We had zone conference last week. My last one.

August 12, 2019

Walking the streets of Pécs

Jó reggelt mindenkinek! (Good morning everyone)

This past week we had two people in church. One of them we were able

to teach a lesson on the Holy Ghost, and its role so she can better

recognize it as she studies scriptures, prays, and attends church.

As for our other investigator that came to church we are trying to teach

her how our church differentiates from other churches and about priesthood

authority and the importance of baptism.

We had a really good lesson with a returning family. The parents are

returning members, but the kids are not members.. The dad has been

coming to church this past month, but the mom has been working.

We taught them about the baptismal covenant , and what they need to

do to honor it. The mom said she needs to go to church to renew her

baptismal covenant as she takes the sacrament. The problem is that

she usually works on Sundays, but she said she will ask her boss for

permission to have Sundays off. 

Cool wall in an apartment building

We also had Zone Conference last week. My last one. We gave a training

on how to begin teaching. Also we learned more about the "area book

planner' app since we just got it a few weeks ago, and how we should

send the church data privacy notice to people we are teaching. Since we

just got the app that means we must digitize all of our records which is a

really long process. We have done a little bit so far but there is still a lot

more to do. We will probably do some more this coming week. 

The Area Planner Books that need digitizing

This past week I had the chance to go to Kaposvár on an exchange which

was really cool. It was the first city that I served in and I hadn't been back

since. We taught a good lesson to a new person who had showed up to

English class asking a bunch of questions about our church and the

Book of Mormon. 

Dunaújváros

Noah looks good. Does he like his little sister? The deep sea fishing

sounds like fun, but too bad you couldn't get a lot of crab. It's hard to

believe that next week you will be here. It should be lots of fun seeing

everything in Hungary.

Sok szeretettel,

Udy Elder

I decided to only write in my planner in Rovásírás--the old Hungarian alphabet

August 5, 2019

Jó reggelt, (Good morning)

Last week we were able to teach the third referral that came from the special Sunday. She is a neighbor of a member. She is not one for organized religion, and she has some false ideas about Joseph Smith and the history of the church that she read on the internet. So as of now she has quite a lot of concerns, but hopefully we can resolve them.

We found a few new people this week, and a couple of them seem pretty promising so we will see where it goes.

Our mission is doing an English fast next week, which means we don't speak any English throughout the week. This won't be too much of a change for us because Elder Brooks decided in the middle of July that he would only speak Hungarian, so it has gotten pretty normal. 

For my last transfer I decided to only write in my planner in Rovásírás, which is the old Hungarian alphabet that was used before they adopted the Latin alphabet. It reads left to right and looks kind of like Egyptian hieroglyphs. I can write it pretty well but reading it takes a lot of brain power, but I'm slowly getting better. 

"We make countless choices in life, some large and some seemingly small. Looking back, we can see what a great difference some of our choices made in our lives. We make better choices and decisions if we look at the alternatives and ponder where they will lead."

(Elder Dallin H. Oaks) 

Sok szeretettel, (Lots of love)

Udy Elder

President Hettinger came down to go teaching with us

July 29, 2019

Jó Reggelt Mindenkinek! (Good morning everyone!)

Last Monday President Hettinger, came down to Dunaújváros to be with us for a few hours.
He occasionally goes to different cities to see how the missionaries work is going. He doesn't
speak any Hungarian at all, so he just kind of sits there next to us while we are talking to
people on the street or in a lesson with somebody. Last week we were able to teach 2
referrals from church members from our special Sunday. One of the referrals we taught
Monday night. I never had more members present in a lesson than that one, we had her
member friend, a male we invited beforehand, another woman member who heard about it
and decided to come, President Hettinger and us. We translated everything that was said to
President Hettinger, so he wouldn't feel left out. Our referral was away traveling this weekend
so she wasn't at church, but we are excited to keep teaching her and help her progress.

The other referral we taught is the husband of the branch president's daughter. His wife
comes to church weekly, but last week was the first time he has ever come after being
married for some years. We taught him about faith. Hopefully we should be teaching one
more referral this week that a church member invited to the special Sunday. Also, last week
we scheduled to escort 3 investigators to church, but unfortunately none of them were home
when we showed up at their door haha. But there is always next week, so we will stay faithful. 

We also had a combined MLC (Missionary Leadership Council) with some of the Romanian
missionaries who trained or flew into Budapest. These combined MLCs happen every 12
weeks. I was able to got to the first ever combined MLC last year in August, and I was the
only one from that meeting who went to this one so everyone was a new face. It made me
realize I have been a missionary for a really long time haha. They recently passed a data
privacy law in the European Union making it a lot harder for organizations to keep records of
people's personal information. So in order to comply with this new law, we need to give
everyone we teach a data privacy notice explaining what kind of information we will keep of
them before we make any records of anybody. We haven't started doing it yet, but within the
next month we will have to. 

It seems as if our returning member we have been working with, is going to return for good.
He never made a familysearch.org account before. so we taught a lesson about family history
and the importance of it and then later had him talk to the family search specialist after
church. He also started to pay his tithing, all of which are good signs that he is here to stay.

Another returning member that is making good progress is 'H.". We have visited him a few
times and talked about the importance of church and keeping covenants, and he has come a
couple times since then. In Sunday school he admitted that he needs to come to church,
not just when he needs God in his life.  He should be coming from week to week. We hope to
strengthen him and then hopefully we can help the rest of the family follow his footsteps. 

Sok szerettel,

Udy Elder

We had our "Invite a friend" to church Sunday

Jó Reggelt!

