September 29, 2014

Sziasztok!

So this week was interesting. It was pretty slow because Sister Erlandsson got sick so we had to spend a little time inside so we didn't get to work as much as we wanted to. We were actually feeling pretty down yesterday about how our week had gone. We just had a lot of things that didn't work out that were out of our control. But, last night we decided that we would just work hard as we finished off the week and that this new week we would work as hard as we can. We went out tracting for a few hours yesterday. We decided to stop by this old lady that we tracted into a few weeks ago and had given a Book of Mormon. She came to the door and we didn't really have to say much before she just invited us in! She told us she had read from the Book of Mormon and showed us how much she had read (which was quite a bit!). We also met her sweet old Mom and one of her friends who came over. We told her a little more about the Book of Mormon. We weren't able to set a specific time to come back but she did tell us that we could come back sometime next weekend.

Another cool story about yesterday...but I'll start with a quick back story...so last week we were walking down the sidewalk and one of our neighbors who was coming out stopped us. She asked us where she could get one of those books on the cards we were handing out (A Book of Mormon). We told her we would be happy to give her one! She was hurrying on her way out so she told us to come back later. We did, but we found that her gate had no doorbell so we were at a loss of how to contact her (we didn't have her name or phone number either). We walked by her house every day hoping that she would be outside for us to talk to. Well last night, after we tracted for a few hours, we decided to go streeting. We were walking down the sidewalk and sure enough she was outside!! We ran up to the gate to talk to her. We asked her if she was still interested in getting a Book of Mormon to which she responded "Igen!" (yes :)). We got her name and phone number and are going back to visit her later and talk to her about the Book of Mormon. That was really a miracle. We could have just kept tracting because we still had an hour, but instead we decided that we needed to go streeting instead. I know that the Lord put us in the right place at the right time. I had been stressing about how we were going to get ahold of this lady and now we can go visit her! :)

We also met with Ilona this past week. She is so cute. She spent the first little while talking about her hair because she had gotten a hair cut :) Then we taught her about the restoration. She didn't remember it at first but as we started teaching her, she started to remember. We talked to her a lot about prophets too and told her about General Conference. We invited her to that and she seemed really interested. It was funny because usually when programs are all over the place and have so many topics, it can seem unorganized and confusing. But, even though we went over a bunch of different topics and were jumping around a little, we could still feel the Spirit. I think it was good for her to be able to ask the questions that she needed to ask. Ah I love her!

Well that's about it for this week. I am learning a lot about humility and patience and love. We have some new investigators that I am excited about. I will write more about them as things develop! I am so excited for General Conference this week!!! I was reading an old Conference talk (from 1998!) this morning and it was just so good. It was by President Monson and it was all about giving thanks to the Lord. It was so uplifing. I would encourage everyone to think about any questions or trials you have in your life as you prepare for Conference. Listen to Conference with the faith that your questions will be answered.

Have a great week!

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

   

Transfer 3 Begins...‏

Well, I can't believe that my third transfer is beginning. Time is seriously flying by. We had another good week here in Érd.

We got transfer calls today. I will be staying in Érd with Sister Erlandsson! One of the Elders here is leaving which we are all sad about. We have had a really fun district! We have laughed so much this past week my stomach hurt. It's been a fun 4 weeks but I know the next transfer will be great too. We had breakfast with the Elders this morning as we waited for our calls. Elder Whiting will be training so we will have a new missionary with us next transfer!

On Friday I hit my 6 month mark which is CRAZY!! 6 months. That's 1/3 of my mission already done. And I only have one year left. I just want to make sure that I work really hard this next year and make it great. We had a District Meeting on Friday and it was amazing. We talked about the importance of bearing our testimonies and Elder Whiting gave a really great training. We then went out to dinner with the Elders to celebrate my 6 months. We got gyros and it was delicious! We had such a fun time. And, the elders were so nice and bought me a Jumbo Oreo Milka bar (my favorite). They are so nice!

