Another week in Pécs!

"tableing"!

2 November 2015

Another week in Pécs!

So monday:

We went antiquing with the elders. Pécs has all these cool little shops so basically we sent the day exploring. There was this one store with all this awesome art. It made me really excited about going home and making art again.

Tuesday:

We had greenie training in Buda! So we got up super early and went into budapest. The training was good. Basically the APs talked about the missionary handbook and then we did this trivia thing with sister szabadkai. Then president spoke to us. "the best thing you can do is assume the other loves you" -pres. Szabadkai. It was fun! The best though was seeing sister hafen and talking with her. We got to reminise about the good old days when we were greenies!

After training we had a couple of hours to kill before our train came so we went and saw the bazilika. It was super gorgeous and we got some pretty cool pictures of budapest!

new missionary training

székesegyház

bazilika

mtc reunion!

the view from the tower in the bazilika

the view from the tower

 

 

 Wednesday:

So they are doing renovations on the branch house here, adding a second floor so wednesday morning we were in a program and these construction workers came and started working so we couldn't use the branch house for programs this week and we won't be able too in a couple of weeks either so that will be fun.

But the STLs got here for splits and we had a program with Erzsi with Levanen. It was super good for erzsi to see her again.

Later we had a program with Niki and András. Best part of the program. Niki's daughter Lily really likes tejföl (or sour cream). So she was eating spoonfuls of tejföl the whole program. #hungarianchilden

That evening we went to dinner with the elders and dávid. and then after walking home we found this huge pile of leaves so what do we do? play in it of course. So much fun. Definitely the best decision we made in a long time.

thursday:

We had a program with Lilly <3 best thing ever!! We taught the plan of salvation and it was so so great! we had to meet in this little tea shop because of the construction on the branch house so we drew it out for her on a paper. It was so great and she said it made so much sense. She loved that there isn't really a "hell". The only question she had was what the people in paradise do while waiting for resurrection. It was so cool because at first I wasn't sure how to answer but then I just felt myself saying that rather than spirit prison and spirit paradise being two separate places, I like to think of it more like it is one place. What makes it prison or paradise is dependent on the way you feel in it. It may seem like a prison for those people who choose not to follow the plan but it is a paradise to those who followed the plan because there they get the chance to be missionaries! And really that is the thing that brings real joy, helping you brothers and sisters come to Christ. It was so cool to see that God really does fill our mouths. It was such a learning moment for me. Seriously Lilly is so incredible. I feel so lucky to teach her. Sister vandenberge really put it right. After our program she said that she felt so privileged to even teach her one lesson.

That afternoon after the Stl's left we had a program with Pui Kati. It was super great! She found this children's bible and has been reading from it and it has been so great because it is easier for her to read! I could tell that it has been helping her so much. She was so excited to read for us! love her!

That evening, the elders had a great idea. We carved pumpkins in the shape of a book of mormon and the world and tabled with them. We made a poster to match the world one that had the scripture about "for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son" and we had another poster that said (pre note, the word for pumpkin is tök and a phrase that people use here to say cool is tök jó or pumpkin good) "tök jól érzünk magunkat mert mormonok vagyunk" Or "We feel great because we're mormons". Its funny in hungarian, I promise. Anyways tabling with them was a huge success.

Friday:
We had to go to the hivatal to get sister willets registered to live in hungary so that took up our morning. It was fun. Thank goodness we had elder simmons here who used to be secretary so he knew how to do it.
I was feeling pretty sick (just a cold, no worries, better now) so we stayed home the rest of the afternoon and I rested while we weekly planned.
That evening we tabled again with the pumpkins. And guess who walked by while we were tabling? LILLY! so we chatted for a bit and read a scripture that we texted her earlier that day. It was great!

Saturday:
We had district meeting at a restaurant because there was still construction on the branch house. So that was an adventure. Later we had a program with pui kati where we read some out of the book of mormon with he and we gave her a children's illustrated book of mormon. It was great.

Sunday:
Minden szentek napja! or all saints day! So after church and stuff we went to the cemetery. It was super pretty they put flowers and candles all over the graves. Super beautiful and peaceful.

some of the cool graves on minden szentek napja

 








Well that was my week! I hope you are all doing good! Never forget just how great life is and there are always miracles if you look for them! Puszi!

