2018 július 10

Sziasztok!

Well.... this is my last email home, which is super bittersweet. We had a pretty exciting last week, topped of with Tomi's baptism (which went well despite more than a few bumps). But hey, it all worked out, he's a member now, and he and his older sister are doing great. Hopefully the missionaries after us will be able to work with the whole family.

Oh yeah, Elder Phillips is also leaving Kecskemét, we're being replaced by sisters.... It's alright though. We finally met President Hettinger this week, and he is awesome. I'm actually super jealous that I can't stay longer and serve with him. He's amazing. I'm really excited for the direction the mission is going to go. Things are going to be so great in Hungary. And Romania too I guess.

Also true to form, I took almost no pictures this week. Fortunately Elder Phillips has a bunch of pictures so I'll send those home.

We also had a 4th of July party which was fun. The Bishop and his wife made some Sticky Fingers (apparently you can get them at Wingers?). It was a good time.

This last week was a good one, I'll tell you all about it later in person.

The last two years (plus a little extra) have been a great experience, I've learned a lot, and I've been blessed to see the gospel change people's lives. I know that this is the path that leads to happiness in this life and eternal life in the next. I know that the Book of Mormon is true, and I've seen it help others as they study it and live according to it's teachings. I know that God loves us and takes care of us.

I love you all! See you soon!

Szeretettel,

Terry elder

Only picture I took this week: Benedek noticed a dead pigeon on the lawn one day, then before the baptism he told me to come see this window in the Primary room. And well, we found the outline of a pigeon on the window.

Picture of our last MCM: Us, the Sisters, and Benedek

Tomi's family at the baptism

Us with Tomi and János (The man baptizing him.) and Enikő, Tomi's older sister

Encsi, the Bishops wife, with the Sticky fingers thingy

The Sticky fingers thingy

2018. július 2 - Welcome to the Hungary Romania Budapest mission

Sziasztok!

Our mission has officially been combined with the Romania mission! But not that much has actually changed. We got some policy changes (mostly about speaking Hungarian with Sister Missionaries, and how we do the numbers phone calls every week), but the work is still the same. 

For those of you wondering, no we haven't met President Hettinger yet. There's going to be a meet the president thingy on Wednesday, so we'll see him then. Also, last week the Szabadkais called everyone to say goodbye which was kinda sad. It's sad to see them go, but the wheel of time turns and ages come and pass.

Also we've got pretty much everything set up for Tomi's baptism on Thursday. It's gonna be a lot of fun, I'm really excited for it. He's a good kid. We had lessons with him Saturday and Sunday, they went well. He's all ready. He's made some great progress these months.

Last P-day we saw a lady pooping/peeing. And we were in the Belváros, in front of a bank, which is an interesting choice for a bathroom.

Well, this week is the start of my last full week, the next time I email will be right before I go home. Which is a really weird thought. Shopping today was weird, I bought a ton of Hungarian candy because you can't get a lot of it in America. And yesterday some members randomly started talking about marriage after church with Elder Phillips and I, and after a few minutes I was like "Wait a minute, why are we even talking about this?" to which the members responded, "Because you're going home soon!"  Gug.

Also, this week I finished reading the Book of Mormon, and afterwards I took a moment to follow Moroni's promise. And I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I'm really grateful that God provided us with this scripture. It's changed me and my life, and I've seen the impact it's had on other people's lives. I'm grateful that God will tell any of us that the Book of Mormon is true. He's answered me every time I've asked.

Szeretettel,

Terry elder

PICTURES:

Here's a picture in our apartment. When the announcement was made about the mission change, the Kaposvár district made this picture and sent it out to the whole mission. And now the change is official.

There are some statues. 3 men hunched over.

Also we went tracting on a random street. Then we looked at the sign and I said "Elder Phillips, do you know where we are? This is RAINBOW ROAD!" And then we mario kart-ed off into the sunset. Not really, but Szivárvány utca means Rainbow road.

And the sisters were late to MCM, and while we were waiting Benedek wrote a scriptural passage about us waiting. 

And those are the pictures. Enjoy!

2018. június 25

Sziasztok!

Well, first of all last P-day we visited Sanyi bácsi in the evening. He's 94 years old, and he's a pretty solid member. I used to talk to him when I was a new missionary, but I couldn't understand anything he was saying. Now I can mostly understand what he's saying, and he's actually pretty funny. We had a fun time visiting with him. And afterward he kept calling us at random times throughout the week. Which was kinda fun, although he called us at 5:30 in the morning twice. Anyways, I've attached a picture of Sanyi bácsi.

