11 Months!

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a great week. We had a good week here in Pécs. Here are a couple of updates! :)

Cool story

So a few weeks ago Sister Hafen and I were streeting on our way to a program. We stopped this lady and told her we taught a free English class. She smiled at us and started speaking to us in English! We asked where she learned such good English. She told us she lived in the States for 7 years with her husband and was just back here for school. We asked where she lived. Ogden, Utah!! Random, huh!? So she knew a lot about her church because a lot of her neighbours are members. She told us she misses it there and her husband (who is still there) but she really needed to come back and kind of just find herself. She told us her name was Sarah and said that she would check out our English class sometime. We didn't get her phone number and I regretted it! We hoped so bad that she would call us sometime. Anyways, a few weeks passed. Then, on Saturday we had English class. I saw Elder Jensen in our classroom talking to someone so I went in to say hi. Sure enough, Sarah was sitting there!! It took me a second to register who it was and then when I did I was so excited!! We tried to set up to meet with her but she didn't have time right now because she is in a play. Once again, I didn't get her phone number and regretted it. Anyways, this morning as we arrived at the library, sure enough guess who walks up to us!!! Sarah!! We were so excited!! I took the chance and asked for her phone number and said we should do something sometime and she was excited. I told her how it was funny we just happened to run into her. She told us that she doesn't think things just happen but that they always happen for a reason! She is so cool! I will keep you all updated if anything happens with her :)

Church

So Sister Hafen and I were standing in the entry way at church yesterday greeting people as they came in. At this point, i didn't expect any of our investigators to show up. About 5 minutes before the meeting started though, I turned to see who was coming in the door. It was Viki and Ági!!!! (They are our two 23 year old investigators. They are so cute! We have become such good friends with them). Sister Hafen and I were so excited we ran over and gave them big hugs. We all acted as though we hadn't seen each other in months but it had only been a few days. They came in and sat with us. They really liked the last two speakers in church. It was the Broadheads, a senior couple here in Hungary that work on Family History. They are literally two of the kindest, sweetest, happiest people I have ever met in my life. They brought such a wonderful spirit and I think Viki and Ági were able to feel it. Sadly, they could only stay for the first hour (although I think Viki was curious and wanted to see what the last two hours were like...maybe next week :)). It was so great to have them there! I tried to focus on the next two meetings but I was just so excited I kept thinking about them! :)

Hungarian Class

András, the newest member of the branch (and basically mine and Sister Hafen's big brother) taught us a little Hungarian this week. He and Zsombi, also a new member and 2nd counselor in the Branch Presidency, wanted to do a weekly Hungarian class for us missionaries which is so nice of them. It was cool to get a little practice and really learn from Hungarians.

Sunday Night Dinner

On Sunday night we went over to the Szabadkai's house for dinner which was so great. I love that family!!! I am really excited that I will get a transfer and a half with President Szabadkai as Mission President. They are such a good family. And we actually talked a bit in English with them and they all speak such good English. They are just so kind and it was so nice to be in a home with the Spirit so strong. Sister Hafen and I shared a spiritual message about how we are never alone, even in hard times. We showed the Mormon Message "Never Alone" by Elaine S. Dalton https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2009-08-33-youre-never-alone?lang=eng .
That video helped me a lot, too! Even when times are hard, we are never alone. We always have the Lord with us to help us. Even the times when we feel so alone, those are the times when the Lord is especially with us. We can always pray to Heavenly Father. Those times when we don't want to pray or we feel like we can't, those are the times we most need it.

Well that's about it for this week. I hope you all have a wonderful week. I cant believe this is the last week of February!! Hopefully Spring is coming soon! :)

Sok szeretettel,


Simons Nővér xx

Blizzard‏

Hi everyone!!

Wow what a week! It definitely felt like longer than just one week but it was great. We met with some cool people, had some great experiences and lots of funny moments.

A few updates on investigators:
We met with Ági a few times this week. What was super cool is her 15 year old daughter came over before we started and just started kind of glancing through her mom's Book of Mormon. We were about to start so she put it back on the table but we asked if she wanted her own copy. She was really happy and accepted it! She carefully opened it and looked through the pictures at the beginning. We taught them about the Plan of Salvation which Ági loved. Her attitude is so incredible to me. She has a really hard life and she is just so happy. She told us that we all have hard things in life, we just have to learn to love them. She said, "I wouldn't have asked for my kids to be sick but they are. You just have to love the situation." I am so impressed by her. We invited her to church but she couldn't come this week. We invited Kriszta who really wanted to come but her dad wouldn't let her. Hopefully his heart will be softened and he will let her come next week.

We have a new investigator named Ilona that we started meeting with this week. She is a super nice, soft-spoken lady. She has met with the missionaries before. She has a cousin who is a member in another city. She is so sweet. I am excited to start teaching her again.


