#9 Debrecen: A Special Thanksgiving

Another week flies by! I feel like all of my letters start that way. This week we had an exchange with the Eger elders. I worked with Elder Hess. We worked on giving personal commitments while finding and talking with every one. It was wonderful. That night I made a big pot of Dad's goulash, but with pork and not beef. It was good. I also went on an exchange with my district leader Elder Hudson in Nyíregyháza, we worked on promising blessings and bearing testimony while giving commitments. We had two lessons and we had a lot of fun.

This week we we found 3 new people to teach, and we look forward to meeting with them again this next week. We had a really good lesson with our investigator Andi. We shared with her the blessings that come from the Gift of the Holy Ghost. We tied that into baptism and asked her to to pray to know when she needs to be baptized. We will be following up with her this week. It was difficult to meet with the other people we are teaching, including the new woman who walked into church last week, which is frustrating, but that does give us more time to find new ones.

We went this week with the Elders Quorum President to visit a less active older woman in Hajdúhadház, named Emike. She has been having a difficult time coming to church and paying her tithing because of her financial situation. We shared with her 1 Nephi 3:7 and invited her to come to some branch activities and church that are coming up in the month of December.

We had a special Thanksgiving district meeting with the Ockey's and the Nyíregyháza elders on Friday. It was delicious. This week we will be going on splits with the APs in Buda. So that will be fun. Then we have another one this Friday with the elders from Szolnok. Elder Seeley and I are the companionship in the mission with the most splits, which really keeps us busy, but it's mainly because our zone is huge and almost entirely elders. We will have 7 of them in 5 weeks (this transfer is 5 weeks) so almost 2 every week. Splits is my favorite part about being a Zone leader, and right now gives me the most fulfillment, I really feel like it makes a difference, and they are a lot of fun and hard work.

This week I read D&C 133:8-10

"Send forth the elders of my church unto the nations which are afar off; unto the islands of the sea; send forth unto foreign lands; call upon all nations, first upon the Gentiles, and then upon the Jews."

"And behold, and lo, this shall be their cry, and the voice of the Lord unto all people: Go ye forth unto the land of Zion, that the borders of my people may be enlarged, and that her stakes may be strengthened, and that Zion may go forth unto the regions round about. Yea, let the cry go forth among all people: Awake and arise and go forth to meet the Bridegroom; behold and lo, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Prepare yourselves for the great day of the Lord."

I've been thinking what it means to prepare to meet the bridegroom. In the New Testament we learn about that we need to keep our testimonies strong to have oil in our lamps for His coming. I think it is interesting that now the Lord calls those who have the testimony, who are prepared to go and prepare others, to build Zion and prepare the whole house of Israel for his coming. Our message is to call people to go out to meet Christ and our job is to help everyone meet him. That's our invitation, but we need to better invite people to church, to meet with us, to be baptized. I need to work on giving better commitments to everyone I meet.

I hope you all have an awesome week. love you all.

Love, Morgan elder.