Farsang Buli and Back to Budapest

This week was great! As usual!

So this week we went Back to Budapest. It seems at least one event every month requires a trip to Budapest. We went for zone conference, which was combined with the Southwest and Budapest zones. The next day would be the West, East, and Southeast zones. We had our training from Patrick Kearon, from the seventy, in the area presidency for this corner of the world. It was really amazing, of course! He talked a lot about teaching by the Spirit communication with other people.

Today we are going to go to Zirc again and check out all the gardens there and the Cistercian Abbey. We will take lots of pictures -- which I will send out once I have access to a computer that I can connect to.  :)   :)

Yesterday was a Hungarian holiday. It celebrated a revolt against whatever country was invading them in 1848 (I think is was Austria?). Everyone wore a pin with a red, white, and green ribbon all day, and to church. When we were walking back to our place, we passed an outdoor concert, with a string quartet and a lady singing what I think was traditional Hungarian music. Everyone was holding wooden torches for lighting. The night before was a farsang buli, or costume party, at the branch-house. A couple of our investigators came, and the food was really good.

So, story, this family we tracted into the other week, to whom we gave the Family Proclamation pamphlet to, we called them this morning and set up with them. We really hope it turns out well!

Our investigator who is being baptized on the 28th, is set to read the entire church library by the end of the year. She found us through a pass along card she received. Read the scriptures! They invite the Spirit and make things work out! At least the important things! Anyways, she has shared the copies of the Book of Mormon with some members of her family and has talked and read out of the book of Mormon with her daughter and son-in-law that live in Veszprém.

Flashback to the other family I have talked about in other emails. This is the family that we have been trying to set up with for a while, and they came to the New Year's Eve party and to sacrament meeting when their friend was giving a talk. They have friends that are members and sometimes we call them and see if they want to meet, but we haven't been able to meet yet.

Returning to the first investigator. We were helping her fill out her baptismal papers. She got to her children's names. PLOT TWIST!!! She is the family's mom. We had absolutely no idea, the member family had no idea, in fact a lot of people had no idea. Apparently the mysterious daughter and son in law that she was sharing the gospel to was the family, who everyone else was trying to share the gospel to also. This was something amounting to a miracle for several different reasons. One, they found the gospel through different ways, but when they all found it, they started talking about it with each other. Second, I think, is an example of what is meant when it is said that eternal families are essential in salvation. Families are a gift from God to help and strengthen each other. And while the family were (and still are) open to the gospel message, it was through the mom, who is not even a member yet, that they were able to learn the most about the gospel.

It seems a lot of people that join the church, at least in Hungary, are the people that are seeking out a good thing to help guide their lives, as opposed to just looking for something that gives them pleasure and temporary happiness. The Relief Society president here told us her conversion story several weeks ago. I might of already shared it, but I want to share it again. She always saw the missionaries around here and there, and she said that they were always happy, and that they had a certain power about them. One day, to her surprise, she saw them walking down her street. She flung open her door and waved her arms and called them inside, and her, her husband, and son, were baptized a couple weeks later.

Another example is another family in our ward. A young woman that was invited to church five years ago by her friend, and she took the lessons, gained a testimony, and with her parents' consent was soon baptized. Her mom saw the change in her daughter's life, and soon was baptized a few months later. Recently, the other missionaries here in Veszprém have been teaching her brother, who has become really good friends with one of the missionaries. In one of the lessons recently, the missionaries and the young woman and her friend, all bore their testimonies, and then they asked him, who had by now been reading out of an illustrated Book of Mormon Stories book for awhile, to pray to know if the Book of Mormon was true. They all felt the Spirit so strongly, and at the end of the prayer, he started crying (happy tears!) and said that he got his answer and knew the Book of Mormon was true. He is going to be baptized on the 28th, also.

There was this one article in a Liahona once that talked about different ways we can receive a testimony of the Book of Mormon. Sometimes it is through just diligently reading the Book of Mormon and feeling the spirit. Sometimes it is through living according the the Book of Mormon and seeing the positive change in your life. Sometimes it is through sincere prayer that the Book of Mormon is true, after reading and pondering. There was a fourth way in the article, too, but I can't remember it off the top of my head!

Sok szeretettel!
Bunker Elder!

Zirc, Bakony Forest and a Q&A

Hello Everyone!

I want to start off this email with answers to a few questions!

Wait, are you close to a transfer yet? 

The next transfer is April first. Hope it turns out to be April fools, and that I wont be going!!! But I've been here in Veszprém for four months and it looks like I'll be leaving!

Yeesh, will that be hard?

Of course!! We have some really progressing investigators that want to be baptized but haven't committed to a specific date yet. I probably will miss their baptisms. Of course, that's not the only reason I would want to stay! Veszprém is really pretty, and I love this city, and the ward here is really strong, and the work is forecasted to really go up after the open house / missionary night at the open house. Also I just don't want to go!

Do you go over to members houses much?

Not really. There's one family that has us over for lunch ever week, which is actually super amazing, and we go over to another lady every week who is half-paralyzed from a stroke and give her the sacrament. We are also always trying to set up with less active members, and there are a couple that we visit regularly and invite to come to church.   

What are they like inside?

We are not just inside member houses, but we get quite a few let ins while tracting on a really good day. Most of the people we visit live inside these 10 story cement apartment buildings from the communist days, like the fifties or sixties, and they are super tiny. 

From Google image search

But it is amazing how different each of them are decorated, even though they all have the same layout. One lady has all the doorways and furniture redone in fancy hardwood, and super fancy floral wall paper, with beautiful dark green velvety furniture. We have no idea how she got all this stuff into that apartment. This is an exception! Another guy we tracted into had all these crazy colorful patterns painted on the walls. Most people have tooons of potted plants.  

Do they have little grocery stores everywhere?

Usually, no matter where you are, you can reach a PennyMarket, Aldi, Spar, or Lidl within three to five minutes by foot. PennyMarket and Spar are the Most common, at least in Veszprém.

What type of table do you set up for tabeling?

This tiny lawn table with detachable legs. 

Do you have to carry it on the bus or do you set it up outside of your apartment?

We live in the Belváros, which is kind of like downtown-old city area, and there is a big walking street two minutes from our house. We carry the table there.

___________________________________________________________

So, this morning we went to Zirc (pronounced zeertz). 

I have really wanted to got there, since before I got into Hungary actually, I we finally went. We were going to go hiking, since it's in the hills the middle of the Bakony forest (pronounced somewhere in between Bah-coin and Bah-cone-yuh).

Picture of the Bakony Forest from a Google Search

But the first trail we went to was super muddy. So we just played a little bit of 2 on 2 ultimate frisbee in a field and took pictures and stuff. We saw this beautiful Catholic abbey, which has a museum in it that I want to go back and visit some time. You could see the abbey nestled in between the hills surrounded by the town from a distance, with the two huge spires really catching your attention. It was really pretty. 

Picture from Google Search

This week when we were tracting we ran into some pretty cool people, as usual!

One lady we tracted into we were able to set up with again and had a lesson with her about the restoration, and we could feel the spirit really strongly. She was really smart and asked really good questions. Hopefully she will have us back -- we got her phone number.

We tracted into this family, which let us in for our little survey :). They said they have a really busy schedule, but they would be open to letting us back some time if there were available to listen to our message. When we opened up our bags to give them a restoration pamphlet, Elder Dellenbach found that he just had Family: a Proclamation to the World pamphlets and for some reason I had Restoration pamphlets in English but not Hungarian -- I have absolutely NNNOOOO idea how that happened- but this was probably meant to be :) because when we gave them the Family pamphlet and said that it talked about how the church believed in families and then bore our testimonies about the family.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2006/06/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng

We also tracted into this older man who lived in England for like 40 years or something and spoke English with us. He really wasn't interested in our message, but he thought English class looked interesting -- "I practice faith me own little way, but maybe I can have me wife look into this 'ere English class."

The mission president came to the Veszprém branch on Sunday to have an interview with an investigator, which was successful! President and Sister Smith both spoke at the end of sacrament meeting. Sister Smith prepared a talk in Hungarian that she read, and Dellenbach Elder translated for Smith Elnök. We were able to get three investigators to sacrament meeting, which was a first for us. 

