Rohadt hideg van... és csak egyre rosszabb lesz innentől kezdve.
"...Do You Kayak?": Europeans are very... Touchy. We as Americans would think it pretty weird to kiss people we just barely met. Anywho, old ladies here like to stroke our arms. It's nothing new to us. While tracting the other day, I had a lady stroke my arm for a bit then she she squeezed it and said, "wow! You're so muscly!! ...Do you kayak?"
Well, I don't think anyone has ever told me something like that seriously in my whole life. I thought it was hilarious and all I could do was let out a high-pitched giggle. Then I looked at her and realized that she was seriously asking if I kayak. I decided to play along (it's not everyday I get a chance like this) So I replied with, "nah, I don't really kayak. However, I do pump iron
(I KNEW that word would be useful someday) everyday... that's probably what you're thinking of."
Good earth, I'm such a pill--but heck, I had fun with it.
Let Them In, They're Cool: While trying to get into an apartment building we were going to slip in while a lady was coming out. Sometimes they mind, sometimes they don't care. It doesn't matter to us--we always find a way in. This lady turned out to be one of those that mind. As we started to explain
why we wanted to get into the building another lady walked by, saw the situation, looked at us closer then said, "hey! These boys are cool. You can let them in. They are Jesus Christs. (It's funnier in Hungarian because she called us Jesus Christs... Not Jesus Christ's) You can let them in, I usually don't let people like them in but I know these guys are cool because my girlfriend was telling me about them the other day. One of you is from Debrecen and the other is from America, right??"
"Yes, ma'am!" we replied as we walked peacefully into the building.
Would You Say the Prayer?: We often struggle when it comes to getting investigators to pray in front of us. We have a few that absolutely refuse to. We had an investigator in Sunday School for the first time yesterday. She had never prayed in front of us before. The room was full with about 15 people. The lesson was incredible and the teacher asked HER if she would say the closing prayer. To our great surprise, she totally did!! It. Was. Incredible. Don't worry, I'm sure baptism pictures are soon to come.
Truth-Seekers: We've had an insane amount of success lately in finding. A
lot of people are searching for the truth. Heck, we had a program with a lady just before we came to email. She brought her sister because she knew she would also be interested in what we had to say. We got on the subject of baptism and the one lady said, "Jesus Christ was perfect, and HE was baptized!! That means I
really need to be baptized!! But I don't think it's right that I was baptized as a baby... I didn't make the choice!! Where was my agency in that decision?"
Let me tell ya, the whole program was like this. Every time we brought up a point they would exclaim, "that's what I think TOO!! Finally someone else agrees!!"
For example, at the end as we were teaching about prayer I explained how we only pray to God, we use our own words, and we do it in the name of Jesus Christ. That got them the most excited.
Just last night we had a great conversation with a lady while tracting. She said she has been searching for God and his truth for years. As we started to teach her about Jesus Christ's Church, she exclaimed how thankful she was that God had sent us to her.
Well, as you can see, (or read) things are great on my side of the waters. I love it here. Really, I do. Too much. Even though it's dark and cold outside. Time is going by way too extremely fast--I don't like it. Now I'm starting to ramble which means...
I need you to read from The Book of Mormon.
Sok Szeretettel,
Alldredge Elder
