New news...

Well this week has brought a lot of news that’s for sure. We have had a lot of new things going on and we are excited for the new way of missionary life. 

I don’t know if this was shown to the world but our schedule has changed and now we have more freedom to do what we want to do. For example, we can decided when we want to have companionship study and when we want to have lunch and things like that. It will be really cool I think and will help us to be more healthy missionaries. 

We also had a change of the way we report numbers. We now only report 4 numbers. Baptisms, confirmations, investigators in church, and new investigators. I think it will help missionaries focus on the work and not just the numbers since they don’t even matter. The only reason they are there are to help us push ourselves and for us to keep track of things but other than that I think it will help us focus more on the people. 

So last P-day we had such a good time. We went to a member’s house and we made töltött Káposzta. It is cabbage that is stuffed with meat and spices and all this yumminess and it’s so good you have no idea. I am so pumped to come home and cook it for everyone. Its really easy and super good. So that was really fun. 

This week we sadly were dropped by our miracle new investigator János. He met with us once and we had a great teaching about the Book Of Mormon and he said he was going to read it and then if he was interested he would call us... Well we waited and he never called so we gave him a quick call and he said he is not interested and doesn’t want to meet more. So that was really sad and I wish he read more from the Book Of Mormon because all he read was the intro. But everyone has free agency and that’s his choice. 

This week we went on splits twice. One was with the assistants and the other was with the tatabánya Elders. When we were with the assistants we went to a handicap home and we were able to talk to the people there and have a really good time. We even danced with them and I played ping-pong with one of them for like an hour straight. This girl was so good at ping pong it’s not even funny. It was super fun and I had a really good time. At the end they all gave us stuffed animals and said goodbye. One of them asked if she could come home with me ha-ha. I love people like that. Then when we went on splits with the other elders we were able to meet with Roland and have his baptismal Interview!! He passed and it was really great He had his interview with Elder Leavitt from Tatabánya and it went great. He passed the interview and Elder Leavitt felt that he is ready to be baptized. He said that we could go over tithing with him a little more because he didn’t completely understand that but other than that he said it was a great interview and that he is excited to be baptized. We also were able to talk to his mom about the baptism and how it will work and when it will be. I gave her the baptismal record so that she could look over the information on it and so that she could sign for Roland to be baptized and she agreed to everything. She told us that the baptism really interests her and that she is excited to come and see how it will be done. I think that is a point that we could talk about with her that might get her to open up more and to be more willing to learn about the gospel. We also planned the baptism and we are really excited. He has asked Elder Gentry to baptize and confirm him and I will be giving a talk about the spirit. I am really excited and it will be a really amazing experience. We were also able to talk to the ward about Roland in ward council and they seem to be willing to help us get him to church and to help him after his baptism. We set up a system of who will bring him to church every Sunday and we hope that will help him stay active after his baptism.  So we will be preparing for that for the next two weeks and he will be baptized on the 11th of February. It is going to be a really great way to end a transfer. 

We also saw an amazing miracle this week in our own work. We had just finished tracting and doing look ups and were about to go home for dinner but we saw these two kids walking on the street towards us and we decided to wait for them and to talk to them. One of them was 13 about to be 14 and the other was 16 about to be 17. We started talking to them and we found out that they had lived in England for 2 years and spoke pretty good English. They believed in God and are apart of the Orthodox religion and said that they are not able to practice their religion here in Hungary because they are originally from Romania. We started to tell them about our religion and they were really interested and one of them out of nowhere asked if he could change his religion to ours if he liked the things we believe in. I was like uhhhh what... yes of course haha I was flipping out because I have never heard anyone say something like that to me and of course we told him yes and got his phone number and will hopefully be meeting with them and their family this week. It was a really cool experience and I learned a lot. It goes to show that the future of the church is in the youth. 

Also this week we decided to make some calls to inactive and old investigators and we were able to find some people that will hopefully be able to meet this week. I called this one inactive woman and we ended up sitting on the phone talking for 45 minutes because she just told me all about why she wasn’t coming to church and we had a really good conversation. I started to joke with her and get her to loosen up and we ended having a really good talk about church. When I first called she was not down to meet but by the end of the conversation I was able to set up a time with her and we planned to meet... then I go look on the map and she ends up not even living in our area and she didn’t want to meet with the sisters... so we are going to try and figure something out so that we can meet but it was still cool and she was really nice. 

This week we had two farewells at church. One was a kid going on his mission to England and he will be leaving tomorrow and we are super excited for him. He is a stud and will be a really good missionary. The other is the young men’s president and he is moving to Germany to be the leader of the translation office over Europe. They are both amazing people and I will be sad to see them go. This weeks’ church was really amazing and I was so grateful I could be there because everyone talked about the plan of salvation and how amazing it is that God has been so kind to give us such a mapped out plan of how we can return to live with him and our families. At the end of the meeting everyone was crying and it was really sad but it was really cool. The spirit was there and it was my favorite sacrament meeting I have been in during my mission. I think one reason is that earlier on I didn’t understand anything and I wasn’t able to learn from the speakers but now that I understand I was able to feel the spirit stronger and be able to learn. It was really amazing and I am so grateful that I was there.

I know my savior lives and he and his father sent me to the earth to grow and to return to them. As long as I trust in them and do what is right I will return home. Luke 1:37  I think says that anything is possible with God. I love you all have a great week,

Love, Ure Elder