Sziasztok!‏

Sziasztok!!

Hope you all had a great week. We had a super good/busy week here! I don't even know where to start!


People
Viki & Ági - They are both doing well. They have become some of my good friends and I'm so grateful to know them. They are some that I will be friends with for a long time even after my mission :) We went over to Viki's house on Friday and Ági cooked some dinner for us and we just had a little girls night. It was so much fun! In our program with Viki, she told us that she tried praying and said she just had a really good, peaceful feeling. We tried to explain to her that was the Holy Ghost! In our program with Ági, we asked her if she would say the closing prayer and she about jumped out of her seat with a huge smile on our face! She was like "yes!! if you'll let me!" They are doing great!

Ági - We didn't have a chance to meet with Ági that much this week. We did meet with her on Saturday night and she told us that she and Csaba (the guy she lives with) were both coming to church on Sunday! We were so excited. I had to ask her to repeat what she said because it was such a surprise. They laughed at how excited we were. Sadly though, at about 2 minutes before we going to pick them up on Sunday, Ági called and said their youngest son was not doing well so they couldn't come. We were pretty disappointed. But its okay. Next week! :) One really cool thing though is that Csaba has been not into the church at all and never listens or anything. Ági told us that on Friday, she prayed about Csaba. Then she said on Saturday, she just found the courage to talk to him and ask him about church and he said he would go!! It was amazing! She really is gaining a testimony of prayer and its amazing to see how it works. Csaba's heart really is being softened. I really hope next week they can all come to church! Especially because it will be fast Sunday.

András - our recent convert András got the priesthood last week and then yesterday he blessed the Sacrament. And he gave his first talk!! We were so excited for him and proud of him! :)

Zone Training
On Friday we had another Zone Training to go over what we learned at the Zone Conference with Elder Kearon last week. It was kind of nice though because rather than travelling, the Zone Leaders and the Elders from Kaposvár came to Pécs! :) It was a great Zone Training. It was cool to review everything and listen to what other people learned from the Zone Conference. We had President and Sister Smith with us so it was good to get their insights too. It was also fun to see our friends of course :) It was kind of weird to see all those Elders in Pécs haha but we were able to take them on a quick tour before they had to head back. Sister Hafen and I loved being able to show our friends where we live! :)

One Year
I already wrote a lot last week about my one year mark so I won't say a ton about that. But I did hit my one year mark! So crazy! On Thursday night we went out to dinner with the Elders and one of the members in the ward. And then we went home for the night and about an hour later I walked into our kitchen and Sister Hafen surprised me with a little "Happy 1 Year" banner and some pictures and stuff. She also made me two little paper dresses to burn (because I didn't want to burn any of my actual clothes haha) so I burned some paper dresses to celebrate :)

Well, that's just a little bit about our week. I can't even remember everything that happened. But those are some of the highlights. :) I hope you all have a great week. We have transfers next week so I won't be able to get back on email until next Tuesday. But I will let you all know what is happening with transfers!

Thank you for all of your love, support, emails and prayers. It really does mean a lot! Love you all!

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

One Year

Sziasztok!!

I hope you all had a great week!

This year, I will hit my one year mark. I cannot believe that this point has come. I still remember getting my mission call like it was yesterday. And then even then I had to wait a few months before entering the MTC. This past year has been a roller coaster. I have learned so much. I have had some of the best of times and some of the hardest of times in my life. I have met some of the most incredible people that I know will be in my life forever. I have learned so much about the church. I have learned so much about myself. My testimony has been tried and tested but has grown so much. As many of you know, I resisted the thought/feeling I had to serve a mission for a couple of years. Now, I can't imagine my life without serving a mission. As hard as it has been, I have grown so much from it and will always be grateful that I served. Even though I am pretty exhausted ;) I am excited I still have 6 months left. I am going to try and focus on all the good things because before I know it, I will be on my way home and sad to be leaving!

Zone Conference

This past week we traveled to Budapest for Zone Conference. It was a special Zone Conference. Elder Kearan from the area Seventy came to speak to us. It was really cool! It was a lot of discussion that he just guided. There are a lot of things I learned that I want to implement to help me be a better missionary. There are a lot of things I also realized that I need to change. But the amazing thing about this gospel, is we can always repent and become better. It was also nice to go to Budapest and see some missionary friends! :) That's always fun. We also got to ride the train there and back with our friends who serve in Kaposvár.

Funeral

On Friday, us missionaries were asked to go sing at a funeral. We were actually asked by some people in the Érd branch. I got a call earlier in the week from a number I didnt' know. When they said who it was, I was so excited because he was the Ward Mission Leader in Érd! He is originally from Pécs and someone he knew died and he was asked to do the service. So even though it was under sad circumstances, I got to see an amazing family from Érd this week. We were waiting inside the cemetery just waiting and they walked in. The kids saw me and ran up and gave me big hugs! It was so nice to see them. I got to see them again on Sunday too at church. One of the little girls kept asking me to come back to Érd with them. :) It was so fun to see them.

Investigators

Aniko - We had a program with a new investigator of ours we met in English Class. We set up with her to teach her a little about the church and to help her with English. In the end, we didn't speak any English. We started the program and she asked us for a Book of Mormon. We explained it to her a bit and she said she would read it. We then took her on a little tour of our branch house because she wanted to see all of the paintings we had. It was a great program!

Ági - Some exciting news about Ági is that she accepted a baptismal date! We had a program with her a few days ago. Things have been going pretty slow with her and honestly Sister Hafen and I were feeling very discouraged and not sure what we should do. But a few nights ago, it was very calm in the house which is rare. We asked her if she had read and prayed. She said she had. We asked if she had prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was true and all of the things we taught her were true. She said she had and she believed it was all true! We asked her if she would prepare to be baptized on April 18th and she said yes!! We were so excited. There is still a pretty big obstacle that we have to tackle but I know that if we all have faith and she puts her trust in God, it will work out.

Well that's about it for this week. We have a busy, exciting week ahead of us. On Thursday, we have my year mark and Sister Hafen's 4 month mark so we are going to celebrate somehow! And then on Friday we are having another Zone Training. The exciting part is that they are all coming to Pécs!

I hope you all have a great week. This church is true! Heavenly Father loves us all so much. We can pray anywhere, anytime. He will always listen. Christ loves us. He suffered and died for all of us. We can always become better.

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

Hello!

Hey Everyone!

First, I just want to give a quick shout out to my mom for her birthday!!!!!!! Woohoo hope its the best birthday ever!

Well, to be perfectly honest, this week was rough. We had some things happen in our District that was hard. Then Sister Hafen got a call a few days ago with some sad news about a family member. So, needless to say, its been a little hard. But we are doing a lot better now. We have been able to stay positive and to support each other. (Well, at least I hope I have been able to support her through this hard time with her family!) I have to say though I am so grateful to have Sister Hafen with me at this time. She is so awesome. We just get along so well and have so much fun together. I am seriously hoping that we can stay together next transfer too ;)

I actually had a pretty cool experience this morning during my personal study. I was just reading from where I was in the Book of Mormon which is 2 Nephi 4. It was really cool beacuse basically from verse 17 to the end, it was exactly how I was feeling. It was good for me to see that even Nephi who was a great prophet, goes through the same kinds of thoughts and feelings as I do! It was good to see how he kind of dealt with what he was feeling. It was like a good little pep talk I got from Heavenly Father. It just shows how much Heavenly Father really loves us and answers our prayers. It also shows that the scriptures really are the word of God. We can comminucate with our Heavenly Father through prayer and a lot of times He communicates back to us through the scriptures.

We had a program with Ági this week. We invited her to Family Night on Tuesday and she said she could come (that will be tomorrow). Then we asked if she was sure she could never come to church in the mornings. She had a hesitant look on her face and then asked Csaba if she could go to church Sunday morning. He said yes!! We were so excited. We planned to go pick her up Sunday morning to walk with her. Sunday morning came and as we were walking to her house, we get a call. She told us she couldn't come because her son came home. We were both bummed but just turned around and started walking to church. When we walked into the building though, Kati (a nice lady who has been investigating for a few years but can't get baptized right now) was there! We have been trying to help her come to church the whole time I have been in Pécs. That was a pretty great surprise to see her there!!

We had a prorgram with a man named Tibor in the brach. He was inactive for a while but now is doing well and coming back to church. We asked him if there was anyone he knew that would be interested in learning about the gospel. Well, he volunteers at this place teaching older people how to use computers. He said that he had talked about the church a little with them and that he would bring them a Book of Mormon. But then he asked if we just wanted to come and give it to them and talk about it. So we went over and had a little program with these two older ladies. It was really cool! They just asked what was different about our religion and what we believed. We gave them each a Book of Mormon which they were excited about. We invited them to church (sadly niether of them came). It was kind of funny though. Tibor was saying that whoever came to church, he would teach them something really cool on the computer! haha But they were super sweet. I think we will try and go back again this week and talk with them again.

Well, that's about it for this week. Things are getting better. We are happy and trying to have an awesome rest of the transfer! I hope you all have a wonderful week!! :)

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

March!

Hi Everyone!

What the march?! Where the heck has the time gone?!

Well this week was good. We had good programs with some of our investigators. We also went on Splits in Tatabánya. That was fun. Our Sister Training Leaders are Sister Geröly (who I served with in Békéscsaba) and Sister Feil (who is the group ahead of me). We rode the train and met the sisters in Kelenföld (in Budapest) and then rode another train to Tatabánya. We got there and I went first with Sister Geröly. It was fun to be able to serve with her again! :) We did a little streeting together and then had a program where we taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a little weird at first teaching a program where I didn't know the people at all but once the lesson started going it was alright. Then we streeted back home and had dinner. After that I went with Sister Feil to another program where we talked about the importance of prayer, scripture study and keeping the sabbath day holy. It was a good program.

Then on Thursday morning! We got up at 5:45 and ran over to some small turf fields by the branch house and played soccer with the Elders! It was SO MUCH FUN! I haven't really played soccer my entire mission and it was so fun!! But funny story. So the Elders called Wednesday night to see if we wanted to play. Sister Hafen and I jumped at the chance to play! But then we realized...we hadn't brought any workout clothes/shoes. Sister Geröly was kind enough to loan us some sweatpants and sweatshirt. But we still didn't have shoes. So, Sister Hafen and I ran over to the branch house wearing our boots and then we played soccer in just our socks. The Elders were nice enough to offer to lend us their shoes. But when we put them on they were WAY too big. So it was pretty cold and wet and kind of hurt but so worth it! It was so much fun!!!

I learned a lot from the Sister Training leaders on splits. It was fun! But it was also really nice to come back home to Pécs! :)

This morning, Sister Hafen and I went on a run through Pécs. It was so fun. We just went and explored a little and we found a little castle. We ran up to it and walked around a little. Then we ran past this beautiful church. I feel so lucky to be serving in such a beautiful city!

Well, that's about it for the week. Unfortunately none of our investigators were able to come to Church on Sunday. Hopefully next week! :) The work is kind of struggling right now. But hopefully this week will be better and we can help our investigators progress more.

I know this is church is true. I know that Christ suffered and died for all of us. I know that when times are hard, we can always rely on Him. That is something I have been learning a lot the past few months. We can always pray to our Heavenly Father for comfort. We are never alone.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! And that Spring comes soon! :)

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx