Wednesday, October 29, 2014

August 18, 2014

Dear Family,
This is a strange week. We have a huge national holiday (one of Hungary's many independence days) on Wednesday, so they moved our Pday to Wednesday, but since everything will be closed then, they have allowed us to email for a little bit today. Hurray! 
This last week was pretty cool.
Our first 2 days last week were sooo busy! On tuesday, we somehow had 8 programs planned into a 3 hour period, in 2 different sides of the city. They actually went really well, too! 
One program was with a 20 year old girl who let us in while tracting. We gave her a short 1st lesson. She didn't really seem too interested in what we had to say, but she was really nice anyway. Before we left, when we would normally shake hands and go, she leaned in to give my companion the traditional kisses on the cheek that would be absolutely normal if we weren't missionaries. But my comp backed out and stuck his hand out for a handshake instead. She seemed kind of offended. We asked if we could come back another time, and she said no. 
Another lady used to be an investigator a long time ago, and we set up to meet with her again. She is suuper cool! She still reads from the Book of Mormon, and wants to be baptized sometime. She was talking years, but we will see what will really happen... 
On thursday, we held our zone training. We made it really fun again by dividing up parts of the training to other missionaries. We talked about asking effective questions while teaching. We had it under control more than our last one, but it was still enjoyable. For example, halfway through our monologue, we had another missionary come up and lead everyone in the stretches so we could stay awake and focused. 
Then at the end, we came up with a big zone goal for everyone. Our mission baptismal goal is currently 234 by the end of the year (we're sitting somewhere around 70...). So our new zone goal was for each district to have one more investigator on baptismal date each week. Then, to be funny, I made up some statistic that if every district in the mission did this, and 40% of those baptisms went through, we'd read the goal for the year as a mission. Nobody really questioned it, so it made our goal sound really cool. Then we went home and actually did the math, and it turns out that my math was spot on! Haha.
mitch

The cool thing though, is that as our own district here in Győr, we have been working on the same goal, for at least one of our companionships to come up with at least one baptismal date every week. When we came up with that goal, it seemed like quite a stretch, but the greenie of the district said that if we shoot for these goals and work towards them, then miracles will happen, and things outside of our control will come into place to help us reach them. Ever since we've set that goal, 4 people have come out of nowhere who actually want to make changes to their lives and become baptized! The same has happened for the other elders as well- there is a lady who they started meeting with last week who is getting baptized this saturday! It's crazy how sometimes miracles happen!
Later on this week, we went up to another town called Sopron to do splits with the elders there. I went with a German guy. He came to the country exactly a year after I did, but is already really good at speaking and is a very hard worker! We taught quite a bit and went out on the street and talked to everyone we saw. He said that his companion doesn't like talking to people on the street, and so it felt good to see his companion stop someone, haha. 
Normally, we just do the splits for one day, but the other elders got stuck somewhere, so my companion and I ended up staying 2 nights there in Sopron, so that was a little too much fun, haha. So we all had a really successful, extra long split.
On saturday, we got together with the elders quorum (or at least 2 people form there) and the other elders here, and went up to a less active lady who lives in a small town. We did a huge service project to help her cut and move a ton of wood on her property. It went really well, although the wood was super wet, so we may or may not have broken 2 axes (on the same stump) while trying to cut it. 
Yesterday, another miracle happened at church- some guy showed up and told us that his brother is a member in another city and we wants to meet with us! We went on splits after church to meet with him and another investigator and we are going to meet him even more! 
We have seen a few miracles this week! My companion and I are doing really well. Time is flying by. It's almost September! Also, misplaced my camera for a few days this week, so I didn't get any good pictures... darn...

Have a great week! Love,

No comments:

Post a Comment