July 15, 2013

Dear Család and Barátok,

This has been a very good week for us! Everything has been very eventful, but I forgot to bring my planner to the email place, so we'll see if I can remember some good things.

The best thing that happened was that we challenged 2 of our investigators to baptism, and they both accepted! One, the golden guy who had already met the elders in England, is scheduled for August 10th, and the other, a man who just needs to get married (and first needs to find some old divorce papers or something), is set for the 31st of August. Right now, our entire Zone has 5 baptismal dates scheduled, and by next week, if everything goes right, over half of those could be from Pápa, haha. It's kind of sad.

One thing that my companion and I have started doing is waving really big at random strangers just for fun. We will throw our arm way over our head and say hello to them and see their reactions. 

One day, we were on our way home for the night, talking about how fun it is to do things like that, when my companion decided to make one more wave at some lady in her backyard. She thought we knew her or something, so she yelled at us to come in, and we talked to her and everyone at her house for like 45 minutes, haha. They also have a huge concrete fence/wall thingy in their backyard, so I think the next time we go teach them, we will bring sidewalk chalk and draw the Plan of Salvation on it! Haha.

Well, there's my week. I hope you all have a good one yourselves. 

Love,

Mitch

July 1, 2013

Hello everybody,

This has definitely been a very good week here in Pápa! Last week was my first week with my new companion, and much of it was spent tracting and finding some interested people, and this week has been full of actually meeting and teaching many of them! 

One reason why I am so excited for new people to teach is because all the old people are really wearing me down, haha. A few people we have been teaching for a while love to just try and complain to us for an hour and blame everyone else for their problems, as if we can fix them. A lot of those old investigators are really getting on my nerves, and sometimes I just lose my patience!!!! Haha. 

Another problem I've encountered is the impulse to laugh during a lesson when something is funny.

In one program, the member we brought would always change the subject, and just talk and talk and talk about nothing, and whenever I would look at Elder Bebel, we would both crack up. At one point I had to pretend I had a bad cough and get a drink of water, haha. 

During another lesson (with a 22 year old member, teaching a 30 year old guy), I was not following the conversation, so I kind of spaced off for a few seconds. Then Bebel asked me to read "the verse," and I said, "Sure... which verse?" and everyone just busted up laughing for a good 10 minutes, and the investigator would have little random giggle fits every 2 minutes or so until we left, haha.

One really cool program we had was with one of our investigators, who loves the Baptist congregation here, and has been thinking of being baptized Baptist soon. So, while reading General Conference talks, just before we met with her this week, she had an extremely strong feeling that she needed to go to church, but didn't know WHICH church, haha. We had already planned on teaching her how to receive a testimony, and church attendance was the last thing she hadn't done already! She still wasn't sure if she would, but she actually ended up coming to Sacrament meeting this week (but left right at the end)! We will meet with her tomorrow and learn more about how the experience was for her.

And during sunday school, the Branch President gave a really cool lesson about missionary work, and made a raffle for all the members of the branch. Then he drew all the names, so one person was to have us over each week (he and his wife are the first 2 weeks... haha) and be prepared to give referrals to us (and possibly feed us)! 

He also gave us a branch roster, and we reviewed all the less active members and how we could help them back into activity. 

I think that the work in Pápa will be going really well in the near future! 

Either way, I'm definitely dead after this last week, haha.

Well, during the week, we've also had a lot of random little stories that I can't really fit here. Also, my camera works fine, but the computer can't recognize any files, so I can't send any pictures... :( 

Hopefully everyone has a good time at the family reunion! I hope it goes well! Safe travels!

Also, happy 4th of July! 

Love, 

Mitch

June 24, 2013

Dear family,

We had an awesome week this week!

On Tuesday, right after emailing, Elder Hatfield and I went on our bike ride to a mountain called Somló. It's super cool because this entire area of the country is and entirely flat farming country, then there's this random mountain in the middle of nowhere. 

