TRUST IN YOURSELF

Well this week has been full of some crazy days and if I could call this week anything it would be the week of Hungarian. I don’t think I have ever spoke or listened to more Hungarian in my whole life. I got to a point where my brain just about shut off. It was awesome. I’m learning so much. It’s a very painful way to learn the language but it is coming along just fine! 

Anyway, this week for my birthday the sisters brought me cookies and wrote me a song. One of the sisters plays ukulele and they made a song for me it was super cool. They are awesome sisters. After that we went and had dinner on a boat. It was this really nice restaurant out on the water of the river and was super cool. Awesome and unforgettable birthday!

Thank you all for the birthday wishes, they mean a lot! 

This week was also super hard! I had to say goodbye to my best friend Elder Murdock. I was super happy to see him go because he has had an amazing mission but I am also going to miss him! I luckily got to say good-bye to him because we went up to Budapest for zone conference and he wet home the next day! Zone conference was amazing and we had some cool experiences going up to Budapest on the train. We started talking to this guy and he had a lot of questions and we were able to answer them and tell him all about our church and why we are here. It was really awesome. 

We gave out all our books on the train and when we started talking to another person we realized we didn’t even have a book to give them. Super sad but I guess it was good that we had already given them out. You can only carry a certain amount of books so it was really cool.

This week the Hungarian team played a game and we just happened to be tracting during the game and the people were super not interested in what we had to say so we changed our approach and asked if they were watching the game and if they said yes we would ask if we could watch it with them hoping they would ask us about why we are here and who we are... even then everyone didn’t want to talk to us. So don’t tract when Hungary is playing soccer.

This week has also been the hottest so far. I feel like I say that every week but it seriously gets hotter and hotter every week and every week I feel like I am going to die. So this week since we don’t know where anything is we had to search for where one of our investigators lives and it took forever and was in the middle of the day in the heat. We walked all over town and figured out that she lived right by where we live.... she just gave us the wrong street number. But we met with her ad it was awesome. We taught her about the book of Mormon and she said she is going to pray about it so that is super cool. The only bad part is her daughter is a Mormon hater and told her to not meet with us but the old lady went behind her daughters’ back and met with us. I was proud of her ha-ha. 

Also this week I had a true test of my Hungarian knowledge and gospel. We were walking down the street and there were a couple kids and a dad out side sitting on the wall and the dad told us to come over, so we started to talk to him and it quickly turned gospel and we started talking about why we are here and slowly one by one more and more people joined the conversation. Before no time the whole family was outside listening and asking questions. It was really cool but I really had to stretch my vocabulary. We gave the dad a book of Mormon and next week are going to go back and teach them the lessons. Super super cool but the dad has some strong and kinda weird thoughts about God so it will be interesting when we go back. 

We then had a really long hot and just straight up hard day. We walked and walked and it was so hot and we were both really tired and just all day worked outside and it was getting close to when we were going to go back when we got stopped by a young girl who started to ask us about who we are and what we are doing here. She ended up knowing a little bit about us and we had a really good conversation. It was really fun because I was able to joke around with her and to teach her pretty much the restoration as we just talked and were friends. She said she might come to English class so we will teach her more there hopefully.

Then to finish this email off with some big news!!! I think in the upcoming month we will be baptizing three boys!!! They are a part-member family and the boys all want to get baptized so this week we are going to give them a date! IT is going to be really cool. They invited us over to have dinner, which ended up being a barbeque and was so cool and amazing food and then we taught the plan of salvation to them, I am so excited to teach them more. They are all such cool kids and are going to be a really big addition to the ward here. I am stoked!!!

I would like to finish with a quote I heard this week in zone conference.

If a bird lands on a branch, it doesn’t trust the branch that it won’t break, it trusts in its own wings. 

Sometimes we doubt our own abilities. Don’t. Trust in yourself and you will watch yourself do miracles.

Sok szeretettel 

Ure Elder 

I GOT A TOASTER!