Sister Heath

a cool tower here in pécs

cool maze we found

 

milk here comes in bags.

Pécs

Another wonderful week from the dream city of Pécs

So its been raining all week and we were walking on the way to a program, and on the side of the road there was a huge puddle and this giant truck drove by super fast splashing me from head to toe with water. Fun stuff. Just a little wet for the program...

26 October 2015

hello all! another wonderful week from the dream city of Pécs!

Hétfő:

So monday we got back into that normal companionship life, not in a trio. :( We rearranged the apartment and everything. Who knew we had so much room! It sure was weird waking up in the morning though and not having Widtfeldt there! Shout out to Widtfeldt! We love and miss you lover!

That evening we had our usual FHE with András making fruit soup. The elders learned how to make it this time. Super finom as usual.

p-day adventures in the rain!

Tuesday:

We had a program with Daniel int he morning and it was SO SO GREAT!! We taught the plan of salvation to him and I think it all clicked! He had a ton of good questions and at the end, he just said "wow, it all makes sense.." I think he finally understands now why we are always asking him to do all the little things like prayer and scripture reading. It was such a great program!

We later had a program with S_ Erzsi. It was good. She forgot that we were coming, but welcomed us in. We talked about reading the scriptures and praying and she is still reading the book of mormon. Kind of a rushed lesson since she had family coming and stuff but it was good.

We went streeting a bit later and while streeting these ladies came up to us and sprayed us with perfume samples..it was interesting. But the perfume was good smelling at least so win on our part! haha

Later we had a branch talent show. It was AWESOME. The branch president got up and did karaoke to elvis and frank sinatra. Elder simmons interpretive danced to it too. Pretty fantastic.

makkai elnök singing karaoke

wednesday:

We had zone training in Dunaújváros. It was super great. We got the train at 6:45 and after switching tracks, we met up with the Kaposvár elders and took the train with them into Duna. Our training was super great and we talked a lot about our goals matching our desires and how we spend the quality of our time. After we had pizza as a zone and then we headed back to the train. It was super great to see some of my friends and catch up with them.

cute little willets on the train to zone training

Csütörtök:

We had INCREDIBLE progarm with Lilly!! We decided to watch the restoration film with her and man was it great! After we talked a bit about what Joseph Smith did to recieve his answer and what he did after that. And we asked her about baptism and she said that once she finds out she wants to be baptized and someday become a member! She is seriously so so incredible. She asked us if she could share some of the scriptures she had read in the book of mormon and liked and of course we said yes. She had read in Alma 29 and believe it or not but that is exactly the chapter I read that moning for personal study. It was so cool because she shared verses 9 and ten which read
  
9 I know that which the Lord hath commanded me, and I glory in it. I do not glory of myself, but I glory in that which the Lord hath commanded me; yea, and this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy.
 10 And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me.

After then she said, This is you guys. This is missionaries! She seriously is so incredible and so prepared. We cannot wait to see all the amazing things she will accomplish! It was also her birthday on wednesday so we got her a little present, a bracelet and chocolate and on sunday at church she was wearing the bracelet and Dávid said that she was wearing it too when they hung out! For reals, she is so special! Also, I just got an email from her basically telling me how much she loved sunday and how she can't wait to meet and then she just shared 2 nefi 9:49 with us with a cute little picture she took of the book or mormon open with the pass along we gave her and a sticky note with a heart underlining  verse 49. Freak, she is perfect!

After lilly, we had a program with M_ Maria and taught her the plan of salvation, but it was more like a "you tell us what you remember and like" sort of thing and she LOVED it all. She especially loved the way it relates to families and the temple. She really wants to be able to go back to the temple. It was super cool too because she kept bringing up the importance of missionary work and how we are fulfilling such important work. She then gave us the number of the man that she buys fruit from who she said that she was talking to about the gospel a bit and said he would be interested. We are going to go by his fruit stand soon and chat! She is so wonderful. It makes me feel like I'm with my own grandmother when I am with her!

