Rough but Spiritual

This week has been rough, amazing, spiritual, and back to rough.

This week we worked really hard and no one wanted to be our friend. It was rough. We had so many programs set up but all the people ended up not being able to meet or don’t even want to talk to us anymore. 

This week, the lady that we found on the street and then it was a miracle that we found her again tracting, decided that she didn’t want to meet with us and pretty much have nothing to do with us. She said we could say hi to her if we see her on the street but other than that she doesn’t want anything to do with us so that was super hard because she was perfect!

Something cool that did happen while we were streeting. What has been happening recently is Elder Roberts bails on me and just tells me to go talk to people so I can learn and practice haha. His trainer did it to him so he is doing it to me. Its not a bad thing because that is how you learn the language is by just talking and if I am by myself he can’t help me. So he walks away and goes and talks to someone else and I am forced to find someone to talk to. This is the worst because I don’t speak this language yet and if some random person came up to you and wanted to talk and they don’t even speak your language? ya it doesn’t go well. Anyways I got shut down a ton but then I saw a girl sitting on a bench listening to music so I went over and started a conversation. We talked for like 20 minutes. I still don’t even know how I did it but we just talked about everything. I asked her what her favorite music was and favorite color and all of the above. Just super random stuff and when I didn’t know how to say something I pretty much did a dance to try to explain it. It’s the worst because you just feel like a fool but it was a great experience because I actually talked to someone. Sadly that was the only time this week. I got shut down all other times.

This week we got new cards to give out for Easter and they have a link to a video. The video is really short and super awesome. Everyone should go look it up! It’s on mormon.org. Anyway, we give these cards out to everyone we see pretty much and people wouldn’t even take those... So yes it was a hard week of finding people to talk to us. 

Okay enough lame stuff. Now, onto the amazing things that happened and the miracles. 

First, we planted a tree in our suits this week. It was super random but a guy in the branch asked for our help so we went and helped him. He said when we come back we can get free fruit from the tree so that will be cool one day.

So this week we went up to Budapest and met with a 70. He talked to us and it was the coolest meeting I have ever been in. He started the meeting off and he was teaching his plan that he had taught all week but then people started asking questions and it changed the whole meeting. We found out after that he put his whole lesson plan in the trash and taught something completely new off the top of his head. It was amazing and super impressive. Everyone got super personal an started asking questions about faith and how hard the mission field really is and how it is hard to see miracles and the 70’s replies were always perfect. One thing that I would like to share is how he talked about when we meet our Heavenly Father again and how we will know if we are worthy. Even when we feel like we aren’t or we feel like we have messed up to many times. The thing he taught was that when we are at the judgment bar and Jesus Christ is testifying for us to the Father he will literally put his arm around us and that is when we become perfect and are able to enter. The way we can have this happen is if we truly tried our best on this earth and did everything we could do follow him. No matter if we are only .0000000000001 % with Jesus Christ we can be made whole and 100%. It was such a cool lesson for me and I had never thought about it in that way before. I learned so much from him and it was really cool.

The next day I had to plan a lesson for one of the members of the branch. She is he coolest lady ever and I love meeting with her. She wanted me to teach the lesson so I planned to teach what I learned from the day before. I taught about doing our best and how Jesus will help us and after I was done she started to tear up and told me that what I just told her was an answer to her prayers and that she needs to try to work harder to do her best. It was super cool and I loved being able to help someone. 

We had a baptism this week!!!! Sadly it wasn’t one of ours but it was still super cool. It was one of the sisters’ investigators but Elder Roberts Baptized her and he did a great job. My Companion is a stud with the language and made it look easy. It was one of the most amazing experiences I have had yet on my mission. I was able to see someone become perfect through baptism and it was so amazing. She came out of the water and was glowing and was just so happy and as I looked at her, I just saw the amazing power of the atonement and how much Jesus Christ loves his children. It was really amazing. The next day we got to see her get the Holy Ghost in Sacrament and it was such a strong spirit and was so comforting to know what blessing and help she was receiving. I cannot wait until I will be able to act in the name of Jesus Christ and baptize someone. It was a really great experience. 

I love this gospel and I am grateful to be a missionary. I love you all and hope that all is well. 

