July 5, 2016

Dear Everyone,
You haven't lived until you've watched the Testaments in a room full of missionaries. That's what we did on Sunday, and it's so funny. Of course, everyone is quiet during the spiritual parts, but whenever Jacob and the girl kiss everyone freaks out. A bunch of people say "Close your eyes" and usually everyone starts laughing. There are some good parts, like when Jacob is talking to the girl and says, "An agreement of marriage would please me" and the girls response is "Is the place of records far?" It's such a funny movie. But the important message is that of Christ's ministry on the Americas. I really like how they represented it, with Christ going to Helam and healing him. It shows how much Christ cares about each of us individually.
Also, there's a really funny part when Kohor tells Jacob, "You are a specter from the Gods."

Yesterday was fast Sunday, and that was a cool experience. The missionaries headed to Albania leave tomorrow, so they all bore their testimonies. It was really good. Fast Sunday was a lot of fun. We taught priesthood, and the topic was "Faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement." It was really funny because I remember when I started teaching Primary, and I was super nervous and the lessons I prepared probably weren't very good. When I was teaching yesterday I wasn't really nervous at all. I'm really glad Bishop Maxwell called me to be a primary worker. That was a really good growing experience.

The Stadium of Fire was on Saturday, for all those who are unaware of that. Canada Day was on the First, so technically, the Stadium of Fire was closer to Canada Day than the 4th. So what was really being celebrated? Anyways, they let us stay up later to watch the fire works, but we couldn't sleep in, so it wasn't that much fun. Plus, working events kinda kills the fun of watching them later. Every time fireworks went off, I would just think of the fact that the grounds crew was going to have to clean it up. I feel bad for them. (Mom, you can let boss Mike know I was thinking of him. Or don't. He's probably forgotten about me.)

It's kinda weird that today is the 4th of July. We had a devotional about freedom on the 2nd, so we aren't doing anything patriotic today. The temple is still closed, so we don't really have that much to do.

Hungarian is still crazy. Conjugating verbs is really hard, just because there's so many different endings. The ending you use changes depending on whether you have a definite direct object or not. And then the endings vary depending on vowel harmony. Vowel harmony is this really weird thing where they have different classes of vowels, and they only want vowels of the same class in words. So you use different vowels in the ending depending on what the vowels are in the word. It's crazy. There's a lot to remember.

This was a good week. We had some solid lessons. We did our first TRC on Friday. For TRC we taught some members. They're usually returned missionaries that served in Hungary. Our first lesson went pretty well. We taught two returned missionaries, and they were really good friends, so they were really funny together. Our other lesson was a little less good, but it was still pretty fun. We've been working on not using notes (other than a lesson plan) during our lesson, so that we aren't delivering lessons that we're just reading off. It's kinda difficult, but it brings the Spirit, and the Spirit is what matters. 

We hosted the new missionaries on Wednesday, and we're hosting again this week. It's really cool.
Also, I wanted to add a spiritual thought. I was reading in Mormon during Personal study with week, In Mormon 2, it talks about how Mormon sees the people starting to sorrow and he thinks that they'll come to God, but their sorrowing was the sorrowing of the damned. And then he says, "15 And it came to pass that my sorrow did return unto me again, and I saw that the day of grace was passed with them, both temporally and spiritually; for I saw thousands of them hewn down in open rebellion against their God, and heaped up as dung upon the face of the land. And thus three hundred and forty and four years had passed away." That hit me really hard. I wonder what Mormon's life was like. He watched the people he loved turn away from everything that would help them. Him and Moroni are great examples of love. Both of them lived hard lives, surrounded by wickedness, but they kept loving the people and trying to help them. In Moroni 1, Moroni talks about how he thought he would be dead already and since he isn't, he decides to write to help the Lamanites. The Lamanites! The people that killed pretty much everyone he knows, including his dad. That's crazy. Mormon and Moroni are such great examples of love, and I invite you all to consider ways you could become more like them and love those around you.
-Terry Elder

P.S. Here's some pictures.

This is one of Elder Petersen. He's going to Turkey, and he's one of our Zone leaders right now. Turkey's super weird and scary. They can't wear their name badges there. 

Elder Jaunay and I, with Elder Rueger kinda sticking his face in.  Elder Rueger is one of the Dutch missionaries. I think he's going to Surinam.

 
Elder Jaunay and me. He's from New Zealand. He was the Zone leader when we came in, so he's pretty awesome. He's leaving to Albania tomorrow. 

Leavitt Elder. He's the one from Canada. He's cool. He sang "O, Canada" to us on Canada day.

This is Elder Dvorak. He's one of the Dutch missionaries. He broke the MTC record for the mile on Friday or Saturday. 

Oliphant Elder. He hasn't seen Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. It's sad.

I took most of these pictures while walking.
I also have pictures of fireworks, but I'm not sending them. You can just think of me when you set off fireworks tonight to celebrate the 4th.