#12 Kecskemét: Mission Miracles
Kedves Mindenki!
It was a good week. Tuesday it snowed about 2 inches, we also had interviews with President Szabadkai. I love interviews with him, he has so much love and peace about him. This week we focused on hunting down former investigators. Most of them had moved, we made a few appointments to try back next week, but one couple let us in and we had a wonderful conversation, and now we have a new investigator! We were in the right place at the right time, and I know it was a miracle.
Saturday decided to go to a building that Elder Martin and I tracted last transfer to see if we could make contact with someone we had set an appointment up with but we had not ended up meeting with. When we were at the building looking at the building directory for the name and apartment # -- right at that moment a man and a woman came and put in their code so they could get into the building and we were able to get into the apartment that way – we started talking to the man and woman who let us in and when we were in the elevator we discovered they were going to the same floor we were going to and so I asked them if they happened to know the family we were there to see and it turned out he was the husband of the former investigator and I turned to his wife and said, “Are you Ergie?” They said, “How do you know our names?” And we said we were the missionaries, and they said, “The Missionaries!! Oh my goodness!” When we got off the elevator she invited us to their apartment. We had a nice chat with her. She had been in Norway visiting her kids which is why she stopped talking the lessons with the missionaries and now she’s back, so we asked her if we could start teaching her again and she said yes. It was really cool! A total miracle!!! If they hadn’t come exactly at that time, and if we hadn’t grabbed the door, if we hadn’t rode up with them, if we hadn’t asked them…. It wouldn’t have happened. I had been praying for help finding someone to teach, someone prepared, and then this miracle came. It was a really good day!! This experience was one of the best experiences I’ve had on my mission.
Yesterday it snowed again, but because the last snow melted by Thursday there is only an inch or so on the ground, but it has gotten much colder this week, and lots of ice today. I like this weather.
This week we had lunch with Kovacs Irma and she made us Karfiol leaves, which is cauliflower soup, it was the best soup I've had in Hungary. They eat a lot of soups in Hungary, usually before each meal, but this one was the best. I sort of tolerated cauliflower before my mission, but now I think its my favorite vegetable, and they make good stuff with it. So good!!
For Christmas Sister Towne gave me a cookbook. So I tried to make soft pretzels, and it didn’t quite turn out, but they weren’t bad… I’m learning to cook. I’m learning to cook Hungarian food. The problem is that Hungarian food is good but it takes a million hours to make. My favorite Hungarian dish is stuffed peppers but it takes like an hour and a half to make!! So Sunday I made the only Hungarian meal I could make with what was left in our fridge, it took hours to make the meal, and then I didn’t really like it very much when we were done. Kind of a disappointment. When you eat food that isn’t super good… you just don’t feel good, but it’s all we had.
Saturday we had a new member discussion at the branch house with two new members and it was a really great lesson about the priesthood. At the end I bore my testimony about why I value the priesthood and during my testimony I got chocked up, which surprised me, I didn’t realize that I had a testimony like that about the Melkesidek priesthood. I think that’s because I hadn’t spent much time thinking about experiences I’ve had using the Melkesideck priesthood until I bore my testimony of two experiences that came to my mind. I thought about when we gave Aunt Melanie a blessing the day Abraham died, that evening, and the evening of the funeral, Dannan and I, but mainly I, gave a blessing to Molly who was sick and dealing with Abraham’s death; and thinking back to those experiences I was able to use the priesthood to give those blessings, and being a very new Elder at that time and being able to help them, because they’re loved ones and it was a really hard time, was really special. I was able to help serve them. In Molly’s blessing her ears were hurting so bad (she had an ear infection) so we had to very lightly put the tips of our fingers on her forehead, but in the morning her ears were completely better. That was really special. It was one of those things when you teach and testify about things and you bear your testimony about them sometimes you learn how strong your testimony really is.
I finished reading all of the conference talks from last conference and I loved the closing one by Elder Andersen, "The Voice of the Lord." He talked about the importance of studying the words of the modern prophets, it reminded me of a seminary scripture D&C 1:38.
(Seminary Scripture: While in high school I attended a four year seminary program and took a seminary class every weekday before school. We studied the scriptures in depth and one part of that was memorizing 100 scriptures, 25 from each scriptural text.)
"What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same."
I know that the President Nelsen, his counselor and the apostles are prophets of God.