On Friday we went to a Funeral of a lady in the branch. None of us actually knew her but we went with some of the branch members and sang a lot of hymns for it. It was an interesting experience. None of the rest of the family were members of the church but we could feel a very special spirit as we sang hymns by the grave.

We went by to see Ilona this week and that was good. She had read a bit from the Book of Mormon and said she looked for the scripture that I mentioned when we met. We wrote it down and gave it to her. We are meeting with her this week and I am really excited for that! I hope we can help her! :) We are also going to meet with a lady this week from Spain! She speaks English pretty well but I will be excited to use a little of my spanish! I am sad to say that with learning Hungarian, my spanish has really gone down. I was starting to stress about it and just decided that right now, the Lord sent me to Hungary and wants me to learn this language. I am going to just focus on Hungarian right now and when I go home, the Lord will help me pick up my Spanish again :) I don't think He will let me just forget the years that I took it. Speaking of Hungarian, it is going well. It is still hard. But I can understand a lot more than when I first got here. Still can't understand close to everything. And some people I cant understand anything. But what Ive learned is that I need to have a positive attitude about it. If I don't feel like I'm improving or feel like I'm not good, then I wont improve. I just need to try my hardest, have faith and i know that the Lord will make up the difference.

Not much else to report. Things are still slow but they are starting to pick up. We have more programs set up for this week which is exciting. We hope they all go through! :)

Hope you all have a great week! :)

Sok Szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

Our Heritage

Sziasztok mindenki!

Well another week has come and gone! We had another good week here in Érd. We did a lot more finding again.

One cool thing we have going on is we started meeting with this lady named Ilona. She is actually the grandma of an Elder that I knew in the MTC! (He is half Hungarian but grew up in Canada. He only came to the MTC for our last two weeks there but he came to the country with us). She lives right in our neighborhood. She met with missionaries many years ago but stopped. We went and met with her last week and she is the nicest, cutest lady! We brought out a Book of Mormon and she didn't really seem to recognize it or remember it from when she used to meet with the missionaries. We told her about it, and bore our testimonies about it. She said that she would read from it. It was a really great program. I am not going to lie though I was pretty nervous. Of course, I want to share this message with everyone that I can. But it is just super special that I can share it with the family of one of my friends.

Another cool thing that happened this past week was with a man named István. We were streeting and we stopped to talk with him. He was less than enthusiastic to speak with us so we said goodbye and kept walking. We ran into the branch house to get a box of Book of Mormons that we and the Elders had brought back from Budapest this week. Then we started walking home. As we were walking, we saw the same man walking towards us. We just figured we would say "jó napot" and keep walking. But instead, he stopped, was much kinder, and started talking to us a little. We tried to tell him a little about our message but once again, he wasn't very interested and we parted ways. We walked for a few more minutes and talked to a few more people. Then Sister Erlandsson turned to me and said "that guy is behind us again!" So we slowed down to see what would happen if we ran into him again. Just a few seconds later, we heard someone calling after us. He, very kindly, asked us if he could have some of our pass along cards with the pictures to give to his grandchildren. We said of course! We started chatting with him a little bit and as he was starting to say goodbye and walk away, we asked if he had ever heard of the Book of Mormon. At that point, it started to rain so we all ran under the tunnel by the train station. We started talking to him a little more and asked if he would be interested in reading one. He said yes. Luckily, we happened to have a box full of Book of Mormons with us! :) We exchanged phone numbers and then separated. Hopefully we will be able to meet with him later this week! :)

This week we also had Zone Training which was good. It is always fun to go into Budapest and see friends! :) We also got to stop at a really good Pékség (bakery) and get this massive bread thing filled with nutella. Oh. My. Gosh. Need I say more? :)

This past week for my personal study I have been reading from "Our Heritage" which talks about the history of our church from Joseph Smith all the way up until now. It is great!! I recommend everyone to read it (members and non members!). It was incredible to read about the examples of the early members of the church. All of the things that they went through for their faith was incredible. Their strength and faith are examples to all of us.

