CHRISTMAS 2015

MERRY CHRISTMAS! This Week Elder Ure spoke to us (his family) on Skype.  It was so great to see his face and talk to him.  He says it is always foggy, he never sees the sun. They ran out of time to buy food and then the stores closed on Christmas Eve. He is frustrated learning the language but loves being a missionary.  That is all for this week.

Skype on Christmas!

  

Always foggy

Christmas Eve Dinner

Christmas

The Branch Building

HUNGARY- WEEK TWO

Budapest in December

So this week has been crazy, painful, super spiritual, funny, awesome, pretty much every emotion. 

I can’t even begin to describe the word frustrating to you. Sitting there all day every day not understanding what anyone is saying gets to you. Me being the person I am I want to know it and know it right away and it is super annoying not understanding anything but I am being patient. It will hopefully come in a year or so hahaha lol. 

We had Christmas zone conference this week in Budapest and that was super fun. I loved going up there and looking around and being able to see everything again. We had fun at the conference and actually got to see a movie!! We got to go see The Little Prince. I would tell you what it was about but it was all in Hungarian sooo sorry. haha. It was still cool to be able to just sit there I guess haha. 

Then later in the week we went to give service to an older lady and got to take her to a play in this big Catholic church. It was a cool experience seeing how other religions do things and just sitting there listening to people sing and be happy. The old lady is super nice and old and she always wanted to hold our hands because hers was cold and because we thought she was going to fall over but I got to just walk the streets of Hungary holding this little old Hungarian ladies hand for a little so it was awesome! 

So, probably the worst thing possible happened this week. I went to a program with an investigator and he said he was going to feed us and we were all excited so we walk up to the door and right when he opens the door I about throw up. Straight salmon smell hits me in the face and I want to pass out. If you know me you know that salmon is my worst enemy. It is disgusting. So, I man up and walk in. Anyway, long story short I had to eat a piece of salmon and it about killed me. I will never like salmon. 

Now onto probably the best part of the week. WE FOUND A FOOTBALL TEAM!!!!!

So we called the coach and he wanted to meet with us right then but we couldn’t so we met with him the next day and he just told us all about the team and how he pretty much puts all his time an money into the team. He was such a cool guy and all of us thought he would be the best mormon ever, haha. We will get him don’t worry haha. Anyways he asks us what we want to do and if we want to play on the team and all this stuff and then we told him why we are here and our purpose an he loved it and wants us to come coach and then share a message after practice!!! So Saturday comes around and that’s when they practice and we show up and they already know who we are because the coach talked about us to them. So we talk to them and see what positions they play and they didn’t have a QB there so ya boy  I stepped in and was dropping dimes. I played QB and also went and ran routes and caught balls. This team is super like rag tag and just a bunch of guys that don’t really know football so it made it so fun haha. Dylan and I were ballin so hard it was so good to play again. They loved us and we are going to coach them from now on and share messages with them! How crazy is that? Two best buds from Highland Utah playing football in the middle of Hungary. Want to know the even crazier thing? The field they play on is literally a farm. You walk past horses and chickens and all types of animals and behind all that is where the field is. SO cool. I love it haha. I will give you more about that next week!! 

Then Saturday we had our branch Christmas party. It was fun I guess but it was hard to have fun when you can’t really talk to anyone so I just kinda sat there. Anyway the cool part was one of our investigators showed up super drunk so that was interesting. He was passed out in the chair and so we woke him up and started talking to him and what happened was he had to go to the hospital because his heart and he has a really hard life and not a lot of money so he drank and was super wasted. He ended up saying that he doesn’t want to live this way anymore and that he is done with smoking and drinking and is going to change. So we walked him home so he would be safe and he started to hug us all and got to me and just started to cry so I just hugged him and said in broken Hungarian that I love him. So in two weeks he wants to be baptized so we will see how that goes. 

Anyway that was my week here in Hungary and I hope you all have such an amazing Christmas and think of the true meaning of this time of year. I love you all!! 

Love Elder Ure 

HUNGARY-Week One

(This back ground info is added by Stacy for those of you that do not know the story....
There is an Elder serving in Hungary that was a friend of Cameron's in high school.  They played football together.  This elder was quite instrumental in influencing Cameron to go on a mission.  Once Cameron's call came, they have been praying that they would get to serve together on their missions in Hungary.  Please read the rest of the story in Cameron's words.)

So I will start by saying that the computers here are all in Hungarian which makes typing and spelling things so hard. This week has been so insane! So I left the MTC and went to the airport (got to talk to my family a lot) and did all that. I would talk more about that but it wasn’t really that exciting, haha. I flew on a plane and tried to sleep... didn’t sleep, got to Hungary and was really tired. By the time I got to sleep it had been 34 hours or so since the last time I had slept so that was a rough start.

We got off the plane and walked out and there was the Pres. and the APs waiting for us!! It was super nice to talk to them and see them. They took us back to the mission home and we dropped our bags off and then the APs took all of us to get some food. We had some rice and chicken which was pretty good but it wasn’t really Hungarian. We toured Budapest a little (see pics)  Then went back to the branch house and that is when I saw Dylan (Elder Murdock)  for the first time!! I lost my mind it was so crazy to see him!! We walked around and talked and he acted like he didn’t know at the time but YES!!!!! he is my trainer!!! We went into a meeting and it got announced and I flipped out!!! We had a few minutes to talk and it was a little emotional. But we became comps and another guy named Elder Roberts!! awesome guy. It has been super fun to serve with both of them. So then I find out I am serving in Níregyhaza!! pretty cool town but it is really communist like and everyone hates each other. Haha