Later we had a program with Dávid about continuing to learn and not slacking off basically. It was super great because Dávid had been kind of in a funk the last few days and we weren't sure what it was but when we met with him, he told us he hadn't read his scriptures in like three days and that is why he was feeling so weird. It was super interesting to see that even we could tell the difference in Dávid, even though it was such a little thing, like reading your scriptures, that it had such an effect on him. He promised to read again though and he has been and now is back to normal. It was a real learning moment for me.

Friday:
We had a program with P_ Kati that morning. Its break right now for a lot of people so her partner and son were home but they were both in the other room sleeping, but that meant that Kati was kind of hesitant to really say too much. We tried talking with her but I could tell she didn't want to say much in case her boyfriend heard. She has been having a hard time lately but we talked a lot about how God loves her and if she keeps doing the little things, God will provide a way for her. I just love her but its so hard to know what to do to help her.
We tried looking up some referrals that evening but they weren't interested or home. It was good though because we got to see a super pretty sunset!

beautiful sunset on the way back from zone training

Saturday:
We went on a hike with a lady from the ward and a couple of her friends. We thought it would be like two hours at most but it ended up being all morning and we didn't end up getting back til one. It was great though and we had some good conversations in with Éva's friends.

hiking adventures!

Sunday:
We had church and boy was it amazing!! So it was the primary program and they were so so incredible. Their little testimonies were so powerful and I swear there wasn't a dry eye in the congregation. Lilly came again and she LOVED it! She was so touched by the kids testimonies and she said that the thing that touched her the most was the closing prayer given by a sunbeam. It was so special. Also Kristóf, the less active that we had lunch at their house a while back, was there!!! And he stayed all three hours! Although it was kind of unfortunate that the topic of gospel doctrine was the law of chastity...which was not what the lesson was to be scheduled...but it went over better with Kristóf than we thought it would. Oh well! haha But seriously such a great sunday!

Well, thats about all this week! It was so great and I'm sure next week will be great too! We are headed up to budapest tomorrow for greenie training and then we have the STLs coming on splits wednesday and thursday so that will be good! Love you all tons and I hope your week is fantastic!!

Sok puszi!
Heath Nővér

elder kruger with an old commie train

commie train selfie

giant abandoned building. a real landmark here in pécs

elder martindale reenacting the first vision

Bittersweet week

our classic district

19 October 2015

jó reggelt!

Its been a good week. Bittersweet because sister widtfeldt is now on a plane to america, but its been a good week, with a lot of good memories.

Monday:
We went and got lángos with Dávid. So normally lángos are sort of like this fried dough with sour cream, cheese and garlic on top, but we got special stuffed lángos instead so it was sort of like a giant sour cream and cheese filled fried dough. Finom de so greasy.
We also went tracting that afternoon and got a let in with a guy named Kovács József. (or the english equivilant is Joseph Smith). So that was pretty fantastic. We'll be going by again sometime soon.

The world's biggest lángos

Tuesday:
We had a program with Dávid and talked about the importance of doing the little things to strengthen our faith (aka prayer, scriptures, church). It was great as usual.
Then we went out to try and find a  lady we streeted who gave us her address. We found the house but nobody was home so we left a note and we'll try again later.
We then had gyülekezeti est. (branch night) Dávid was in charge of the spiritual thought and they asked him to share his thoughts on his conversion. It was super good and spiritual. We then played this weird hand clapping game thing with partners. Me and hanna were partners and we totally won. It was great.

kis hanna, nagy hannah

Szerda:
We had a program with S_ Erzsi. It was super good! we taught her the restoration and she LOVED it. Its so interesting with her. I feel like at the beginning of our programs with her she is always kind of sad and kind of seems angry but after we start talking with her she slowly softens and by the end she is nothing but smiles. I love her so much! It was funny, we asked her if she is still reading from the Book of Mormon. She said that "I can only read a little bit" but then continued to say that she reads at least 20-40 pages a day. We assured her that that is perfectly fine :) It was funny though, she said that she is having trouble understanding who everyone is but she was like, I'm sure once I read it a couple more times I'll get the whole story. So she is already planning on reading it through again. She is so great!