Well, the mountain is about 25 km away, and we had some sketchy directions, so to make a long story short, we ended up spending half our trip there biking straight through a forest and some farmer's fields, as well as up the mountain itself. By the time we reached the castle ruins at the top, I was too dead to be able to enjoy it, so I just laid on the ground for most of it while my companion explored and had the time of his life! Haha.

We won't even talk about the trip home... in all, the excursion lasted about 7 hours, a few longer than we thought it would, haha. 

Wednesday was transfers, so I got my new companion, Elder Bebel. He came from Budapest, so he was used to having lessons all day and hardly having to actually go find people, and so I can just imagine how excited he was for several days of tracting this week.

  

Thursday, we started tracting, and the first two doors we knocked on gave us their numbers and asked us to come back and teach them next week. We had several more good experiences, and a few really funny ones, too. At our English class, a new couple came in and were more interested in learning about the Church than learning English. 

Friday was the same. In just a few hours of tracting, Bebel and I had more success finding than Hatfield and I had in the last 6 weeks! Haha. 

  

Saturday didn't bring the same success tracting, but we met with our "golden investigator" from England for a real lesson, and he is doing really well. I think we are going to challenge him to baptism when we meet him this week.  

Sunday was probably the most interesting day of the week. During church, one of our investigators had some kind of nervous breakdown during Elders Quorum, and began to argue and yell at everyone. He's fine now though.

  

  The most interesting part of the day though, was when we visited family of the guy who stole a car last week and wanted us to teach them the Word of God. They are very poor (they live in a tiny little shanty-town area) and they have a large yard full of junk everywhere, and their car is definitely hot-wired. They also have 5 little kids, all probably under the age of 9. (One thing we noticed, was that the only kid wearing shoes, also had no pants). It was really sad, but they are a really cool family. They liked what we taught them, and wanted us to come back, so maybe they can go somewhere! 

Yup, we had a very awesome, and very interesting week! Elder Bebel and I are getting along really well, and so things are all going well here! There was a lot of funny stuff that also happened that I can't fit here but we had a way good last few days. The computers also don't work very well here, so I will try to get pictures in, but no promises! Love you all! Thanks for the love and support!

Elder Young 

June 18, 2013

This has been a pretty momentous week. 

First of all, transfers are tomorrow, so we got our calls this morning. Elder Hatfield is leaving, and my new companion will be Elder Bebel, who is in the same group as Hatfield. Elder Hatfield is also going to Érd, where I just came from! Things are exciting!

I am now in my 5th transfer! Also, this last Friday marks one year since I got my mission call! 

Well, I few pretty cool things have happened this week. 

On Wednesday, we were biking home on a pretty narrow road, and a truck turned pretty quickly into our direction. My comp swerved out of the way, but the truck and I both had to slam our brakes when we saw each other, and I'm pretty sure I almost died. Then a bum that we see every day yelled at me from across the street. I only caught a few words. "Hey you...!! Accident....!!! Bycicle...!!!" 

On Thursday, we found ourselves in the ghetto part of town, so you know how nice everything must have been there. After some time, we headed back to the real town, and a very full little car pulled up next to us. The driver was a man, then there were 2 kids in the front seat, and his wife and like 3 more kids in the back seat.

"Hey, are you guys preaching the word of God?!" he asked.

"Why, yes we are." 

"Well, you should come over to our place sometime and teach us. I think it would be good for our family." After exchanging numbers, we were about to leave, when the guy gleefully exclaimed, "I just stole this car! Look!" and showed us that he had just hot-wired the car, before driving off into the sunset.
Maybe they do need the Gospel in their lives, haha. 

Saturday was the highlight of the week, I think. We biked over to a little village and went tracting for a few hours there. Eventually, we got to a nice little road at the end of the town, and found a nice little house with no doorbell, and the gate was locked. After joking about the person's dog being dead (normally all dogs come barking at the gate when we get there, but this one just layed there in the grass), we kept going. 