Have a great week!

Bunker Elder

A "feel good" offer from Asia

This week was great, as usual! 

News this week, we had 28 and a half finding hours, which is a new personal/companionship record! On Tuesday, we tracted for 8 hours straight, and didn't get a single let in :( but the next day we did meet several new people on the street and got their phone numbers, which was good! 

We were tabeling on Wednesday, and this guy came up to me, and started talking -- I had seen him around the area where we table before. He started talking to me about the weather, and about how cold it was, and then asked what we do when we get sick. I was like, well, if we get really sick we go to the hospital, and we probably stay at home and eat healthy foods for a little bit while we get better. He then said that he knew of this substance that he could get for us if we ever needed to "feel good," and that they use it a lot in Asia and stuff. I had been talking that whole time with a drug dealer!!!! I then said something like "well I'll keep that in mind, have a nice day" and kind of just walked off and handed fliers to the other people on the street. It is written all over Preach My Gospel that we should always be building trust and relationships with other people. I think I am justified in exercising some personal discretion and avoiding a relationship with this particular person!

On the bright side, our  investigator, has said that she wants to be baptized. Of course, she has been progressing towards baptism all along, and she has known that, but this was an official "Yes, I want to be baptized." She has been keeping all the commandments that we have been presenting to her, but every time we bring baptism up she comes up with some new excuse. However, this week, we had a really good lesson on blessings we have in our lives when we commit to live the gospel. We then challenged her with a baptismal date. The biggest obstacle that she still perceives is the time commitment that comes with being a member. The said that when she would be baptized, she would have to attend so many church programs and this and that and she doesn't have time for that. This went right along with the lesson! :) We said that as we give time to the Lord, he blesses us in return, and that really the most important thing that she had to attend was sacrament meeting, and that she is already living her life in accordance with the standards of the church. She has been doing amazing with Book of Mormon reading! When I first came to this area, every week she usually read about a page or two. Then Dellenbach Elder and I really decided to focus on The Book of Mormon and stories from it, and for a couple lessons we shared stories like Samuel the Lamanite and the Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah being visited by the angel and then becoming amazing missionaries. She then started reading more and more, up to about ten chapters a week. This last week she read about 30 chapters from the Book of Mormon. 

Our other investigator, finished the Book of Mormon and then read the entire Gospel Principles book. She has started on talks from General Conference, and has given a copy of the Book of Mormon to her sister. She was sick, so she wasn't able to come to church on Sunday, but we called her and she said that she fasted anyways because she read about fasting in Gospel Principles -- we haven't even covered that with her yet! Our other investigator, asked where she was at church and then called her to make sure that she was doing all right -- such a great example. I like that one talk from General Conference, from Elder Wu, I think. It was the one delivered in Cantonese - about how we need to always be helping and reaching out to people that need help, and that are maybe less active or can't come to church -- and how it was the combined faith of everyone that healed the man afflicted with palsy, and that our combined faith can really help people that need our help that are afflicted with "spiritual palsy."

Have a great week!

Szép napot!!

Bunker Elder

Sok mindent happened this week

Sok mindent happened this week. So it all started out at a normal district meeting at the branch house. We were talking about ways to find more people to teach, as we often do, and Höferl Elder mentioned that we could have sort of like an open house night where the members and us could give presentations to anyone interested in finding out more about the "teachings of the Mormons." We scheduled a time, talked with the ward council and mission president, and so far this idea has been well received. I also made a flier for us to hand out to everyone with all the necessary information. I think that I'll attach the flier to the email, since I've been having trouble getting pictures on email, and then you will also have some sort of visual link to my missionary work ;). It will be official when the mission president clears it through the are presidency, which shouldn't be a problem, and then we will mass produce and distribute the flier throughout Veszprém and maybe even the neighboring towns and villages. Planning for this was basically the highlight of the week, since it took so much phone calls and, well, planning. 

here is what the flier looks like! We kept it simple so we could just black-and-white photocopy it relatively inexpensively.