Wednesday evening was probably one of the best evenings this week! So there is this thing called America Corner. Its basically like our angol óra classes, where its like a conversation club in english. Its run by this guy named John from Texas. He is probably the most hilarious guy I've met in a long time. He married a hungarian woman and now teaches medical vocabulary at the university. In his free time he runs this place called america corner. It is so fantastic. He is also the voice on the bus saying the university stops in english. Our favorite John quotes. "my four year old daughter likes to watch the beatles movies. The beatles have long hair like her. Because she watches these movies she thinks shes a....(pause waiting for someone to finish his sentance)...a boy! She thinks shes a boy." "Who teaches perspective?" "who are the big three?"

Thursday:
We had a program with daniel in the morning. It was super great! we watched a mormon message with him, the one about bullying. He super loved it because he is working on a paper right now about bullying.
We had a program later with erzsi. She is just so so incredible. Since niki talked with her husband, she has come to church every week! Our program this week, we talked about baptism and she said that her husband and her are going to get married! They tried to last week but relatives came to visit so they didn't have time but she said that they are going to get married! This way she will be able to be baptized!! She is so so wonderful and has such strong faith. She cried a ton saying goodbye to Widtfeldt it was so sweet.
We then had a program with Lilly!!! She is seriously incredible. We taught her the restoration and she said it made so much sense. She said that she would pray about it and we invited her to church! Honestly she has such a special spirit around her. You can just tell that she is trying to follow Christ the best she can. And boy is the spirit strong in our programs.

We then had a program with Mária.  It was good! she is such a sweet woman.
After that we had angol óra. We had a couple of new people so that was fun! Szabolcs brought his zither. Its this hungarian instrument that sounds like its from the middle ages. Super cool. So he played for us a bit at the end of class.

szabolcs and his zither

Friday:
We had a program with Merci with Vivi as our member present. We talked about the gospel of jesus christ. It was super great.  Merci seriously loves it all, we just need to help her find a way to soften her mom's heart.
We then had branch council and such and it was good.

Saturday:
We had district meeting in the morning and then after that we all went over to a members house to celebrate their son, Patrik's birthday. It was fun!
That evening we had sport nap and we went up to tettye to this look out of the city.

patrik and his birthday cake!

our sport nap adventures

Vasárnap:
That morning Dávid texted us asking if we could go on one last walk before widtfeldt goes home. So we went on a six thirty walk with dávid around the city just talking about life and such. It was so quiet and peaceful to be out before everyone.
Then we had church and Dávid and Widtfeldt both gave talks. And LILLY CAME TO CHURCH!!!! woooohooo!!! It was super great. She said she loved it! she had to leave a little early from sacrament meeting to pick up her sister from mass but she came back with her little sister! And she said that she wants to bring her sister next week! She also wrote Widtfeldt a three page letter to say goodbye. Honestly, this girl is incredible.
Right after church we headed over to the train station and got on a train up to budapest. We met up with the buda stls at keleti and then said goodbye to widtfeldt.

saying goodbye to widtfeldt

dávid seeing us off at the train station. We have this joke that dávid can't wink with his right eye so we got a winking picture

 While waiting for our next train, we went and saw parliament. It was super pretty and the sun was setting so there was a beautiful view of the duna. Then we caught our train back to pécs. It was super strange getting back to the apartment and not having widtfeldt there. But we were so exhausted we just fell right asleep.

Well, that was my week. Things are great! I'm now back to a normal companionship. Its super strange after being in four trios to be back with just one comp. but its gonna be great. Sister willets is incredible and she is learning so fast! I am so proud of her! I can't wait to see what this week has in store for us!

Love sister heath

I love budapest!!

Parliament

I love budapest!!

budapest!!!!

budapest édes budapest

baby's first fruit soup!

cocoa with dávid

dávid with sister widtfeldt and dávid bear

giraffe!

H!

nem!

a typical 10 story building

my cute little greenie during our weekly planning on a train!

our favorite pizza place, maestro's

walking by the primary room, we saw elder simmons in an intense game of mini chess with an investigator.

we left our coats with our name tags on the coat rack and they were stolen by andrás and niki while we were in a program

willets, me and hanna