After that we had a pretty busy week. We had exchanges in Szeged, and it was an adventure getting there. Not really, but we did end up missing the train because they changed the train times. So we walked into the train station thinking we had 20 minutes before our train left only to discover that our train was leaving right then. So we had to wait for a while. But we ended up talking to an American who's wife is from Kecskemét. This guy knew some Mormons from college, one of his good friends had served a mission, so we chatted for a while. 

We had a good exchange too. Elder Willes and I taught one of their investigators, and it was a really cool experience. We taught the restoration, and after we explained the apostasy the investigator said, "So that's why you call it a restoration, because the priesthood and everything was lost. And then it was restored through Joseph Smith right?" Once elder Willes and I recovered from shock, we told him that was exactly what happened. Really cool experience. Good times.

Other fun news, Tomi passed his baptismal interview yesterday. Later today his mom's going to give us written permission for the baptism, and then we'll get everything organized for the baptism. His baptism will be July 5th, before his mom goes back to work in Switzerland. So that's going to be a lot of fun to prepare for.

Also, our mission officially gets combined with the Romania mission this week, the Szabadkais go home. So we've got exciting stuff happening this week.

Szeretettel,

Terry elder

2018. június 18 - 2 Years down

Sziasztok!!

As you might guess from the title of my email, this week I hit my two year mark. And I think that means I'm on overtime now, which I hope means I get paid time and a half in blessings. But jokes aside, it's super weird that I was in the MTC two years ago, that feels like an eternity away. Lots of fun stuff has happened since then.

This week we had some good times. We taught Tomi, our bap. date near a playground, and then we played around a little bit (Elder Phillips took some pictures). Things are going well, everything seems to be set. His mom is coming home this week, and if she gives written permission for him to get baptized we'll move forward with everything. Tomi has been doing good, we finally got him a copy of the real Book of Mormon, and he's been reading from it. Yesterday we went over the baptismal interview questions and it went pretty well. The member with us, Attila, was a great help, I was so grateful for him.

Other than that, some people dogged us, and we ended up dropping one of the investigators we started meeting with (he only wanted to meet for English). Also, one of our investigators, Zoltán, lost his job. Well, he's technically still getting paid, but he needs new work. We'll try to help him out, we'll see what happens. 

We met with some of the members this week too. We visited a cool family, the Bognárék, and had a good time with them. It ended up being a bit of a family gathering, which was fun because their son, Bence, came down from Budapest. Bence was here when I was a new missionary, then he was in Pest when I served there, and then we met again on Saturday. He's really cool and it was fun to talk to him again. So that was a lot of fun.

And that was our week. Good times all around, I asked a néni if we could vacuum her apartment (she said no... :( but we did have a nice conversation.) This week will be busy with Exchanges and district meeting in Szeged, and whatnot.

Also this week we were at a funeral for a less active member's mom, and the Bishop here spoke and he talked a lot about Christ and the resurrection. He shared a quote from President Monson, and I don't remember exactly what he said, but I remember that I felt the spirit really strongly bearing testimony that what he said was true. I know that Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, He died for our sins, and was resurrected, and because he was resurrected, we all will be too. It's so important for us to remember the times when we felt the spirit because those memories help us later when we're having a harder time.

This was a really cool experience, just figured I'd share it with you all.

Szeretettel,

Terry elder

Pictures:

Playground with Tomi

District Meeting

Elder Cushing and me

City sign that says Kecskemét in Rovásírás - I took it because my first transfer I had my trainer take a picture of me near a sign for Kecskemét. I thought it'd be fun to compare the 2.

Elder Terry now

Elder Terry then

2018. június 11

Sziasztok!!!

Well, we've got a pretty solid week behind us, even though we were only able to work in Kecskemét for about 3 days. It was a pretty solid three days though.

 

Elder Phillips' birthday was this week, and I think he had a pretty solid birthday. Granted, I didn't contribute much to it, but the sisters in our district took care of him. We had MCM, and they brought a chocolate cake and sang to him, and afterward we played Settlers of Catan with some members. Elder Phillips' really likes Catan, he's played it a lot. We had a good time.

We also had exchanges with Elder Cushing and Elder Willes, we had some good times with them in Szeged. We took Elder Phillips out for a birthday dinner (unfortunately we couldn't get the people working at the restaurant to sing to him) and afterwards we got Kürtöskalács ice cream, which sounded like a great idea, because Kürtöskalács is delicious and so is ice cream, but it actually ended up not being that great. It was a good experience though.

