Sziasztok Mindenki!!
Good earth I can't believe that my first transfer is already over!!
I'm a little frazzled right now because I received my first transfer call about an hour ago but I'll save that for the very end.
This week was swell! Elder Shipp and I went on splits to Sopron! It's a super super pretty city and LOVED their apartment. It's about 4 times bigger than mine and they have a great view and it was just a really nice place. The best part was that the branch's meeting place was just a flight of stairs below it! (Remember these details for later) Anywho, so the splits went great. I went tracting with one of the Elders there. There was one particular door we knocked on and the woman was familiar with the Book of Mormon. She had to run to take a phone call and she left us at the doorway for a second. The other Elder turned to me and said, "I think I'll just invite her to read it and that's about it." I replied with, "No, you're getting us in, and we're teaching her right now" he just looked super surprised (and I felt pretty surprised that I had just said that) and said, "uh... Okay... I'll try?" AND sure enough, he did and she let us in and we were able to teach her about the restoration! It was great!
Later that night, we taught English class. I was in charge of the spiritual thought. I had planned on giving it on Charity and Service. But about 30 seconds before it was my turn to share it, I switched it to prayer. I'll be honest, not a single word was my own. But it had a pretty big impact on the people in the class because we had a few people from the class asking more questions about prayer, God, and our church after the meeting. We were able to give away some copies of the Book of Mormon and a lot of really really good things came out of it! So that was a rad experience!
A super funny thing that happened this week is accounted in the following:
So when I was on splits with Elder Bullock a few weeks ago, we taught an investigator who was really doing well and progressing and he was looking like a really great candidate for baptism. This made me really excited, but after we taught him, he basically fell off the face of the earth. He never answered his phone or his door. Then a few days ago (this is without hearing from him for a few weeks) Elder Bullock received a text from this guy that said the following:
"Dear Elders, I'm sorry I haven't been able to meet, I have been in the hospital. I will be honest with you, I'm gay. And I find you guys very pleasing to me."
That's seriously all it said! Oh good earth, I got the biggest kick out of that. I think we're going to leave further teaching to the sisters...
Also this week, Elder Haws (the other new missionary) and I went on splits. Which is always fun because we just do all that we know how to do and hope it works. We were able to try all sorts of different door approaches. We made a goal that even if they don't want to hear our message or anything--we were going to at least get them to laugh or smile. One of our favorite things to say was, "we are from America, that's why we have these beautiful accents." and the person would usually get a good kick out of that. It was a lot of fun!
After teaching a cute older couple about the restoration this week, we asked the wife if she would say the closing prayer. She was really scared and nervous and her husband said "it's okay, I'll help you." Oh man, it was so cute to watch the husband whisper things to her to say and she would say them outloud for us. So, so cute.
OKAY! Now time to tell you all about transfers! SO, I'm going to be serving in.... SOPRON! (The place my first paragraph talks about) BUT, here's the crazy part. So, there is only one Hungarian missionary here (Elder Ábrok) and HE is going to be MY companion! So it's looking like I'm going to have to get a million times better at the language if that's all that I'm going to be speaking all day everyday! Ah! The other cool part is that I'm going to be even closer to the Austrian border! (about 2 kilometers away) and about 20 minutes away from Vienna! I'm really excited to move into the super nice apartment and there's also a senior couple there which will be nice to have! I think they already have 2 baptismal dates set so that will be rad to experience! It all happens this Wednesday! It's also nice because I'll still be in the same district and I'll still get to travel back to Szombathely for splits and district meetings. I'm excited! Things are moving right along!
Always dig for reasons to applaud and never scratch for excuses to gossip.
And as always, please, please read the Book of Mormon.
