Ahoj!! (Slovakian, you'll understand later.)
Baptism in Kispest: As I mentioned last week, I had the wonderful opportunity of baptizing an investigator I helped find and teach while serving in Kispest. I thanked him for allowing me to share the phenomenal experience with him and he replied with, "well, of course I wanted you to come and do this! You were the one that found me, you were the one that taught me, you were the one that gave me the chance to obtain this new life, and you brought me Jesus Christ's true, restored gospel!" --yea, he's awesome.
100 Days: On Tuesday, one of the Elders from my MTC group sent a text message to all of us notifying us that we only have 100 days left! I just about died.
Another Warm Welcome: So this is going back to that one family I talked about last week who loved that we prayed for them. We were once again in the area where they live and we felt like we should drop by and see how they're doing. As soon as they opened the door it was only a matter of minutes that they had sat us down and started feeding us. They were so ecstatic to see us. There were a few members of the family who were out running errands so they all got on their phones saying, "come quick!! The Americans are here!!" We soon had a full house of people. They were telling us about how they talk to all of their friends and family about us and the miracles we have brought to their family through our prayers. One of the mothers exclaimed, "every time you boys visit us! We somehow get money!! It's incredible!!" We chuckled and explained, "no, no, it's not us. God just really loves you all." As luck would have it, while we were there one of the fathers received a text message saying that he received a certain amount of money in his account for some work that he did. The family wasn't expecting that so they were all amazed and kept attributing the miracle to our prayers and to God.
Slovakia: So this entry is going to be a long one. I'll start with this statement: Yesterday, we left the country. This has been something that has been in the works for a couple weeks and we were finally able to pull everything together. Here's how the story goes, a man met with the Elders in Slovakia. He speaks Hungarian and he's been trying to learn Slovakian. He doesn't speak it very well but he was able to get a copy of The Book of Mormon in Hungarian and he knew it was Christ's true church and he joined in Slovakia. He LOVES the church and spends his free time preaching and teaching in his little village. His village is a Hungarian village (because that part of Slovakia used to be Hungary) so all of the people he is teaching and meeting with only speak Hungarian. The Slovakian Elders don't speak Hungarian but this man had a bunch of really interested people who wanted to learn more, attend church, and be baptized. Well, in order for that to happen, you need missionaries!! SO, we were able to get permission from the area seventy to leave the country and travel across the border to see what the situation is like over there and see what we could do. So, yesterday morning we packed up the car with a bunch of supplies and headed over to Slovakia. We met the Slovakian Elders in a city called Komárom. It's a city that is split between Hungary and Slovakia. It was WAY weird to be in a different country. We got there early so we decided to walk around the city for a little bit before the other Elders arrived. Everything was written in Slovakian and Hungarian and we decided to street a little bit as week walked around and everyone we talked to could speak Hungarian. I can't even explain it--speaking a second language in a different country was wild. The other Elders arrived and we went to lunch so we could get a game plan. The waiter at the restaurant was pretty darn confused. He had four 20 year old boys in suits, two of them spoke Hungarian, the other two spoke in Slovakian. When he would come to the table to ask a question, whoever understood what he said would translate it into English for the rest of us and we would reply in our respective languages. Anywho, so we then drove out together to the little village and met up with the super member missionary. He fed us some classic "Hungarian" chicken soup (the Slovak Elders were struggling with it and we were like, "it's just like home!"). This man was brilliant and SO extremely kind. He was lovin' it that we were there with him and we were able to talk about the Gospel in his native language. We then went out with him and met all of the people he's been meeting with and teaching. They were also so extremely nice and hospitable. We probably met with 15-20 people total. There were a couple families that had some people who could speak Slovakian as well so we had 3 languages going on the whole time, it was nuts!! We haven't had any "official" meeting with President. (That will be on Monday.) But we're going to talk about the possibility of starting a group there. (I learned yesterday that a group is smaller than a branch--I didn't know such thing existed!) It's going to be quite the process but it was an incredible day. It was awesome to work with other Elders from another mission. It was incredible to meet with people who live in a different country. (Hungarians are still Hungarians, no matter where they live.) I got a whole new perspective of "member missionary work" and I hope to hold onto it for the rest of my life!
Well, this week was quite the adventure. Here's my bit of advice to ANY new missionary or to anyone that is just going into the MTC: You're running out of time.
