Morgan Elder in Magyarország

This week was fantastic! We got the 3rd member of our companionship this week. Elder Emang is so cool, I love him, I almost wish that I wasn't leaving two weeks into the transfer. This week we had a good number of lessons, the Saturday branch activity, and one of our investigators came to church. Tuesday was also my "last day" as in I had my final interview, self reliance, dinner and testimony meeting. It was really great, I was able to get spend time with Elders Katics, Burnett, and Spencer. Its really strange to be in the post "last day of my mission phase" and pre-going to airport part of my mission. It all feels really real, and strange, and It makes me sad and happy all at the same time. I don't know. We taught a good number of lessons, had one investigator in church, and the branch party was awesome. We had a really good lesson with one of our investigators, and we brought two members. It was really good. We talked about how to build ...

Well we did it, This week we broke my mission record of having 14 lessons in one week, we had 15 lessons! It was crazy, I like teaching lessons, but when that is all, it makes your brain and tongue tired. It was a ride. We focused on specifically focusing on the sacrament and on making covenants with heavenly father. We had a lot of investigators and returning members tell us that they were going to come to church, but they all stood us up. It hurt, but I hope that our efforts still left an impact. Bitter sweet. We had a couple really powerful lessons with returning members this week. We focused on one of our lessons on finding faith in Christ. With that we read with him Mosiah chapter 3, and then watched "finding faith in Christ" I've found that the more I focus on Christ, the spirit is always more abundant. We also had taught a Man about how our attendance and dedication to church and keeping the sabbath day holy reflects the sacred covenants that we have made, we ...

Weeks with lots of travel always zoom by, its a little unfair, despite that we still had some good lessons and found 4 new investigators! Zone Conference was wonderful. I loved the focus on the importance of members. Its going to take time to develop a member missionary culture, but now is good of a time to start as any. I always love the spirit that is felt in Zone Conference, that is something that I am going to miss. We had a really cool lesson with some new investigators that we found last week. They are two college students in Szeged. One is from The middle east and the other from India. Its really interesting to teach people from a Muslim background, there are a lot of similarities, but its hard to teach people who don't believe that Christ was the Son of God. In our lesson we focused on the importance of prophets, specifically a modern day prophet. I hope that they will read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, I know that if they do, they will feel that it is true. ...

Another busy week, flew by! This week was awesome! Had a ton of lessons, 12 in all, 4 on Saturday alone. I've never had a day of my mission where I've taught 4 lesson without someone standing us up or canceling. We also found 8 new people. I really hope that those new ones turn out to be solid investigators, at least a couple of them. We also got two referrals from members this week. We were able to meet with one, the other is still in the works. Besides being busy teaching, the highlight of our week was definitely Friday. District meeting was wonderful, and then we followed it with a group finding activity in Szeged with the Kecskemét sisters. We also had our MCM leader and elders quorum president join us. The weather was beautiful and we talked with a lot of great people. We streeted a group of college students, one from Nigeria, another from Palestine, and two from India. We had a really good conversation about Prayer and focusing on giving thanks to God. We set up for...

This week was good, we started it off at Piroska house doing service helping her with her garden. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Miskolc with the Zone Leaders. Elder Brown and I focused on promising blessings to investigators and working in unity. It was really good, he is a fantastic missionary. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot from him. We met with one of their recent converts and talked about the blessings of coming to Church. We just need to talk about the blessings of the gospel. Back in Szeged we were able to meet with some returning members. We talked with two of them about the holy temple and what we need to do now to prepare to continue on the covenant path. We were also able to contact a meet with a returning member named Ferenc. We talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon. We are trying to help him come and attend church. We are going to meet with him every week. We also had time to meet with one of our newer investigators. It went well, we taught him ...

This week was hot, like actually, it was really hot outside. Hopeful it is just a phase. The heat made it difficult to get people to stop and talk to us outside. We didn't find anyone new in our streeting or tracting but we still had some good teaching teaching this week. We had a super cool miracle on Sunday, a self referral just came to church, and we are meeting next week after priesthood meeting. We also gave him a branch house tour, and showed him the baptismal font, and he asked us "so if someone wants to join this church, how does that work." I hope our lesson with him next week will go really well.  We also had a really great lesson with a man that was referred to us from the branch president. We did a 30/30 lesson with him. We taught him the restoration, and although he seemed skeptical, he said he would read out of the book of Mormon and we are going to meet with him again this coming Friday. We met with some other investigators, its slow going, but we ...

I'll start with the best part of the week: On Saturday, Piroska was baptized! I had the privilege of preforming the ordinance, it took three tries, but I guess that means that it was done right, third time is the charm. She said that it was the best day of her life, and i guess that was saying a lot since she is like 75 years old. It was really great, and there was a good turn out of people there to support her. Pentecost Sunday was also special for her, she received the gift to the holy ghost, like the disciples of old. It was a good week end. This week we had really good success with English class. Our first week we had 12 people come (8 more than normal), and last week we had 17, this coming week we are going to have to divide the classes. We are also getting some really good support from the members. The branch president gave us a referral, and he came to English class, and is now a new investigator. We have found 4 people through English class in the last 2 weeks. I hope...