Hungarians are really grumpy but don’t worry I am melting their hearts with my super good Hungarian. just kidding! I don’t understand anything haha. It is really hard to be in a crazy place and not even know what people are saying to me. I love it though. It is super fun and I couldn’t be happier. We got on a 3 hour train to pretty much Ukraine. I am right on the border of everything.  We got to the town and we are walking down the street and this guy stops us, and starts talking to us in English. (which does not happen here. like ever.) So he starts talking to us and brings up that he plays American football and that there is a team here in this town!!! what are the odds!!! Dylan and I started freaking out!!! The very first person I talk to and he brings up football... like are you kidding???  We go to our apartment and walk in and it is pretty nice actually. I don’t have a bed though. I sleep on a couch. It pretty much sucks but I am surviving, don’t worry. We went to our first appointment my first day there and it was way cool to sit and listen to the language I am supposed to know. I don’t think I got more than a couple of words but I bore my testimony and that’s about it.  I got to finally sleep after that. Best sleep ever! Next day we woke up and went grocery shopping and had some crazy experiences. People hate when you sniffle so if you have a runny nose you get wrecked here and also they just walk across the street and cars stop for them so it is way sketchy but you just go out into the street and cars have to slow down. It is way crazy. Also, it gets 1öö percent dark at like 4 every day so that kinda sucks a lot.  I feel like I haven’t seen the sun in months because it is always cloudy and then gets dark so soon.

 I taught some really cool lessons and was able to bear my testimony and it was cool to see it affect people. We were teaching these gypsies (which are just different skin color people and usually are pretty poor. But I bore my testimony and asked if she would pray so she did. She hadn’t prayed in over 20 years. So she was really embarrassed and felt bad but I told her that God wants her to talk to him and that he loves her and we love her and she just started to cry and ran out of the room. I hope it was a good thing because it was really cool for me. The Gift of Tongues is real even if I can’t speak great Hungarian.   Sorry, but I have to go,  love you all,  Elder Ure

last MTC care package binge

Balcony of first apartment

First time seeing Budapest

last time with Elder Verse in Buda

Budapest

First Apartment

Our Hungarian food we made

Níregyhaza    

Last MTC P-Day. I Know that My Redeemer Lives

Well I have more stuff to talk about than ever before this week that is for sure. It has been a long time since I wrote last because of Thanksgiving! So much has happened!!

So last week, the day before Thanksgiving my district got flight plans for Hungary!!! Never been so excited in my life I am pretty sure. 

We have to be at the travel office Monday morning at 3:35 Am... early morning for sure!

Then our flight takes off to Houston, Texas at 8:01 from SLC.

We land in Houston at 12:04 Houston time so 11:04 Utah time. I then have a 4 hour lay over in Houston before flying to Munich, Germany!!!! How cool?? 

Then off to Hungary! I will be getting to Hungary at 4:30 am U.S. time. Which is 12:30P.m. Hungary time so I probably wont sleep for over 30 something hours straight!!! I am pumped hahah. 

It is going to be a very long travel day but I cannot wait. I can’t believe I am almost out of the MTC already!! 

Thanksgiving in the MTC was so amazing! I will for sure never forget the day I had! 

We started off the day with a devotional by Elder Oaks and it was really great. You can read what he said online so if you would like, go look it up! He gave a great talk. Then there were a lot of musical numbers done by the Oaks family! They played a lot of string instruments and were incredible! Last their whole family got together and sang! I can say I have been sung too by an apostle!

We then left the Devotional and went and had our Thanksgiving Feast! (Lunch)

We got to have some really yummy turkey and potatoes and ice cream and pie. Best thing yet at the MTC for sure. It was a great Thanksgiving meal! 

We then had a devotional about our service project and how that was going to work. I am sure you all read about it but it was amazing!! I was a box mover so when the finished boxes of food would come to me I would put them in a pile. It was hard work but was so great! 

The last couple weeks have been crazy for getting ready for Hungary!! I had to dry clean my suits and we procrastinated so the past two weeks I have been without a suit. I have had to wear sweaters and my summer pants all week. haha. 

Also, just a quick funny thing here in the MTC. We call our name tags toast. Sometimes when our name tag starts to come out of our pocket we say "your toast is done" I don’t know if you will think it's funny, but I think its hilarious! haha. 

I also gave a talk in Hungarian Sunday. It was a very interesting experience. I pretty much just read what I had translated on my paper but was able to also bear testimony so that was really cool! My talk was on repentance!

I want you all go listen to the song I Know My Redeemer Lives. The song is truly amazing and has some incredible lyrics. It says how I feel about my Savior in a song. I love that song. Also the song I Believe in Christ. The same goes for both songs. 

Sorry I am all over the place in this email I am just trying to get all that has happened in! 

So I will finish off this crazy rushed email because I don’t have a lot of time with some quick thoughts. The first was actually super funny when it happened. haha

This random branch President walked up to us and said "Elders many are cold, but few are frozen." I thought about that and it really is true. A lot of people in Hungary will be cold and I will have to figure out how to warm them but there will always be people that just won’t want to talk to me and I have to realize that. 

Second, I heard this in a talk, They said to teach with such power that your investigator thinks Jesus is in the Room. If I am able to do this, I know that I will be able to change people's lives. I just first have to figure out how to do this. 

I want everyone to first go watch all the New Christmas Mormon Messages. They are incredible. Then go watch the Mormon message Mountains to Climb. (bring a box of tissues, you will need it.)

Last, I just want to say to everyone, even people that are not of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. If a Mormon missionary knocks on your door, let them in. Hear them out. For me. I promise something good will come out of it. 

I love you all so much and am so grateful for you in my life. I love this Gospel with my whole heart and I know it is true. Let it into your life and it will change you forever.

The next email you get from me will be from Hungary!! I am so excited! 

Sziastok!! 

Szeret, Ure Elder 

The MTC has lights (and we match)

our zone going to the temple