Old Friend, New Adventures

Hellósztok!

Well life with Elder Thomas is basically just a huge party. Well at least as close as you can get while being out doing missionary work all day. But life is good, it's a fun time.

  Tuesday we farewelled our Duna district the same way that we started it, by going bowling. It was a pretty fun time, we didn't get particularly high scores or anything, but I got this one super cool spin bowl which made me feel like an athlete.

  Wednesday was transfers up in Budapest, which first of all meant a tonne of carrying suitcases around in very inconvenient areas, but then I got to see basically everyone, so it makes up for it. My entire group that is still in Hungary was there, which was super fun, but the last of our sisters is going home now, so I guess that's life. We also got to call all the new companionships in our zone and welcome them all which was super fun. We have 5 companionships with brand new missionaries in them, so our zone is going to be pretty fantastic this transfer.

  Thursday we had our first district meeting together. It was basically the normal get to know each other and stuff and then we ordered some more weird pizzas from the place that we got the american pizza the other week. 

  Friday we had to head over to Székesfehérvár to update Elder Thomas' government stuff, so that the government won't kick us out. It also gave us time to have a nice lunch there together before coming back to Duna. We also met with Eszter, our recent convert, that night, who is one of my favourite people, she's so hilarious. 

  Saturday was nothing too special, just did a lot of planning, tried to start fasting but we failed because the members love us too much and we met with our investigator family who are absolutely hilarious.

  Sunday was really interesting, mainly because Sister Brantley from my MTC decided that she would come to church here in Duna with her family. It was super weird seeing the last of the sisters from my MTC group finishing up her mission, kind of just reminded me how quick time has flown by. We also were trying to do our normal sunday night phone calls last night with everyone and something knocked out the phone signal for basically all of the night, it made life slightly difficult. Never realised how hard it could be to be a missionary with no phone.

Anyway, that's it from me. Have a great week.

Szervusztok!

- McKim Elder

PICS!

I told Elder Thomas he had to help me take more pictures, so hopefully I'll keep this up. 

                                                         

 Elder Thomas and I farewelling Sister Brantley before she heads back to America (we had to make the gap between us as awkward as possible)

Elder Thomas while eating lunch in Széke

Another Transfer Done...

Szervusztok!

Well here we are again at the end of another 9 weeks. As per usual that means that my time with my current companion Elder Terry has come to an end but luckily enough my time in Dunaújváros has not. My new companion is going to be Elder Thomas, who is from my MTC group. I'm really excited, he's from California and he's super hilarious, so we're going to have a great time. Also one of the sisters in my district is staying and getting a new missionary which always makes life a little more fun. So it's going to be a wonderful transfer.

  Our week started off a little different than it usually does. Because our zone had 5 baptisms throughout the transfer we were able to win ourselves a zone day from President Szabadkai's challenge. Which meant that the whole zone spent an entire day together in Duna where we played some sports and games, got some delicious lunch and got to watch Moana (or Vaiana as they call it here). It was a super fun day, although we had to organise it which made it a little less fun, but it was nonetheless still great.

  Wednesday was nothing too special, just had our apartment inspected and did a bit of finding and teaching, pretty normal.

  Thursday started with our final district meeting for the transfer, so we did a thing called "District Conference" where we all prepared a talk (well except for one of the sisters, because she gave a presentation on Kolob and the creation) and then we made the entire meeting like a session of general conference. It was pretty fun. We also did service at the home for disabled people and got cancelled on by our one lesson for the day. Great day.

  Friday and Saturday were really fun. We had the Pécs elders come here for splits, which is always great. We also tried one of the weirdest pizzas that I've ever eaten. It was called the "Americano" and had hamburger meat, fries and pickles on it. It was strange to say the least, but not too bad actually.

  Sunday was pretty normal, and so was yesterday, until we met with a woman named Izabella. Izabella is an older woman who really loves us but does not care at all about the gospel, she also loves to feed us, a lot. We told her that we couldn't meet with her at her house if there was no male there and so she made us meet her at this restaurant so she could say goodbye to Elder Terry. We at so much food it was ridiculous. Then after she pulls out these two packages and hands them too us. They were just full of random Hungarian items, which were all super cool but it was still really crazy that she was giving us all this stuff. So now I have a couple books about Hungary, some Hungarian CDs and a really cool hand made "House Blessing". She also gave Elder Terry a 5000ft coin in his, which was pretty insane.

Anyway, that was my interesting little week. I hope yours are all great too!

Sok szeretettel,

- McKim Elder

Spirit 1 - Anti-Mormon video 0

Jó napot!

Well as per usual weeks are still flying along, still a little too quick for my liking, but life is good and the days are still filled with plenty of adventures. 

  We got to spend last P-day up in Budapest, which was pretty fun, but sadly we only got to do that because Elder Terry had to give up the car, so we're back to travelling like everyone else. We had a fun time shopping even though Elder Terry hates it, the sisters and I made him buy a suit though, so it was good.

