Monday, November 7, 2016

trust and stormy seas (two weeks worth)

November 7, 2016
Well you heard from me on Wednesday so this will be a little bit shorter.

This week on P-day we went to the Zoo and it was super fun. Not as fun as the zoo in Nyiregyháza but it was still so much fun. Also on Monday, we met with our investigator Roland. He is doing really well. He is just so young that he is having a hard time grasping everything we think. It was a really cool miracle though because we went to his house and we started talking. Roland’s older brother and two of his friends also live in this house and the girl was doing dishes right as we walked in. So Roland did the missionary work for us and invited her to stay while we taught him. She asked if it was bothering us and we of course said no and made space for her to sit down. Then Roland took it to the next level and turned straight to Vikki (that is her name) and said “okay great you say the prayer...” it kind of went quiet and she said I don’t know how to pray, so Roland once again stepping in to teach tells her all about prayer and how we pray and what we say and how we do it. So she said okay I will say the first one but you say the last. So he agreed and then she said the opening prayer!! It was crazy! Super cool. So we ended up teaching the whole lesson to Vikki because we were re-teaching the restoration and Roland just helped during the teaching it was great. At the end of the teaching he was like okay your turn to pray and so she was like what no way you said you would say the closing prayer, and just before this we had talked about Roland coming to church, so she said if you say the closing prayer I will go to church with you... we both just had our jaws drop. Roland was doing all our work for us. Sadly they did not come because their alarm didn’t go off but hopefully next week. 

Something funny happened this week too. We had district meeting and we wanted to order pizza for everyone so I called the pizza place and started ordering pizzas. We didn’t know which one to get so I just told them a random number on the list, it ended up being pretty good, but that’s not the funny part. The best part was when she asked where we live and I told her the address of the church building and she was like yea you guys are the mormons... “ was like yea, we are the Mormons”. So I was laughing joking around with her and she knew that it was us because the way I spoke and where we were in the city. So now she thinks Mormons aren’t super weird hopefully. 

We also went on splits wit the Buda Elders this week. I was able to be in Budapest for two days and it was gorgeous I loved it. It was super fun! We also had a cool little miracle happen!  I was able to see a small miracle while I was with Elder Heaps. We decided to go tracting instead of meeting with one of their investigators because we could not find a male member to go with us and we just had the feeling we needed to go tracting. So we said a prayer and went out on the streets. We talked to a lot of people and some said that we could come back but while we were tracting Elder Heaps called the woman we would have met with and told her that we would not be coming. She was very sad to hear this because she had spent along time cooking for us. We said we were very sorry and continued to tract. A couple minutes later we got a call from this investigator saying that she had invited her boyfriend over and that we would now be able to meet with her. Her boyfriend was against the church and was mad that we were meeting with her so this was a really big miracle that he agreed to join the teaching. We shared a great message and it went really well. It was great to have to spirit there and to teach this gospel to someone that is prepared!

So that was a really cool miracle and it was really fun to be up in Budapest for a while. 

This week was also stake conference. We got to be there for the Saturday priesthood session and adult session because we were there in Budapest and then on Sunday we got to see the broadcast! We had a member of the 70 come and give a really great couple of talks to us. He gave a great talk to the missionaries about learning the language and how to be successful. After I was able to have a good conversation with him and he even gave me a hug. It was awesome. Not just because he was a 70, but also because I got a hug haha.

I would like to finish with a quote that I found somewhere I can’t remember. I think it was in a talk. It goes like this "Calm winds don’t carry ships to promised lands, stormy seas do." I love this quote because it is so true. We so often think of our trials or our hardships as bad things and that life would be so much better if it was just smooth sailing. I know for a fact that if I did not have hardships I would not be the person I am today and I would not be in the direction of the promised land. I think it is important to be grateful for hard times because that’s when we grow the most.

I love you all!! If you have any questions or if you are curious about random things here like in Hungary let me know I would love to answer some random questions because I feel like all I do is write about my week and there is a lot of interesting things about this place that I leave out! 

I love you all!
Ure Elder 



November 2, 2016
Well this week was crazy!!! This was the first week of all the new things that I am doing! We gave training on baptism this week to all the elders and sisters in our zone and it was really great! It was exciting to be able to teach everyone and be able to prepare for this transfer! 

Then this week we also had our first split with other elders. We went on splits with elders from Sopron. I was able to go with Elder gabel. He is a super cool guy and he is actually from Denmark but has lived in America almost his whole life. It was super funny because he came to our city and the first time here he was able to experience how kind people are. We got yelled at and kicked out of a building and both of us just started laughing ha-ha. This guy was crazy and I was asking him why we had to leave and I said just out of curiosity what are we doing wrong and he said I am curiosity and told us to leave again.... so what ever that means hah it was great. We also made a tradition to cook something yummy on every split so we made banana bread with the elders. It was super fun and really good actually. 

We also taught a really cool lesson this week to a member family. We used a friction erase marker and if you hold a lighter below the paper enough for the heat to touch it the writing disappears. So we taught about repentance and the atonement. If we are marked up wih sins, we can always us the atonement and our sins will disappear and look white as snow. It was really cool and fun!!

While we were teaching that family the cutest thing happened. We were saying the opening prayer and we always kneel at their house so I was kneeling and mid-prayer their youngest kid gets up and turns around and gives me the biggest hug around my neck and just stayed there until the prayer ended. It was the cutest things I have ever had happen. I guess he just new I needed a hug. He then would not leave my side the whole lesson so I now have a new best friend.

This week was the meet the Mormons showing where anyone could come and bring their friends to meet the missionaries. It was really cool but sadly not a lot of people came. A couple members brought their friends and that was great but other than that it was just a free meet the Mormons movie for us in Hungarian. It was a nice break. 

This Sunday I was asked to give a less active member a blessing because the sisters have been meeting with her and she has been fighting smoking for a really long time and she wanted a blessing to get over the hump and to just give it up. It was a really cool blessing and I just love giving blessings in Hungarian and just giving them in general. I was able to say a lot of cool things that once again did not come from me. I think that’s why I like it so much because its like God is talking through me and that’s a super cool feeling. 

One crazy thing that happened this week is we looked up a less active member and found out that she actually died three years before, but her family wanted to meet with us. So they let us in and wow was it crazy... very interesting people with a very interesting smell.... I will not say more but I love fresh air. We met with them and they were super nice and we are hoping to visit them again but it was one of those times where someone lets us in and it feels like we walked into a totally different dimension. It was nuts.

For Halloween we didn’t do anything... They don’t celebrate here so it was kind of lame and it was even lamer that our p-day was on Wednesday but its okay! We did end up having lunch with a member and we grilled cheese... just pure cheese. I feel like I have clogged arteries now but wow was it good. Other than that we just worked the whole day... Celebrations don’t really happen as a missionary, just felt like a normal day! 

The last hilarious thing that happened was we met with one of our investigators that are progressing really well and we brought Bence. She offered us tomato juice, something kind of like V8. I said yes and Bence also said yes. So she poured it and Bence saw that it was spicy... so I drink it and it was actually really good. I loved it. So I look over at him and I see him drink it and he starts dying... He was like gagging and his face was so funny. All of this was in silence and so I am trying not to laugh but he is being so funny that I had to bite my tongue and cover my mouth because I almost started laughing so hard. It was so funny.

I would like to finish with a hymn that I heard in church on Sunday. I can’t remember which one it was, it was just one line that stuck out to me. It said "I trust my life with him" It hits me really hard. I do trust my life with him. I have a huge testimony that we are here and the things we do are for a reason. Everything happens because our
Heavenly Father is leading and guiding us. I know everything will work out because I truly trust my life with him. That’s why I am here. That’s why I knock those doors and why I walk the streets because I know He is the guide. In this life there is no need to fear, no need to worry, not need to stress. Love God. Keep his commandments. And trust him enough to give your life to him. I love you all. 




Ure Elder 

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