We also had Zone Conference, which was my last. That was kinda sad. We had a lot of people giving their "dying testimonies" (3 sisters, 2 elders, the Szabadkais, and a senior couple). It was a pretty good conference though. We talked a lot about working with members, which will be a great thing to apply.

We also met with Tomi twice this week, he's doing good. A boy from the ward who's his age came and walked him to church with us, which was pretty good. He's progressing a lot and it's fun to work with him. It's hard to teach kids sometimes, but he's not too bad.

Anyways, that was pretty much our week. We did some good work, and Elder Phillips isn't dying of the plague anymore (he wasn't actually that sick, but he's doing better now).

Szeretettel,

Terry elder

Finally got a selfie of the two of us. Enjoy!

2018. június 4

Sziasztok!

So this week we helped a bunch of people move and Elder Phillips was dying of the plague, he's mostly better now, but later today we're going to the doctor in Budapest. So we had some great times. Also yesterday there was a broadcast conference for all of Europe that we got to watch, which was a lot of fun. Before it started the Stake President here gave a talk about making the temple a part of our lives and building it in our hearts. It was really good because a lot of members don't like the fact that there isn't a temple in Hungary, and President Southwick talked about how we need to be living the gospel so that the Lord can put a temple in Hungary. It was a really great talk.

We tracted on Saturday in Hetényegyháza (a falu outside of Kecskemét) and the first door we knocked on let us in. We had a pretty great lesson with Robert, the man who let us in. He was really nice and we were able to share most of the restoration. Hopefully we'll be able to meet with him again this week. After that we visited our friend László, and we had a great lesson with him about the restoration. He's super solid, he really pays attention and it's fun to meet with him.

We helped two families move this week, and it was a lot of fun to help out. Some members are moving from Kecskemét to Budapest, so we helped out a bit, and Saturday we helped Csilla, a member's coworker, and her family move. It was a fun time, we chatted with Csilla. She's really cool, and she's got a lot of potential.

Yesterday we had a walking lesson with an investigator named Nick. He's cool, 19 years old, and when we showed up for the lesson, he came down, explained that he's tutoring some people in his apartment, but that he can take a little break. Then he said, "Let's take a walk, like the Greeks did." So we walked around, answered his questions and talked about the Book of Mormon. It actually ended up being a pretty good lesson.

Tomi, our investigator on bap. date, didn't come to church yesterday, but afterward we visited him with our Ward Mission Leader Benedek. At first Tomi was being a dingus, but we ended up having a pretty good lesson with him. Benedek was a great help, he's super solid. If everything goes well, we'll meet Tomi more often to help him get ready. He's a great kid, but he likes to be a little rebellious sometimes.

And that was pretty much our week. The highlight was definitely the conference yesterday. We got to hear talks from Elder Uchtdorf and Elder Kearon, and they were both really good.

Szeretettel,

Terry elder

2018. május 28

Sziasztok!!!

We had some fun things happen this week like: A zone day in Budapest, an investigator accepted a baptismal date, and we were able to meet with a bunch of people.

Let me talk about the most important things first. We got to have a zone day!! Our zone (made up of Kecskemét, Szeged, Szolnok, Békéscsaba, and Debrecen) all got together in Tihány Tér (in Pest) and had a fun time. There were about 20 missionaries there. Basically, it was our last time having interviews with President Szabadkai, and he decided to have everyone have a zone day too. Good times. We did fun things like: Throw a football around, play Settlers of Catan with Sister Szabadkai (she won, unfortunately), and watching a movie called One Good Man. I had a great time hanging out with our zone, it was a lot of fun.

Also, one of our investigators, an 11 year old named Tamás, accepted a bap. date for July 7th! He's been meeting with the missionaries for a while and his older sister Enikő is a recent convert. Hopefully everything works out. He's a smart kid, although sometimes he doesn't really answer questions. It reminds me of when I was a primary teacher and I'd ask the kids who Alma was. The answer: A person. But once you get past the silly answers, he's a pretty good kid.

Other than that we were able to meet with some former investigators, and some of them want to investigate again, which is cool. Unfortunately no one came to church this week, but we still had a really great time. We got a new ward mission leader, he's a cool recent convert, and I'm really excited to work with him. 

I'm also still very terrible at taking pictures. I only took one this week, and it's of Máriahegy, a place on the outskirts of Kecskemét where one of our newer investigators lives. It's really interesting, because you leave Kecskemét where there are a lot of 10 story apartment buildings, and then you see this place with dirt roads and small houses. It has a completely different feeling.

Anyways, we had a great time, and this next week promises to be a good one.

Szeretettel,

Terry elder

One of our new investigators a bácsi named Ferenc has a horse and a giant dog. Here are some pictures.