July 25, 2016

Everything is going well in the MTC. Yesterday we had a special 24th of July devotional with the Nashville Tribute Band. It was really good. I haven't actually heard much of their music, but their songs were really good. It was fun listening to them. And the MTC choir sang back up for them. Although it wasn't really back up. There were 1400-ish missionaries in the choir, so we were kinda loud. It was really cool. They do a really good job of mixing the gospel and music and inviting the spirit. It was really awesome.
Today was sad because we tried to go to the temple, but sadly it is closed. So we couldn't go. But I did see Mary and Savanna on the way back to the MTC. That was weird.
The rest of this week has been pretty good. We had to use new planners to plan this week, because the schedule is weird in the MTC. This Wednesday makes 6 weeks. That's crazy. It feels like I just came into the MTC yesterday.
I've seen Elder Fogth a couple times. He seems like he's doing well. He's awesome. It's crazy that he leaves next week (I think). We still have 4 more weeks-ish.
We had some good teaching experiences this week. It's really cool to see how far we've come in speaking Hungarian. We still can't understand most of what people say, but we can understand and communicate better than we could when we started. We also can answer questions, even if our answers are a little rough. We taught one of our "investigators" about prophets and then she wanted to know how to find what Thomas S. Monson talks about. It was interesting because all we could say was that you can use the computer and go to LDS.org. But a few weeks ago we wouldn't have even understood the question. We've been progressing and it's been awesome.
This week I've been studying D&C 121. I really like verse 41-42:
"41 No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;
42 By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile—"
It's so important to reach out and love each other. I've learned the importance of showing love for others and being patient and kind. Always love those around you and serve them. It's so important.
I hope you all of a good week.
Terry Elder

The First Month is Over!

THE FIRST MONTH IS OVER! We are halfway done with being in the MTC! I love it in here, but I'm looking forward to going to Hungary and teaching the people.
So, the biggest news this week is that we watched the Character of Christ for the Sunday Devotional, and afterward, Elder Bednar casually walked in. It was super surprising and awesome. He did a Q&A thingy, and it was awesome. It was so cool to see an apostle taking the time to answer individuals questions and help them out. He also talked about ministering to the one. It's so important to find the people that we can help and reach out to them.
I just found out that the world is in chaos. Pokemon go has upset the social order, there was a shooting in Dallas. Things are crazy, but the MTC is always the same. And the church is always true.
Anyways, This week has been pretty good for us. We've been learning about how to become better teachers, and the emphasis has been on asking better questions. We have to ask questions that help people think about what has been taught so that they can learn. We have to ask questions the right way too. Elder Bednar talked about how we play the "Guess what's in my head" game a lot in the church. We ask questions looking for specific answers and forcing people to try to find out what answer we want. Elder Bednar said that those kinds of questions drive the spirit away. We've been learning how to teach better, and the TRC lessons (lessons that we give to members) have been getting better. We're getting better at understanding what people say to us. We still don't know much, but it's cool to see how far we've come in only a month.
This week I learned the importance of asking for gifts for the right reasons. Elder and Sister Bednar talked about it on Sunday. Gifts of the Spirit and blessings from God come to us to help others. If we pray for something just to help ourselves, we probably won't get it. We talk about that a lot with the Gift of Tongues. We won't get that gift if we only want it so we can speak Hungarian perfectly and not get embarrassed. We only get blessed with it when we want to use it to bring others to Christ. It's so important to focus on helping others.
This week has been awesome. I hope everyone is doing well. Sometimes things are crazy, but things will be okay in the end.
-Terry Elder

Pokemon Go!!!

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME POKEMON GO WAS COMING OUT?! I kept checking before I left, but I didn't know they had a release date. I should've watched more of E3. Everyone with a smartphone needs to play Pokemon go. Do it for me!
Apparently, I needed to ask my companions about random books they've read. In our class we have a dice that we use to practice conjugating things, and we were going to use it, so I said, "it's time to toss the dice." And then I was sad because I didn't think anyone would get the reference, but then Biesinger Elder said, "Isn't that what Mat says in the Wheel of Time?" He hasn't read the whole series, unfortunately, but he got that reference. That was the highlight of the week.
This week, we taught "Zsuzsa" who is less active. It was an interesting experience. We asked why she'd stopped coming to Church, and she said it was because she wasn't comfortable there, and she didn't have any friends there. It was a little frustrating because I understood her worries, but I couldn't respond to them because I didn't know the language. The really annoying thing was that I'd felt the same why she did, but I couldn't talk about that either. When I went to a singles ward at U of U, I didn't know anyone, and I didn't want to talk to anyone, so I wasn't comfortable and I didn't really have any friends. But despite the fact that I knew what to tell her in English, I couldn't say it in Hungarian.
Anyways, the point is, we don't know how others feel, so you should always be welcoming to others. It's so important. Reach out to those around you.
On Wednesday, our district hosted the new missionaries and I hosted Elder Earl! I didn't even know he was reporting. I've seen him a couple times since then because our classrooms are on the same floor.
The Sunday devotional was really good. The speaker focused on charity. He talked about how it was important that people feel that we love them, and that they feel the Savior's love through us. While his remarks were focused on missionaries and their investigators, it applies to everyone. We should do our best to love those around us. The way he talked about Jesus's love made me think of the Force. We should strive to let the Savior's love flow through us.
The Provo temple is open again, and it was really nice to be able to go. The temple is an awesome place, and I encourage all of you to go there often.
Anyways, I hope everyone is doing well. Love those around you, it's so important.
-Terry Elder