Well this week has been insane. This week started with us running to the train to go to Budapest for transfers with all my suitcases and barely making it on to the train as it drove away. But hey, we made it and that’s all that matters. So we went up to Buda and I met my new comp. He is an awesome elder from Switzerland. He speaks like 5 languages and English isn’t his first. So its super fun to talk to him. When we got to our new city it was pretty much like going to one of the biggest cities in the mission and not knowing where you live or where anything is. So we got a little help form one of the sisters and were able to find our apartment. The new apartment is amazing compared to my last one. It is huge and has the most amazing stuff in it. Like a toaster. I can finally make toast and it’s the best thing I have had in 8 months. It was really great. We then walked around the city for a little and it was seriously gorgeous. This city is what Europe looks like on TV but in real life. This morning my companion and I went for a run along the river and across some really cool bridges. It was beautiful.

This week I started from nothing and it was a well..... Pretty crazy experience. I picked up the phone and called just about as many people as I could. It was hard and made me grow a lot because phone calls are really scary in Hungarian, even more so when the person has a really hard voice to understand over the phone or they mumble... so lets just say I had some pretty awkward phone calls with some people. My companion is still really new so I am the one talking the whole time recently and it has been pretty hard. My language is being forced to grow and I don’t know if it wants to. So we will see. It is some really awesome practice that’s for sure. This week we had a guy call us up and say he wanted to meet and of course we didn’t know who he was so we found his house and he waiting outside and said to walk with him so we did. He then started to fire of questions about the Book of Mormon and wanted to know everything so as we walked I taught him about the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. It was really hard because he is really hard to understand but it was still a really cool experience. The ward also has a ton of little kids that play sports with us so that will be super fun. I don’t have much more time to write so I will just try to say it super fast. We also had this super cool thing happen when the Hungarian team was playing soccer. Everyone was out on the streets and we were talking to a lady about it and while I was telling her about it, Hungary scored and the whole town blew up with cheering and all that. It was super cool. So we gave a Book out in the middle of a party. Well that’s all for this week. Sorry it was short. I love you all so much. You guys are the best.

Love, Elder Ure

WORDS CAN'T DESCRIBE THIS WEEK...

This week has been one of the best weeks of my life. I have had so much fun, I have worked super hard, I have seen mircales that only the hand of God could have done, and I've never been so happy.

I will start by saying that I got transferred! I will be getting a new companion and a new city tomorrow! My new companion has only been on his mission for 4 months and is just getting done being a greenie. So that is insane. He is from switzerland!! We both will be going to a whole new city that we know nothing about. So we will have to find our way around pretty much by ourselves. The city I am going to is called Győr. I would love to hear all of you try to say this one hahah. Its even hard for all the missionaries to say. I will be the new district leader in the city too! So it is going to be one crazy experience!! I am super excited!

This week my Comp and I finally ran to a bus and made it on time and didn't miss it. We sprinted for a mile... No joke it was a mile in under 6 minutes to make it to the bus stop. Just put the image of two kids in a white shirt and tie with backpacks running down the street as fast as they can in the middle of Hungary and that's exactly what it looked like haha. 

This whole week I have been up and down in my language skills. I have had times where I seriously can't speak at all and I feel like I don't know any Hungarian, but there are also times when I am speaking and it is just as easy as speaking English. Its crazy how that works but I will tell a couple stories about that later in my email. 

The first story I want to start with this week is probably one of the funniest, gross-est, awesomest, manliest things I have ever done. It was so much fun. This week we had interviews in Miskolc and we got there early so we went out to lunch. So we were looking for a place to eat and saw a"Man Vs. Food" sign on a place with a American flag sooooo of course that's where we went. The place was called "devour up America". So we walk in and it was all decked out with American stuff and was just a super cool place. So we sit down and start looking at the menu and they just have massive burgers starting from one patty all the way up to five. The last burger on the menu was the Man vs. Food challenge burger. It has 5 patties of meat all with cheddar cheese on them. Tons of bacon, and almost a full salad of veggies on it with a massive bun and fries on the side. The thing weighed 3 kilos..... IT WAS HUGE. Soooo we all start talking about it and I start thinking well maybe I could do it. The challenge was to eat the whole thing in 20 minutes. So I decided to get it and do it just for the experience. So the thing comes out and is by far bigger than my head. The guy gets the timer and I start going at it. After 5 patties of meat I started to slow down but the place had really good music and everyone was cheering me on so I started to eat to the music haha. Sorry if this is gross to some people but it was an awesome experience. So I am still eating and I have almost ate the whole thing except some veggies the bun and some fries and the guy says my time is up. So sadly I didn't win but it was one of the funniest things I have ever done. I will never forget it. The best part is that lunch was before my interview with my mission president haha. So I had my interview and it all went great. I wasn't hungry for a solid day and a half after though. 