Getting to the other side of the street, we met a guy who was not interested, but said that his neighbor had just gotten back from England, and had met with the Mormons there. So he took us to the house and hollered at the guy, since there was no doorbell, and they took us in. Apparently our new friend doesn't even speak much English, so he didn't understand much from the elders, but had gone to church there, and at least had a Hungarian BoM (and is already halfway through).
We found out that this guy, Ferenc, just got back 2 days before we got there, and we were planning on tracting that street like a week before! Also, our branch is pretty low on priesthood holders, so that has been a focus of our prayers and fasting, to find potential priesthood holders. In this house, there lives Ferenc, who is 30, his 2 teenage brothers, and his dad. Hopefully something will come out of this miracle! 

And, by the way, Ferenc's dog is actually not dead. 

On Sunday, we made Paprikás Csirke, and it was delicious! 

And finally, today, we are going to bike to and maybe climb this random mountain, that may or may not have a castle on top. It will take over an hour to bike there and back, so hopefully it is worth all the effort!! 

I love you all! Thanks for all your love and support! 

Love,

Elder Young

June 10, 2013

Dear family, 

So this week has felt like a million years long. Tuesday was pretty rough. We challenged an investigator to baptism, and she got really uncomfortable, and it was much more awkward of a lesson than it should have been. Then we had another investigator just getting really excited about her questions, and was basically yelling at us, haha. We basically told her we can't feel the spirit when she does that, so we told her we'd talk next time, haha. 

On Wednesday, we had splits, so I missed out on an investigator teaching us how to make Paprikás Csirke!!! But I went to another town called Győr, and on the street, we saw a drunk guy with an inappropriate shirt on, a pacifier in his mouth, a big bottle of beer in one hand, and a really colorful bra in the other hand. He was hugging a big ice cream cone statue, then started dancing in the town square, before walking across the street, thriough the traffic, unharmed. It was probably one of the craziest sights I've seen yet, haha. 

Friday, one of our investigators said he'd be late, so we took advantage of our time and got some much needed ice cream. On the way back to the Branch House, we ran into a member who hadn't been to church in a long time (neither of us knew who he was), and he said he wanted to come back to church. How did we know? Indigestion? No... inspiration!

Other than that, we just went tracting this week. We meet a lot of funny people out there. 

"What's the most important thing in your life?" 

  "Health."

 "Hmmm... what about family?"

   "You can't enjoy your family if you're not healthy! And I'll never be healthy, so I'm just suffering and waiting to die now." 

Life here must be the greatest. 

Love you all! Thanks so much for the prayers and support! 

Love,

Elder Young

June 3, 2013

Dear family and friends,

Another week came and went. Nothing really exciting happened until Thursday, when we took a trip up to Budapest for interviews with the mission president! We started off our trip by spending the whole 2 hour train ride behind a huge group of loud, obnoxious Germans, which was really fun to listen to. 

The actual interviews were really good though, and President basically told me that since the mission is getting so much younger soon (a lot of older elders are going home, and we're getting about 30 new ones this summer), I will probably have to start serving with elders from my own group in the next month or 2. It will be exciting!  

I also got Jason's graduation invitation, which was pretty cool! I guess I missed the actual party though... darn...

On Friday, we met with an investigator who is reading through the Book of Mormon. He is in 2nd Nephi, and had expressed concerns that it was very hard to understand, and must not be a good translation. I explained to him that it's actually just as hard to understand in English, then I told him the joke about the guy who had a BoM in his shirt pocket and got shot, but was fine because the bullet never made it past 2nd Nephi, haha. I think it made him feel better.

Saturday, we taught the Plan of Salvation to one of our investigators. She thought it was really interesting, but could not get herself to even imagine that there could be a pre-existance. It made me really glad to have that kind of knowledge available to me since I was very little, because I never really thought of it as something that would be impossible! Hopefully she will be able to think and pray more about it and accept it! 