Love Elder Ure

"Miracle Week"

This week has been a crazy and amazing and just awesome week as a missionary.

I will start off by talking about fast Sunday and how I had the best food I have had in Hungary yet. We had a program with a cute little old lady that is my new Hungarian crush because she is just adorable. When we walked in it was around 2 and we had about another hour of fasting because we started the day before but..... she had made a huge meal for us so we got lucky and got to eat early. (I hope a 23 hour fast is acceptable this month.) She fed us soup and bread and it just was the best thing I have tasted in a long time. I showed her pictures of our family and she said that my dad was a cutie and that I looked like him... So props to you dad, you have an old Hungarian lady hitting on you. I will talk more about this cute old lady later in my email.

This week I got a new record of shut downs in the fastest amount of time yet! I was streeting and I walked up to one person and they said no really fast then another and then another. I got shut down by three people in less then 1 minute. It was a new record and I was pretty proud that I just kept going because the only thing one lady said to me was “I don’t speak English” in Hungarian when I was speaking Hungarian or at least thought I was.

The cool thing about the language this week was what happened in Sacrament meeting. I was sitting there trying to pay attention because church is the hardest because they talk really fast and use weird terms but out of nowhere I hear my name said. The branch President was bearing his testimony and started talking about me! He talked about how my language ability’s are coming along really well and that the prayer I gave in the morning meeting about the sacrament was really amazing to him. It was super cool to hear someone say that about me and gave me a boost of confidence that’s for sure!

Also a really cool thing that happened this week was I had a dream and a little part of it was in Hungarian. I didn’t understand what the person said to me but it was in Hungarian so that is better than nothing. I loved it and was so pumped when I woke up.

Now on to the first miracle that happened this week. We started talking to a lady on a street a month ago that would have been an amazing investigator but just wasn’t interested so we just gave her a Book of Mormon and went on our way. Well, the other day we where tracting and were doing this building that we thought no one even lived in but finally someone answered, so people did live there. The way tracting works in Hungary is you first have to get into the building which is a tall building of apartments usually so you have to press the bell or csengo is how you say it in Hungarian and talk to someone through a microphone and see if they will let you in and then you can knock on people’s doors. Well I did the next csengo and I usually don’t use this approach because it doesn’t work and usually makes people mad but I said hello we are Mormon missionaries and today we are talking about Jesus Christ can we come in? The lady on the other end just laughed and let us in so I was super surprised and kinda blown away but when we got to her door she was waiting outside and it was the same lady we had talked to a month earlier! She said a really cool qoute about how if you don’t go to the mountain meaning us the mountain will come to you. So she let us in and we were able to talk to her about the Book of Mormon and her beliefs. She said she had read the first part of the Book and was thinking about us and then we were there! It was an amazing experience and I know that God led us to her again so that we could teach her.

Now back to the old lady story. This week I read the talk about what lack I yet. I prayed to know how I can be better and how I can become a better missionary. I received a really cool answer and it was shown to me through out the week. One of the things that I received was to not think about myself. To be more selfless, so this week I have been working on that and I had an amazing experience with this lady. The day we tracted into her I was having a hard time and was frustrated and just tired and was thinking about myself. We got let in and started talking to this woman, and she told us that her parents where killed in WW2 when she was 13 and had 11 siblings. I was hit with such a feeling of guilt and just shame that how could I think of my life as hard when other people go through so much more. I learned that I really do need to stop thinking about myself and that other people have it so much worse than me and that’s why I am here to help them. It was a really amazing answer to my prayer.

The last story I will share this week is about the family we met a long time ago that is inactive. She had a son that went to jail because of a branch president in the branch a long time ago but that is a really long story an I don’t really understand it, but the main point is she is having a hard time forgiving and that’s what I want to talk about. We shared a message with her and were able to get her to the point where she said she needs to forgive and to come back to church. She said a prayer and during the prayer started to bawl and was just crying about how hard it was to forgive and how she needs strength. What I want to talk about is how forgiveness is one of the biggest parts of this gospel. Jesus Christ forgives, we need to forgive, and we can be forgiven. It is such a hard thing to do for us to forgive someone that has hurt us or wronged us in a way that we feel like we could never forgive or they don’t deserve to be forgiven but when we do forgive, that is when we can truly be forgiven of our own sins. It is like a cycle. If we forgive, God will forgive us of our sins. I want to bear my testimony that God can help us have the strength to forgive even when it is so hard. He can give us the blessing of his love and spirit when we fully let go of past things and take a step forward and move on and not dwell on them anymore. It is an amazing feeling to forgive and you can feel the Savior’s love rush over you because he is forgiving you at the same time!

 I love you all so much and know that my Redeemer lives. Have a great week.

Love

Elder Ure

Adorable Lady who made "The best soup" yet!

Feb. 29, 2016

This week has been full of lots of fun things.

On Monday, we went to a member’s house and helped him cut wood. It was on our p-day but its okay because it was still fun. We stacked the wood for him and he cut it. haha. I wish I got to use the chain saw but I guess that’s probably a good thing.

Something that was super fun this week was when we went garbage bag tracting. We walked to this door and saw a garbage bag so we knocked on the door and they did not want to talk to us about the gospel so we just asked if we could take their trash out and they said yes. So we ended up carrying the bag around and asking people if we could take their trash out and then saying the real reason we are here is to help people and the best way we do that is by sharing what we believe in. It actually got people to talk to us so we plan to do this more often! haha. We only got one door slammed in our face!! It was awesome.

I want to share one of my favorite scriptures this week with you all. It is my favorite one from the bible and I used it a lot this week. I read this scripture on the plane flight over to Hungary and it really comforted me. It’s an amazing promise. John 14 v. 18. “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”

The funniest tracting experience yet, happened this week! We knocked on a door and no one came to the door so we started walking down the stairs and made it a whole flight of stairs down when I heard the door open so I take off running up the stairs as I am trying to talk to this lady in Hungarian and I...... Trip. I ate it so hard on the stairs. So picture me crawling up the stairs to give this lady salvation. hahah Elder Roberts about died not laughing. 

I have learned to be really blunt with people here in Hungary. They say what is on their mind.  I have just learned to tell people how it is and I did that this week with one of our investigators. I said it in a nice way but I pretty much told him that baptism is the only important thing in his life right now. He has been meeting with missionaries for 7 years and had a baptismal date so we are working on that again.

This week we went to Miskolc again for interviews. It was good to talk to President Szabadkai and fun to try to talk to him in Hungarian because he is a native Hungarian. Afterwards, we got a 50 cm. Pizza- which was super yummy.

We have started meeting with two of the kids that play football here and they are super awesome and have a ton of really great questions. We have taught them the first two lessons and they seem to want to know more so that’s going great.

This week we got the rudest door slam yet. This guy opened the door listened to why we were there and the only words he said in broken English were to just go away, and then slammed the door hahah. People just don’t understand that we want to help them but I hope that guy gets another chance one day.

We also had a Hungarian Halloween here. They have a party to scare away the evil spirits of winter. It was super fun and we did lots of games and taught a ton of stuff. 

This Sunday we had what we call a death day. This is when we can only speak Hungarian and if we speak in English we get punishments. We also have to preach when we go tracting. So the first thing we say when people open the door is something like... We are missionaries and we know God has a plan for you or something like that. It was super fun. My punishment was I had to do 20 push ups if I spoke English and I spoke English 6 times the whole day. It was hard but I learned a ton!! 

I would like to finish with a story of a lesson I taught this week. It was about faith. I think I saw it first when I was little and a missionary came over to our house and showed me it. What I did was get a Tea bag and poured the tea out and made a cylindar. Then I hold it and light the top on fire. It burns down and right before it touches your hand, it shoots into the air. As I did this I taught that when we are going through hard times we are going through the fire. It is hot and we are scared that we are never going to receive help. Right at the last minute, when we think we are going to burn Jesus Christ saves us. He lifts us from our burdens and can save us if we have faith to endure our trials with patience. I love this lesson and I know it is true. If we have faith In Jesus Christ, he CAN and WILL save us. I love you all so much and hope you have a great week.

Love Elder Ure 

huge, yummy pizza!

chopping wood for  a farmer

Take a Leap of Faith and doing something Scary...

So I am going to start off with a story from last week for this email. Last week it was one of the a Sister’s Birthdays in our district so we planned to go to the woods and have a picnic with her and to just explore. So on the way out,  it starts pouring rain, and I mean drenching everything. So we decided that we still wanted to go and make it even more of an adventure. So as we are standing at a bus stop, (us four missionaries) This lady starts talking to us and just loves how happy we are and how goofy and fun we were being. So we start talking to her and telling her why we are here and she sees that I am in shorts and no Umbrella soooo she decided to give me her umbrella... I told her I didn’t need it because I had a water proof jacket but the Sisters didn’t, so she gave it to them. So in return we gave her a Book of Mormon of course, and started talking to her about her beliefs. She ended up leaving but I could tell we just changed her day around and made her happy. A lot can be said just through a simple smile and being happy, which the Gospel of Jesus Christ brings.

This week I got my first haircut by myself with no help from my companions! It went well and the lady didn’t buzz my hair all the way off, I don’t think I look too bad so whatever I said in Hungarian must have been right.

This week we went to Miskolc and had zone conference which was really amazing! I loved it. We talked a lot about prayer and how to pray effectively. We learned that in our prayers we should express true gratitude and talk about our day. Things that happened, Review, and thank God for just small things that happened.

After we went on splits with the Zone leaders and saw some great success. I went with another Elder went tracting and Knocked on a door and got let in by a younger lady with a sick child at home. Nothing special happened but we found out that she would not have been home on any other day or at any other time and we were able to teach her and she wanted to know more. It is amazing to see the Lords hand in our lives.

Another great experience but also kinda weird thing happened. We had a 17 year old let us in and we talked to him about God. He believed in God just doesn’t know anything. Which is perfect for us to help him. The weird thing was is he had two young siblings that were killing the spirit as we talked. One of them was a 13 year old girl that really was into my freshly cut hair. She tried to touch it and it was just super weird but we were able to talk to the kid and give him a Book of Mormon and they are going to come back and teach him.

On the way home on the train, we sat by two old ladies and started talking to them. I was able to actually talk a little and they said I spoke really well for learning the langauge for just 2 months or so. So that was a boost to my week but we talked to them and they were super cute and nice and Loved my pictures of my family and me playing football. I was able to give them a Book of Mormon and I just love seeing how different people look after just talking about the gospel. It’s like they get a Book Of Mormon in their hand and they become brighter. It is really cool and I love being able to see it. It was a great experience for me and I love to testify of the book and telling them what I know and believe in. 

Also we had a mission wide fast this week which was really cool but also super hard. It was the most hungry I have ever been during fasting. I fasted with so much intent I think I prayed for a solid 30 minutes but I saw help and it was really amazing. We all were fasting for new investigators and were able to find some (we think) so that will be really cool.

I want to finish with my testimony of faith. When we can’t see things it is hard to believe in them. I can’t see my future but I know it will be amazing because I am doing what God wants me to do. I know that if we pray, fast, read, do anything with faith in Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father, our prayers will be answered.

I love you all so much and hope you can have faith to do something in your life that you are scared to do. Take a leap of faith and do it. You will be amazed what can happen.

Love,

Elder Ure 

I am going to start this email off by talking about a very crazy old lady that is a member here in Nyiregyhaza. She is the best but she can throw one crazy party. This week we went to her house and the sisters came and we just thought we were going to have dinner and share a message. Not even close to what happened. She walks out and has all these animal masks and costumes and party supplies and tells us to put them on. So I obviously get the snow leopard because that is my favorite animal. So we all have these masks on and we are all laughing and eating cake. She then puts on Mama Mia or at least I think that’s the name of the song and she wanted us to dance to of course we did. Hungarian old women are a lot crazier then you think they would be! haha.

Shout out to my Dad because he is really into biking, your missionary son has also got really into biking because he has to.... even when it is pouring rain. It has been very rainy here this week and we have been out in it all week long. It has been fun but also very wet and is starting to get annoying. I still can’t get over how much I look like the missionaries from The Best Two Years. 

This week we had District meeting and Elder Roberts and I decided to take a big speaker to the branch house, blast Enya and play ping-pong right when the sisters walked in. It was super funny and way fun. Making good memories like that is always fun and I will never forget them.

We had some really cool but also funny things happen this week. We had a program out a little far away so we got on a bus and went out there... a little into the bus ride we realized it was the wrong bus and saw that it was taking us all the way out into the forest which was a problem. So we go to the bus driver and ask when he will be turning around back towards the city and we figured it out that if we stayed on the bus it would take us back. So we are waiting on the bus and I see this old lady carrying two heavy looking bags running to catch the bus so we run and tell the bus driver and we get out and go take her bags and help her on the bus. When we get on the bus the whole bus is just silent and looking at us. The bus driver then asks the old lady how often you see to young men going to help someone like that and she said never. He then went on to say that we had to not be Hungarian. So we told him yes we are American. By now the whole bus is listening and the bus driver shouts out... You must be Mormons! Haha!! So the whole bus was just amazed at us helping this lady, she was even amazed. We were able to talk to the bus driver and give him our number and as we were getting off the bus, a woman gave us her number and told us to talk to contact her. It is amazing how such a small act of service can change a situation so much. I have realized that service is such a big part of missionary work and helps people to open up their hearts. 

I will finish by saying how much bearing a testimony of my Savior makes me happy. No matter how hard it is to say, no matter how hard the day was, no matter how mean the people are, when I get out that I know my Savoir lives and loves me I feel peace and love every time. I know that Jesus Christ died for us all. He can help us through any hard ship in our life and if we open our hearts to him and give him our weaknesses he will take us above them. I would not be able to learn Hungarian, get rejected every day, leave my family and the ones I love for two years without Jesus Christ. He knows how we feel when we are at our lowest. No matter how hard it is we can do it with Jesus Christ. I am learning this lesson currently. I love you all so much and I hope that you can keep Jesus Christ as close to you as you can every minute of everyday. 

Love Elder Ure 

the sun came out...

our crappy bikes

ping-pong warriors

Feb. 9

Well this week I have been able to understand the language a little and then nothing the next day so it is a rollercoaster that isn’t very fun to ride. Kinda like the ones that you always go on because they look fun but when you get off your head just hurts. haha 

I am going to talk a little about last week because I couldn’t say a lot in my last email. We cleaned the church this week and our church has no carpet so we put water on the floor and were sliding all over the place it was fun. I took a video I will show you in 2 years hahah. After that we had wet feet so we ran home in bare feet and Hungarians freak out when you even don’t have a coat on so everyone was yelling at us as we ran by and laughing. It was 3 C so that was painful but fun. haha. 

We also got super shut down last week tracting. I think I went 20 doors with no one wanting to talk and then 7 straight doors with them slamming it in my face without even saying a word. It was a party and we just started laughing after a while. 

We met with a couple  and they have a super cool dog and we had a great plan of salvation lesson with them and hope that we can go back and meet with them again.

We rode bikes for the first time this week and I wore the helmet and everything. It was a great humility check. haha. Totally Mormon missionary look straight from the movies. It’s awesome. 

This week I had a very scary experience that I survived. Don’t worry mom I am fine. We were tracting and this guy with no pants on opened the door and right away invited us in. when this happens it usually ends bad. So we go in and it smells like so much smoke and I get so dizzy right away. We start talking to him and find out he is a chiropractor. This is a lie it had to have been. Anyways we keep talking to him and out of nowhere he stands up and tells me to lean my head back. I am like uhhh why like no thanks, I am not letting you touch me. He insisted though so I finally did it but was ready at any moment to punch the guy and run. He comes over and puts his hands on my head and closes his eyes and just stands there and I am sitting there just having no idea what is happening. He then says for me to close my eyes and I am like um nope that’s not happening so I only close one half way. He then moves his hands and just stands there. Finally he goes and sits down and says, “I was giving you energy. You have an aura around you.” I felt so sick and just was like we need to leave so we got up and left and went home and said a prayer and I immediately felt better. It was crazy though. Hungary is crazy! haha.

