Morgan Elder in Magyarország

This week we did a lot of member work to help prepare for the branch conference. We met with some active members and looked up some other less active ones. We went and visited a less active recent convert and her grandson with the elder quorum's president, and then she came to conference which was wonderful. We had a turn out of 34 local members, which for here was a pretty big achievement. I hope we can continue to ride the enthusiasm. This week we found 4 new investigators (two of them on Sunday evening). One of them was referred to us by an investigator and then participated in the lesson with us. They are two men from Jordan, Hossam and Loai, and they are Christians which was neat. They come from strictly Christian communities within Jordan. Hossam is a choir director and used to be a choir director at the catholic church in his community in Jordan. In Jordan they have to pay taxes for being Christian, but otherwise they live in peace with the Muslims there. We talked with ...

It's been a harder week but ilyen az élet (such is life). We keep moving forward!! Sadly, our difficult week was reflected in our numbers this week. It was a bit discouraging but we hope to make this next one amazing.  Zone conference went well. We drove to Budapest with the Oakey's, and hit some traffic and got there late. We talked about creating an environment that makes it easier for the people we are teaching to feel the Spirit. The Spirit was strong in our meeting and I thoroughly enjoyed that. I had my interview with the Mission President. Sounds like next transfer, they will have to find another AP because Elder Martin will be going home, so I may have to train a new zone leader next transfer. We spent some time helping the secretaries, Elder Burnett and Elder Udy, and afterward we went to a Thai restaurant with the Oakey's and another senior couple. We had the opportunity to hold a companionship exchange here in Debrecen with the Nyíregyháza elders. Elder Wr...

This week was a full one. Yesterday was zone conference in Budapest. That's why we didn't write yesterday. They had to shift zone meeting to Monday because of a letter from the First Presidency that told us that Elder Cook is coming on October 24th; so everything got bumbed up in preparation for that. We are responsible for food for Elder Cook's visit, so that's a little intimidating. Last Monday, on my birthday, we had exchanges here in Debrecen with the assistants. Elder Martin and I had a wonderful exchange. We focused on relying on the Spirit. I learned so much from him, and I am sad that my trainer will be going home soon. While on splits we found a good number of new investigators. We also went with the Ockey's to a giant German superstore and had ice cream. That was fun. Elder Martin bought me a birthday cake that night, which was pretty cool. On Tuesday, Elder Martin and I streeted and found a new person to teach. It was like old times! We al...

This was a really good week, we didn't have a lot of lessons, and mostly spent our time finding people to teach. It was really good week. We have been having difficulty meeting with the people the last set of elders were teaching. It's been very difficult to contact them.  I also had a wonderful exchange with the Szolnok elders, Elder Barton and Elder Montoya this week. They came to Debrecen for splits. Elder Barton has been in the country eleven weeks. I remember when I was on my second transfer and it seems like forever ago. Elder Montoya was trained by Elder Udy (My companion in the MTC) about five months ago, so he's my missionary nephew. I was paired with Elder Montoya and we talked and worked on relying on the Spirit in finding and in planning, and the role that prayer has in showing our willingness to the Lord to receive and act on his help. It was a wonderful story. We had did some good finding and got several contacts and a new people to teach. Elder Barton an...

Well in this weeks news: Two elders moved all of their worldly possessions to Debrecen. I'm excited to be here in Debrecen, its a beautiful city. I'm loving it here in Debrecen. The branch is small, but we think it has potential, we have a small handful of investigators, an upcoming baptism, and an awesome senior couple, I think its going to be a great transfer. The weather is chilly and it feels like fall. My birthday is in a week and I'm not ready to be a score old. I wish I could just play with Lego's all day. JK!! Yesterday would have been p-day but we had to travel to Budapest and then go to a dental appointment for Elder Surdu, and then travel back, so we were on a train for 6 hours yesterday. It wasn't that bad, it just took all day, but luckily today we still get to email and go grocery shopping. Wednesday we moved here to Debrecen. On Thursday we met with Andrea and the Branch President to discuss the upcoming baptism. We decided it would be bette...

