Smart phones are coming!

March 25, 2019

Szép jó reggelt kívánok mindenkinek! ( I wish you all a good morning)

Things are still going great here in Pápa. We were able to find a lot of new people to teach this past week again. As of now we have 14 pre-planned lessons with investigators for this next week. We should be able to set up a few more. That is a really good number of lessons for missionaries here. We are also meeting with a couple of returning members this week. Needless to say, it will be a very exciting and busy week for us. Hopefully we can bring some people to church for the first time and have a big turnout.

On Tuesday this past week we had to take an hour bus ride to Veszprém so we could register at the county immigration office. We showed up at the office and all of the doors were closed. But they were only closed because they moved their offices to the other side of town. Once we finally made it there, we had to wait about 2 hours in line. It is about as bad if not worse than the DMV. 

Throughout my whole mission there have been rumors that we will get smart phones at some point. But now I think it is actually going to happen some time soon. We got a notification saying that our mission was selected to use mobile devices and we were given instructions on how to use/obtain the smartphones. I don't know when we will be getting them, but it will be exciting.

Our district consists of 4 elder companionships which is great. Every Friday we take an hour train ride to Győr to attend district meeting. After district meeting this week Elder Spencer and Elder Running came for exchanges. Elder Running is also a new missionary and he is from Columbia, Maryland. And he knows everybody like the Folkmans, Bryants. and Koncurats.  

Our apartment is really nice. It is the smallest apartment I have lived in, but at the same time it is the most modern. It even has air conditioning. It is my first apartment with air conditioning. I hope I stay here for the summer so I don't have to suffer in the humidity and heat. 

While tracting this week, we ran into the first baptized members of the church in Pápa. They haven't been active for about 10 years, but they told us all about what the church was like in Hungary in the 1990s which was interesting. They also had a lot of pictures of missionaries from the 90s which was cool. 

We found a video camera so we can do video chat at some time. So if you want we could try for next week 8:00 my time if it works with you.  So far we have been fed once by the Elders quorum president and his wife. He also used to be the district president in the Szombathely district. The branch president said he will invite us over this week for dinner. That is good that Jimmer got back in the NBA. Let me know how he does. 

Üdvözlettel,  (Regards)

Udy Elder

Inside Catholic church in Pápa

I am excited to teach him how to survive in the Hungarian missionary world

March 18, 2019

Jó reggelt! (Good Morning)

It has been great being here in Pápa, the smallest city in the mission, and away from the mission office. On Wednesday we arrived in Pápa, and we had to walk 2 kilometers with all of our suitcases from the train station to our apartment which was a pain.

Train station in Pápa

My companion is Elder Gardner, who just arrived to Hungary last week. He is from San Antonia, Texas. It's been a while since I have been around a new missionary or have been a new missionary, so I sort of forgot what it is like. Being a new missionary can come with a lot of fear since they must try and do a lot of new things that they have never done before. I am excited to relive the new missionary experience through him and teach him how to survive in the Hungarian missionary world. 

Pápa is a lot different from Budapest. It will be 6 or 7 in the evening and if you walk around the town for and hour you will only run into 4 or 5 people to talk to. But so far things have been going great here in Pápa. We hit the ground running as we tried to bring people into our teaching pool. Through area book work, street contacting, and tracting, we were successful in finding a good number of investigators in just a few days. 

We had a great lesson with a former investigator who has been investigating for about 8 years. He previously struggled with the Word of Wisdom.  But last year he was able to quit smoking which was a big step for him.  The only small worries are that he said at times he will drink a cup of coffee and drink with his friends. He has a testimony of the Book of Mormon and has a desire to be baptized. His baptismal date is set for June 1st.

We had 3 investigators in church, the above mentioned being one of them. The other two were a man and a woman who moved from Mongolia to Pápa two weeks ago. The man lived in Hungary when he was younger, so he speaks Hungarian and translated for the woman during church. They seem very interested and we are excited to start teaching them.

Church was great. There were 30 of us.  I thought I would escape having to translate church since I am now in Pápa, but the Schows were there, a senior couple in the office who come to Pápa about once a month, so I translated all of sacrament meeting and Sunday school for them. The members here are really great and supportive of the missionary work. They were really excited to see us because there hasn't been any missionaries here for a while. In August the elders got pulled out of Pápa and then starting the end of December there were sisters in Pápa for three weeks.

