#9 Buda: Doog-a-Doon Doog-a-Doon
This week was so fast, its crazy!! This week we had 4 lessons and found 4 new people to teach!!
On P-day this week we did something I've never done yet. We went to the synagogue. It's the largest synagogue in Europe. So, most of the large synagogues in Europe were destroyed during World War II, but this one survived. It's really pretty. In the inner court yard there are grave markers of those Jews who died in the Budapest Ghetto during World War II. 80% of the million Jews in Hungary perished in World War II. Almost all the Jews in Hungary were sent to Auschwitz. The interesting thing we learned is how many Jews came to live in Hungary after World War II. Hungary has a large Jewish population compared to the rest of Europe. A decade after World War II they were 10% of the population. This synagogue was build in the late 1700's and the architects were Christians so its kind of similar to a Catholic Cathedral but with Jewish symbols and art. It was super cool!!
I did a freezing winter run with Elder Fales on Tuesday and I've been battling a cold ever since.
We had a really good lesson with Hamid where we focused on Alma 32 and building and exercising our faith. With him we have to start from the very beginning, but he loves meeting with us, and has been reading the Book of Mormon in Persian at home. He asked about what he needs to do to grow his faith and that led to a really great discussion. He is a really sweet guy. He had some good questions about what "thou shall not kill" means, and we talked about church. He works with doing special care for seniors and sick people and works almost everyday, including Sunday. He asked us how was he supposed to come to church if he works on Sunday. We asked him some questions about it but at the end we challenged him to pray to go to know if God wanted him at church, and if so then to figure out how to do it. The lesson was really spiritual and it was really nice to teach him.
On Wednesday night we found 4 new people to teach while tracting. We found a family of three, a mom and her 21 year old and her 11 year old; and we found another young man. We also visited a returning member couple who joined in the late 90's and has been inactive for years. We asked them if their life is better since they stopped coming to church and they basically said, "yes." They said that they're much more comfortable being inactive because they don't have to do hard things. So we bore our testimonies that real lasting happiness comes from doing the right things even when those things are hard things. I think it ended on a good note.
This week's Mission conference with Elder Gary Sabin was wonderful, he came with Elder Cook back in October, so this was the second time we've seen him. Thursday we had a big combined Zone Conference that ran all day. He told a lot of parables, stories from his life, like 30 life lessons from Elder Sabin. He was very inspired and I learned a lot. The thing I took away from it was "Don't worry about the things you can't control, worry about the things you can," and "there are lots of interesting things, but only a couple important things." I think all to often I get too concerned and caught up with things that really don't matter or things I can't control. I'm also guilty of living in the future, and not in the moment. With that said, its important to think about things to come, but to at the expense of focusing on the needs and priorities of today. One of the principles of the self-reliance program is "use time wisely." I think I'm good at managing my time but what I took away from that lesson was doing the most important things first. That applies to my office work, but also to bigger things like teaching an investigator, or latter planning for life and college. I think if everyone did the most important things first, then the world, would be a much better place, I'd like that to be my world and my place, and that is something I can control and worry about.
Elder Sabin decided he was going to come to our apartment and do an apartment check. That was a surprise. We did a quick clean, but it didn't look to bad. The President and Elder Sabin seemed to be happy with our apartment. That was a relief.
On Friday we had a lesson with Lajos. We took a member with us who did a really good job answering Lajos tough questions. We taught the Plan of Salvation with a focus on the Gospel of Christ and his Atonement. We read Alma 7 with him and talked about being born again to inherit the Kingdom of God and we talked to him about what it means to inherit the Kingdom of God. We talked about the application of the atonement, what salvation means, and what the Resurrection is; all of these things he didn't really understand even though he is Catholic. We challenged Lajos to be baptized. He didn't say yes to a time and day, but he said that when he gets his answer he will do what God asks of him. That is progress for Lajos. I think in the end he got a better sense of the big picture.
Later that day we taught Eboya the same lesson. We had to explain what sin was to her because she had a really hard time understanding what sin is. She comes from a non-religious background so it's hard for her to comprehend the Plan of Salvation and the purpose of obedience to the laws of God, faith in God, and seeking for perfection through Christ.
***Insert from Ted's parents: We got a video call from Ted this morning at about 8 a.m. U.S. Central time. He called from his desk in the mission office and it was fun to see him in his "place of work." We got to see some of the senior missionaries in the office and Elder Fales who is a former companion of Ted's and is now one of the AP's (Assistants to the President) in the office. It was really great to see him and talk to him. We talked about mission work and about coming home, college, and stuff like that. It was fun!! What a special blessing it was to see him and see how happy he is and how much he is growing up.
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