This week one of our investigators got really sick and asked for a blessing from us so after we got back from interviews we went over to their house and talked to them and then gave the blessing. Elder Lee gave the blessing and I did the anointing. During the blessing the spirit was so strong and I just felt so peaceful. I love giving blessings and I am so thankful that I have the priesthood to bless people's lives with. I know that it is the power of God and it can truly make miracles come to pass. After the blessing she got up and said that during the blessing it felt like lighting was touching her head and was such a cool feeling for her. That was Thursday, and now she is doing better. It was such a miracle and changed my life to see her gain a testimony of the Preisthood.

This week we met with one of our investigators that I have met with ever since I got here in December and I was able to ask him if he would be baptized and he said yes!!!! Sadly, I won't be here but it was seriously so cool to here him accept the date we gave him!! I am so excited for him and that his life will be changed forever from it. It was such a cool experience and made a lot of hard work pay off!!

This week tracting was super cool. First of all,  Hungary for some reason planted cherry trees all along the roads in this city so all we do while we tract is just walk down the street and pick cherries and eat them. It makes tracting so much more fun. I love it. The cherries are aslo super good and free!! 

This week tracting we got let in by a old lady and I was able to explain the whole Book Of Mormon to her. It was the first time I did it and felt super comfortable. I just spoke and it all came out perfectly almost and it felt so good. The gift of tounges is such a cool thing and when you feel it in you, and use it, it blows your mind. It was a really cool experience and I am super grateful that I was able to tell that néni about  The BOM. 

This week ended with one of the most amazing experiences and miracles I have ever seen and probably even heard in my life. On saturday we got a call while we were doing comp study and it was from a number we didn't have in our phone so I answered in Hungarian and the person on the other side of the phone just kind of mumbled and said.... Do you speak English? So I said yes and started laughing. It was super weird because it was perfect English with a American accent. So the guy starts talking and it ends up being a missionary that served in Nyiregyháza 12 years ago. He was on his honeymoon with his new wife in Austria and was calling from there. He starts to explain to me that back in December he got a hand written letter from a man that he tracted into 12 years ago. He gave the man a Book Of Mormon and that was it. In this letter the man said that he knows the Book of Mormon is true and that the missionary changed his life. So the guy that called us asked if he was a member or if we knew him and I said no I dont know him but it sounds familiar. I said that we will look in our area book and see if we can find him. So he gives us his address and we say we will go look him up tomorrow and we hang up the phone. I then go pick up the area book and open it and there were a couple of loose papers on the top because just a week earlier we dug through the area book throwing out old records and finding people to look up. So I turn the second paper and BOOM sitting right there is this guys progress record. It even had the date and the name of the Elder that found him written on the paper. The insane part about finding this guys paper was the fact that we went through the book a week earlier and the only reason I didn't throw it out was because I wanted to look him up. So a week before this call I looked up this exact person but the address was written wrong on the paper and now that we got the right address from this phone call we can go back and look him up. So yesterday we went and did just that. We went to where he lives and rang his bell and he opened the door and was just stunned. He said it was the best surprise he could have thought of and we told him all about the story and he told us to come in and we talked to him and laughed and just had such a good time. He is the coolest person I have ever met in Hungary. He is so happy and just loves life. He doesnt drink, he has never smoked before in his life and he loves the Book of Mormon. He said he wants us to come back so we got his number and The missionaries are going to start meeting with him. Sadly I will be leaving but his name is Attila and he could use some prayers. He is so cool and I can't wait to hear what happenes with him. It was one of the most amazing and testimony building experiences I have ever had. All we have to be is patiant and the lord will bless us. he is doing miracles amoung us even if we don't see them right now. I know this church is true with my whole heart. I know that God has a plan for all of us and he loves us on the most personal level we can think. I am so grateful for this gospel. 

I love you all so much. 

Elder Ure
GYOR
'Man Vs Food Challenge'

 

WEEK OF RAIN

This week it has been raining a ton! It has been a nice change of weather but it would not stop some days and it makes it hard to talk to people on the streets and even when you are inside! This week has been a week full of not so nice Hungarians, but hey what can you do. Just got to love em.

We had a lot of times when people would just slame the door and not even let us get any words out. Then we would have times when we would say who we are and what we are doing and they would just look at us and pause... and it would be silent... and then they would shut the door and say they didnt have time. Those are my favorite. The little excuses to make it kind of nice to close the door in someones face. Then you would have times when people just like to yell at you so we leave before they even shut the door. Dont get me wrong there are nice hungarians, and I love them all, some just have a weird way of showing there love. Its like when a little kid likes a girl in elementary school... what does he do? He goes and is a jerk to her thinking that will work. The Hungarians just dont know they like us yet. 

After a long week of tracting... sorry I dont have anything else to talk about because that is seriously all we did this week, we found a success! We were tracting and this super cool guy opened the door and we talked to him for a long time and invited us to get ice cream with him a couple days later. So we go back and try to find him again and he disappered into thin air. We went into the building and knocked on his door and a old lady (néni) opened the door and started yelling at us because we bugged her last night... it was true because we had been tracting there the night before this. So we said sorry and that it was an accident but she didnt not care she just kept telling us that she is old and we shouldnt keep bugging people and wanted to know all this stuff and who we were looking for. At the same time we were super confused too because we thought the guy we found lived here not this néni. So we said sorry again adn that it was probably one floor up and that we didnt mean to bug her. so we went up there and it wasnt that floor either but the old lady wouldnt go inside she was just waiting for us to come back down again to yell at us more.... So we went back down.... she yelled at us more and then we left. We looked forever to find this guy and could not find him. We thought he was a Ghost and someone was playing a sick joke on us, the one time we find someoneto teach and he isnt even real haha. 

Well just today I was walking into a store to buy foo and I saw the guy and shoock his hand to make sure he was real and he gave us his address again and we are going to go back later. So it all ended well but we found a very unhappy néni.

Recently we have been meeting with this really old lady that has really bad back problems so she cant really stand or even sit up sometimes. It is a really sad situation because she reads and does all the things we teach her but she is just not able to come to church or anything like that so we dont know how to move forward with her. This week was the last time I was going to meet with her because I will probably be going to a new city next week so I had to say goodbye to her and it was so sad! I was the one that found her and we have become super good friends and I love her to death. She has a place in my heart just below my owen grandparents. When I told her that I had to go and I would be leaving she started to cry and pulled me in and gave me the hungarian kisses on the cheeks. NO ONE GET MAD AT ME. How could I reject a cute little lady. She pulled me and and said she loved me and wished me the best. It was the cutest thingI have ever seen and I loved it. She is one of my best friends.

I would like to finish with something I learned in the scriptures the other day. It is in Mormon 9 verses 27 and 28. It talks about how that this life isnt just to suffer through. When we need help we can ask! We can believe that we can recieve help in all parts of our life and all we need to do is go to the Lord with a full heart and work out our own salvation. That is my favorite part. It is up to us, and its easy, we just need to do it and ask to be saved. Ask with power and turn from tempation and The savior of the world will save you. 

I love you guys so much and miss you all! 

Elder Ure 

EIGHT MONTHS!

"Let's talk about Jesus..."

I will start with an announcement this week that yes... I am still in Nyiregyháza; My greenie city. Still am yet to go somewhere else but hey there is a reason for everything and I have loved it here so I am not complaining. I think I will be going to a new city in two weeks! I am super excited!

This week was crazy!! I have never been hotter in my whole life. I got my mission call and was like sweeeeeet, that means; I won’t be going to some blazing hot mission in Africa.... Nope it’s still so hot here. It is humid and just suffocating and isn’t even close to as hot as it is going to be. I love the hot just not when I am in a missionary outfit, but hey at least now I can get a super good farmers tan and a wicked watch tan. 

I will start this email with the craziest thing I have ever heard in my life. The first thing is about Ironman. In the first ironman when ironman is in the cave making his suit and had the doctor there that saved his life, the part when the people try to come into the room and the doctor tries to talk to them but doesn’t know their language????? That’s becasue he speaks Hungarian. He says a couple Hungarian words to them!! Ironman will be the coolest movie to watch when I go home just because of that. Then the second thing is even crazier. I heard this from a Hungarian and I don’t know how reliable this is because I can’t see if it is real but it still blew my mind. If any of you have heard of the video game HALO 4 you will know what I am talking about. If not, I’m sorry you can skip down to the next part of my email but in the video game halo there are aliens and I found out that the aliens speak Hungarian. the game makers needed a language that no one would recognize so they picked Hungarian. So whenever you play halo and hear the aliens talk.... That’s the language I speak... an alien language in a video game hahaha. 

This week we had surprise splits with our zone leaders. We were going to have them next week but one of the missionaries got sick so we had to go on splits with them this week and it was super cool!! We streeted this guy that was eating ice cream and started talking to him and out of no where he offers to get us ice cream, we said no but he insisted so we got free ice cream from some random guy on the street. We ended up talking to him forever and getting his number and he even liked us enough that he wants us to go horse- back riding with him and his family. We passed on that but it was still super cool and he was super nice.

This week Elder Lee and I got so into tracting that we didn’t realize what time it was and when we looked we only had five minutes to get to the bus stop which was like three quarters of a mile away so me and Lee just take off running in the heat and we are just booking it and right when we turn the corner of the street where the bus goes it drives past us, so I take off on a dead sprint after the bus and lets just say I am out of shape or something but we missed the bus. I will say I was hauling but Hungarian buses are just too fast. 

This week we also pretty much built a house. I sent a picture home of me in the attic of a house because I used a hammer and chisel to make a whole through a members ceiling. We then later put up sheet rock for him so it was a very manual labor work day. It was cool to help him though and he bought us fresh strawberries so it was totally worth it. 

A really amazing spiritual thing happened this week during a program with an inactive member. This member has been struggling for a long time and I have met with him a ton in the last 6 months so we have been able to become super close with each other. During the program he opened up more than he ever had. I had the amazing experience of being able to relate to how he felt because I once had the same feelings. I was able to use the gift of tongues and just talk to him. I felt my Hungarian grow more than I have ever seen it and I just testified and it made my testimony grow like crazy. I was so thankful that I could be there in that moment to tell him that he is not alone and if he keeps trying he will be blessed and find answers. It was a time where I knew I needed to be right there in that room and that God knew that I could help him. I sure hope I did.

We also met with this really old lady this week that is to old to come to church because she is bed ridden. It is really sad but she is still really nice but just isn’t totally there. This made me laugh so hard but she said her power was out, That’s not the funny part I feel really bad for her, but after she said that, she tried to cook noodles in the microwave for two hours and they didn’t cook... I hope I get to that point one day when I am just a cute little old man that has no idea what is going on anymore. I love old people and she made my day. 

This week in church was fast Sunday and it will be my last real Sunday here in this city so I was asked to bear my testimony. It went well I think and I will share with you a little of what I said. I talked a lot about how if we have the gospel at the center of our lives then life will go so much smoother and we will be blessed so much more. If we focus on the most important things and not the craziness of the world we will be able to feel the spirit more in our lives and will be able to be guided more in the decisions we make. I know this is true. 

I will finish with a miracle that happened yesterday. As we where tracting we rang the bell and a guy walked out shirtless... this is very common here and I have just got used to it. Anyways I asked him what makes him happy in life and he replied with Jesus.... SOOO of course I was like welllllll, uhhhh That’s kinda why we are here… To talk about Jesus. So I said back, wow that’s awesome, we usually talk to people about Jesus, and right then he said wow great come on in...... Seriously had the exact experience as the missionaries do in the Hello song that those kids redid. Elder Lee and I just turned to each other and was like..... HELLO FROM THE INSIDE!!!! haha it was so cool. The coolest part was the stuff we talked about. The guy had the exact same beliefs as us and he is a perfect investigator and said we could come back next week. His name is béla so it would be great if you could keep him in your prayers!! I know that God led us to him and it was a really amazing feeling to just have someone listen to you. 

This week was a really amazing week as a missionary. It was hot, it was hard, and it was full of trials, but we saw so many blessings. When life gets cluttered with heat and just junk that you can’t take anymore, look for the blessings. They are there and God is always watching out for us. I know that personally. I have felt it, and I have seen it. No matter how alone you feel, you can always see the light if you look hard enough.

Elder Ure