Some exiting news, I'm moving again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I'm going crazy! I'm 6 for 7, I've moved 6 out of my 7 transfers!!!!!! I'm pretty much a lost migratory goose. I'm headed back out east to Nyíregyháza, just kidding, but seriously I'm headed to Debrecen which is right next to Nyíregyháza. Debrecen (which is where Elder Surdu was born!) is the 2nd largest city in Hungary with a whopping 330,000 people. It's going to be a new zone leader city so I'm white washing in again. The other surprise is that, I'm going to be staying with my companion Elder Surdu!! So it will be a new city but same companion, I'm excited! We ship out tomorrow morning. We will be over the east zone which is every city on the east side of the Danube except for Pest and Kispest. Our Week: This was a good last week of the transfer. Besides all of the finding we did, I think the highlight was this past week’s MLC. It was very uplifting and o...

This week was awesome! We were literally all over the place. We went on splits in both Nyíregyháza and in Eger (most of the pictures are from there). We also had interviews which were wonderful and on top of that some good lessons with investigators and some appointments with members to talk about the book of Mormon initiative. The biggest teaching update is that we had to take our most progressing investigator off of baptismal date, primarily because he is having some questions about the Book of Mormon, and his date won’t work because it is this week and he is not prepared. We will be working with him this week to overcome his concerns and help him have a new goal for baptism. My split with Elder Gilson was great. It was so much fun to work with him in Nyíregyháza, it was like old times (4 weeks ago). His companion Elder Rathal is from England, he lived in California for a few years before his mission. He's had a rough mission because all his companions have gone home for ...

I’m glad to say, that this week's zone conference was a success, outside of that it was a little rough. "Mama said there’d be days like this." I’m really glad that the lunch we made for zone conference worked out. Sister Hettinger has asked us to make healthy meals instead of ordering pizza, so we cooked for the zone. We made beef and rice burritos and they were really good. Sister Hettinger praised us for our cooking. I really hope that our training on language study plans will help our zone. I think the training that the Sister Training Leaders gave was fantastic. The AP's (Assistents to the President) talked about how to improve personal and companion study. We had a really difficult time contacting the people we are teaching this week. We did meet with one of the people we are teaching, named Zoli, he is blind and lives alone and this time he was completely wasted, it was really hard. It’s difficult because he knows what we share with him is true and wants ...

This last week was a full one. Our Book of Mormon Zone challenge has been going well and I hope it has been working to inspire and uplift the missionaries, I know personally that I have learned so much, and I feel my testimony of the Book of Mormon strengthening. On Monday I had splits with Elder Spencer (Elder Martin's companion), an AP (an assistant to the President) born and raised in Boise Idaho, came to his mission via North Carolina and whose parents have now moved to Utah. Elder Spencer loves snow skiing and boating. He is serving in Buda, which is the other side of the river. It was a good split, the purpose being my training as a zone leader. This week we found three new investigators, unfortunately they all were unable to make it to the appointments we set up with them, but hopefully this week we will be able to meet with them again. We had a really great meeting with our Vietnamese investigator, we gave her a Book of Mormon in Vietnamese, and she was so excited. I...

Long time no see... It feels like it's been only four days since I have sent you an email... oh, yeah, that's because it's only been 4 days since my last email. So, what I have I been up to in the last few days? Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday was eaten up by lots of Zone Leader Administrative stuff, so it was nice to get to regular missionary work on Thursday, except for the three hours we spent at the hevital to register in our new area, which was a fail because we decided to stop waiting after three hours and we'll have to go back next week. Friday was district meeting, and Saturday we did our weekly call with the mission president as zone leaders. We talked about the new 21 day Book of Mormon reading challenge the Church is doing for Europe. It officially starts the 1st of September, but we've gotten a head start. We will be using it in our proselytizing and in our district and zone meetings. Every day there is a scriptures passage, a question, and a conf...