Here's the translation:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints

• We believe in the Bible, a testimony of Jesus Christ
• We believe in the Book of Mormon, another testimony of Jesus Christ
• We believe in the eternal family
• We believe in faith
• We believe in prayer
• We believe in Jesus Christ

Come meet us at our new building:

• 3 Aulich Lajos Street
• March 20, 5:30-8:00

Free presentations from Hungarian members and missionaries teaching about our beliefs.

• More information -- ########
• www.jezuskrisztusegyhaza.hu

Hopefully it will be successful! 

We put on basic beliefs and other information on our flier that targeted ideas people have about our church in an effort to make them more curious and interested. 

We put on that we believe in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon to target the incorrect idea that people have that we think the Book of Mormon replaces the Bible. 

We emphasized that Hungarian members will be there, because many people walk up to us and say "don't you know that there are no Hungarian Mormons?" We are hoping that this group of people would be interested in meeting Hungarian members and seeing with their own eyes who attends our church. Also, many people think our church is strictly American, and that we hold meetings and other things in English, so we are hoping that this information would make people more comfortable in coming to talk to us, knowing that there would be fellow native speakers there.

In the center of the flier we put on "We believe in Jesus Christ." Of course, this is the most important information, and we are hoping to draw in the people who want an opportunity for their faith to grow - We have actually talked to quite a few people like this in Veszprém that are interested in our church, but are "too busy" to regularly meet with us. Hopefully this would interest these people in providing a no-strings-attached opportunity to get acquainted with the Mormons!

This week we met with a lady from China. She spoke English, but not a word of Hungarian, so that was easy for me! It was Chinese new year so she fed us dumplings and cabbage.

From random google search

 It was delicious! She is an interim here at the university of Pannonia teaching Chinese language and culture. 

I don't know if I already mentioned it, but we are teaching this family right now. They are really cool, and they know a couple of members here, which is always a plus. 

I swear my bag gets heavier and heavier every time we go shopping! This week I bought four liters of milk and four liters of juice, as well as lots of fruits, and a couple of vegetables, too, as well as flour, sugar, etc. but that stuff is not important! Just the fruit and the juice and the milk!    :)

Until next time!!!

Bunker Elder

A new way to eat Langos

Hello All!!!

This week was very busy. On Tuesday we went up to Budapest for interviews with the mission president. Those went well! :) It's always fun to go up to Budapest and to try to get around -- lucky for me my companion, Dellenbach Elder, served in Buda once, and he knows his way around! The train station that usually connects to Veszprém, Déli, was under construction or something, which was too bad because it is walking distance from the mission home place. So we got off at a different train station (forgot its name!!) and got to our destination using the subway and the tram. It was pretty fun -- I hope I get to serve in Budapest some time- I'm pretty sure most missionaries do, at one time or another, serve there, since there are quite a few missionaries there. I always think it's funny when I think about how literally about half of the nation's population lives in that city. 

On Wednesday we had Zone training at Dunaújváros, which was greeeaaat. The training was focused on communicating with investigators and focusing on using the Spirit in teaching the message. Then we stormed the local McDonald's. Fast food is reealllly expensive here, but it tastes as good as ever. However, it is usually a better use of your money to order a pizza!

So I've figured out a new way to eat langos! I made two scone things, and then made a burger from some ground meat I bought mixed with some onions and garlic, and topped it with the sour cream and shredded cheese and also some fresh pieces of pepper, using the scone things for buns. I called it a langos burger. It was really good. 

We had another program with our investigator who is almost done with the Book of Mormon. I think that by now she is probably done with the Book of Mormon. We are going to start talking about commandments this week. Super excited, she seems to be doing very well and has made friends with several of the members, which is one of the most important things an investigator can do. We are thinking that maybe we can even move her baptismal date up a little bit if she is ready. We are really hoping that the baptism goes well, and we are also hoping that we will be able to invite some other of our investigators to the baptism so that they can feel the spirit and see someone else be baptized. If she is baptized, she will be the first baptism in the new Branch House here in Veszprém that was built about six months ago. 

I am always surprised about how many fliers and pass along cards we manage to hand out. Today we went to the photocopy place and photocopied 500 of the original sheet, which can be cut into 8 fliers, so in all, we got 4000 fliers. Depending on how much we street and table, we may hand out all of them in the next two weeks. This morning for p-day we walked around Veszprém castle, which is always pretty. 

