November 25, 2014

 Elder Beaumont and I had an awesome week!

We had a miracle find this week. Well, it was more of a mistake that I
made that was miraculously solved!
Last sunday night, we stopped some random kid on the street, and he
was  really interested in meeting, so we set up a program with him for
P-day afternoon, 3pm. I wrote in the time of the appointment, but I
forgot to put his name in.

Come Pday (we had to take it on tuesday last week), I saw that we had
something at 3pm, but I had forgotten who or what it was for! It was
our Pday, and actually was in the way of our emailing time, because
the branch house and the library are on opposite ends of the city. It
might have been a mistake when I wrote it in. Who knows!
But we decided to go. We get to the Branch house, and nobody is there.
Maybe it was just a mistake. Maybe our mystery person dogged us! Maybe
we were supposed to go to their house!

So as we left about 15 minutes later, someone rode their bike up to us
and it turned out to be the kid we met on Sunday. "I think I had an
appointment to meet here, but I got lost a little." So we went in, and
he wasn't even sure what we wanted to talk about. We taught him the
Restoration, and it went really well! He loved it, and talked about he
believes in God, but doesn't really have a relationship with Him. At
the end, we asked him to say the prayer. He hesitated, and asked us to
wait. After a couple minutes, he said a really great prayer, and told
us that it felt so good to pray after such a long time. He kept
saying, "I feel so good right now, I have such a good feeling."
That was easily one of the best lessons of my mission so far. Today,
we are going to visit him again after emailing. Maybe it will be just
as good now as last time!

I'm so happy that I've been able to serve here and share my testimony
with people who are willing to listen! It's so weird to think that I'm
going home. I am going to miss so many investigators and members.

I'll tell about the rest in like a day and a half. bye.

Love,
Elder Young

November 18, 2014

Dear Family members,

We had a great week. In fact, we've been so busy, that we couldn't fit P-day things in yesterday, so that's why we're emailing on Tuesday. 

Last week started off slowly, with some of our investigators not showing up when we'd get there, and literally nobody having done any of the commitments we gave them. On Thursday, things started to pick up! We went to meet with a member who brought a few friends to the big branch open house a while ago, so we wanted to have Elder Beaumont practice teaching the Plan of Salvation, and then we could ask her for more about her friends who were interested. When we show up, 2 of those people were there waiting for us! So as planned, Elder B. lead the Plan of Salvation lesson for a new investigator. 

That night, a kid we met on the street a while ago showed up to english class, and met with us afterwards! He accepted a Book of Mormon, and we are meeting with him again this week, too! 

On Friday, we went to a city called Dunaújváros for a Zone Training, which was really good. Afterwards, we went on splits with the other elders in our city. I went with Elder Mellor, who is just a couple months older here than Elder Beaumont. We had a fun time tracting and teaching a couple lessons. We finished off splits with a big dinner at a family from New Zealand. They even invited one of our investigators to come, so it was really awesome, and Elder Beaumont and I were able to teach him the Restoration for the first time, and he really like it.

We ended the week with Stake Conference. They had some changes in the stake here too, and Hungary's first stake president was released. The bishop of the Buda ward became the new president, who is actually American, he just served here like 10 years ago and lives here now. A guy from our branch here also became one of the counselors, so they have a really solid Stake Presidency! 

Two Area Seventies came to speak at the conference, too- Elder Patrick Kearon and Elder George R. Something. It was an awesome conference, and super great to see all of my old friends from all over the country there! 

Yesterday was also a pretty crazy day. An old investigator from when I was in Budapest referred her friend to us, so we went to meet with him, and a new convert together. The investigator was running late though, so we just taught a lesson to the member first before he left, then had enough time to show the investigator around the branch house and set up another time to meet. He drove us to yet another investigator, who is doing really well. That lady knew some people that we could meet with and help, and referred us over to them. She also promised to come to church for the first time on Sunday! 

Later on, we met at the bus station with the Walmsley family from New Zealand. A member from a nearby town invited them over, and luckily us as well, because they needed translators! 

I'm super glad that things are started to pick up now, and even more glad that people are giving us referrals! I've never had so many referrals in so short a time! We've gotten 10 in the last 2 weeks! The Lord's work is moving forward, and it will probably do even better without me! I love when people have testimonies and share them with their friends. It's awesome to be able to help with that and let those people learn about the Gospel after they've seen it in their friends. 

The Church is true, and everyone should read their scriptures every day! 

So, my comp and I have planned to have the best week ever, and so far it is looking like things are coming into place! We have also planned out a Hungarian meal every day this week! Yay! Planning! 

Love,

Elder Young

PS.

1. (From last week) Our cat friend.

2. Taking funny pictures upon castle walls.

3. (From this week) Dinner with the Walmsleys.

4. The kids singing traditional New Zealand songs.

5.  The family. 

6. On the train to stake conference. 

7. Train.

8. Kiss Balázs (member from Buda) and "Jesus" Balázs (eternal investigator from Buda)

9. Szilvia (Buda) and Viki (Győr)

10. The Walmsleys and Ági néni

November 10, 2014

Another week went by. This week started out really hard for us. All of our investigators who looked like they were going anywhere simultaneously decided to give up any effort or faith in the baptismal goals we set together in the last couple weeks. Not only that, but most people don't really even want to listen to anything I say when we teach in a program. And when I can't get a word in, then my companion definitely can't because he hardly knows what's going on in the first place. I get really stressed whenever we teach anyone, and so after most of our lessons, I usually leave frustrated or angry, and so I can't really feel the Spirit. 

The week basically went like this until Saturday, when we had the big Open House for the branch's new building. They had a big meeting full of talks and special musical numbers to welcome everyone and introduce the church. The turnout was great, and about 150 people showed up, a large majority being non-members, or less active members who had never been inside the building before. One of the speakers is a man from New Zealand, and they asked me to translate for him. --- Fun Fact: Translating for large groups is really interesting, because you can tell how many of the people already speak English. Whenever they tell a joke, then like 1/3 of the audience laughs before everyone else. Or when the translator doesn't know a word, several people will shout it for him or her to try and be of help. It's scary because you can't just say whatever you want, haha. 

During the rest of the day, we had a whiteboard in the corner of the chapel with the Plan of Salvation on it, and we would talk to the wandering guests about the Church and try and get them to set up with us. We got to meet with a ton of really cool people, most of whom were invited by members. 

Sunday was also very good because some of those people came to church! I talked with one guy on Saturday and Sunday, and the whole time I thought he was just less active. I found out later that he had never even been to church before! He's a really cool guy, and we are going to meet with him later this week (at the home of the guy from New Zealand and his family). 

Although I started to get discouraged about lame things happening earlier in the week, the week definitely ended well.

Today, we went up to hike to a castle on a little mountain, with the other elders. It was super duper! Right as we get off the bus, we are welcomed to the forest by a stray kitten, who proceeded to jump directly into my arms (and was covered in dirt and gunk, which was disgusting). Then he followed us for the rest of our trip, as we wandered through the woods, and all the way up to the castle. We did our best to include the cat in every picture we took, but unfortunately, you can't see it, because I forgot to bring my camera cord today. But, go google Csesznek castle. It's pretty cool. I promise my pictures are cool. I'll show you all in like 2 weeks. 

Love,

Elder Young

PS. It's so weird when people ask, "So, how long do you have left?" I'm not at months anymore. We're down to days... days... days...