That night, we also ran into a guy who used to meet with the missionaries. He was a really big guy, wearing a shirt that said, "Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll!" and he was pretty drunk. It was a pretty interesting, because most drunk people we meet are like 60, but he was our age, so we could actually talk about music and movies and other pop-culture things that the kids are into these days. For example, he asked if we liked Justin Bieber, and when we said no, he threw his hands in the air and yelled, "Yes! There is a god!" It was a fun little end to our day.

Well, Happy Birthday, Jason! I hope you got my letter! 

That's all I got this week. 

Love, 

Elder Young

May 27, 2013

Dear family and etc, 

This has been a good week, but it has been pretty short, since we just had P-day last Tuesday, on account of a holiday here last Monday. 

On Wednesday, we were Tabling at a bench on the sidewalk, and some police officers came up and asked us to leave, since apparently we need a permit to do that. They were really nice about it, but it's been kind of a hassle, since now we have to spend our entire days tracting, which is just the greatest! 

So, while tracting the next day, we knocked into this super duper old guy and his wife, and they let us in and so we tried talking to them. I'm pretty sure he was almost deaf, and he mumbled a lot so nobody could really understand each other, haha, but we asked if we could help them in any way, and he took us out into his huge garden and had us help him pick strawberries.

"This isn't for us, right?" "Neeeeeeem, of course not!" 

And then we went back inside, and he bagged the strawberries, and gave them  to us as a gift! Hurray! 

Speaking of food, we also have an investigator who is going to teach us how to make Pörkölt/Paprikás Csirke this week, so we are really excited for that! We also bought Rakott Krumpli ingredients, so we will make a big pan of that today as well. Not to mention, we got fed real Hungarian meals twice yesterday and it was amazing. We love our Hungarian food, and we'll be eating a lot of it this week! 

Other than that, we will go on splits with the Zone leaders, have interviews with President Smith (in Budapest!!!), and lots and lots of tracting this week! Hopefully the work will start to pick up more here in Pápa with all the finding time we get! Haha.

Well, I love you all! Have a good week!

Love, 

Elder Young

The old Strawberry man in his garden

The internet isnt working so well, so I dont think I'll be able to send my other pictures today, haha. 

May 7, 2013

This has been one heck of a week! Very busy and super long, but it has also been really good! 

Last Monday was my 6 month mark, so I may or may not have burned a tie on our balcony, which was pretty fun. 

On Tuesday last week, we met with a guy named Nándor from our English Class for the first time. I had given him a Book of Mormon almost a month ago, and so it was really cool when he agreed to meet with us. We started to teach him about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon, and he had already looked up a bunch of stuff about the church on the internet, and so he pretty much knew the whole Restoration story pretty accurately, and had read some of his BoM too. After talking to him for a bit, we showed him Moroni 10:4,5 and asked if he would be baptized if he knew it was true. To our surprise, he told us that he already believed it and would like to be baptized! So we set the date for the beginning of July! It was an awesome lesson, and he came to stake conference with us on Sunday, too! 

Also, on Sunday night, we invited Nándor and Ricsi, our other investigator w/ a baptismal date, to make some Rakott Krumpli with us at the branch house. It was an awesome program, and the food was also very delicous! We have some really cool investigators! 

Going back to Wednesday, it was the Hungarian Labor Day, so Judd and I just made some cookies for our English classes (he teaches beginner and I teach intermediate) and we just had a fun day, which was super awesome! Haha. Allayna sent me some Reese's Pieces, so I made them with the cookies. 

It was kind of sad this week though, knowing that I would leave to another city, so all my programs this week were goodbye programs! I got pictures with a lot of our investigators and members (some for the 2nd time since I thought I'd leave last transfer too, haha). 

Today, I got my transfer call to move to a town called Pápa, in the West. My new companion is Elder Hatfield, who's been here since last August. I've heard he is a super cool guy and the area is really good, so I'm very excited! This will be a good transfer! 

