I will be staying in Buda as a secretary

January 28, 2019

Jó Regegelt szeretett testvéreim az Úrban, 

This past week was really busy as we had to get ready for transfers. It is always the busiest because we have to plan all of the travel for everyone in the mission and we have to get all of the immigration documents ready for the new missionaries and for people changing addresses in Hungary. I will be staying in Buda as a Secretary for at least one more transfer. This will be my longest area when I leave (at least 25 weeks).  

We met with a returning member this past week.  He is from The Gambia, a country in West Africa. He was actually baptized in the 1980s in Holland, but he has lived in Hungary for years. He speaks English and Hungarian. He helps run a human rights organization where he helps people immigrate to Hungary. Since I have been in Buda, he has come to church only one time. We went to visit him and talked a little bit about the Book of Mormon.  Then he said his eyes are really bad, so we helped him read and reply to some work emails. From his apartment he runs this operation and it felt like we were back in the office for about 20 minutes. He is an interesting guy and we are excited to meet with him more to help him return to activity in the church.

We also met with a man who is from Afghanistan. He actually fought in Afghanistan under the US army. He said he used to be really religious but he started to lose his faith in God when he saw all of the atrocities of the war. He also can speak Hungarian and English. We read passages from the Book of Mormon with him that relate to his situation. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon in Persian which is his native language. 

I am excited for one more transfer in the office, but at the same time hopefully this one will be the last one so I can go somewhere else and proselyte full time. 

I remember seeing a couple months ago that there was someone called to Romania from Rockland. That is funny that you were at his farewell. His passport is sitting in one of my filing drawers. Romanian is only a 6-week language so he will arrive at the end of this next transfer, but most likely he will fly straight to Romania, but we will see. The birthday party looked good at the ranch. That’s crazy grandpa is 87 years old. 

Sok szeretettel,

Udy Elder

This past week we were able to teach a handful of lessons

January 21, 2019

Jó reggelt kivánok mindenkinek!  (Good morning everyone)

This past week we were able to teach a handful of lessons and do some finding. We taught a man and a woman who somewhat regularly come to church. The older man we are teaching says if he met with missionaries 20 years ago he would have probably been baptized. But he said he had a spiritual experience one time when he prayed in a Catholic church. We went over the restoration with him. He has prayed about the Book of Mormon before, but he admitted that maybe his prayer wasn't as sincere as it should have been. We committed him to read and sincerely pray. Our other investigator we are teaching has trouble finding faith in God, so we talked a lot about that while reading a little bit out of Alma chapter 32 and focusing on prayer. Our main goal with her is to get her to pray on her own. 

We also met with a new young man who is about 23 years old. I originally met him on the street a few weeks ago when I took a couple new missionaries out proselyting for their first time. He is from Albania, but surprisingly speaks fluent Hungarian because he has lived here for 3 years. He is the kind of guy that is open to lots of religions. He has read from the Bible and Quran. We talked about the restoration and gave him the Book of Mormon in Albanian. 

A communist style building that we tracted and the doors looked exactly like the wall. 

On p-day last week we went to an escape room, which I have never done before. The scenario in the escape room was that we were at a metro stop and there was a bomb inside the metro that we needed to defuse. It was fun. We defused it with 1 minute left which was exciting. Today we went to an aquarium in Budapest that had a bunch of crocodiles and sharks and other cool things. 

Office work has been running smoothly. But this week with transfers being next week it will be busy since we have to plan all of the travel and finish all of the immigration. 

I hope I go to a really nice area for my last city. I still don't know if I am leaving the office next week or in another transfer, but I will probably find out tomorrow. 

Sok szeretettel,  (Lots of Love)

Udy Elder

We had 2 people we are teaching come to church

January 14, 2019

Jó Reggelt! (Good morning)

This past week we went to Dunaújváros for exchanges.  It is always nice and refreshing to go on exchanges there because we can spend the whole day proselyting and we don't have to worry about the office work, because if people call us we can just say we are in a different city. It was really good. I was with Elder Jameson. It surprised me how much more friendlier the people are there compared to Budapest. Almost every single person was willing to talk to us. 