I didn't notice anything special on St. Patrick's day, so I don't think it is anything special here. As of now we probably won't be using google hangout next week. We email in a local library because the meetinghouse only has 1 computer, and I didn't see a video camera.  But we can probably try and get one. 

I am thankful for the opportunity to be here in Pápa serving the Lord, and I am excited to see what the future brings. 

Szent István vértanú templom--Catholic church in Pápa

Friday was a Hungarian holiday celebrating the 1848 Revolution When Hungary tried to obtain independence from the Austrian Empire.

Sok szeretettel, (Lots of love)

Udy Elder 

Leaving the office and heading to Pápa

March 11, 2019

Szép jó reggelt kívánok!

A picture of the parliament building I took last week

My time to leave the mission office has finally come!!! This past week my replacement came, Elder Barton, and I have been giving him a heavy rundown on all of my duties as an office elder. It makes me feel like a really old missionary now that Elder Barton is my replacement because I was his Zone Leader when he came into the country, and now he is an office elder. On Wednesday I will be heading out with a new missionary to a little town called Pápa (Pápa means "Pope" in English). Pápa is the smallest city in the mission with only 30,000 people, and there hasn't been Elders there since August of last year, so I will be opening it back up again. It will also be my first time serving outside of the Budapest Stake. I will be in one of the Districts within Hungary. I am excited to learn more about the area when I get there, stay tuned for more.

Pápa is West of Budapest

There was a baptism in Buda this past week. A 9 year old was baptized. Her parents are members but they were less-acitve/inactive for a long time, and they have started to become active again which is great. It was actually the first baptism interview on my mission that I have done, since I have only been district leader for 12 weeks throughout my mission. 

With a new transfer there are new Facebook missionaries, and since I am designated as the most knowledgeable facebook missionary, I will be giving a training to the newly called Facebook missionaries today on how to use it in missionary work. 

I am grateful that the Lord has given me this experience to serve in the mission office. It is a good experience that will be useful in my future working experiences. I am excited to see what the future brings in Pápa.

Sok szeretettel,

Udy Elder

We delivered the Books of Mormon to the Ritz Carlton

March 4, 2019

Jó Reggelt!  (Good Morning)

Last week we went on 2 exchanges. On Tuesday we went to Dunaújváros which is always a good experience. I was with Elder Bridges. We were busy the whole day teaching lessons and talking to people on the street as we traveled between appointments. We taught a recent convert who was baptized in January and since his baptism he has smoked a little bit because there was still some left over tobacco lying around in his house.  We gladly took the tobacco out of his house. But later when we were in another lesson and Elder Bridges opened up his backpack to get his scriptures, the people we were meeting with saw that he had a bag of tobacco in his backpack. We just explained the situation and it was a good memory. 

Ready to throw away the tobacco--Elder Bridges and Udy

Elder Bridges throwing away the tobacco

This week we started to teach a part member family. The first counselor in the Elders quorum presidency, who is over the missionary work in the ward, has 2 sons (8 and 10) who have not been baptized. The reason they haven't been baptized is because he is going through a divorce. They are with their mom every other week, so as the situation currently stands they can only attend church every other week. We are excited to work with them.

 
On Saturday I was with Elder Fales on exchanges. We talked about how we can better work with the bishopric/ward council. A new thing in our mission is that everyone who attends church has to be accounted for, so either the missionaries or the ward clerk keeps a roll of everyone who attended church that week. We have organized the church attendance data so we can list the church members by how many times they have attended church this year. There is quite a handful of people who have only attended once or twice so far in 2019.  These are the people we should be focusing on to strengthen the ward. It should help us as we council with ward leaders about how we can help people attend more frequently. 

This past week we delivered over 200 Books of Mormon to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Budapest. They will place one in every single room in the hotel. About a month ago they contacted us and requested the books. Also we put a Book of Mormon 21 day challenge card in all of the Books of Mormon. The challenge cards have 21 questions on them and scriptures from the book that help answer the questions. 21 day Book of Mormon Challenge link  Hopefully lots of curious minds will be enlightened as they pick up the book for the first time.

21 day challenge cards

  

Delivering Books of Mormon to the Ritz Carlton-Elder Morgan and Udy

We had interviews this past week. I will be leaving the office finally after 6 months. My replacement will come this week so I can train him for a week on how to do everything. President said I will most likely be training a new missionary again, so it will be fun. I will find out this week for sure.

Sok szeretettel, (Lots of Love)

Udy Elder