Guess what I saw this morning when shopping?? Fresh strawberries!!! I don't know if they're in season or not (I thought that they weren't), but hey, a strawberry is a strawberry. So I got some strawberries.    :)       And then I ate them, because everyone here talks about how fast berries go bad. 

Sziasztok!

Bunker Elder

The Book of Mormon

This week has been amazing! 

We really didn't do anything for p-day today, because the other elders are up at Budapest doing interviews with the mission president, and shopping and stuff took longer than usual, but we are planning on having district pizza tonight! There's this pizza delivery place here, and all their pizzas are about five dollars, and they have like thirty flavors. I usually pair up with Höferl Elder, and one of us gets Hawaiian and the other gets gyros, and we split half and half, but sometimes it is fun to try a new flavor. There's this seafood flavor, that has bits of octopus on it, and it doesn't taste very good. Just thought I'd share that with you all!  ;)

Just added a few email addresses that have been overdue so if this is your first email sorry for the delay. And if this is equivalent to spam, let me know that, too, and I'll take you off the list!

So remember that one new lady I told you all about, the one we gave a Book of Mormon to in front of the Spar in the rain? She is a steady investigator. So we met with her on Tuesday (I think) which was just about five days later, and she told us she had read 220 pages out of the Book of Mormon. She would have read more if it weren't for the fact that she had been writing a play by play summary of what was going on in the Book of Mormon in a notebook to help her remember the story better, as well as a summary she had written of the restoration of the church taken from the documents in the front of the Book of Mormon (testimony of Joseph Smith, etc.). She read portions of her Book of Mormon Journal to us and we talked about it with her, and the Restoration. When we met on Friday, she was somewhere in the 300s, and we talked about the plan of salvation and even a little bit about the gospel of Jesus Christ. She asked when she could be baptized. If everything works out, there will be a baptism for her on March 31. She came to church yesterday, and loved it. She made friends with the lady who has been coming to church every week, and E. drove her to the bus station -- she lives a little out of town, but she said that she wants to come to church every week! She is an amazing example of how we need to have a personal relationship with God and to act on it. We as missionaries can do a million things to help our investigators, but ultimately it is all up to them when it comes to making decisions. She read the Book of Mormon in her free time and made the sacrifice to keep on coming to Veszprém to meet with us and to come to church. There are people everywhere ready for the gospellllll!!!!!!!!!!! .... and know not where to find it. We are also hoping that E. will have the opportunity to be baptized on March 31, as the other invitations for baptism we extended to her were too soon... E. has followed through on our invitations to follow all the commitments we have extended so far -- word of wisdom, ten commandments, law of chastity, read the Book of Mormon (she started last week!!!!), attend church. We've been really blessed to have had the opportunity the meet with these two amazing investigators. 

We got let in to these two older guys, who were brothers. When we asked them if they believed in God, one of them said, "no, we are communists" and the second one said "um, excuse me, butI believe in God, and I am definitely not a communist. We are devout Catholics." And the first one was like "hey, I'm not a Catholic, I'm a communist, and you know that." And they went back and forth about communism and catholicism -- it sounded as if they had had that conversation once or twice or maybe like a million times before. It was really funny. The communist had this ashtray in front of him, and he kept on scooping the ashes of used cigarettes into new paper and smoking the same stuff over and over again, paper and all. When he would finish one cigarette, he'd scoop the leftovers into a new paper and smoke that. It was pretty disgusting, and I think he went through like five cigarettes in the twenty minutes that we were there -- and I looked like his brother did the same thing from the matching ash tray on the other side of the table. 

This week is going to be super busy! We are going up to Budapest for interviews tomorrow, and we are having our monthly zone training in Dunaújváros on Wednesday. Can't wait to see everyone there!!! 

