tisza

algyő and the may flies on the tisza

Tuesday: We had zone conference in budapest. We woke up at three thirty to make the train into budapest. It was the last conference with president smith so both he and sister smith gave their departing testimonies. It was really nice. After we went on splits with the sister training leaders in debrecen, so we had a three hour train ride to debrecen. It was cool to go on splits with sister sellers and to see how much my hungarian has actually progressed since I first got to the country. Sometimes I get so discouraged because of the language but I forget to recognize how much I have actually progressed seeing as I have only been in hungary since january.

splits in debrecen

debrecen

the university in debrecen

debrecen

train ride home from debrecen

Wednesday: still were on splits. We taught a couple of really cool people one of them being this 17 year old girl named Imola. She spoke almost perfect english but wanted to meet for the gospel too. She met with the missionaries a while ago but school got too busy so now that it is summer she had more time. It was an incredible lesson. We taught her the restoration and told her our conversion stories. It was really cool to teach her because I felt like I was talking to my old self. She had the same questions I felt that I had when I was her age and I was so grateful that I got to bear testimony to her that God answers prayers and that she can get an answer. I really wish that I could be serving in debrecen right now just to teach her but I know that that is why we were supposed to go on splits. It was super cute though at the end of the lesson she asked if we could all take a picture.

We also had another cool experience as we were on the bus to go to meet a member for dinner. As we were waiting by the bus stop there was this girl that I could tell was eavesdropping as we were speaking in english so I didn't really worry about it. When we got onto the bus I saw that she kept glancing over at us so I sort of smiled at her and it turned out that we were getting off on the same stop so Sister Geröly asked her if she knew where the street that the members lived on was. She said she did and then started speaing english to us. It turns out that she spent about five months at a YMCA camp in new jersey and she spoke english pretty well. She called her boyfriend to get the directions to the street and as we were waiting for him to call us back she asked us what the difference was between our church and others so I started to tell her about the restoration. It was super cool but then her boyfriend called back and we started to walk towards the street. She said she was actually interested in going to church sometime to see what we were like and she was interested in meeting to learn about the church too! It was super awesome, we exchanged emails and we'll see if the debrecen sisters meet with her. It was just killing me that I don't get to be the one to teach these people but it was cool that I get to be part of their stories.

The members we met with were really nice and at the end of the lesson they gave us a bag of american chocolate chips. It was awesome.

Thursday: We had angol óra and had a lot of people in it actually. It was really great. There is this student named Krisztof. He is a student and studying film. He is really legit, also a hitch hiker.

After angol óra we met with a member viki to practice hungarin. She is super great and adorable with a pixie cut.

our street performer friend

Friday: We met with Gábor. It was good. After that we met with Roli. He was great too. After them we met with Zsuzsa, the depressed one. It was really great because Viki came to the program with us. She is just an incredible member present. She was just such a great friend to Zsuzsa.

Saturday: We met with an rcla, Piroska. She is this old néni. It was a good program, she just talks a lot. We also met with Magdi néni. She is the grandmother of the 11 year old member márk. She has been meeting with the missionaries for a while now and has always had excuses about why she can't get baptized but in this program she actually brought up the fact that she wants to be baptized on august 29th. So we have a bap date now!

our investigators. Magdi néni is the one on bap date (to the left of me)

Sunday: We had church and then that evening we met with the orás Laci family. They are seriously the coolest people ever. We met his son this time. He is basically a piano protegee and is super great at english. We then talked with the father about the gospel and he was super facinated by why we are here and he thought it was awesome what we do. I told them about how I found out about the book of mormon being true and it was so awesome. I just love being a missionary.

the super cool family we teach. Buba, Dávid and Laci

So this week we are having a mini transfer. On thursday Sister Whitaker is going to be transfered to Debrecen because Sister Geröly is going home. Me and other Sister Whittaker are staying here. So we will be going up to Budapest on thursday. It'll be good. I hope you all have a good week! love you all!

Heath Nővér