#9 Kispest: Moving to a New Neighborhood in Pest
I'm MOVING again!
Well, I got a HUGE surprise this morning. They are closing the companionship in Kispest, and so they are giving up the lease on our apartment. The Kispest sisters (Huhtala and Christiansen) are staying together. I will be sent up north to Pest, it's really not that far away. It's the same zone. I'll be serving with Elder Fail, he is in the group who arrived in the mission before mine, so he has been out only 2 months longer. We will also have the Zone leaders in our district. So, with this transfer, we have to pack up and clean everything in the apartment tonight!! Crazy! I'm kind of sad that I'm leaving Kispest, but hopefully, President Szabadkai will let me go to Budai Zoltáns Baptism on Sunday.
This Week in Kispest:
We went on an adventure, all the way to Érd. We got to drive into the countryside and see it when it was all green, and it was really beautiful. It really wasn’t that far, but we went because there is an older woman there wanted to feed Elder Gable before he leaves Hungary and goes home. She is the mother of the old Stake President (meaning the former Stake President of the Hungary Stake). She made us tomato soup and stuffed cabbage.
I also learned of an amazing family connection all the way over here in Hungary. Sister Christiansen’s boyfriend is on a mission in Australia, and he joined the church a couple years ago while he was living in Preston, Idaho. When he decided to investigate the church and get baptized, he was baptized by a local priesthood holder and family friend in Preston, Idaho; and that guy happens to be Dannon Royal. So tonight, I learned that my uncle baptized Sister Christiansen’s boyfriend… The world is super super small. So that also means that Sister Christiansen knows the Royals, which is also pretty cool. The Mormon world is a very small place.
I made banana bread for a ward game party. We invited our investigators. It was a lot of fun. I played a lot of ping pong and played Uno with the Sister’s and their investigator. I taught them another game.
We had another great lesson with Zultan. We had a lesson about the difference between relying on the Lord and counseling with the Lord. We need to rely on the Lord for a lot of things, but some things the Lord expects us to use our intelligence to act for ourselves. For these situations we must learn to council with the Lord, working out with him whether or not our plans are leading us in the right direction. It was a good lesson. Zultan is super prepared to be baptized, it just blows me away.
We traveled to the stake center, it’s pretty far away, about 45 minutes. It was stake conference. The meeting was super full. It was a moral boost to see just how many members there really are in Hungary. We had a great lesson with James the night before stake conference about how we can gain a testimony. One of the ways we gain a testimony of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the church is by acting in faith. We talked about one thing he could do to act in faith is to come to church, and so he acted in faith and came with us to stake conference, which was really cool. We got him a headset, because they translate stake conference into English. It was great.
My mission president and the stake president gave great talks and I understood most everything that was shared at stake conference. That was a really cool experience because I thought about my first stake conference in Hungary, when I had only been in Hungary three weeks and I didn’t understand anything, but this time it was a cool contrast. I got to see members from Kecskemét and see other missionaries I’ve come to know here in Hungary. It was good stuff!
Something I Learned This Week:
I've been thinking a lot about the two people I've been blessed to teach and "baptize." I've been thinking about how none of their progression had anything to do with me, or with how we taught. What I mean is that they were just so prepared when we found them, and we found them because God led us to them in miraculous ways. As missionaries we just gave them information, and asked them to apply it, and they did the rest themselves, it's amazing!! That's why it bothers me when missionaries use speech like, "I have 3 converts," or "I've had 2 baptisms," because missionaries really do nothing when it comes to conversion, it's all the Spirit and the willingness of the people being taught to use their agency. It means as a missionary it's my job to find people who are willing to progress, not to convince people that the Church is true.
In this same vein I've been pondering about the miraculous work that began in Kirtland, Ohio when the higher keys of the Melkisédek priesthood were restored, Moses appeared in the Kirtland temple and conferred the priesthood keys for missionary work, or more specifically "the gathering of scattered Isreal." As a Latter-day Saint with a patriarchal blessing I know that I am a descendent of Isreal, and as a missionary in this last dispensation it's my call to invite all to come unto Christ and to gather Isreal.
*Some Explanation of these events referred to by Elder Morgan: The work of the restoration of the Christ's church in these last days (referred to by Paul as the last dispensation of the fullness of times in Ephesians 1:10) began when the heavens were opened to the boy Joseph in a sacred grove of trees in upstate New York, but the heavenly visitations that conferred all the keys of authority and established a quorum of apostles, as in ancient times, with all the keys of heaven to bind on earth and in heaven (Matthew 16:19) continued in a series of heavenly visitation culminating after the completion of the first holy temple in this dispensation, when the ancient priesthood keys were restored by heavenly visitations of Moses, Elijah, and Elias who appeared in the Kirtland Temple. The blessings of the temple were the crowning blessings of the fullness of times.
