April 27, 2015

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a good week. We had a crazy week that was eventful but at the same time not a lot happened haha We had a lot of programs cancel on us but we still had some really cool experiences.

Kirándulás
So on Saturday we went on a hike with the ward. It was actually pretty fun. The only downside is it took up most of our day and we were home later than we planned because of some construction on the road we ended up stuck on a bus for a while. It was fun though! We spent most of our time talking with Barnabás, a recent convert. He has been going through a hard time in his life so it was really good for him to just be able to talk to us and hopefully we were able to help him a little. Before the hike, we knew it was going to take a lot of our day but we felt like it would be good to go. Honestly, we both kind of felt like we needed to go for Barnabás, to help him a bit. Plus we got to get to know some of the ward members which was really good!

Józsi
So Józsi is a member who has been inactive for like 10 years or so. The Sisters found him streeting right before I got here and he happened to be a member. We met with him for the first time when I got here. He told us how he was baptized like 10 years ago or something but he had a hard time to quit smoking. He was embarrassed because of it and went inactive. But about year ago, he quit smoking and he thought that God would tell him when would be the right time to go back to church. Then the sisters streeted into him! :) We have been trying to get him to come to church for a few weeks now but things have come up and he hasn't been able to. Yesterday morning we called him to invite him and he was so scared. He didn't want to come and said maybe in 2 weeks. But we finally encouraged him to come and he loved it!!! After 10 years he finally came back to church! He seemed so happy! He even found the guy that baptized him all those years ago and talked to him. I was SO happy that he was able to come to church and just to see how happy he was! :)It just shows how sometimes, we need to take a leap of faith. There may be things the Lord wants us to do and we will be scared or nervous to do it. But we will always be blessed when we follow the Lord. And He will never leave us alone! :)


Ági from Pécs
So I don't know if you all remember Ági in Pécs who has the kids. Well Sister Hafen called me yesterday and she finally went to church! and she LOVED it!! Apparently everyone was so nice to her and in Relief Society all the women were befriending her and telling her they would be happy to help her with her kids. And then they stayed about an hour after church with her just talking to people. A part of me so wishes I could have been there to see it but I am just so glad that she had such a good experience :)


Splits
We had our first splits this week. The sisters from Érd came. Sister Naegle and I both served in Érd so we know what its like. Honestly its a pretty hard area to serve in so the sisters were really excited to get out and come to Buda for the day. It was fun though!


Edit
The other night when we got back from the hike, we were absolutely exhausted but we knew that we needed to go out and work a little more. So we went streeting for an hour before we had to go home. There weren't many people out on the streets. But we walked past this lady who was squatting down by the building smoking. We handed her an English Class flyer and started talking to her. She is a single mom of six kids! I don't even remember how it happened but we all of a sudden were kneeling down on the side walk with her teaching her about the Book of Mormon. It was so cool. She wanted to meet with us so we got her phone number and set up a time to meet with her next week. It just shows how the Lord blesses us. We were exhausted and all I wanted to do was go to bed, but we went out and worked like we were supposed to and we were lead to Edit! I will keep you all updated on what happens with her! :)

The Church is true! The Book of Mormon is true. Anyone can read it, and pray for themselves to know it is true.

Well I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

April 20, 2015

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful week.

Things are so good here. I seriously love life right now. I love being in Buda. I wanted to be here my whole mission and I love that I am here now. I love my companion. We get along so well and have so much fun. It will be sad to see her go home in June.

I don't have a ton to report on this week to be honest. We did have a Zone Training on Friday and Sister Naegle and I had to do a part of the training. I was pretty nervous but I think it turned out okay. We did our training on working with members. That was my first training so I'm glad it is over with! We are going on our first splits this week and I am a little nervous for that too but I'm sure it will turn out okay.

Some of the investigators we are working with right now:

András - he is so great!! He like mid 30s or so and super nice. He is progressing really well. The thing is, he knows its all true but I think he is just scared. So we are trying to help him gain his own testimony and feel comfortable with it all without pushing him.

Csaba - super funny guy. We help him with English as well. He calls his "amerikai barátaim" which is "my american friends!" Not sure he quite gets it all but he comes to church and loves it! Things will be slowly with this one haha

We have some more investigators too that I will tell you more about next time as we meet with them. We are really blessed right now with how our work is going.

Sorry we are kind of in a rush today to go see some sites in Buda. Thank you to everyone who emailed me this week and I'm so sorry if I didn't have a chance to respond. But it really does mean a lot to hear from you all. I love hearing about what is going on at home.

Hope you all have a great week! :)

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

Seven Goals‏

Hi Everyone!!