It seems like things are going well at home! I'm glad the school year is finally getting over with for Clare, and Jason especially! And it sounds like there is a lot of music and scouts stuff going on! Dang! Jason better get that Eagle done quick, or he'll end up like me and Brent. I'm glad he is working on it, though. You go, Jason! 

That's crazy that Matt is already home! I remember when he was my AP for a week! Haha. I wish him good luck with adjusting to normal life and everything!

Well, that's all I have! Have a good week! 

Sok szeretet nélkül,

Elder Mitchell Young

April 29, 2013

Dear family and friends, 

Not too much exciting this week. I went on exchanges for a day to a place called Kis Pest, with a guy named Elder Peterson. We had a full day of lessons planned to teach, but they all fell through, and we just ended up tracting the whole day! It was great! We also went on the roofs of 10 story apartment buildings and explored, so it was pretty exciting! 

Then we went home, and burned some fries, so the whole apartment was filled with smoke!! 

On Tuesday, Elder Judd and I started to work out with Insanity again. I haven't done any exercise in a few months, so I have been pretty sore and tired every day.

Also, last week, I bought some new socks with all the days of the week on them. Now I will never forget! 

Lastly, the weather has finally been consistently warm every day, so everything is turning green and it always feels good outside!! 

That's all. Have a great week!

Love, 

Elder Young in Hungary

April 22, 2013

Dear family,      

This has been a really good week. 

Last Monday, about 10 missionaries and I went up to a castle on a mountain called János Hegy, and it might be the highest point in Budapest. You could see forever around and it was pretty awesome! 

On Wednesday, I had an interview with the mission president. He told me that we doesn't want me in my greenie area anymore, because people who only know me as a greenie will slow my progress, because they will always think of me as the brand new kid who doesn't speak (which is very true, and really annoying sometimes). So I'm basically guaranteed to move to my 2nd area in 2 weeks! Yeah! 

On Thursday, we had a lesson that we wanted to watch the Restoration movie in, so we ran to the Branch House before hand and grabbed it really quick. It was a 15 language version... with no Hungarian, haha. I have no idea why it was there, but it just made for a funny start to the lesson, haha.

So there is an investigator family that we do a half english with the dad, then half gospel, and we meet with them twice a week. On Friday, we saw them, and the dad spent the whole English part talking about scifi books, and ancient Hungarian warriors, haha. He showed us book after book and explained all the history of Hungarian wars and stuff, haha. 

Then on Saturday, he took us over to a park and brought his huge traditional Hungarian bow and arrows, and we shot arrows in the woods, haha. It was super cool!! 

On Sunday, an investigator had us over to cook bacon and sausage over the fire. It was super delicious! You let the bacon fat drip onto bread until it becomes soggy and delicous. Man, it was the tastiest heart attack I've ever had!  

Then, after the appointment (at like 7) all the trains to Érd were super late, so after waiting like an hour and a half, we took a tram to Budapest to find a better train, only to discover that all trains to take us home were cancelled for no reason! There was literally no way to get home before 1am (it was about 10:30 by this time), and I didn't want to take like 4 buses to get all the way to Érd, haha! We were cold and exhausted, so we found some elders in Buda and crashed at their place last night and then took the train home this morning. It was ridiculous! 

Today, we didn't really do too much. We came back up to Pest to play basketball until everyone was starving, and then went to a delicous buffet and ate our hearts out! Now I am sleepy and emailing!

Well, that has been my week. Nothing too new or exciting, but very busy and fun! I'll try and send pictures. 

Love, 

Mitch 

April 15, 2013

Dear Family,

This has been a really good week for us! A few things that have happened this week:

I've been feeling a lot better about the language every week. I'm able to understand a lot more, but I've gotten much better at just being comfortable talking to people, and I've seen my speaking skills improve a lot. 