This past week was really good for us.  We had the special “Invite a friend” to church Sunday. It was a really good success.  There were 49 people in attendance which is about 10 more than average.  It was good to see our efforts did not go to waste as we met with and encouraged church members to invite friends, neighbors and relatives to this sacrament meeting.  There were 9 non-members in attendance which was great, six of which the members invited to this sacrament meeting.  We have already set up an appointment with one of the 6 nonmembers in attendance and the other ones are currently in the works.  There was a big potluck afterwards with a lot of homemade Hungarian food which was really good.

Our investigator and her 9-year old daughter came to church for the third time.  Next month they will be moving to Pécs, so we will make sure the teaching transition to the Pécs missionaries goes smoothly.  Also, hopefully we can help with the move.  

This past week we were in Pécs for a baptismal interview and exchanges. Pécs is where my old Hungarian mission president lives, President Szabadkai, and we actually got to see him because there was a Church (Elders Quorum) BBQ. The baptismal interview was also successful which was awesome. 

The returning member we've been working with came to church this week. He was sick last week so he didn't come. He is coming back into activity now which is great. 

Sok szeretettel,

Udy Elder

We met with two students that go to the University here. One is from Zimbabwe and one is from Libya.

July 16, 2019

Our district

Jo Reggelt! (Good Morning!)

Today we received our transfer calls.  Both of us will be staying here.  I can’t believe the final transfer has finally come and it has been almost 2 years.  This past week we were able to visit a returning/part member family on two occasions.  The parents are members, but they have 2 young adult kids who live at home who are not members.  The parents have not been to church for a long time.  We had a good lesson with them where we read Moroni 6 and discussed it with them, and focused on the importance of coming to church.  The father came to church which was really good.  We plan to continue working with them from week to week to help them stay active and help the kids progress towards baptism.  Sadly one of the other returning members we are working with who came to church the past two weeks, didn’t make it to church this week. But we will do all we can to help him out as well.

A couple of weeks ago we met with two students that go to the University here in Dunaújváros.  One of them is from Zimbabwe and the other one is from Libya.  The one from Zimbabwe speaks an African click language, and he read the Book of Mormon to us in the click language which was cool to hear.  He downloaded the Book of Mormon app on his phone and he was really surprised to see his native language on there.  Also this past week we were in Budapest using the metro when we ran into a man named "M" as soon as se stepped on the metro.  He is from the Ivory Coast and moved here a few weeks ago.  He said he looked up the church on the internet, but he couldn’t find it in Budapest.  He went to church a few times in the Ivory Coast and really liked it.  It was crazy that we ran into him, and he ended up going to church in Pest this past week.

As far as people being taught, we had a handful of lessons last week, and people promised that they would come to church, but they didn’t show up..  The “invite a friend to church” in Dunaújváros will be this Sunday.  We are excited to see what results come from it. 

Forest we walk through 

Elder Udy

This past week we had Zone Conference in Budapest

July 8, 2019

This past week we had Zone Conference. The focus was mainly on better preparing people

for baptism and also helping the members in their ministering assignments.

Our zone

This past week was a little disappointing in that a lot of the investigators planned to come to

church, but they didn't show up. But there is always next week so no need to worry.

We meet with two young men who are about age 25 a couple times last week. We had a

lesson where we did a meeting house tour, and it went really well. We were able to very

clearly explain the doctrine of baptism as we looked at different paintings and showed them

the baptismal font. We even showed the video when Jesus was baptized. They both

expressed a desire to be baptized. We are excited to work with them and see them in

church with us in the coming weeks. 

We are working well with a returning member. He is an endowed Melchizedek priesthood

holder. He has been inactive for about 8 years but has attended church the past two

Sundays. We have lots of success in our lessons with him and we've even been inviting

ourselves to bike with him to church. 

Like usual we knock on doors and street contact people. From what I've noticed people are

a lot more willing to talk to us in this city compared to the other cities I have served in.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this town is smaller and was a 100%

communist town. 

I don't know what happened to the birthday card, but it still wasn't there. My companion got

a card that was sent after my birthday. Maybe you can track it and see what's up with it.

Sok szeretettel,

Udy Elder

We had the chance to bike with him to church

July 1, 2019

Jó Reggelt Mindenkinek, (Good morning everyone)

Last week was really good. We are starting to see more progress in the work here. The woman we have been teaching and her 9 year old daughter came to church again this week which was really good. We had a really good lesson with her this past week. She likes how the people in our church live what they preach every day of the week. She really enjoyed our church services, and we are excited to help her learn more. 

Also a returning member came to church this past week. He hasn't been to church in years, so a lot of members were surprised to see him. We had the chance to bike with him to church to help motivate him.  In the past he has held a lot of callings in the church. We plan on helping him repent and return to full activity in the church. 

We are also continuing to meet with a couple members every week to help encourage them to do missionary work and especially to invite their friends to the special sacrament meeting on June 21st. We are excited to see what can result from the missionary work of these members. 

Our church building in Dunaüjváros

We also did a district finding activity this past week, in Budapest. We were in Kálvin square which is a really busy place in Pest. We had a ukulele, sang some songs, and used a couple of Book of Mormon banners. 

This week we started our English Connect class. We had a pretty good turnout, about 12 people.  Hopefully there will be more in the coming weeks. Quite a few church members came which was good. The Branch President and his wife came since they don't know English, and their son is going to marry someone from Malaysia so they want to be able to talk to her. 

Also this past week I got a smartphone. I never thought the day would come, but I finally got one on my mission. Since I go home soon I don't have to buy one and the mission gave me one to use until I go home.

Sok szeretettel, (Lots of love)

Udy Elder