Love Elder Morgan
It was a good week. Tuesday it snowed about 2 inches, we also had interviews with President Szabadkai. I love interviews with him, he has so much love and peace about him. This week we focused on hunting down former investigators. Most of them had moved, we made a few appointments to try back next week, but one couple let us in and we had a wonderful conversation, and now we have a new investigator! We were in the right place at the right time, and I know it was a miracle.
Saturday decided to go to a building that Elder Martin and I tracted last transfer to see if we could make contact with someone we had set an appointment up with but we had not ended up meeting with. When we were at the building looking at the building directory for the name and apartment # -- right at that moment a man and a woman came and put in their code so they could get into the building and we were able to get into the apartment that way – we started talking to the man and woman who let us in and when we were in the elevator we discovered they were going to the same floor we were going to and so I asked them if they happened to know the family we were there to see and it turned out he was the husband of the former investigator and I turned to his wife and said, “Are you Ergie?” They said, “How do you know our names?” And we said we were the missionaries, and they said, “The Missionaries!! Oh my goodness!” When we got off the elevator she invited us to their apartment. We had a nice chat with her. She had been in Norway visiting her kids which is why she stopped talking the lessons with the missionaries and now she’s back, so we asked her if we could start teaching her again and she said yes. It was really cool! A total miracle!!! If they hadn’t come exactly at that time, and if we hadn’t grabbed the door, if we hadn’t rode up with them, if we hadn’t asked them…. It wouldn’t have happened. I had been praying for help finding someone to teach, someone prepared, and then this miracle came. It was a really good day!! This experience was one of the best experiences I’ve had on my mission.
Yesterday it snowed again, but because the last snow melted by Thursday there is only an inch or so on the ground, but it has gotten much colder this week, and lots of ice today. I like this weather.
This week we had lunch with Kovacs Irma and she made us Karfiol leaves, which is cauliflower soup, it was the best soup I've had in Hungary. They eat a lot of soups in Hungary, usually before each meal, but this one was the best. I sort of tolerated cauliflower before my mission, but now I think its my favorite vegetable, and they make good stuff with it. So good!!
For Christmas Sister Towne gave me a cookbook. So I tried to make soft pretzels, and it didn’t quite turn out, but they weren’t bad… I’m learning to cook. I’m learning to cook Hungarian food. The problem is that Hungarian food is good but it takes a million hours to make. My favorite Hungarian dish is stuffed peppers but it takes like an hour and a half to make!! So Sunday I made the only Hungarian meal I could make with what was left in our fridge, it took hours to make the meal, and then I didn’t really like it very much when we were done. Kind of a disappointment. When you eat food that isn’t super good… you just don’t feel good, but it’s all we had.
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| A salmon dish I made. Yum! |
Last Monday we went to the college where we do our emails. After that we went to Tardianas house. I love her, she’s like grandma. She fed us bean soup and Hungarian crapes with shredded apples with cinnamon and sugar and another kind with cottage cheese and raisins, which I don’t like but I ate it anyway because I’m a good missionary. We got our bikes back after two weeks of no bikes because the bikes needed a lot of work. They were awesome!... Until more bicycle trouble on Thursday! My back tire exploded again! But I didn’t get hurt. So frustrating because we just got our bicycles back from the shop on Monday, and before that the bikes had been in the shop a whole week, and we only had them three days before they were broken again. We’ve not had very good luck with bicycles but I’m trying to see the Lord’s plan in that too.
We had the opportunity to watch the Broadcast on Tuesday about the new First Presidency, (The leadership of our church is headed by a three member Presidency, a president and two counselors) it was really good. I'm grateful the Lord has set up the way the new prophet is chosen, that in his wisdom the most seasoned and most wise senior apostle becomes the president of the church. President Nelson said that he is humbled and honored for this opportunity to serve the Lord. He said that whole time he’s been an apostle he has committed himself to the work of the Lord and he pledged every breath he has to the day he dies to serving the Lord. The president of the church truly does serve the Lord to his very last breath and gives all his time and strength to that. I love that level of commitment and devotion to the Lord. I’m really grateful that he has this opportunity to serve, he is a good man. I am grateful for a living prophet on the earth.