On Tuesday, I was able to help teach a lesson with some other missionaries and a member, and I was amazed that I spoke about as well as some people do who have been on their missions 6 mos longer than me! Yikes!

Best of all, the weather has been super fantastic all week (except there was some crazy hailstorm for like 15 minutes on wednesday)!

Other than that, most of our week has not been too interesting, but we have been really busy! We also gave a few people challenges to be baptized, and while they said not now, I think that it is very good that they are thinking about how important it is, and they want to understand more.

We also had a very good English Class on Wednesday, and we had several new people ask us to teach them, along with helping them with English. 

On Friday was when it started to get really good! Friday morning, we went on splits again, and I got put with my MTC companion, Elder Jones, for the second time! But this time we aren't in our 2nd week in the country, so it was a lot better. It was cool to see how much we have both improved in the last couple months. It was kind of like the good ol' MTC times, except using real Hungarian when we teach! Haha. 

On Saturday, we switched back into companionships, and Judd and I went to see Noémi (one of my first investigators here) get baptized! She found the Church through some American members' blog, and requested a Book of Mormon back in December, and wanted to be baptized on her birthday! We found out that she actually lived in another ward boundary though, so she had to switch to the Buda ward. Ergo, the chapel was filled to the brim with 2 wards of people! It was super awesome! Elder Bracken, my trainer, baptized her. And the couple whose blog she found was there too (She said she'd send some pictures to you).

On Sunday, we had fast sunday. There is a senior couple in our branch, and the sister asked me to translate her testimony for her... so I did. I told her that I would as long as she kept it really, really, really simple... but she didn't, haha. So it was really hard, but it was pretty cool to be able to publicly translate something into Hungarian! Haha. 

Also, I have been in the country for exactly 3 months now! Imagine that! 

Well, there's my week for you. Have a good week!

Love, 

Mitch

At Noémi's baptism

April 8, 2013

Hello,

Well, this has been a super good week for me.  I don't know if I mentioned last week, but my birthday last week marked that I have officially been out of the MTC longer than I was in it! What a great birthday present!

Also, as a birthday present to myself, I bought a pan for making palacsintas, which are basically crepes, except they are Hungarian, so they're better.

On Wednesday, our one investigator with a baptism date (whom I havent seen in over a month since my last companion left) randomly showed up to our English Class! He has a big beard now, and apparently has still been reading from the Book of Mormon every day and still wants to be baptized, but has been extremely busy since he found work (work is very hard to find here). So we are going to start meeting with him again!

Thursday was Judd's year mark as a missionary, so  that night, we went on our balcony and burned a shirt, haha. 

On Friday, we went on splits with the Zone leaders, so I had an Elder Kreiburg from Denmark come to Érd, and I was the senior companion for the day! I had the phone, I lead all the lessons, and I navigated all the transportation! All we did that day was have district meeting, then 2 feeding programs, because all the transportation took so long, but it was still awesome. And Elder Kreiburg was super fun to be with for a day! Also, one of the members we met with also got me a cake, so... it was fantastic, haha. 

The other feeding program we had was with the American family, and for the lesson, I had all the kids act out parts from Lehi's dream! Haha. 

General Conference was a blast! I can't wait till the Liahona comes out so I can find out what everyone said!  I only got to hear one session in English, so that was pretty hard. I did get like 2 pages of notes on one session in Hungarian though! And that was a fun little shoutout to Hungary President Monson gave! President Monson pronounced the name of the city Debrecen incorrectly, and so it was funny for everyone there. It was good though. 

Yup, that was all the exciting news from my week! Let me know what's going on over there. I've been hearing talk of mission calls for people. That's pretty cool.

Sok szeretet nélkül,

Mitch

1. Flipping palacsinta

2. Easter Gift from the Landlord

3. Another happy birthday cake!

1. Me with Anikó, a new member

2. Lehi's dream with the Biesinger kids!