#17 Buda: O how mighty is our God, my joy is often carried away!

It dawned on me the other day that I am 20 1/2, which is super strange!... OK, with that random thought here's my week...

On P-day we went to the zoo with the assistants. It was pretty nice until it rained on us. We were at the ape house when it started raining and the orangutans were gathering paper pages and putting them over their heads so they wouldn't get wet. They are super funny! Orangutans are super cool.

Tuesday we had zone conference. Zone conference week is pretty crazy because we have one less day to do our office work, and so we are more busy the other days trying to catch up. That wouldn't be so crazy if the day of zone conference were like a day off, but actually it's even crazier that day because after conference we are super busy answering all the missionaries questions and helping them out with stuff. But, being busy is good... and it's fun to see everyone from all over the mission. Seeing all my friends who are assigned out in the mission makes me long to be out there again, but it will come, I will be patient.

**A note from Elder Morgan's mom: Over the last several weeks as we've been able to talk to Ted more frequently on video chat, I've been impressed watching him do his work at his desk. It's cool to watch as people come in to ask him for help and he has to leave for a minute to take care of things. This morning while talking to him he had to go all together and said he call back. He was gone for a long time, when he called back he said he had to go into the President's office to translate for a contract signing for a new missionary apartment. Almost every time I talk to Ted and senior missionary comes over to tell me how much they love Ted and how much his work in the office is valued. He may long to be out in the mission field, and I can understand that, but he is valuable to the mission work in his mission in the work he does in the office.

We had a lesson with a referral from a member this week. She is an older woman named Aranka. She is from a town in the country. We meet with her over lunch and talked about the state of modern Christianity and what it means to follow Christ. We of course brought up the Book of Mormon and the state of "Restored Christianity," and hopefully this week we will meet with her again. 

We also started our new English class this week, the English Connect program. We had 8 students in the second level class, and it went alright, it was a little crazy though. I hope more people will come, and that the old English class students will accept the new "world order" of English class.

We had a very powerful lesson with Lajos this week. We reviewed his experiences with conference, and then watched with him Elder Held's talk, and President Nelson's talk. He is going to be praying to know WHEN he should be baptized, this is a big step for him.

All the members are supper excited for the new temple. In ward council that is all anyone wanted to talk about, it was really special.

I think that the following scripture is pretty great:

"Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began; yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who will repent and believe on his name." -- Alma 26:35

We have so great a cause to rejoice. I was thinking about that this week while taking the sacrament. I was sitting next to János, he was visiting from Kecskemét (Elder Martin and I baptized him), he got his patriarchal blessing yesterday. I was thinking about how much his life has changed because of the gospel, and about how much thanks that I need to give to the Lord for the things he has done for me. We living in such a time of blessings, it is good, really good. O how mighty is our God, my joy is often carried away!

Elder Morgan.


My area of Buda was the Roman city of Aquicum 1900 years ago. So I took some pictures of what is left of the Amphitheater that they built. There are also some roman ruins a little farther north of that and some broken aqueducts. You know them Romans.