Wednesday we tracked the whole ten story and had a long talk with an elderly woman who had a lot of difficulties in her life. We talked to her about the Plan of Salvation and gave her a Book of Mormon. We will try to get in contact with her again, which may be a challenge, but either way… whether she ends up meeting with the missionaries or not it was a really good experience and I hope she reads out of the Book of Mormon and maybe call the missionaries sometimes. We worked long and hard with only this one little success and it was kind of a harder day… sometimes it’s easy to get down on yourself as a missionary because you have to consciously realize that people have their agency to choose whether or not they want to listen to the gospel and that can be difficult. We spent four hours tracting and talking to people and no one wanted to talk to us, and that happens a lot, but today it was a little more difficult.
Last transfer we had a baptism and quite a few investigators and lots of lessons and people to meet with and we had Christmas finding activities and now this transfer so far we’ve still been working hard but a lot of our newer investigators dropped off for various reasons and it’s just been difficult because we are working hard but having less success. “Preach My Gospel” (missionary training manual) teaches us that our success primarily comes from our commitment to finding and teaching people and that’s been a little difficult for me this week because the Sister missionaries in our area have been doing really well this week, they’ve had lots of let-in’s and lessons and people to talk to who wanted to hear their message and it’s been a little more difficult for us, but that’s not something we’re supposed to let get us down, we are supposed to have faith that God will lead us to those who are prepared in his own way and time.
Thursday we talked to lots of people while we were streeting (making contacts with people in the streets and talking to people). We talked to an elderly couple and I asked them why family is important to them and the man said, “Family is EVERYTHING!” And then he went on and on about how much he loves his family. We shared with them the plan of salvation and the first vision story and the spirit was so strong. They didn’t want to meet with us though, but that’s OK, because when we got done we felt happy; and that’s missionary work.
In my personal study today I was reading a conference talk that taught that sometimes difficult circumstances happen in our lives but we need to accept the Lord’s will in our life and move forward. In district meeting we talked about Christ-like teaching. We talked about Christ’s apostles and how before they were great teachers they were ordinary people, fishermen, tax collectors, etc., and then the Lord molded them into great teachers; so if we allow ourselves to be molded by the Lord we can become great teachers. As we try to teach people, if we teach people in the ways of the world or in our own ways, it won’t work, but if we teach people in the way the Savior would teach them then it will work.
We taught our English class today and we had a good time… but then we had missionary correlation and I had a hard time communicating for some reason… but it’s OK because mamma said there’d be days like this.
Friday we went to a housing development with lots of old houses and we tracted into an old investigator who invited us back another day. We looked up another old investigator and we knocked on his door and he looked very happy to see us and we made another return appointment to meet with him and his wife. He looked really cool and I hope we can meet with him. Then when we were trying to find another house a really drunk man came over and asked us if we needed help finding something and he helped us figure out where we were going; but then he asked what we were doing and we told him we were missionaries and he got really really excited and wanted us to come see his family… but the spirit told us not to go with him… and so we got the contact information of his family and we’ll call them, maybe something will come of it, but it was kind of strange. We made a phone contact with a former investigator who had moved to a small village about 27 miles outside town and she was excited to hear from us and made an appointment with us next week. We are hoping next week these appointments come through and we have more people to teach then we did this week.
We had the opportunity to watch the Broadcast on Tuesday about the new First Presidency, (The leadership of our church is headed by a three member Presidency, a president and two counselors) it was really good. I'm grateful the Lord has set up the way the new prophet is chosen, that in his wisdom the most seasoned and most wise senior apostle becomes the president of the church. President Nelson said that he is humbled and honored for this opportunity to serve the Lord. He said that whole time he’s been an apostle he has committed himself to the work of the Lord and he pledged every breath he has to the day he dies to serving the Lord. The president of the church truly does serve the Lord to his very last breath and gives all his time and strength to that. I love that level of commitment and devotion to the Lord. I’m really grateful that he has this opportunity to serve, he is a good man. I am grateful for a living prophet on the earth.
Wednesday we tracked the whole ten story and had a long talk with an elderly woman who had a lot of difficulties in her life. We talked to her about the Plan of Salvation and gave her a Book of Mormon. We will try to get in contact with her again, which may be a challenge, but either way… whether she ends up meeting with the missionaries or not it was a really good experience and I hope she reads out of the Book of Mormon and maybe call the missionaries sometimes. We worked long and hard with only this one little success and it was kind of a harder day… sometimes it’s easy to get down on yourself as a missionary because you have to consciously realize that people have their agency to choose whether or not they want to listen to the gospel and that can be difficult. We spent four hours tracting and talking to people and no one wanted to talk to us, and that happens a lot, but today it was a little more difficult.
