#3 Kispest: Harmadik hét Kispesten

Jó napot! Remélem hogy minden jó veletek. Döntettem hogy magyarul egy annyira nehéz nyelv és érezem sokszor hogy, lehetetlen lesz.

The work:

This week we taught 9 lessons which is pretty good for here in Hungary. The most I've ever taught in one week is 11, but in an the average week it's about 6 lessons per week; so with tracting, meetings, traveling the city, and our lessons, and other activities, it was a busy and fast paced week, and honestly it flew by.

We had an interesting experience while tracking. Most of the people we met some pretty hostile, but at one building we went to the man who answered the intercom was gruff with us, but after asking “WHAT DO YOU WANT,” we explained that we were missionaries and what we were there for and he said, “Well everyone’s downstairs right now on the first floor, you can come in and talk to us all at one time.” We came in and there were a dozen and a half people because they were having a building meeting and so we talked to the whole building in one approach. That was pretty cool.

In district meeting, Elder Gable taught us about having faith sufficient to work miracles, and I don’t know if I have enough faith to do that, but then he talked about how when people try to be humbly they are hard on themselves or being self-deprecating. He said humility is to “think less about yourself not less of yourself.” (Maybe he was talking to me, but I can't be sure) I really liked that.

We made plans for an investigator of ours to help him to stop smoking. We took little pass along pictures of Christ and wrote scriptures on the backs of them; scriptures about overcoming trials and about God’s blessings and power and we had him put these cards in places like, inside his wallet, or his pockets. So if he is tempted to buy cigarettes he’ll find the pictures of Jesus and it will be a reminder that Christ can help him quit. When we went and met with him and we talked about the Word of Wisdom and we shared a scripture in Mosiah 7:33, it contains a promises that if we trust in the Lord he will deliver us from bondage, but it clarifies that he will deliver us according to his own will and pleasure. When we talked to our investigator we didn’t talk about that part because in his case we know it is the will of the Lord that he will be freed from his addiction to tobacco; but I thought about that part of the scriptures and how it applies to me. It's an important principle because often when we pray to be released form our trials it will not always be the Lord's will that we be spared those trials. We need to understand that sometimes the Lord allows us to suffer through trials because there are things we need to learn from them.

***The Word of Wisdom is a law of health revealed by the Lord for the physical and spiritual benefit of His children. On February 27, 1833, as recorded in section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord revealed which foods are good for us to eat and which substances are not good for the human body. He also promised health, protection, knowledge, and wisdom to those who obey the Word of Wisdom.

The Language:

HUNGARIAN is a really hard language and I often feel that its impossible!! 

Ok, I think each transfer has its own challenges. This transfer is more similar to my first one. I have a companion who is on top of things. He's been on his mission nearly 2 years, and he's fluent in the language, and he's older and on top of things so I don't have to worry as much about just trying to survive and hold it together. So that should make this transfer easier, right? Well in most ways it does but there is a strange paradox in it, because I'm in a situation again that doesn't require me to take the lead in discussions, meetings, or in approaching people... and because I'm not in this survival mode... I find that I feel more inadequate. It's been tough because I'm been feeling really discouraged. Some days I feel totally hopeless when it comes to speaking Hungarian. I'm so tired of struggling to understand people.

I know I need to be more patient with myself, and I know that it's not as bad as sometimes I feel that it is, but it's just the hardest part about my mission right now. While I can't speak fluently yet, or in my opinion even very proficiently, for the most part in teaching or talking to people I can generally say what I need to or what I want to. But understanding everything people are saying to me is still pretty hard. I do feel that I have learned the rhythm of Hungarian, like Uncle Czar talked about. I can now hear all of the words and parts, but it is still so hard sometimes to take those parts and make them make scene in my brain. When people address me specifically and ask me questions, I often have to ask them to say it again. I understand everything in Hungarian other missionaries say, the American stake president says, our french MCM leader says, but everyone else, is on varying levels from 70% understanding to 10% Its really frustrating because it's so inconsistent. I'm definitely being humbled. I thought I was good at learning languages before my mission. I was wrong.

I'm seeing the most progress in my understanding of Hungarian when I read the scriptures. I love reading in the Book of Mormon in Hungarian, and though I need to look up words I've never seen before, I can usually understand what I'm reading. I just hope somehow, it will carry over to understanding the spoken language. I’ve been learning things from Lutza (a recent convert) about Hungarian that have been really helpful because she speaks English really well but she’s a native Hungarian. It makes learning Hungarian from her really easy. I’ve learned that there are things I learned in the MTC, about Hungarian, that are wrong. My time learning with her is valuable because she can explain things in a way I understand.

The Fun:

This week our mission president gave us permission to go to the theater in April to see Les Miserables in Hungarian. That will be interesting.

This last p-day we went to the natural history museum on our P-day. It was a cool museum. If you know me you know I love natural history museums. Funny thing I learned was that in Hungary they have their version of a raccoon, but it’s called a martin, no not like Elder Martin, but a large rodent that eats trash. Ha, ha! Most of the museums in Budapest are closed on Monday, which is a bummer, but I was happy we got to go to this one.

I’ve got little hot pepper sprouts in my sour cream container I’ve been growing them in…. not with sour cream… I’m a little gardener. If my math is right by the time I leave Kispest I’ll have hot peppers to eat.

I’ve made some root beer syrup and I’m going to make root beer which I’m really excited to do.

So, I make room for fun.

My personal Study:

I listened to a talk by Gordon B. Hinckley about how the church has grown in many different cultures and he testifies that the gospel is universal and no matter the culture of the people the gospel speaks to a common spiritual heritage. Another talk that I studied that I’d recommend you read is by Elder Rasband called, “That I Might Draw all Men unto Me.”

I read another talk that I think would interest members of the church outside the U.S. “The Sacred Place of the Restoration,” was about why the restorations had to happen in the time and the place that it did. For those who are not American this talk is very interesting because it may answer for them why the church needed to be restored there and not in the hundreds of other countries in the world.

Another talk I read that I really liked was by Elder Anderson from May 2016, “Whoso Receiveth Them, Receiveth Me.” He talks about children and youth who don’t grow up in ideal family circumstances and the things we can do to help them and help build their faith. This is a great talk and I’d recommend it to you.

Word of the week: közbenjáró (koz-ben-yar-oh) Mediator (like Christ) literally means (in between goer)

I love you all, I'm glad you are all staying busy. I'm really excited for general conference. Can't wait to here from you all next week .

Szeretettel Morgan Elder