Well, I got a HUGE surprise this morning. They are closing the companionship in Kispest, and so they are giving up the lease on our apartment. The Kispest sisters (Huhtala and Christiansen) are staying together. I will be sent up north to Pest, it's really not that far away. It's the same zone. I'll be serving with Elder Fail, he is in the group who arrived in the mission before mine, so he has been out only 2 months longer. We will also have the Zone leaders in our district. So, with this transfer, we have to pack up and clean everything in the apartment tonight!! Crazy! I'm kind of sad that I'm leaving Kispest, but hopefully, President Szabadkai will let me go to Budai Zoltáns Baptism on Sunday.
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| My supper cool French MCM leader, Sébastien |
We went on an adventure, all the way to Érd. We got to drive into the countryside and see it when it was all green, and it was really beautiful. It really wasn’t that far, but we went because there is an older woman there wanted to feed Elder Gable before he leaves Hungary and goes home. She is the mother of the old Stake President (meaning the former Stake President of the Hungary Stake). She made us tomato soup and stuffed cabbage.
I also learned of an amazing family connection all the way over here in Hungary. Sister Christiansen’s boyfriend is on a mission in Australia, and he joined the church a couple years ago while he was living in Preston, Idaho. When he decided to investigate the church and get baptized, he was baptized by a local priesthood holder and family friend in Preston, Idaho; and that guy happens to be Dannon Royal. So tonight, I learned that my uncle baptized Sister Christiansen’s boyfriend… The world is super super small. So that also means that Sister Christiansen knows the Royals, which is also pretty cool. The Mormon world is a very small place.
I made banana bread for a ward game party. We invited our investigators. It was a lot of fun. I played a lot of ping pong and played Uno with the Sister’s and their investigator. I taught them another game.
We had another great lesson with Zultan. We had a lesson about the difference between relying on the Lord and counseling with the Lord. We need to rely on the Lord for a lot of things, but some things the Lord expects us to use our intelligence to act for ourselves. For these situations we must learn to council with the Lord, working out with him whether or not our plans are leading us in the right direction. It was a good lesson. Zultan is super prepared to be baptized, it just blows me away.
We traveled to the stake center, it’s pretty far away, about 45 minutes. It was stake conference. The meeting was super full. It was a moral boost to see just how many members there really are in Hungary. We had a great lesson with James the night before stake conference about how we can gain a testimony. One of the ways we gain a testimony of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the church is by acting in faith. We talked about one thing he could do to act in faith is to come to church, and so he acted in faith and came with us to stake conference, which was really cool. We got him a headset, because they translate stake conference into English. It was great.
My mission president and the stake president gave great talks and I understood most everything that was shared at stake conference. That was a really cool experience because I thought about my first stake conference in Hungary, when I had only been in Hungary three weeks and I didn’t understand anything, but this time it was a cool contrast. I got to see members from Kecskemét and see other missionaries I’ve come to know here in Hungary. It was good stuff!
Something I Learned This Week:
I've been thinking a lot about the two people I've been blessed to teach and "baptize." I've been thinking about how none of their progression had anything to do with me, or with how we taught. What I mean is that they were just so prepared when we found them, and we found them because God led us to them in miraculous ways. As missionaries we just gave them information, and asked them to apply it, and they did the rest themselves, it's amazing!! That's why it bothers me when missionaries use speech like, "I have 3 converts," or "I've had 2 baptisms," because missionaries really do nothing when it comes to conversion, it's all the Spirit and the willingness of the people being taught to use their agency. It means as a missionary it's my job to find people who are willing to progress, not to convince people that the Church is true.
In this same vein I've been pondering about the miraculous work that began in Kirtland, Ohio when the higher keys of the Melkisédek priesthood were restored, Moses appeared in the Kirtland temple and conferred the priesthood keys for missionary work, or more specifically "the gathering of scattered Isreal." As a Latter-day Saint with a patriarchal blessing I know that I am a descendent of Isreal, and as a missionary in this last dispensation it's my call to invite all to come unto Christ and to gather Isreal.
*Some Explanation of these events referred to by Elder Morgan: The work of the restoration of the Christ's church in these last days (referred to by Paul as the last dispensation of the fullness of times in Ephesians 1:10) began when the heavens were opened to the boy Joseph in a sacred grove of trees in upstate New York, but the heavenly visitations that conferred all the keys of authority and established a quorum of apostles, as in ancient times, with all the keys of heaven to bind on earth and in heaven (Matthew 16:19) continued in a series of heavenly visitation culminating after the completion of the first holy temple in this dispensation, when the ancient priesthood keys were restored by heavenly visitations of Moses, Elijah, and Elias who appeared in the Kirtland Temple. The blessings of the temple were the crowning blessings of the fullness of times.
Love you all, I'll let you know how pest is next week.
Morgan Elder
Morgan Elder
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