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