Adventure
So we had an adventure this week. There was a blizzard on Friday. We had a program about a half hour bus ride away with an inactive lady and her son. We got on the bus and started heading that way. The bus was packed. And it kept sliding whenever it stopped because the roads were so bad. We were a little nervous. But about 20 minutes out, the bus stopped at a bus stop and everyone had to get off because it was dangerous. I had NO idea where we were. And it was snowing. So we walked across the street to the other bus stop to go back home. But the people there told us that the bus wasn't coming. So we just looked at each other and started walking the direction everyone else was walking. We got to the next bus stop and hoped that there the bus would be coming. But the whole bus system shut down. So we started walking again. As we called the Elders, not knowing what to do, we thought we recognized some of the buildings next to us. When we were able to look around a little we realized those were the buildings that we go to tract in! That was relieving that we sort of knew where we were. Although we were still a good 20 minute bus ride out. So we started walking the way we knew the bus always goes. On our way, we saw cars, buses and trucks pulled over on the sides of the roads. One car was trying to go...the guy was standing outside trying to push it. So we ran over and helped him push his car. We walked through this little ghetto and along the side of the train tracks. After about an hour and a half, we made it home! There were so many miracles about this experience! First of all, that we got off at the stop we did. If we had gotten off one stop further, I don't think we would have found the buildings we tracted to know the general direction to go home. Another miracle, that we were able to navigate home at all! We had never walked that way before...only taken the bus. And it was a good 4 or 5 miles out. Another miracle, we weren't even cold. It was cold out. And snowing. My hair was literally frozen by the time we made it to the branch house. But somehow, while we were walking we felt just fine! And the best part is the whole time we were laughing! We made it to the branch house and the Elders were there and just couldn't believe what we looked like haha once we made it there and inside we kind of crashed and felt the cold and were absolutely exhausted. But it was a cool experience! We were so blessed!! I know that it wasn't because of us that we made it home so well!


Budapest

On Sunday night, we traveled to Budapest for New Missionary Training and Interviews with President Smith. It was fun. I love riding trains! Its about a 3 hour train ride from Pécs to Budapest. We got there and hung out a little with Sister Smith before the other Sisters arrived. When they did, we all had dinner and then went to bed. It was fun to see some of my friends who are also training (in the picture...Sister Shnoor, Sister Sellers, me and Sister Erlandsson). On Monday morning, I had my interview with President which was great. I always love meeting with and talking to him. Once all four of us had our interviews, we went over to the mall to get some lunch and look around. It was fun to exchange stories and talk about how training is going. It was also just fun to catch up with each other. After lunch, we went to the New Missionary training which was good. After that, we headed back to the train station and back to Pécs! We stopped in one city on the way back for a while though. It was pretty snowy out and I was afraid there was something wrong with the train or the tracks and they were going to make us get off. Luckily the train started again and we made it home safely! :)


I love my companion! She makes training so easy. We are so similar and get along great. I feel like a proud mom whenever she speaks or reads! I love seeing how much she is trying and improving, even over just a few weeks! I am so excited for this transfer with her. Its going to be awesome.


Well, it was a great week here, despite the weather which I am not a fan of! I am excited for this next week. Tomorrow we get to go to Dunaújváros for Zone Training so that will be fun. Lots of traveling this week!!!


I hope you all have a great week! Happy Valentines day! :)

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

February already?‏

Hello Everyone!

Hope you all had a great week! :) We had an eventful week here. I got my new companion! Her name is Sister Hafen. She is from Nevada and just got to the country on Wednesday. She is so great! I really like her. We get along super well and she's just happy and excited to be here.

I was pretty stressed last Transfer Day about training. I was worried that whole morning on the train but thought that once I got to the mission home to the training meeting that I would feel more calm, but nope! I got even more nervous during the meeting haha especially because they had the new greenies in the meeting with us so we were all just peeking over and looking at each other the whole time trying to guess who we would get put with. Whenever I would look over at the 4 sisters I kept looking at Sister Hafen and thinking maybe I would get her. Then they called my name up and said that I would be training...."Sister Hafen!" As soon as they called her name and we met in the middle to take a picture, I felt so much calmer! We sat down together and she told me that she knew she was going to get me! It was kind of funny how we both thought we would get each other. We started chatting and the more I talked to her, the less stressed I felt. It has been such a fun few days. She has been so ready to work hard but we have so much fun doing it. I felt like a proud mom on Sunday haha she had to go up and introduce herself in church and then bear her testimony. I was so nervous for her as she was going up but I knew she would do okay because she had been practicing. I was so proud of her when she did it!! :) She really tries to work hard and is anxious to get better. I think we are going to have such a fun transfer together! I just hope I can help her start off her mission strong and she can have a great beginning to her mission.


We went out tracting on our first day together. That was a cool experience. We tracted into this really nice old couple and they let us in! We asked them a few questions and then they asked us a ton of questions about ourselves. They were really religious and not really interested in our message. But they were still really nice. We asked them if they knew anyone that might be interested in listening to us and immediately the wife said, "yes! our neighbor upstairs! let me call her!" So she picked up the phone to call her and see if we could come up and talk to her! She wasn't home though so we will go back sometime this week. They also told us their next door neighbor might be interested. It was a really cool experience. They were so nice and genuine when they told us how happy they were to meet us. We also have met a couple of other really nice people tracting. So far nothing huge has come out of it but we have 8 and a half more weeks together! :)


Overall things are going well. It has been kind of a weird transition coming to Pécs. It was a much bigger city than I have been used to. I had gotten really comfortable in Érd. I was having more responsibilities than I had before. It was a little weird and hard for a while. It's still hard. Missionary life in general is hard. But I am feeling a lot more optimistic and excited again. I think the greenie fire I have with me now helps! ;) I am really excited for this transfer. I hope we can see lots of miracles! I know that we just need to have faith and do all we can, and the Lord will make up the difference. We are never alone! The times in our lives where we feel the most alone, where we feel like we have no one to talk to or we don't even know what to say, are the times when the Lord is with us even more. Sometimes it is hard to see but He is always there. My testimony of prayer has grown a lot on my mission. Our Heavenly Father is always there for us to talk to. He wants us to talk to Him. All we have to do is pray! :)

Well I hope you all have a great week! Thank you to all who email me! It really means so much to hear from family and friends.


Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx