"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

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.)