Ballard, Terry and the Turks:  Earl and Grover

Elder Robison.  It was really cool to see him.  It was fun because we worked together and now we're in the MTC together.  Although he leaves soon.  And I'll be in the MTC forever

Peterson, Voigt (in the background) and Terry

Terry and Tolman

Dvorak and Terry

3 Elders 2.0: Earl, Terry, Voigt

Terry and Guevara

Grondel and Terry

Okay, Now the Zone Picture:
Elders: Elder Dvorak, Ballard Elder, Elder Tolman, Elder Fisher (Blocking most of Elder Tolman's face), Elder Grover, Oliphant Elder, Gajdos Elder, Elder Rueger, Elder Voigt, Elder Grondel,  Elder Petersen (Facing the other way), Elder Guevara, Gentry Elder, Leavitt Elder, Me, Sharp Elder (in front of me), Biesinger Elder, and Elder Earl.

Sorry, but I don't know all of the Sisters: Zuster Leman, Zuster Mangam(?), Zuster Smith, Beck Nővér, Zuster Lechtenberg(?), ????, Wester Nővér, Zuster De Moors, Hooper Nővér, Evans Nővér, Zuster Fordiani(?), and Day Nővér.

Elder Rueger, Elder Tolman, and Elder Voigt are on their way to Surinam right now. They left at 1:00-ish this morning. Elder Dvorak, Elder Grondel, and Elder Guevara left for Belgium a few hours ago.
Elder Earl, Elder Grover, and Elder Petersen are leaving tomorrow. Then we get a whole new zone, with three new Dutch districts.

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.

June 26, 2016

Pictures:  Biesinger Elder, Gajdos Elder, "The Handsome Elders"- (Gajdos, Terry, Biesinger), The Sisters(Evans, Day, Wester), more pictures of the threesome.

Dear Mom,
     Biesinger Elder and his family lived in Hungary 4 years ago. His parents wanted a cultural adventure and his Dad served in Hungary. He picked up some of the language, so he's a lot better at understanding the spoken language and pronunciation than I am. And he knows how to say random stuff.

Biesinger Elder

Gajdos Elder's dad is Hungarian, but he stopped speaking Hungarian when he was 8-ish (I think), so Gajdos Elder (pronounced goi-dosh) hasn't had very much experience with the language, but he knows some random words.  Gajdos Elder

No one fast tracks out of Hungarian. It's not allowed. Just kidding, but they're not leaving me. We'll all pretty close in language ability. I'm starting to see why learning German is helping. I know parts of language and grammar better than most people do, so I've been able to understand new concepts. Explaining them is kinda rough though. I've been reading the Hungarian grammar book, and it's crazy. There aren't any prepositions in Hungarian, and words can have crazy suffixes on them. The language has some weird constructions, like saying "I have two brothers" would translate to "My two brothers exist." It's fun. And reading the book is funny because it talks about how some nouns are weird for plural, and you have to memorize them, and there's 100. And then it talks about other nouns that are less weird, but you still have to memorize them. It's funny.  Also, I'm really glad that I find grammar interesting. The grammar book we have is so dense. It's crazy how super precise they have to be in the language. Reading the grammar books is fun because I get to see random stuff like the 30 different case suffixes we have to learn.

It's really funny being 19 because I'm one of the oldest Elders in my zone. I think there's only 3 or 4 older than me. It's fun to see people's reactions when they realize I'm older than them.

So the district that I'm in has 6 people, two tripanionships. The sisters are Sister Day, Sister Evans, and Sister Wester. I wanted to say sister in Hungarian, but I don't know the keyboard shortcuts for special letters. There's another Hungarian district that has 6 elders and 2 sisters. Everyone is going to Hungary.

In the other district there's an elder from Canada, Leavitt Elder, and he's pretty cool. He studied neuroscience for a semester or two up in the Frozen Land of the North. Sometime last week, I started telling him that he was beautiful whenever I saw him, and now he's started responding with "You're the devil" (ördög vagy.) It's really funny. (Just to be clear, he's joking, I'm not the devil.)

The Sisters(Evans, Day, Wester),

I don't remember if I told you about the zone I'm in. There's Albanian, Turkish, and Dutch missionaries. The Albanians have been here the longest, and will leave next week. There's 5 of them, 2 Elders and 3 Sisters. I think there's only 3 Turkish missionaries, and they're all elders because sisters can't go. They can't wear their name badges in Turkey, which is scary. Turkey's a scary place right now. The Dutch and the Turks leave the week after the Albanians. Everyone in our zone is here for 9 weeks except the Dutch, who are here for 6. Listening to the Dutch missionaries is fun, because between English and German, I can usually guess what they're saying.