Last transfer we had a baptism and quite a few investigators and lots of lessons and people to meet with and we had Christmas finding activities and now this transfer so far we’ve still been working hard but a lot of our newer investigators dropped off for various reasons and it’s just been difficult because we are working hard but having less success. “Preach My Gospel” (missionary training manual) teaches us that our success primarily comes from our commitment to finding and teaching people and that’s been a little difficult for me this week because the Sister missionaries in our area have been doing really well this week, they’ve had lots of let-in’s and lessons and people to talk to who wanted to hear their message and it’s been a little more difficult for us, but that’s not something we’re supposed to let get us down, we are supposed to have faith that God will lead us to those who are prepared in his own way and time.
Thursday we talked to lots of people while we were streeting (making contacts with people in the streets and talking to people). We talked to an elderly couple and I asked them why family is important to them and the man said, “Family is EVERYTHING!” And then he went on and on about how much he loves his family. We shared with them the plan of salvation and the first vision story and the spirit was so strong. They didn’t want to meet with us though, but that’s OK, because when we got done we felt happy; and that’s missionary work.
In my personal study today I was reading a conference talk that taught that sometimes difficult circumstances happen in our lives but we need to accept the Lord’s will in our life and move forward. In district meeting we talked about Christ-like teaching. We talked about Christ’s apostles and how before they were great teachers they were ordinary people, fishermen, tax collectors, etc., and then the Lord molded them into great teachers; so if we allow ourselves to be molded by the Lord we can become great teachers. As we try to teach people, if we teach people in the ways of the world or in our own ways, it won’t work, but if we teach people in the way the Savior would teach them then it will work.
We taught our English class today and we had a good time… but then we had missionary correlation and I had a hard time communicating for some reason… but it’s OK because mamma said there’d be days like this.
Friday we went to a housing development with lots of old houses and we tracted into an old investigator who invited us back another day. We looked up another old investigator and we knocked on his door and he looked very happy to see us and we made another return appointment to meet with him and his wife. He looked really cool and I hope we can meet with him. Then when we were trying to find another house a really drunk man came over and asked us if we needed help finding something and he helped us figure out where we were going; but then he asked what we were doing and we told him we were missionaries and he got really really excited and wanted us to come see his family… but the spirit told us not to go with him… and so we got the contact information of his family and we’ll call them, maybe something will come of it, but it was kind of strange. We made a phone contact with a former investigator who had moved to a small village about 27 miles outside town and she was excited to hear from us and made an appointment with us next week. We are hoping next week these appointments come through and we have more people to teach then we did this week.
Saturday we had a new member discussion at the branch house with two new members and it was a really great lesson about the priesthood. At the end I bore my testimony about why I value the priesthood and during my testimony I got chocked up, which surprised me, I didn’t realize that I had a testimony like that about the Melkesidek priesthood. I think that’s because I hadn’t spent much time thinking about experiences I’ve had using the Melkesideck priesthood until I bore my testimony of two experiences that came to my mind. I thought about when we gave Aunt Melanie a blessing the day Abraham died, that evening, and the evening of the funeral, Dannan and I, but mainly I, gave a blessing to Molly who was sick and dealing with Abraham’s death; and thinking back to those experiences I was able to use the priesthood to give those blessings, and being a very new Elder at that time and being able to help them, because they’re loved ones and it was a really hard time, was really special. I was able to help serve them. In Molly’s blessing her ears were hurting so bad (she had an ear infection) so we had to very lightly put the tips of our fingers on her forehead, but in the morning her ears were completely better. That was really special. It was one of those things when you teach and testify about things and you bear your testimony about them sometimes you learn how strong your testimony really is.
I finished reading all of the conference talks from last conference and I loved the closing one by Elder Andersen, "The Voice of the Lord." He talked about the importance of studying the words of the modern prophets, it reminded me of a seminary scripture D&C 1:38.
(Seminary Scripture: While in high school I attended a four year seminary program and took a seminary class every weekday before school. We studied the scriptures in depth and one part of that was memorizing 100 scriptures, 25 from each scriptural text.)
"What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same."
I know that the President Nelsen, his counselor and the apostles are prophets of God.
Love Elder Morgan
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