Well I hope you all had a great week and that this next week is good too. This is the last full week of the transfer! Next week we find out if I will be staying in Érd or leaving. I am hoping I get to stay in Érd for another transfer! I have only been here for 4 weeks! But anything can happen...

Sok szeretettel,
Simons Nővér xx

(Emily had a filter on her camera this week, so the pictures are have a strange look.  She turned it off again now.)

Erd Week 2

 Sziasztok mindenki!

Well second week in my second area is done. To be honest, there is not much to report this week. The work here in Érd is still pretty new and slow. We did lots of finding this week. But hopefully we will be able to start finding some new investigators.

I have been learning a lot about patience. Again. Before my mission, I had no idea how much I really needed to learn about patience. But it can be quite hard and exhausting to just be looking for people who want to hear our message. We face rejection constantly, which again before my mission I didn't think it would really be that hard to be rejected by people I don't even know. But after a while, it can get a little discouraging. Despite all of these though, I feel like there are people here in Érd that are prepared to hear our message. I know that with faith and the help of the Lord, we will be able to find those people and share this gospel with them. I am so grateful for this gospel and I want to share it with as many people as I can. We only had one program this week but I was able to bear my testimony to him about the Book of Mormon (a very short testimony in Hungarian :)).

Hungarian is coming along. There are certain days where I feel like I am really starting to get it. And then the next day I will feel like I don't understand very much. It also depends on the person. Some people I have no problem talking to. Others, I need my companion to translate for me! But I can see that it is slowly but surely coming along. And I know that it is not by my language skills alone that I am able to speak this language. I know that the Lord is helping to be able to communicate with the people here. I cannot wait to get to the point that I am comfortable in the language and can really connect with the people here.

Well, that's about it for the week. Things are going well. I am loving being a missionary. It's a funny thing being a missionary. I am stressed and exhausted all of the time, and yet at the same time I am really happy and able to laugh at the frustrations!

I hope you all have a great week! :)

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

Érd‏

Sziasztok!! :)

So I am writing to you all from my new area! I am serving in Érd now which is about a 20-30 minute train ride to Budapest. We have a couple of different cities in our area too. Some of them are Budatétény and Budafok. But...I don't know which other ones yet. Its fun though because we get to ride trains a lot so I love that! :)

My companion is so great. Her name is Erlandsson Nővér and she is from Salt Lake City. And she's half Swedish! We get along super well and have had a fun few days together so far. Lots of walking and tracting...lots of time to chat and get to know each other. :) The Elders here are fun too. Luke Elder has only been here for 5 weeks but he's doing great at the language (pretty jealous I'm not going to lie). Whiting Elder is our District Leader and reminds me so much of Zach! I don't know why. I saw him once last transfer and thought that he looked like Zach and now that's all I see haha so that's fun. It feels like I'm serving with my brother!

There isn't much work here. This area has only been open to sisters for 5 weeks. So Erlandsson Nővér and I are trying to find some people and lay some ground work. Its pretty hard and tiring but its good. Lots of streeting and tracting! We are hoping to find some new investigators this week and be able to start having some programs.

One thing I have really worked on this week is staying positive. I'm not going to lie, it was really hard to leave Békéscsaba. That last night, I teared up in our last program with Rozsa as I was bearing my testimony. It was so hard for me to think that I wouldn't have the chance to be with her throughout the whole process and see her get baptized. I also teared up as we were walking around the city that last night before we went home. I was just looking around and remembering all of the wonderful times I had there (felt like a cheesy movie...:P). It was hard to think that I don't know if/when I will be able to go back there. But that's just the life in the mission. We go to different areas, we work hard, we grow close to people, we try to help, and then we get moved. I know that with time, I will grow to love Érd just as much. Its kind of like what I did my whole life with moving around, just sped up to moving every few months rather than every few years. But rather than thinking about all the things I left behind and being sad, I am just excited for this new area and this new adventure. Every place will be different and will be great for different reasons. I am excited to see the work start to progress more and more here.

I hope you all have a great week! Happy labor day!

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx