January 6, 2014

Dear Family,

Well, this week was on fire for us! Yea, we have every reason to rejoice because of the fruits of our labours. The following is a day-by-day look at the week. It's kind of long though, I guess, so I bolded all the important stuff:

On Monday, went tracting and met an older lady who asked us to come back on Thursday. Before our next program with her, she had already read a good amount of the Book of Mormon, and knew it was true. Then on Thursday, we taught her a full Restoration lesson, and invited her to be baptized, and she accepted a date for the 15th of February! Since I have never had anyone agree to baptism within 3 days of meeting them, that was definitely an awesome experience! 
That night, we ran into a random guy who turned out to be a member! He hasn't been to church in 10 years and stopped us to ask if there was a church new years party! Hopefully he will want to start coming back!! 

With that great start to the week, we celebrated our extended p-day New Years eve by going up to Gellért Hill, a very historic/scenic hill by the river Duna (the 2nd time in a week for me and Olsen) with the other elders in the city, and we had a good time. That night, we also cranked our clocks forward 1.5 hours and went nuts at midnight before going to bed at 10:30. Apparently the drunks on the street were partying even harder at the real midnight, because my comp couldn't sleep. I slept like a rock though!

Wednesday was more time off, so we just relaxed and wrote letters and stuff, if I remember right. Thursday was cool too, but nothing really big happened. We met some awesome people on the street who didn't want to give us their numbers though. We're planting seeds, I guess!

On Friday, the landlady came over to replace a bunch of things and fix a little ant problem. Brent, be proud of me. The whole time I was saying stupid Hungarian puns, and my landlady didn't understand my jokes. She probly just thinks I'm an idiot, haha. Like, when she was pouring ant poison around, I said something like, "The ant's voices are loud (hangos a hangya hangja)," and she was all like, "No, no, no. Ant's don't have voices!" Jeepers, lady! Haha.

I also got a call from an investigator from my last area. It was the mom of the boy that I baptized in November, and she asked me to baptize her on the 18th of this month!!!Sadly, the mission president didn't give me permission, but I'm so happy because she had been going through a very hard time and is getting baptized so soon now! Hopefully it all works out!!

Well, that night, after a lesson, the senior couple in charge of the YSA asked me to give the spiritual thought at the Institute dinner that night pretty last minute. She gave me a Hungarian Bible and some verses to read from Matthew 13 (in English so I knew what it said). It was pretty nerve-wracking! Haha. I kept forgetting the word for "roots", so as I'm winging the lesson, I'm forced to tell everyone to strengthen their "spiritual thingamajiggers."     "Ppsssst! It's gyökér!"    "Yeah... that."
I calmed my nerves after that by eating at our favorite mexican restaurant, Gringos Amigos, that's owned by a member .We have "buy 9, get 1 free menu item" coupons... only 3 more to go... I've already blown half my money there, so I'm committed now! 

On Saturday, we had English class, and met a new student who also happened to be a long-lost member from a few years ago. We met with him after english class (at first I didn't know he was a member. Then, during the whole program, I thought he was the guy who went to the New Years party... he's not). He came to church though!!

Also on Saturday, we had a program with a younger guy who is really searching for the truth. We invited the mission president to the lesson, and it went really well! He accepted a baptismal date for Feb 22, assuming he receives an answer by then. I'm so excited for him because I know that he will get an answer, because he is really searching for the truth- he always has good questions, does all of our commitments, and reads everything we ask and more (he read all of 3 Nephi out of curiosity, and is working on Gospel Principles now). Now it's really up to him to keep the commitments/commandments we teach him, and work toward his answer! 

Yesterday, Sunday was also an awesome day! The first 2 hours of church were awesome!! We had planned to have a program with an investigator and a member right after church, but our investigator had to go somewhere afterward, and asked if we could meet during the 3rd hour. This was an important enough program (we were going to challenge her to baptism as well) so we invited our member friend to skip relief society and join us. Her best friend is an investigator though, so she had to bring her friend to the program too, of course! 
So the 5 of us skipped our meetings, found a tiny unused room, and learned about the plan of salvation! It went really well!!  The member was a pretty recent convert and her friend is getting baptized in 2 weeks, so it was cool to have them talk about the big plan, and baptism with our friend. At least at the beginning- the conversation went from Plan of Salvation to eternal marriage to boys, and that's about where we lost control of the lesson because three 25-year old Hungarian girls can talk SO FAST when they need to. Yikes! So we just told them we had no time, and got out of there. But our investigator said that she loves what we are teaching, and feels that it is right for her. We didn't get to set a date for baptism, but she wants to work toward getting her answer!! Wooo!!

We also finished off the week with American pancakes, peanut butter, and real life, authentic maple syrup flavored sugar water! Yuummmmmmm!!!!

Well this has been my last week. Sorry it's kinda long, we just had an awesome week! This might have been one of the best weeks of my mission so far!! We've lost a few cool investigators, but we're finding more, and the ones we have are doing so well! Please pray for our friends here!!! 

I'm praying for you guys back at home! Isten áldjon meg! 

Love,

Fiatal elder