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

This past week we had exchanges in Budapest

Jó reggelt! (Good morning!)

This past week we had exchanges in Budapest. We were there for p-day, and we went to some labyrinths were Dracula was kept at some point. I had already been there one time, but the others hadn't.

Budapest, Hungary

During the exchange we met with a returning member who is also an artist. His childhood friend is Rubik Érnő (The man who invented the Rubik's cube). He showed us a picture of them a few years back when they were sitting together and told us what he was like as a kid. 

This week we were able to meet with more investigators which was awesome.  We had a mom and her 6-year old daughter come to church. She had met with sister missionaries over 10 years ago in Székesfehérvár, but this was the first contact she had with the church in Dunaújváros when we talked to her on the street.

We had a really good lesson with a part-member family.  Only the parents are members, but they are also inactive for the time being.  We met with two of the daughters and the boyfriend of one of the daughters. They are all in their early 20s.  This could really be a good opportunity to do some good returning member-work and missionary work as we try and unite the entire family in the gospel.  They said they believe that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but hey said that laziness holds them back from coming to church. We will try to help them overcome that concern.  

This Saturday we will be starting English Connect classes.  We will get the word out as much as we can so, we can have a big turnout.  

The birthday card wasn't there last week, but I will hopefully get it this week. We will be having district meeting at the mission home this Friday, so hopefully it will be there.

Sok szeretettel, (Lots of love)

Udy Elder

I came to Hungary when I was 19 and now I am 21

July 17, 2019

Book of Mormon 21 day challenge banner

Sziasztok mindenkinek, (Hi everyone)

We have been meeting with some returning members and recent converts in the branch. We had a good lesson with a man who was baptized in 1993. He is in his early 40's. We talked about faith and forgiveness of sins. The member who was present said he was a lot more open this time. He also has an 18 year old son that isn't baptized so it would be really good if we could work with him too. Hopefully we can help him get back to church in the coming weeks.

This past week we had Missionary Leadership Council and we were able to make some good Zone goals. In the Zone we are pushing for every unit to hold a special sacrament meeting that members can invite their friends to. In Dunaújváros and a couple other places in the zone there is already a set date for the sacrament meeting. There will be a special musical number, good talks, and a lunch afterwards. Ours will be on July 21. Our plan is that when we meet with members we will help them make plans to invite someone to the sacrament meeting.

Today we are In Budapest for my birthday, and we will be having exchanges. I came to Hungary when I was 19 years old and I am now 21 years old which is a little weird to think about. The time really flies by. I am glad I am here. I will be sure to cherish the remaining time I have left.

Üdvözlettel: (Best regards)

Udy Elder

I was made district leader and zone leader

June 10, 2019

Jó Reggelt!  (Good Morning!)

This past week we got to know our new area Dunaújváros. The translation of the city means New Danube City since it is on the Danube. There are a lot of communist era concrete buildings because this city used to be called Stalin's city and was built from the ground up during communism. It doesn't seem that there are any progressing investigators close to baptism here. But we successfully set up a handful of appointments for this week with people we found and with people that were being taught before. There are a few recent converts in our area that we are working with which is good. We met with 1 out of the 3 recent converts so far. We will actually be going with him to visit another recent convert this week which should be good. The third recent convert is studying right now in Budapest, so we don't know too much about her situation. 

I got the short end of the stick and got made district leader as well as zone leader. In our district there are 3 sister companionships and us, so since we are the only elders, one of us has to be district leader. There are 3 zones in Hungary right now and we are over the Budapest Zone. 

People in the mission are just starting to buy smart phones. Since I go home soon I don't need to buy one. The mission might be giving me one, but I still don't know. My companion has one, and I thought I would never see the day that they are finally here. People on the street are a lot more willing to give their Facebook information than give their phone number, so we have been messaging people on Facebook, and we will even have a lesson through Facebook messenger with someone tonight that lives outside of Dunaújváros.  It is also cool because we can share videos in lessons and have a lot better contact with investigators. 

It seems that the branch here is pretty solid. There were about 40 people at church on Sunday. We meet in an actual church building instead of rented space which is nice.  It seems that Branch council and MCM (mission correlation meeting) are both held weekly. Having served in 6 congregations this will be the first one that holds MCM and branch council on a weekly basis, which will be good to help coordinate our work with members. 

Our apartment is decent. It has cool purple walls. Our apartment is pretty far from the church. It is about a 30 minute walk. Right now there are 4 more elders than sister missionaries in Hungary. There are a lot of sister missionaries in the mission right now and not a lot of elders. Right now I was thinking about visiting Budapest, Szeged, and Székesfehérvár when you come. Going to Lake Balaton sounds fun, and I have never been there before so it would be good. 

Sok szeretettel, (Lots of love)

Udy Elder

This was a p-day a couple of weeks ago when we were in Tatabánya. The cave apparently is in a scene in the movie Eragon and the dragon lands in the cave. 

Cave in the movie Eragon

I will be going to Dunaújváros with Elder Brooks who is also from the tri-cities

June 4, 2019
Jó Reggelt!  (Good morning)

This past week we had 2 investigators at church. The older woman with a baptismal date was able to make it which was great! She is really committed to being baptized now. She said that only her neighbor knows that she meets with us, but she is going to go tell her Catholic priest that she is going to join our church and let everybody know. The other person who came to church was the Mongolian man. We lost contact with him for about a month, and weren't able to reach him.  He came to church and even bore his testimony during sacrament meeting on how we knows this is Jesus Christ's true church and also about prayer. It seemed the members were impressed by what he said.

We also met with these two young guys that work for a financial company in downtown Pápa. We taught them about the Restoration and then at the end they tried to negotiate contact information of all the people we know in Pápa- I guess that they help people with personal finances and they struggle finding contacts. But it is sort of an invasion of personal data and information. Hopefully they will read and pray about the Books of Mormon we gave them. 

This morning we received transfer calls and Elder Gardner will be staying in Pápa, and I will be going to Dunaújváros with Elder Brooks as a Zone Leader. We will both be new to the area so it should be fun. Also he is from Richland (Tri-cities Washington) which is pretty crazy to think that our families live in the same city and now we will be living together in Hungary.

Dunaújváros is south of Budapest about 50 miles

It is weird to think the mission is slowly coming to a close and that I will be going to my last area, but I am excited to see what is in store for me in Dunaújváros.

Sok szeretettel, (Lots of love)

Udy Elder