Another awesome tracting experiance this week was when we were walking down the street and smelt the most amazing cookie smell I have ever smelt in my life and we right then went into that building to teach the gospel to whoever was making the Suti. Which is like Hungarian baked goods. So we start knocking doors and the last door we knocked on this lady open it and the smell hits us like a wave of happiness. Sadly she almost slammed the door in our face but Elder Roberts was a champion and stopped her and I don’t know what he said but he got her to give us some and we traded for it with a Book of Mormon. It was the best tasting thing I have ate yet on my mission. It was so good. Such a funny experience! haha. 

This week we had a Palacsinta Est which is like a pancake night I guess. Everyone brought toppings and we shared a thought and had a lot of fun.

This week I felt a missionary Heartbreak for the first time. We had an amazing lesson with a members’ family and taught so strongly and it was so cool. After we asked if they would like to know more and if we could teach them more and all they said was no. When you start to love someone and get attached to them and they say this, it hurts and I wasn’t used to it. It is really sad and sucked but I did my part and I hope they can accept the gospel one day.

We also got kicked out of a building this week by this old lady that thought what we were doing was a joke... haha it was super funny and we all just laughed about it. 

My last story I want to share this week was such an amazing experience. I am so grateful for it and I saw the Lord’s hand in our work. This week we saw a miracle while tracting. We started off and no one would talk to us. Everyone was being mean and just rude and so we decided to go do a look up of an old investigator. We get to the building she lives in and we can’t remember which door she lives in so we ask someone if they can tell us where she lives and they end up knowing someone by the same name we asked for. It ended up being the wrong person but we were able to get a referral from them. So we go there and right when they open the door they invite us in. We were obviously very surprised and went into the room. On the walls were pictures of Jesus and we even found pictures of Joseph Smith and a temple. So we start talking to them and find out they are members with a very sad story. We had never met them or even heard of them but they recently had a death in the family and need us to be there to help them. Just that morning we had planned a lesson for the Plan of Salvation and were able to really help them. It is amazing to be able to see the hand of the Lord in this work and was such a great experience. I know that I am here for a reason no matter how many people don’t want to talk to me. Finding these people this week was such a testimony to me that I know my Heavenly Father is guiding this work. I love being a missionary no matter what crazy stuff happens to me. I love representing my Savior and know that Jesus Christ lives. I love you all so much and hope you have a great week. 

Love Elder Ure 

P.S. I will be in Nziregyhaza for two more months with Elder Roberts so nothing new from tranfers. I love you all have a good week. 

This seamstress made him a suit

This week was very interesting. We went to the zoo on Monday and that was super fun. The tigers were going crazy... partly because we were making them mad by running around but still it was awesome. 

Then on Tuesday I started the morning off rough. I was making myself eggs and go to flip the pan and the pan brakes and the handle falls to the ground and everything goes everywhere. So I go to pick up the pieces not thinking that they might be hot, and pick up one of them and it burns my thumb and pointer finger right off. haha. I hurried and dropped it and put my hand under cold water but the damage was already done. I now have a part on my fingers with no finger print. haha It hurt super bad but I just laughed because of how stupid I was so I have been nursing my fingers back to health this week.

This week we saw even more so that Hungarians love Americans. We were on a bus and started talking to all these high schoolers that had just got on and we told them that we where from America and they all freaked out and started asking questions. So we answer all of them and when we get off the bus two of them ask to get a picture with us.... just because we are American. How crazy is that!

We also went to a museum this week.... super boring I will be honest. I am sorry if you like museums but this one was like pulling teeth. We went because a less active member works there so it was worth it I guess. The museum was just paintings and old Hungarian stuff…sooo not super exciting. 

This week in English class I taught alone because we only had two of us and there are two classes. So I go in there and its going fine and then out of nowhere this girl asks me a question about English that I didn’t even know the answer to IN English. So that was super awkward and embarrassing. 

I don’t have much time this week because the place we are emailing is closing so I will have to tell more about this week next week but I just want to share that I said the Sacrament Prayer in Hungarian for the first time this week and I was able to feel the Spirit so strongly. I love the Sacrament and it is so special to me. I know my Savoir died for me and I know this church is true. I love you all so much and I hope you all have a great week. 

Love Elder Ure