Last Day in Budapest

Posted by Jacquelyn Lois September 02, 2017

Last Day in Budapest

Sziasztok!

Well a new transfer is upon us, and this morning at soccer with the other elders (Medveczky Árpád also came to join us) we got the call from President Szabadkai that I will be leaving Kispest and heading to the wonderful city of KECSKEMÉT (kech-ke-mate), which is slightly ironic because the city's name is derived from the Hungarian word KECSKE, meaning goat, so I guess this brings us back to Elias the King of Goats #fullcircle? I will be with a certain Allred elder, who is a group above me and with whom I am excited to start working.

This last week is Budapest was wonderful. On P-Day we went to a small cobblestone town of Esztendre and just kind of wandered around with Luca, Medveczky Árpád and Tibor (church members), and one of Luca's friends, Juli. We went down the the Danube river front, and then ended up having lunch at some underground restaurant..

This week we also went to the Metro Station Kőbánya Kispest (that we usually use to get to the city center on P-Days) and did some creative finding with the other elders (since both of our areas intersect there). We had a shoebox that was converted into a "question box", and then we had a ton of slips of paper with the words "question" and "contact information" written on them. Then people would come by in waves like I talked about last week, and we would try and stop a few with the approach, "If you had one question that you could ask God, what would that be?". A lot of people stopped, talked with us, and then would write down their questions and then just go ahead and write down their contact information. We ended up getting 18 telfone numbers after 2 hours! Moreover, a family that Thomsen elder talked to ended up coming to church the next Sunday! There were a lot of really good questions posed, such as, "Why did God create the world like this (i.e. so terrible people)" and "Why does God allow bad things happen to good people?" I learned from Leavitt elder on splits to tie everything back to the Book of Mormon, and so it was our opportunity to introduce the Book of Mormon as a means through which we can find answers to those soul-searching questions.

Gulyás András is progressing really well. We had a wonderful teaching with him yesterday, in which he told us that he thinks a lot about us and the gospel, and that he wants to be baptized, just that he knows that I will mean that he has to make a lot of changes in his life. He is already a really awesome father and really sincerely searches for the truth. He does smoke and drinks coffee, but doesnt drink alcohol, so the Word of Wisdom hopefully won't be a very big problem, but still something in which he will need the saviors help.

Donkó Zsolt is also doing well in his progression. He found some new work as a light installer, which he wanted to do the whole time, and it got him out of another bad work situation that would usually leave him spiritually drained and would make him want to drink. He's got a lot of progression before his baptism, but I believe in him, and God does too, and His is the most important opinion. We're bringing him to a member's family home evening tonight and I think that will be a big help to him and that they will be great examples to him.

We also went to do some service at a member's where we shoveled some dirt... and then afterward she gave a SZALONNA, which is like Hungarian bacon, but all fat and absolutely delicious.

Love you all and thank you so much for all your support and prayers! A few weird things will happen next transfer: General Conference, I will be out for a year, fall will start rolling in. Wow time flies but I wouldn't spend it any other way than in the service of the Lord!

Love,

Martin elder