"Csokit vagy csalunk!"‏

Sziasztok!

I hope you all had a great week! This week was definitely interesting here in Érd. It was a busy week. We had about 22 finding hours with not much to show for it, unfortunately. But, nonetheless we worked really hard and we are hoping that we will be able to meet with a few more people this coming week! :)

On Wednesday, we decided to spend some time going and looking up some inactive members. We had quite the adventure. After a few hours and no success, we decided to try one more house before English class. We made it up there and realized the gate didn't have a doorbell. So, after I snooped around the gate a little looking for a doorbell, a man came out! We walked over and said we were looking for Lászlo. He was Lászlo! It was so cool! We had no way of getting ahold of him and he just happened to come out at the right time (although he probably saw me awkwardly looking around his gate ;)). We talked to him for a little bit and gave him a Liahona. He has been inactive for over 10 years now. I don't know if he will want to come back any time soon but it felt great that we were able to find him and talk to him a little bit!

On Thursday, it was a holiday. Which was hard because no one was out and no one really wanted to talk to us. It was so weird to see the streets basically empty! It was also pretty cold and rainy so everyone we did try and talk to, did not really want to talk to us.

On Friday we had a really interesting day! We had planned to go over to Eszter's house (an inactive member) to help her clean her house a bit (she's pretty sick and has a hard tiem moving). We went to the branch house and changed into some jeans before we ran over to her apartment. (That was the first time in 5 months that I had worn jeans and I forgot how great they are :) and they fit still! ;)) Anyways we ran over there and she had prepared us a nice lunch. So we ate and taught her the Restoration again. Then, we asked her where she wanted us to start with cleaning! She then told us she wanted us to do the windows so it was too cold today to clean. We felt kind of dumb because we basically just went and did a program in jeans haha! Oh well we ran straight back to the branch house and changed back into our proselyting clothes. After that, we did a little streeting before we headed over to the bus stop. We ended up waiting for 30 minutes for the bus!! (We looked at the wrong day and didn't consider that it was the "holiday" hours even though it wasn't a holiday anymore. So we made it out there and we tracted for a few hours. It was FREEZING!!!! We met a few cool people though! But no let ins. One funny thing that happened was we rang this one csengő and this old guy came out...in a SPEEDO. That is a normal thing to happen in summer. But dude! Its freezing outside!! haha it took a lot not to laugh when i saw him lol After we tracted for a few hours, we had dinner at a member's house. It was so nice!! They are such a cute family. There son is the one who got baptized last week. It was so nice to be in a family home. The dad is the Ward Mission Leader so we meet with him every week. But it was nice to be able to sit down and talk with them all and just get to know them.

On Sunday, Eszter came to church!! She hadn't been to church in 12 years! It was so exciting to have her there. We also had a surprise visitor at church. There is this lady here in Érd that we have seen a few times on the street that...has conversations with herself. A lot. Anyways, we were standing in the entry way before church greeting people as they came in and all of a sudden, she walked in! Sister E and I just looked at each other confused! But, we welcomed her in and she came and sat in on Sacrament meeting! It was interesting at first but by the time the meeting was over and she left, her countenance had changed and she was so sweet and nice. I'm not totally sure what/if anything will come of that. But I think it was really good for her and it was a good environment for her to be in.

This week we are starting a mission wide study of Christ-like attributes. I am so excited. We started on faith today and I already feel like I learned a ton about faith. I will let you all know next week what else I learn! :)

I hope you all have a great week! I am stealing the vocab from the AP's this week to share with you all! :)

"trick or treat"- "csokit vagy csalunk"

vámpír- vampire

csontváz- skeleton

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

October 20, 2014

Sziasztok mindenki!

I hope you all had a wonderful week! Things are good here. The weather is pretty weird. It is pretty cold in the morning but by the afternoon it is really warm again.

I don't have a ton to report this week to be perfectly honest. We did have a program with Ilona this morning that was great! We talked to her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ (the five "steps"...faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end). She told us how much she loves meeting with us. We felt the spirit so strong in that program. Oh I just love her so much she is so stinking cute!