This week was the busiest week of 2019 so far. We had 12 lessons, a few more that fell through, found five new investigators, it was crazy, but awesome. We spent a lot of time getting Piroska all set for her interview on Saturday, which was successful. She is getting baptized this Saturday at 4pm, and everyone is very excited. I hope it goes well. We were able to meet with Áron actually 2 times now. He has liked the 30/30, but especially the gospel portion. He is little eccentric and boisterous, but very kind, and was just eating up the restoration lesson. I hope its because he is prepared for our message, but I worry he might be that way because of the effects of alcohol, but we will deal with that as it comes, for now, it's going well.  We also had a lesson with József and brought a member with us, it was difficult, he told us that it was going to be his last lesson with us, but he said he would read the Book of Mormon all the way this month, and get back to us in Jul...

This week flew by. Zone Conference was fantastic. The Spirit was strong, and I loved the testimony meeting that we had on Gellért hegy. The upcoming introduction of smart phones will change a lot. I've already seen circumstances in our work this week, that could be improved by having technology. It will be exciting. We had a fantastic lesson with József this week, and talked about the plan of salvation. It was amazing. It is so cool to see people connect with the scriptures. He just kept saying, "Wow, this scripture makes so much sense! It just answers questions that the Bible can't." We are continuing to help prepare Piroska for her baptismal interview this coming Saturday. The branch has been very helpful and supportive. We had a couple lessons with returning members and a lot of successful look-ups. Hopefully we will be able to meet with more returning members in the coming weeks. It was kind of a difficult week, but Saturday was full of miracles and eve...

This week we were all over the place. Tuesday and Wednesday we went to Miskolc and back for our exchanges with the Zone Leaders, but before that we taught our investigator József about the Book of Mormon and praying for answers, it was fantastic and the spirit was strong. We asked him if he would read and pray, and he said, not only that, but "I need to study it to really understand it!" We also meet with Piroska, she is an old woman who has been meeting with missionaries for about two years and goes to church each Sunday, and talked with her about the sacrament, which lead into a talk about baptism. She is going to be baptized on the 8th of June. She is excited, and told all of her friends at church about it this week. We will be helping her prepare for her interview and baptism in the next 2-3 weeks or so. We also meet with a couple returning members, and did some look-ups. We met with Pál and talked about the importance of prayer, scripture reading and church, and...

First full week in Szeged, complete! Was it the best week of my mission, not quite, but it was overall a solid B-. We had a fantastic Restoration lesson with an older man named József. He expressed his concerns about the hypocrisy in the christian world and the need of a return to the "old church." As we taught about prophets and the apostasy he said, "Yes, finally someone who understands what I've been saying." He excepted what we taught him about the Restoration of Christ's church in these latter days, and tomorrow we are going back to teach him more about the Book of Mormon. The Spirit in our meetings has been really strong. We also began teaching a woman named Andrea, who met with missionaries in the past. She has a lot of trials in her life, and we tried to help her understand the the peace that she feels around the missionaries, is the Spirit, and that if she reads the scriptures, prays, and comes to church, then she will be able to have that...

I've been in a black whole the last few weeks, so let's see if I can add some details in this blog post. Basically I got my transfer to Szeged a week early and Elder Williamson came up from Szeged to Budapest and Elder Barton and I picked him up at the train station. I started training Elder Williamson how to be secretary #1. We taught him how to do referrals and baptismal records, planning travel, etc. We also did our normal missionary work in our three person companionship for that whole week. Elder Williamson is kind of quiet but he began opening up to us and I got to know how great a person he is. Of the three trios I've been in during office transitions this one was my favorite. On Friday of that week the Russell's planned a YSA activity around family history. I taught everyone to do indexing and other fun tool in Family Search to play with your family history and make it more fun. Indexing is really cool now because it's all supported for Hungarian now an...

Well, its over, I finished the office life. Elder Williamson is all trained up, and I look forward to being in Szeged tomorrow. I've always wanted to serve in Szeged ever since my first transfer. Szeged is the 3rd largest city in Hungary. It is in the far south east of Hungary about 110 miles from Budapest, close to the Serbian boarder. It will be good to get some fresh air, and just be outside doing missionary work all day. There will be some things that I will miss about Buda, but on the whole, I'm ready for change. This week we were only able to meet with our part member family. It was hard to say good bye. We taught their boys about faith, repentance and baptism, it was a really good lesson, they were very sharp. I hope that Elder Barton and Williamson can up them on a baptismal date soon. We had time for tracting this week. It wasn't horrible, we got a few phone numbers, and this coming week we will be trying to set up and return to teach them the gospel. Othe...