  Tuesday was really normal until the end. We met with our investigator family on tuesday night, who had been progressing really well recently, but when we walked in I saw that they had this really terrible anti-Mormon video up on their computer that they wanted to talk to us about, which is always a little scary because it's happened a few times that the lies in the videos scare people away from meeting with us. So we started explaining some of the parts of it and we ended up talking about baptisms for the dead because of it. After reading 1 Cor. 15:29, it turned out to actually be what the mum in the family needed to see that this was Christ's church like it was in his day and she asked to be baptised! While our member present was praying to open the lesson, I think I said one of the most sincere prayers in my heart ever for that family, so I have a testimony that the spirit guided everything that happened in that teaching. It was super cool to be a part of.

  Wednesday we had interviews with President Szabadkai, which I always love. Mine went pretty long but it was pretty normal, we just discussed some things about the zone, looked at some pictures of a city called Oroszlány (Russian girl in English) on Presidents iPad and discussed our investigators. It was uplifting.

  The rest of the week was pretty normal, we just had a few teachings with people, did some home teaching and got given some food by people, it was fun. We did have another cool teaching with that family though on Saturday. We reviewed the baptismal interview questions with them and the only problem that really came up was coffee. But then she decided then and there to quit, so she sent her daughter out and had her throw out all her coffee, so there wouldn't be any temptation in the house. It was a pretty cool moment.

Well anyway, life is good here, things are going great. Hope all is well back home.

Szervusztok!

- McKim Elder

PICS!

                                                 Elder Terry and I found a cat while tracting and he picked it up...

BAPTISMS!

Szervusztok!

Well this was a pretty beautiful and special week for us here in Dunaújváros. I also hit my 18 month mark this week, which is absolutely terrifying because that means that I only have 6 months left. I don't know where all the time went so quickly. Also two of the sisters that I was in the MTC with went home this week, so yeah, that's how old I am now. 

  Our week started with a wonderful little trip to Veszprém, where we had splits with the elders there. I had the fantastic opportunity to work with Elder Rohner, the only other Australian in this whole mission. It was great. People try to act all smart a lot here and tell us about how terrible America is while we're tracting, so it's really fun to be able to just say "Actually, we're both Australians" and then watch them freak out about how far we came to get here. It's pretty entertaining. We had some super successful finding though, we had 3 let ins in one tracting session, one of which was with a man who runs a little group of about 10 people who have no religion but search for truth in the bible and gather together to discuss it every week, so they're probably going to baptise them all. haha.

  We spent the large part of our week meeting with our two investigators who were on baptismal date, to make sure that they were still ready. The key word in that sentence being "were" because they BOTH GOT BAPTISED! It was super great, the actual ordinance was kind of sketchy because we had two fairly new members performing the baptisms, but it got done and now they're both members of the church which is super crazy. President Szabadkai also came and visited us at the baptism with his family, so that was also pretty cool, the branch really appreciated it. 

  I also had the opportunity this week to do a baptismal interview for one of the sisters investigators here, but unfortunately he didn't meet the standards, so we have to push his date back a little. It was definitely an interesting experience having to tell someone in an interview that they couldn't be baptised right now, but I think in the end it was a pretty uplifting experience. At least I tried to make it one.

Well those were the main interesting parts of the week that I could remember. So have a wonderful week and legyetek mindig jó!

-McKim Elder

Also I forgot to take any pictures at this baptism, but President took a couple so maybe I'll get them from him somehow, I don't know.

I Spy, Testify!

Kellemes szép napot kívánok.

Well the weeks are still flying by as quickly as ever and it was another week full of fun adventures.

  Tuesday had us heading up to Budapest for another wonderful zone conference. Luckily this time due to the fact that we have a car and are only an hour from Budapest instead of 3 we were able to get up at a normal time and not be ridiculously tired for the meeting. We only ended up with a pretty short training, which was actually pretty nice, but in total the whole meeting went for like 4 and half hours when it was planned for 3 and a half. It was a really great meeting though, we talked about faith in Jesus Christ and Christ-like attributes for our part of the training, the assistants shared Elder Hollands talk from the most recent mission presidents seminar about using the spirit for theirs and President Szabadkai talked about finding and it's relation to baptism. The whole meeting was really good, one of my favourites so far.

  After the training we had the Kaposvár elders come down to Duna with us for an exchange which meant spending a bit of time with my old companion Elder Stringham again. I actually spent the exchange with his companion though, but it was really fun, we met with some people, did a bit of streeting (#ISpyTestify) and spent a couple hours out in the ridiculous heat tracting. Great day.

  We also got to have exchanges with the assistants again this week which is always really fun. I was able to spend the exchange with Elder Gentry, who is an absolute beast of a missionary, I always learn a tonne from him whenever we're together, because he is not afraid to talk to anyone at anytime (#ISpyTestify), he's an inspiration.

  We closed our fast at a members house yesterday and it was insane. She gave us SO much food. It was like a legit barbecue, it was so delicious. I've never had such good barbecue in this country until now, it has been very missed.

  Other than that we spent a lot of time this week preparing our two investigators to be baptised and now everything is in order and they should both be getting baptised this weekend, which is super exciting. The branch is super excited because it's been a long time since two people have been baptised on the same day here in Duna, so it should be a really cool experience.

Also as an explanation, the "I Spy, Testify" thing was our commitment from zone conference.

Hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Tégy mindig jót!

- McKim Elder

                                            Elder Hughes and I had to take a picture together at MLC last week

I opened my drink and it said "I already saw you in my dreams" inside it, was slightly creeped out