I have always known that it is important to go to church. But this week I felt like I relearned how important it is. In this branch, it is technically 2 hour long church. But occasionally, there is a third hour of Sunday school. We were struggling with some of our weekly numbers and I am sad to say I hoped that there wouldn't be the third hour yesterday (because it usually started late and got out really late) so we could go out and work more. However, there was the third hour! (of course ;)). In the class though, although I didn't understand every word, I was able to follow along with the whole lesson and I really learned a lot. And, we got out at the scheduled time we planned. And then we went to see a less active member and were able to meet with her and were able to work for a few hours and get the hours that we need. Basically, I could see the blessings that we received from going to all of our meetings! And it was a really great lesson!

We had a baptism this week! This 8 year old boy named Nímrod got baptized! It was so special. His dad baptized him and when he came out of the water he just gasped and smiled and was so excited. It was SO cute!! Us missionaries did a special musical number. We sang "I Feel My Saviors Love"...accapella. It wasnt the best but I think it brought the Spirit :) It was fun we combined English and Hungarian and I think Nímrod loved it so thats all that counts! :)

Hungarian is coming along! I have also gained a testimony of legit studies every morning :) The mornings where I do a rendes language study, I am able to understand and speak a lot more that day. The days where I don't put in as much effort as I should, I struggle a little more. I love this language though! I do get a little bummed when I try and speak Spanish and only Hungarian comes out. But I know that this is the language that the Lord needs me to speak right now! When I get home with a little effort I think I can get my Spanish back too! :) Hungarian is hard, but its so much fun. It is so exciting when you are able to understand more and more and speak more and more. All thanks to the Lord though. I know that without his help there is no way I would be speaking this much of the language after just 7 months!

Which reminds me, yesterday I hit 7 months! Oh my gosh I cannot believe how fast time goes!! I know I say that pretty much every week but its so true.

Things are great! I love being a missionary. I love being able to share this message with the people here. I love seeing how it blesses their lives. I love being able to watch them develop their own testimonies. It's all true! :)

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Thank you for all of your prayers and support. It is sincerely appreciated.

Sok szeretettel,
Simons Nővér xx

October 13, 2014

Hi Everyone!!

Hope you all had a great week! We had a good week here in Érd. First, we had a program with Ilona that went so well. We brought Aniko with us and they hit it off right away! We taught her about the Plan of Salvation. She is so sweet. She loved hearing about how this gospel really helped Aniko. Aniko was baptized about two years ago and has such a strong testimony. Elder Gonzales (Ilona's grandson who was in the MTC with me) called us the next day and said that he had talked to her on the phone. He told us that she LOVES meeting with us. He said that she told him all about the "Mormon Convention" that she went to with the girls! (By Mormon Convention, she meant General Conference ;)). I am so excited. I hope that she continues to progress. She is very interested in everything that we teach and does read from the Book of Mormon! We'll see! I'll keep you all updated with how it goes! :)

This week we went over to dinner at the Palmer family's house. They are an American family that just moved into the Branch! The mom is Hungarian and the dad is American. It was so nice of them to have us all over. It was really interesting because I could remember all the times when my family would have the missionaries over. And this time, I was one of the missionaries! I could see myself sitting where the 15 year old daughter was sitting. We could feel such a good spirit in their home. They will be such a great strength to this branch.

I learned a really good lesson this week. Sister Erlandsson and I really wanted to get Standard of Excellence this week. Although a worthy goal, I think that I focused a little to much on just getting standard. We came pretty close but yesterday I was a little discouraged because we weren't going get it. We went out tracting for a few hours yesterday and had a few interesting conversations at doors but most people were just not interested. We got to the last door and I was still feeling a little discouraged. A néni came out and we started trying to talk to her but her dogs were barking too loudly...so she told us to come in! I was so surprised. But we went in and started asking her some of the survey questions. She seemed really sad but was really nice talking to us. We asked her if she could ask God one question, what it would be. She thought for a minute and as she started talking, she started to cry. She said she had had a baby that died and started telling us about it. It was an interesting experience for me as I listened to her, I could feel the love that the Savior had for her. I had just me this néni and yet I just felt so much love and compassion for her. I just wanted to hug her and tell her how much her Heavenly Father loves her and teach her everything right then. At that moment, I remembered the real reason I am here. Of course I would love to get Standard again :) but, I am here to help bring others unto Christ and to help them come to know their Heavenly Father and their Savior. We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her we had a message that could bring her peace and happiness. She was so excited to receive a Book of Mormon and we set up to go back the coming week!