Our office work has been busy as well. I've been doing the normal things getting immigration paperwork ready for the incoming Romanian missionaries and also extending apartment contracts in Romania, and all the other things. 

We had two people that we are teaching come to church which was cool. We met with one of our investigators who really likes the Catholic Church and our church, and goes to both services on Sunday. But he has some doctrinal issues with the Catholic Church.  We also did some tracting in this nice neighborhood, and the first door we knocked on let us in, and they were a Chinese family. It was pretty funny because they didn't know Hungarian and they didn't speak English very well.

To answer your question about the senior missionary couples and the language: There are no senior couples that can speak Hungarian. I don't think there ever was a senior couple here who has learned the language because it is too difficult of a task. There are some that can say a simple prayer and stuff, but no senior couple can speak it like the missionaries. A lot of people know English so the senior couples can usually talk in English to a lot of people. If not, then somebody needs to translate for them. For example, usually missionaries translate all of church for senior couples throughout the country because they can't understand. But maybe in about 20 or 30 years there will returned Hungarian missionaries called to Hungary as senior couples who can speak the language. 

That is it for this week. Hope you all have a good week!

Üdvözlettel: (Best regards)

Udy Elder

We have been helping the senior couple look for another missionary apartment

January 7, 2019

Danube River--north of Budapest

Jó Reggelt! (Good Morning)

This past week we had to host Elder Smith, my companion who I was with in Szeged for about 5 weeks, because he was sick and needed to go to the doctor in Budapest. He came up on Monday and then left Tuesday morning, but he had an allergic reaction to the medication so he had to come back up for a couple more days, and before he could go back to his proselyting area we had to make sure he was good. We were able to call everybody in three large area books that we have that contains records of the people missionaries have taught throughout the years. It turned out good because we were able to set up a good number of lessons for this week, with people we have never even talked to.  

We have also been helping one of the senior couples look for another missionary apartment in Budapest. We always have to call the people to set up appointments to go look at the apartment, and if they don't speak English, then we go with the senior couple so they can communicate.  We have gone to look at one apartment so far and maybe more in the coming week. 

We have a guy we are teaching. He is an older man and after going to Catholic mass on Sunday mornings he comes straight to our church. This next week should be really good and busy for us and hopefully we will be able to meet with lots of people and do a bunch of office work like usual. 

Right now the mission slideshow we made isn't posted anywhere. It is just saved in a file on my computer. That's really cool that President Nelson has Hungary's dedicatory prayer hung up in his office.

President Nelson in his office--Hungary coat of arms in frame on right wall with Dedicatory Prayer of Hungary

President Hettinger said that President Nelson always mentions Hungary whenever he is giving a seminar to mission presidents. 

Sok szeretettel,  (Lots of love)

Udy Elder

Christmas dinner

Last p-day we went to a Hungarian village north of Budapest on the Danube and we went hiking

Train ride

Danube River--north of Budapest

Cobblestone Streets

We have a Toyota Yaris hybrid

December 31, 2018

Szervusztok,

Not too much exciting has happened since Christmas. Christmas day was really good. I am really lucky to be serving here in Buda because we got invited  by a senior couple for breakfast and then we were invited to two different families for lunch and dinner. 

The new year will be exciting with church being shortened from 3 hours to 2 hours. Our investigator’s Sunday school class is getting shut down, so we will be able to join everyone this year as we study the New Testament in Sunday School and at home. 

Office work has been pretty busy. We had to send some apartment contracts to Pakistan because we got a new apartment in Romania, and the landlord lives in Pakistan. We needed the landlord’s original signature on the contract because Romanian immigration offices won't accept the contract unless it is an original signature. I am glad the Christmas season is over, because I shouldn't have as many packages to get out of customs. The flashlight campaign has been going on, and there have been over a 100 people who have ordered flashlights. But it came to a stop this past week. I have started driving the past few weeks for the first time in over a year. Luckily driving in Hungary isn't too crazy, and it is pretty similar to America. We have a little Toyota Yaris hybrid that we drive around. 

Hopefully I will take some pictures this next week.  Boldog új évet! (Happy New Year!)

Sok Szeretettel,

Udy Elder