BAPTISM WEEK

This week has been full of amazing miracles and some really cool learning points for me. 

The weirdest thing that happened this week was the fact that I was able to go back to Nyiregyháza! My birthplace. I was able to sleep on the couch that I started my mission on and I even got to meet with one of the investigators that I taught while I was there. We went to the ice cream place that we would always go to, and I even looked up one family that we used to teach and they still live there and we were able to talk and they remembered me. It was really cool because I was actually able to talk to them and understand everything they said and back in the day I had no idea what was going on most of the time. So that was super cool. The worst part about this week is that it has been so hot... like 100 and above almost all week long and it has been humid and I have been... well sweaty haha. Its the best when you wake up in the middle of the night and you say to yourself... “swimming” in your own sweat doesn’t count as disobedience right?... not kidding though. It’s been hot. 

On the way home from Nyir., we had to rush to a teaching with Norbert and so we got there and watched finding faith in Christ and brought up the plan we wanted to give him for baptism and it went real bad... lets just say he ended up calling us ‘JWs’ because he thought we were being pushy and forceful... which is crazy because we barely have been poking him to start to do stuff towards baptism but I guess he hasn’t been liking it so we are going to go back to the basics and let it happen on his time, but if he doesn’t take steps then we are going to have to see. He is doing great though, he reads from The Book of Mormon everyday and he brought his wife and daughter to church yesterday which was super awesome. 

So I had a really cool experience this week, we got dogged which means someone didn’t show up to a teaching so we went tracting and on the last door before we left I was like this is gunna be a let in… and the guy comes to the door and is like “nope sorry I’m not interested” and out of no where I caught myself talking about family history and how our church helps with it and that’s what we are talking to people about today, which seriously came out of nowhere but it came to my mind and so I just said it, this dude totally stops and starts talking to us about it and we ended up getting his number and he said we could talk anytime... it was crazy I was just like wait… didn’t you just almost reject us? I don’t know but the spirit is cool and my good buddy. Life sucks without him. Missionary work doesn’t work with out him. And we can’t do miracles if we aren’t close to him. 

This week was the baptism and it was seriously the best day ever!! Seeing their beautiful smiling faces was seriously priceless. They are so cute and it was such an amazing experience like it always is. The best part for me was seeing them come up out of the water and just have the biggest smile on their faces. Like little angles. Then of course they chose my favorite hymn, Come Thou Fount for the closing hymn and the spirit was so strong. That song means a lot to me and to be singing it in Hungarian after seeing two little girls choose to follow Christ was so powerful. It was such a great experience and the day only got better.

Later in the day we were so tired and the weather was so hot and we had just finished weekly planning. We both we exhausted but knew that we needed to go out and work, so we put on our shoes and left. I had the feeling to look up a potential investigator that had not shown up to one of our teachings a little bit ago. So we went over there and rang his bell and his father answered and said that he wasn’t home, but that he would be willing to talk to us. That has never happened to me on my mission and I was very surprised. It never happens in general for someone to let you in to the ten story building and for them to actually want you to come to them, they usually just say okay I will let you in but don’t knock on my door, but this guy actually wanted to talk! So we went up and it was this big guy with no shirt on and just real sweaty. It was a site. So he lets us in and was so kind and open to the Gospel. He had just lost his father and a couple hours before we rang his bell he had returned from the funeral. He told us that because of his father’s death he knew God was there and we were just stunned at how amazing his faith was. We taught him about the plan of Salvation and set up for tonight at 7 to come back. I always learn the most when I show my faith to God and do his will no matter how tired I am. It was such a cool miracle and for real just opened my eyes to how much it matters to be worthy and have faith.

This week we had zone conference and we talked about having faith in Christ. We taught out of Matthew 4:18-22 this is when Christ told the disciples to leave their nets and follow him. So we taught the missionaries that we all have nets that we are still holding onto. We still have things that are keeping us from following Christ. These could be good things, but even a good thing can be holding us back from something better. So we talked about how we need to leave our nets and follow Christ. I want to finish by saying that following Christ and becoming like him is a life long process, maybe your net is that one day when you let yourself slip and say ‘this won’t affect me if I watch this’, or listen to that. Maybe your net is an addiction or a life long problem, or maybe something as easy as keeping your covenants to God and being modest. Most of these are not awful things but they hold us back from being like Christ. I personally want to leave my nets. I fasted for it and I decided that I am leaving my nets behind. I want to be more virtuous, I want to be closer to the spirit, I want to be spiritually strong, and anything that is holding me back from being like Christ and following him, I want to leave behind like the prophets of old did. I know we can all do this. We all can become better. So I encourage you to think about your life and say... well this isn’t that bad, but it is holding me back from becoming like Christ, and then leave it behind.

 I love you all. You are all amazing.

Ure elder