Hungarian words for the week :)
kém - spy
láthatatlan - invisible
szemöldök - eyebrow

Also, I discovered a song on my iPod (thanks to Mckell #shoutout :)) that I had never heard before. It's called, "Come See the Light" by Freddie Ashby. Everyone should go listen to it!! I have had it on repeat for like a week now haha it is so good!

Hope you all have a great week! :)

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx





   

Általános Konferencia :)‏

Sziasztok mindenki!!

I hope you all had a great week!

We had a good week here in Érd. We had Zone Conference on Wednesday which was so fun. We got to go to Buda for a few hours and receive some trainings and guidance on how we can improve as missionaries. We learned how to strive to be "Master Teachers." They focused a lot on loving the people here. Because we aren't here just to get numbers and baptize for the sake of baptizing. We are here to help others come unto Christ. We are here to help and love these people!

We also had General Conference this week! Woohoo! It was so good. We got to watch all of it except for Sunday Afternoon session and the Women's Meeting and Saturday Morning we watched in Hungarian so I didn't honestly understand a lot of what was going on. But I still had some really great experiences during the Hungarian sessions. As we were waiting for the Women's conference, I was sitting out in the hall. All of a sudden I hear someone come in and I look up...and it was ILONA!!! AH I was so excited to see her come in!!!! I got up to go greet her and then a man came in. She said it was her boyfriend and asked if it was okay if she had brought him. We said "of course!!!" So ILONA CAME! And she brought her boyfriend! OH my gosh it was so great. They stayed for the whole Women's conference and I think she really liked it. We are meeting with her this week with one of the branch members so we can see what she really thought of it.

Right after, we watched the Saturday Morning session live in Hungarian. I was a little bummed I didn't get to watch it in English but I learned a lesson pretty quickly. The Hungarian connection started having some difficulties. After a few minutes, they ended up putting it up in English. Elder Whiting started translating for a little bit (and did a great job!) but we could tell how difficult it was and how quickly he had to do it. I just felt so guilty. I couldn't even focus on what was being said, to be honest. I just felt so bad that I couldn't help Elder Whiting translate. I felt so bad that the people of the branch couldn't understand anything that was being said. I just felt so awful. I remember saying a prayer and just asking Heavenly Father to let the Hungarian one work instead. Sure enough, I few minutes later the English connection started cutting out. They went back and tried the Hungarian connection again and it worked! And not only that, it had no problems for the rest of the conference. The second that it came back on in Hungarian, I felt the Spirit again. I was so grateful that the people in the branch could hear and understand the words that the people were saying. My testimony of prayer grew so much that night! :)

We did have the opportunity to watch the next two sessions in English the next day which was a blessing. I loved Elder Holland's talk about loving and serving those around you. I felt like he had written that talk for me. It was interesting because as I was listening, I wrote down a question in my journal of how i can better help people? At the time, I specifically wanted to know how I could help people when I get home from my mission. But the answer I received a few minutes later answered that question and how I can better help people now. Just a few minutes after I had written down the question Elder Holland said something like, "God knows how you can help. He will guide you." Things would be so much better in this world if we were all just a little kinder and loving to the people around us. We should all be striving to help each other and to lift each others burdens. Another thing I loved about conference was how two talks (at least that I saw) were given in the person's native language. How cool was that?!?!?!?!?! It was interesting because the first one was in Chinese so that had been translated into English and then into Hungarian. I just thought that was so cool. It shows how world wide our church is! I hope they do that more in the future!!

Anyways those are my few insights from this past week! I hope you all had a great conference weekend. To those of you who are not members of the church, I would encourage you to go and listen to some of these talks that were given this weekend! They are so wonderful. The people who give them are really called of God. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet of God today and that through him, Christ guides and directs this church.

I thought it would be fun to start sending home a few fun words that I learn each week!

varázspálca - magic wand
kaloz - pirate
kihallgatni - to eavesdrop
Általános Konferencia - General Conference

Love you all! Hope you all have a great week! :)

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx