My new companion is Elder Morgan

December 17, 2018

Jó reggelt! 

With transfers being this week, the new Secretary to replace Elder Burnett came last week to start his training. The new Secretary/my new companion is Elder Morgan, who was my MTC companion. It is crazy to think we are back together again after being separated for over a year. Last week was probably the busiest week we have ever had in the office, meaning we spent more time there than any other occasion. I think 3 or 4 days last week we were there from morning time until 9:00 at night. We planned all the travel for the Hungarian and Romanian transfers, we got most of the immigration paperwork worked out, we trained Elder Morgan on all of his responsibilities, we helped the senior couple look for apartments, and a bunch of other boring stuff. The week before transfers is always the busiest, so hopefully we will have time to do more missionary work this next week. 

Elders Morgan, Burnett, & Udy

We had Zone Conference last week which was really cool. As part of Zone Conference we did a Plan of Salvation role play where one of the Budapest companionships invited someone who is currently being taught to come. Randomly, each companionship in the zone selected a point from the Plan of Salvation lesson and as 8 companionships we taught the entire lesson to him. My companion and I got the last point and we had to finish the lesson. It was really cool. We were super bold with him and then I asked him to be baptized and he said yes and now he is going to get baptized in 3 weeks. Also in the Europe area there were 2 new key indicators (statistics) added to missionary work 1. Returning members contacted and 2. Returning members attending Sacrament Meeting. I think this is a good idea especially in small branches were there isn't a lot of member-member missionary work. 

Other than that, on Sunday we participated in a Christmas concert after church and there was a bunch of food, so it was really good. The “Light the World” flashlights arrived and the post should be posted today on Facebook so the orders should start to come in.

Sok szeretettel,

Udy Elder

"Light the World" Facebook flashlight campaign

December 10, 2018

Jó Reggelt! (Good Morning)

Last week was really busy for us. We had a nice 4-day vacation from the office from last Saturday to Tuesday, because we were on exchanges in Dunaújváros and our p-days are on Monday. But that meant we had a lot of work in the office when we arrived back on Wednesday. Our exchanges in Dunaújváros were really good. It is a nice breath of fresh air to go there and devote the entire day to proselyting. We had a lot of success contacting people on the street in Dunaújváros.

This past Saturday we went with a bunch of young single adults from around Budapest to an old folks home to talk and sing to people. We also made Christmas packages to deliver to a hospital for kids with cancer. The other companionship in Buda had a baptism on Saturday which was really cool. His name is Attila, and his wife was baptized a year ago, and now both of them are members of the church. On Sunday we had a big finding activity and all of the missionaries in Budapest were together. President Hettinger was also there and it was fun because I would be talking to someone and sometimes he would walk about and join in, but he would just stand there and watch intently because he couldn't speak or understand Hungarian. The activity was good because the place we went is in our area, and a lot of the people that walked through live in our area, so we got a lot of phone numbers and people we can meet with.  

There is a Facebook campaign that we need to get organized this week. We are receiving a big shipment of flashlights that say "Light the World" on them or something. And then through a Facebook post we offer people a free flashlight.  Then the missionaries go and personally deliver them to the people that request them. But before we do this there is a lot of preparatory stuff that we need to do like create a Facebook form with the post where people can click on the post and then enter in their contact information. This should keep us pretty busy for December managing all of the flashlight orders. 

Also we are making an end of the year slideshow for the December zone conferences of pictures that missionaries have taken throughout the year. I have started to learn more about Romanian travel. Elder Burnett and I have started to plan the travel for the Romanian transfer, and then later we have to buy all of the tickets. The trains aren't as good in Romania as they are in Hungary and they don't run as frequently, so it takes planning in advance to make sure everything runs smoothly. It is a big puzzle that takes a lot of time to put together all of the pieces. We have to try and make sure that no one is ever alone, and sometimes they have to take planes or get on a train for 14 hours. 

Sok szeretettel,

Udy Elder

Pictures from last p-day when we walked around the Christmas market

Some good things happened in our work this week

December 3, 2018

Jó reggelt! (Good morning!)

Our week was good and we have started to see some good things happen in our work. First off, there is a man who messaged us 2 weeks ago through mormon.org (because if someone wants to chat on mormon.org in Hungarian we are the ones that respond). He was asking us what a day in the life of a member of the Church looks like. We answered his questions, and we had a lesson with him over Skype. He liked it so much he wanted to meet in person. He also lives about an hour away from Budapest, so it was a big commitment. We answered his questions and committed him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. A couple days later he contacted us saying that this wasn't the way for him. Then last week he sent us a really good message saying that he can't "free" himself from the Book of Mormon, and he finds himself praying and he said that he believes God is speaking to him through the book. He has a wife and 2 young kids, and he is Catholic. He said that he tried to return to the beliefs of the Catholic church but he said it doesn't work and he asked us what he should do. We will be meeting with him this week and hopefully it will turn out good so the story can have a happy ending. 

We met with a family who we first found through caroling door to door, and who agreed to have us come back so we can share the Christmas story. It went really well, we shared the Christmas story and talked about the “Light the World” campaign Light the World 2018. But at the end, when we asked for a return visit to explain more about the Book of Mormon and our beliefs, they said "no" because they are active in a Protestant church and have no plans to change. It was still a neat experience.  

I can't remember much more that was exciting. The office life is still good and really busy. I forgot to take pictures last week so hopefully next week there will be some pictures.  That’s good that the missionaries in your area got everyone to invite someone to church. Don't worry if my package gets stuck in customs. I'm the one who gets all the packages out of customs for the missionaries, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle.  It started to get cold here this past week, and it has been around 0 degrees celsius. That is all for this week.

Sok szerettel, 

Udy elder