So we had the most people ever show up at an English class on Thursday -- seven people came to profi!!! It might not seem like a lot, but let me tell you -- it is progress!!! The topic of the class was music (guess who picked that subject ;)  ). We started off by splitting into two groups and talking about our favorite genres, artists, albums, etc., and then we talked about words for different musical symbols and stuff, like half note, treble clef, etc. It was a good lesson. We also had English class on Saturday. There is this man, who always comes on Saturday, who reminds me a lot of Dieter F. Uchtdorf. He loves to talk about airplanes, and his time in the military as a pilot. 

So, I love langos, that scone thing I always talk about, so much, I've made it like every day. But I don't think It's very healthy -- fried bread, salt, garlic, cheese, and sour cream... I tried to make it healthy the other day by putting a bunch of vegetables on it. It didn't taste that good. Which is funny, because I love vegetables!!!! 

So I've spent a little more than two months in Veszprém, and it looks as I'm going to spend two more months here. I hope after this transfer I still stay here, I love Veszprém so much!!!! And in theory, it's possible. I've heard of two other missionaries who had only two areas their whole mission. I also want to go to Pápa, because there is someone there I want to contact. But enough about that -- the mission, after all, isn't about me, right??? ;)

So we have like three investigators in this one building that we tracted, so we are always over there having lessons with them. There is this one guy that lives there, maybe in his early twenties, and he saw us, and he told us, "I always see you guys hanging out around here, you shouldn't be here unless someone invites you." And we were like "oh, yeah, we meet with some people here, don't worry." And then he called the cops on us!!! When the cops came he strutted out and told them that these troublemakers were always hanging out in their suits, up to no good for sure, and that they said they were meeting with some people but that probably we were up to no good!!! The cops were like, "ok, you can go in now" to the kid and then were like to us, "yeah, don't know why he called, you're not doing anything wrong" and then left. It was actually pretty funny.

Sziasztok!!!

Bunker Elder 

Visit to the Balaton

Hey all,

So we have had all sorts of weather here. Right now there is snow on the ground outside. But this week we have had cold, warm, snow, sleet, rain, and everything in between. Except for anything like summer...

So we went to the Balaton this morning for pday! - finally- and it was really pretty. But there really wasn't much to do except for take pictures and look at the water. We took a bus to Balatonfüred, a smaller city about twenty five minutes from here by bus, and just walked until we ran into the Balaton.

Image from a Google search of Balatonfüred

Image from a google search

 It wasn't that hard-- the Balaton is much bigger than Balatonfüred. We could see the Tihany peninsula in the distance-- it looked really cool.

Tihany peninsula from random google image search

After that we came back to Veszprém and went to this little kebab place and got kebabs. Here kebab doesn't mean food on a stick, in means like food in a pocket of bread, and it was like a Gyros but with different meat and vegetables and sauce.

I have started to really appreciate fresh garlic in cooking. It makes everything savory taste better! Speaking of food, Dellenbach Elder and I made palacsintas again last night.

Image from random search for palacsintas

They were good, but they weren't enough to fill either of us up. So we both kept on cooking and eating till we were full. There were a lot of dishes to wash afterwards.

By the way, pass along cards really work! A lady called us this week and said she got a Book of Mormon pass along card. She said that she would like to meet with us and get a copy. We met with her in front of the neighborhood Spar, and gave her a copy, and she was very happy, and we set up a time to meet with her again.

Interviews with the mission president are coming up, and he sent out an email reminding us to bring our planners and study journals. I've been doing really good with my planner, but I didn't know that I was supposed to be keeping a regular study journal   :O     I guess now is a better time to start than ever. Of course I have been doing great studies and marking my scriptures and stuff, but I don't have a cute little notebook set aside as of yet to right notes and stuff in. I usually just study for the lessons and stuff we are having that day and right down a couple of useful scriptures in my planner or something.

We didn't run the last couple of days, because the ice, but we should be able to start again tomorrow, since it is all mostly melted.

We were tabeling on the street, and this one guy came up to me and asked how much would it be to buy a Book of Mormon.  There was this lady walking past us, and when she heard me tell him that the Book of Mormon was free she was so surprised she just stopped walking and almost tripped. But then she came to and started walking again.

Click on the link below if you would like to order your own free copy of the Book of Mormon!

http://www.mormon.org/free-book-of-mormon



Szia!!
Bunker Elder