Monday was the biggest national holiday for Hungarians ever. Stevensday! It marks when St. Steven, the first Christian king, was crownd king of Hungary in the year 1000. So this marks the beginning of the Hungarian nation. They even have St. Steven's mumified hand in a golden box that they march around the city. There were some weird Hungarian bagpipes in the parade. Kind of weird to an American, but it's amazing that there has been a continuous Hungarian state for 1800 years. That's a pretty big deal. The picture from last week of me playing the bagpipes. Here's the story: Last P-day in Nyíregyháza   we went over to a members house who lives in England most of the time, and lives in Hungary for the summer. He has some pipes he bought in Scotland, but they are the kind of pipes that tourists would buy, so they weren't very nice and they didn't sound very good. He also had a cheap kilt that we put on for the picture. It was kind of silly. This past week ...

Okay, like I said before this transfer was a special 5 week transfer, so today we got our calls with our new assignments, and somehow I'm moving again!! Yes, I'll be going back to Budapest, specifically back to Pest where I was just 5 weeks ago! Well, I have to say that the call to return to Pest was certainly a surprise, but seeing how I love Pest and I was sad to leave after only 2 months, I'm very excited to go back!! This time I'll be serving with Elder Surdu from Canada and I will serve as the Zone Leader. I'm also looking forward to being with Surdu Elder. I feel humbled to be called as a Zone Leader but I hope that with the Lord's help I can do what he needs me to do. Despite being nervous about serving as Zone Leader, I think this is probably the most excited I've been for transfers. Sure, I have to move again, and I'm intimidated at the call to be zone leader, but I'll be back in Pest which is awesome, and I'll be with Elder Surdu, which...

This week sort of flew by. The miracle of this week was for sure our lesson with Zoltán. He became a new investigator last week, but this week we had our first real lesson with him. We did a lot of good and taught him about the Book of Mormon and how to get a testimony of spiritual things. He is a very religious man and he said that he is a real truth seeker and wants to know if what we have is true. At the end of the lesson he was asking us about how to repent because he said that it’s hard to learn about it in the bible. We told him that he will find answers to his questions, as he reads the Book of Mormon, prays, meets with us and comes to church. I hope tomorrow’s lesson goes well. A lot of our investigator lessons fell through this week, so we did a lot of look ups and meeting with members. We shared messages about how we can use the blessings of the gospel in our lives to invite people to partake of the fruits of the gospel. I guess you could say it was the “come and see” ...

I’m happy to report that our week was quite pleasant. It was a good week for the work, but I'm exhausted. I think it's the sun, it been 33 degrees celsius, 91 degrees fahrenheit, all this week, and I'm dying! I hear it will be this kind of hot the rest of the week. I'm tired of having a perpetual sunburn, but I'm still happy. Today we had a sport day with some members from the ward, we played soccer, which I'm absolutely horrible at, probably because I am American and really uncoordinated, but we also played a little American football, and though I'm not good at that either, I am better than Hungarians. It was fun. I also got to crack my whip. :) This week we had a really good to have zone conference in Buda. We had 2 new investigators this week. Our focus in finding has been about how we can find lasting happiness. One of the investigators is an older man with a family, and the other is in his 30’s. I hope that as we meet with them this week...

This first full week in Nyíregyháza was a good one. I’d say that we are starting to feel at home hear and getting a sense for where things are in this city. We are registered in the city with the city government. On p-day we played basketball and tennis on clay courts. Elder Garrett and I won the basketball match, but not because I am any good (because I am not) but Elder Garrett is super tall and can dunk the ball. We also went to eat Thai and I had a coconut curry that was awesome! It was a good p-day. This week we found two new investigators. The first is an older woman named Éva; she was streeted a few weeks ago by the other elders. It was a pretty frustrating lesson, she has a lot of concerns about religion in general, and she is very stubborn, but she accepted a commitment to read the restoration pamphlet, and she said we could come back this next week to talk with her about it. I hope this next lesson goes well, and that we can find a good member to bring with us, we will see....