This week in the MTC was pretty fun. It's been better now that we've gotten more used to the schedule. It's really funny though, because we don't really follow the white handbook schedule. We get up at 6:30, breakfast is at 7. At 7:30 we have class until 10:30, then we have daily planning. After planning we have study some days and exercise on others. Then we have lunch, then more class or exercise. Lots of class time. Study time is weird because the schedule just says study, it doesn't specify whether it's personal, companion, or language study.

Today we're going to clean the temple, which is why I'm emailing earlier. It's gonna be fun.
We've already taught 5 lessons in Hungarian. It's crazy. We have a new investigator that we're starting to teach tomorrow. Teaching in Hungarian so quickly is a little rough, but we're getting better.

"The Handsome Elders"- (Gajdos, Terry, Biesinger)

Yesterday (or Saturday, the days kinda blur together) I was reading in Alma 32, and Alma compares the word to a seed. When I was reading that, I noticed the section towards the end that reads:
"38 But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out.
39 Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof."
That hit me really hard. With everything in life, we have to work to get results. With the gospel, if we don't do the daily things, if we don't nourish the tree, we won't be converted, and we won't enjoy the blessings of the Gospel. In order for us to get better, we have to work. Don't blame the gospel for your lack of effort. I promise that if you put in the work, you will get the reward.

I also studied gifts of the spirit, and in D&C 46:11-12 it reads:
"11 For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God.
12 To some is given one, and to some is given another, that all may be profited thereby."
We all have our own gifts of the spirit, our own talents. That's why it's important not to compare ourselves to others. We all have different gifts, and when we work together, we all benefit.
I love you all and I hope you have a fantastic week.
Szeretettel,
Terry Elder


P.S. Mom, you should give everyone my Dear Elder information (Log into DearElder.com.  Use his Provo MTC address--his unit is 187, his mission code is HUN-BUD and his departure date is AUG16--make sure you follow the directions to send it to the Provo MTC!!)and tell them to write me. Getting letters is awesome. The family could write me every day if you want to. Also, Szeretettel means "with love" I think. I'm pretty sure Szeretett is love, and to say with, you add the suffix -val/-vel. Have I talked about vowel harmony yet? because that's crazy too.

June 19, 2016 (the first week)

Dear Mom,

You can email me if you want to. The limit is 60 minutes, not thirty. And the leaders in our zone told us that we could email for hours as long as we weren't preventing other missionaries from working.

I am in a trio companionship, or tripanionship. It's pretty crazy sometimes, but it's mostly fun. My companions are Gajdos Elder and Biesinger Elder. Gajdos Elder's dad is Hungarian, which is way cool. Biesinger Elder and his family lived in Hungary for a year.

Our first meal was a little confusing, and we ended up eating leftovers. They were tasty leftovers though.

Our zone leader is from New Zealand, and sometimes his accent is a little hard to understand. One time, Biesinger Elder thought he said "the empty seat" when he said "the MTC."

We've already taught our first lesson, and we're teaching another today. Hungarian is super weird. Conjugating verbs is all in the suffixes, they don't use pronouns a lot. And you change nouns with suffixes to show possession or plural. Teaching Edit (our investigator) whose name is pronounced "eh-deet" is interesting. We taught her about God and how to pray and it went pretty well until she started asking questions. Fortunately Biesinger Elder has enough experience with Hungarian to understand people. Also, the spirit speaks Hungarian, so we had a good lesson even though she probably couldn't understand us very well. Hungarian has different intonation that changes the meaning of what you say, so you can say the same words in the same order with different intonations and say different things. The difference between a question and a statement is intonation, not word order. It makes understanding and communicating a bit harder, but with the Lord's help, we can do anything. 

I didn't bring my camera to email, so I don't have any pictures, but I'll try to get some next week.

Thanks for your letters and your weird quotes, although sometimes I don't check my clothes before putting them on, and then I end up walking to the temple with a piece of paper in my sock. Today I found the one from President Monson that says, "Each missionary who goes forth in response to a sacred call becomes a servant of the Lord whose work this truly is. Do not fear, young men, for He will be with you. He never fails." I was really glad I found that one because yesterday it hit me that I'm trying to teach people the gospel in a language I can barely speak or understand. It's important to realize that the Lord is the one doing His work.

This week has been crazy. Adjusting to the MTC has been a little weird, but we've been doing good. It's been a little stressful, but I've been having fun. 

We watched the Character of Christ video yesterday, which is an MTC devotional that Elder Bednar gave on Christmas some time. It was really good. 

Love, 

Terry Elder

P.S. I mailed your letter on Friday. I forgot to mail it on Thursday. I've told you a lot of what it said anyways. I couldn't even use your form letter because I'm in a tripanionship.

P.P.S. I don't really know what y'all want to hear about, so if you want better letters, you should probably ask some questions. Otherwise I'll just email Elder Keeley the whole time.

P.P.P.S. In Hungarian, Elder and President come after the name, which is why it's Terry Elder, Biesinger Elder, and Gajdos Elder. And our mission president is Szabadkai elnök.