Wow so a lot has changed since last week. I am now serving in Buda with Sister Naegle and I love it! Leaving Pécs was super hard though. Definitely the hardest area for me to leave. I loved that city, the people and Sister Hafen so much. On Tuesday night we had a little going away party for the missionaries who were leaving so that was nice. Even President and Sister Szabadkai ran over to say bye to us and give us hugs. :) Even though it was so hard to say goodbye to the people and the city of Pécs, I am really excited to be serving in Buda now. Its so cool.

My new companion is Sister Neagle. I think I talked about her a little bit in my last email. I love her! We get along super well. Maybe its because we have had so many of the same companions and have heard so much about each other that we kind of felt like we knew each other already and just jumped right into it! We became instant friends and it has been so much fun. We had to switch apartments with the AP's though. Our apartment was on the same street as the mission home and since the AP's have more meetings than we do...they got it. So now we have to travel 40 minutes to get to our apartment. Which isn't that big of a deal but it's kind of a pain. It also smells like boy....hahaha we are int he process of cleaning it up and making it a little nicer :) There are 6 Elders here. Two regular Elders, the APs and the Secretaries so its pretty fun! I have wanted to serve in Buda my whole mission so I am really excited to be here! I will send more pictures of the city next week :)

On Saturday, we had Sport Day. This is like the first place there has officially been a good Sport Day. Békéscsaba had a small one but it kind of died after a few weeks, Érd there wasn't one and in Pécs we just played Ping Pong and hardly anyone came. But here...we played SOCCER!!! It was SO much fun. And I scored SEVEN goals! Gosh it was so much fun. They do that every Saturday so I will finally get to play soccer again. :)

General Conference was so great. I got to hear about one and a half sessions in English. The other sessions that I got to hear were in Hungarian so I got the general gist of them. I am excited to be able to hear them in English later :) It was pretty exciting that I could get the gist of what they were saying. I was pretty tired though so it was hard to concentrate a little haha but I still learned a lot and felt the spirit. I hope you all had wonderful Easter and a great conference weekend.

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

Transfers‏

Hey Everyone!!

Hope you all had a good week. We had a great last week of the transfer!

Transfer News

Well we got transfer calls this morning! Tomorrow I will be transferring to Buda! I am really excited. I am really sad to be leaving this city though. In Church on Sunday, we sang "God Be With You Till We Meet Again" because they knew at least some of the missionaries would be leaving. And all of you who know me well...know that I HATE that song haha I sat their the whole time holding back tears while the investigator that I was sitting by kept telling me I needed to sing louder haha. I have loved Pécs so much. I am really sad to be leaving the people, the city and most of all Sister Hafen. We have had the most incredible transfer together. We went through a lot together! I stinking love her and am going to miss her so much. I am looking forward to going to Buda though. And I think I will be there when President Szabadkai gets there so that will be cool! I love that family so much! My new companion will be Sister Naegle. We actually had the same trainer! And we have had a lot of the same companions. I have only heard great things about her. I am really excited to serve with her. I am sure it will be great!

People

Ági - We had a really incredible program with Ági this week (the young Ági). We had such a good conversation with her. She told us how she isn't ready right now but some day she might want to be baptised. She told us how she daydreams about being a member and having a family in church and sending off a missionary. Sister Hafen and I were amazed at all that she was saying. The only thing right now that she has a problem with is some of the "rules." We told her how God gives us commandments because He loves and knows what is better for us than we do. We asked her if she came to know these things were true, if she would be baptised. She said yes but she just needs time! Its amazing to see how people change. I remember meeting with her a few weeks ago and I would never have imagined her saying that. She said that what really got her was the Plan of Salvation. She kept saying how much she likes it and wants to teach that to her future kids.

Baptism

On Saturday, the Elders had a baptism. It was with their investigator Viktor. It was a great day! He looked so happy!

Well that's about it for our week. I will have more to update you on from Buda next week I am sure! I hope you all have a great Easter! I am excited to celebrate it! I am grateful for Christ and all that He did for us. I know that He suffered for all of our sins, pains, weaknesses, and trials. Everything He did, was for us. And we get to celebrate and remember Him even more this weekend. I know He is our Savior. I know that through Him we can return to our Heavenly Father and live with our families forever.

Here is the new church Easter video. Its awesome! http://www.mormon.org/easter?cid=HP_FR_3-27-2015_dMIS_fMRMN_xLIDyL1-A_

Here is also the video from last Easter that is also amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S3TI4bYerU

Also, everyone enjoy General Conference! I know I am so excited!!!!

Sok szeretettel,

Simons Nővér xx

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