5th Transfer

Posted by Jacquelyn Lois September 05, 2017

5th Transfer

Greetings from the city of goats!

Well brothers and sisters it's been an adventure, and I am now in my 5th transfer, 3rd area, and eleven month mark's coming up fast. Kecskemét is small, but the people here are SUPER nice. Probably this will end up being my nicest city so far. The elders' area actually hasn't had a lot of work recently, but there will be some changes made around here. ;) My new companion is Elder Allred from Aurora, Colorado, and he is willing to work hard and stay on his feet, which is probably one of the most prime qualities I could ask for in a companion. We have 3 kind of eternal investigators who always come to church, but that's about it. So we have been doing some tracting and a LOT of streeting, which is actually mine and Elder Allred's favorite way of finding new people. We are going to focus a lot on creative finding this transfer, after we got a push and a packet full of ideas from President Szabadkai last zone conference. On Thursday we tried something new, a creative finding fest. Allred elder and I both dressed up in black shoes, black pants, white shirts, and purple ties. Then one of us held a Book of Mormon while the other didn't. We then asked people we met on the street to identify the special difference between us. This actually illicited a smorgesboard of responses that I wasn't anticipating. One man told us that tha of course he could tell the difference between us, between every person there is a difference. -_- Another woman took a long, close inspection of each of us, and then settled on the size of our palms as the principle difference between us. Finally people started getting the Book of Mormon as the difference, to which we responded that one of the principle differences between us and other religions is that we have the Book of Mormon that was translated by the prophet Joseph Smith. We then bore our testimonies about the book and asked them if we could come by sometime and give them a copy. We ended up getting 8 phone numbers and a return appointment since Wednesday, almost every one asking for a copy of the Book of Mormon. Yay!

Another great thing about the Kecskemét apartment is the DVD player (want to have a video fest?), so the first night I watched some absolute classics, namely the story of Wilford Woodruff and I'm preparing to dive back in to the District, the Preach my Gospel videos detailing missionaries in action. Our apartment is actually right above a yoga studio and is probably the nicest apartment I've stayed in so far. It's pretty small, but we have AIR CONDITIONING!!!! which is actually kind of sad because it just started getting cold.

The ward in Kecskemát is big and they meet in a beautiful branch house, though I'm sensing that they don't have a lot of trust in the missionaries. We're going to work a lot with the ward and try to build their trust and get them EXCITED about doing missionary work WITH the missionaries. A lot of them are returned missionaries and I think they have a jaded perception of missionary life, but our mission has changed a lot over the past few years thanks to President Szabadkai and we are about as obedient and hardworking as ever!

I just got to the part in the Book of Mormon when Jesus visits the Americas, and it was such a powerful witness to me about the truthfulness of the book. I felt the Spirit so strongly, and for some reason I kept thinking about Joseph Smith and what it must have been like to translate this wonderful record. I love the gospel and the simple joy and peace that fills my soul as I read the Book of Mormon. It has helped me build my relationship with my savior so much, and I love sharing it with people!

Love you all,

Martin elder