#11 Kecskemét: Teaching by the Spirit

This week was pretty normal. I had some very busy days this week, which are the best days when you are missionary. The highlight of the week was that the Zone leaders, now Elder Garrett and Elder Biesinger, came from Szeged for splits this past Friday and Saturday. It is always a lot of fun. Elder Biesinger is new as a zone leader this transfer. He is the great-great grandson of the first missionary sent to Hungary in the 1880's, cools stuff. He also served with my trainer Elder Martin in Kispest last summer, so it it was cool to have that in common, both serving with Elder Martin.

Elder Garrett and I spent the day doing studies, and lots of tracting, we worked on streeting approches, and found some cool potential people to teach. That evening we went over to a members house to watch President Monson's Funeral. I loved that the common theme of the speakers was that President Monson, like Christ, went about doing good in everything he did. He is a really good example to follow, how can we go about doing good this week.

This transfer we’re doing district photo competitions, there is a theme at the beginning of the week and we take pictures based on the theme and whoever has the coolest photo wins something to be determined, maybe, I don’t know. This week was a nature related photo and after struggling all week to make something cool, we were waiting at the train station and we saw these trees that have really cool flat seed pods and we decided to take a selfie with them as mustaches, and we looked really cool, well not really.

This week my training goal is to lead all the lessons and all the planning sessions. So we taught a lesson at the branch house about prophets and I led the lesson. Elder Philips said it was really good and he didn’t have to do anything except add his little bit. He said it was great to see some progress. One of my year’s goals is to read through the Book of Mormon in Hungarian because President Hinckley (the President of the Church before President Monson) promised me that if I do it I’ll learn Hungarian. My zone leaders from last transfer promised me that if I read The Book Mormon in Hungarian I’d be amazing at speaking Hungarian one day.

This week we also went to Nagykőrös again. I think one of my favorite things about Europe is riding the trains, there is just something about it. 

We also worked this week on organizing the area book, and we made a planning tool that we got from Sister Hughes that should help us find old investigators, and then tract around them. It took a lot of work to get the system ready. It required us going thorough all the records and seeing if they had potential, looking them up on the map, and then organizing and writing them into a matrix, so much work, but it hasn't been done for a decade, and the good part is we never have to do it again.

We had a great conversation with a member of our branch about her conversion story and she talked about how when she was trying to quit smoking there was a verse in the book of Mosiah (in the Book of Mormon) Chapter 7 verse 33 that really helped her. It promises that if we have faith in Jesus Christ and follow him he will release us from bondage, she realized that her smoking was bondage and she was able to overcome that by putting your trust in Christ.

I had some great gospel studies this week. This week I've been reflecting on something my mission president taught us, when we are teaching people and inviting them to come unto Christ we are not teaching them from the beginning, but because of the Veil we are just reminding them of things they already knew. We are helping them receive that remembrance. It goes along with a conference talk I was reading today by President Uctdorf from the priesthood session last conference, talking about heavenly light, talking about when we come to Christ and we focus on him we receive that light and that light reenters our soul, and when we are in darkness it’s not because there is no light shining on us but because we are not in a place where we can receive that; and so as Missionaries when we go out and we invite people to come unto to Christ, and remind them of who they are, and remind them of things the of gospel they are able to receive that light. It’s not because they are learning new things but it dawns on them as something they’ve already known and it’s familiar to them.

Another thought I had this week came while reading in Jesus the Christ about several occasions when the Pharisees and Sadducees were trying to trip him up in a way that would make it easy for them to kill him but he never would, he would always answer in a way that they couldn’t accuse him. When Christ answers the questions they put up to him, he’s able to say just the perfect thing and that’s because what he is saying is exactly what Heavenly Father would say through the Spirit and Heavenly Father is perfect. He is able to say exactly what he needs to to set the doctrine straight and testify of his divinity and his mission as the Savior and at the same time show the inconsistencies in the pharisees and Sadducees and be able to avoid contradicting himself or incriminating himself. It amazes me. Speaking with the spirit is so important to missionary work!!

It was a good week!

Sziasztok! Morgan Elder.

Word of the Week: Szentharomság (sent-ha-rom-shag) it is the word for trinity, though we don't believe in the trinity, its fun because it literally translates to holy-three-ness.