Hmmm... Maybe I should learn Hungarian

Jó napot kivánok!

So this was an interesting week with a lot of cool experiences.

On Wednesday we had zone training, which was way good. Our leaders pretty much talked about everything that Elder Jensen and I had identified that we wanted to work on, so hopefully we can take all that into our work here. I also got assigned to give a thought on our Missionary purpose at the training, but what they didn't tell me beforehand was that it would actually have to be in Hungarian (we usually do it in English) but it went well anyway and as far as I know I got across the point that I was trying to share.

Also on Wednesday, we had a lesson with our investigator Marton who is getting baptised in less than 2 weeks. But what was super crazy was that he asked me to confirm him, so in three weeks time I'm going to have to stand in front of my whole ward here and give him a blessing (by the spirit) in Hungarian. I'd like to say that I'm super confident and that I could do it no problem, but I'm a missionary, I couldn't lie to you all like that. I know that as I put in my study though that the Lord will help me to know what to say and how to say it when the time comes, so I'm really excited for it.

So there's this woman in our ward named Edit and pretty much all she does all day every day is sit in the Family history centre and find names to send to the temple, she's probably found close to, if not more than, 1 million names. Well an American family came to our ward yesterday because they were on Holiday and after sacrament meeting the wife asked us if we knew a woman called "Edith", so we asked her if she meant Edit, the one who does all the family history work, and she said that was her. So we introduced them and the American woman started crying and told her that she had done the temple work for 50-60 of the names that Edit had found. It was a super cool experience, and it was super cool to see how the work of salvation had connected these two people who lived thousands of kilometres away from eachother.

I've been thinking a lot the last couple days about the trust the Lord puts in each and every one of us, every day. Each of us are representatives of Jesus Christ. Not just missionaries, but each of us that profess to be members of a church. The way we act as followers of Jesus Christ influence how everyone around us sees him and his teachings, so we need to do everything that we can to represent him in the best way that we possibly can. He also gives us promptings every day through the spirit and puts that trust in us that we will follow those things that he tells us. But even though we break that trust all the time and we move ourselves away from him, he still always wants us back, because he loves us so much and wants us to return to him.

További szép napot!

Sok szeretettel!

-McKim Elder

P.S. Once again, sorry no pics, I took a sweet video of this weird party thing with a bunch of old drunk people that we found on friday, but it's too big to send.

Week 13 - Diligence brings blessings.

Sziasztok!

What a week!

Nothing probably that exciting to any of you actually happened this week, but we had a lot of success this week, so it was a great week.

By the way, sorry for not emailing yesterday, it was a public holiday, so P-Day got moved, but they didn't tell us until like wednesday.

I got to try a few new Hungarian foods this week, which was super cool. On Tuesday we went to a members house for lunch and ate töltött paprika (filled paprica), which is basically just some kind of meat stuffed inside a pepper and covered in tomato sauce and paprika, it was pretty good. Then on wednesday we made ourselves rakott krumpli (stacked potato) which is super delicious, it's layers of potato, meat, egg, cheese, tejfö (kinda like sour cream but not), paprika, just super good. Plus I got some pastry as well but I have no idea what it was, it was delicious though.

I got to go on splits with one of our zone leaders, Elder Martineau, this week as well which was super cool. He taught me a lot about finding techniques and principles and he was just all round pretty cool to do work with.

We had a cool experience in a place called Vác this week. We had a lesson with an investigator get cancelled and so we decided to go tracting on this little street nearby. None of the houses there had Csengö's (like door bells) but we kept going anyway and the first house that we found with a Csengö this lady came out and started talking to us who said that she had been studying the Bible because she wants to know the truth. So we talked to her for like 2 hours and taught her the first 2 lessons and she said that we could come back, so that was super cool.

We really saw how diligence brings blessings this week, so many great experiences came to us because we were willing to work hard. The Lord really does bless those who do all they can.

Also, our mission president challenged us all to get a copy of the Book of Mormon and go through highlighting every reference to Christ, so I've been doing that challenge the last couple weeks and it's been a crazy good experience. It's really shown me how much the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ and it's let me find verses or chapters that contain so many things that can help me, that I never knew of before.

I just thought I'd finish by encouraging all of you to just read the Book of Mormon and to feel of it's wonderful testimony of Christ and the great help that can come from it's words.

2 Nephi 33:10

˝ 10 And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believein Christ; and if ye believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that they should do good.˝

Sok szeretettel

McKim Elder

PS. sorry no pics this week :/

Conference and catch ups.

Sziasztok!

Hogy vagytok? Milyen volt a heted?

Okay now that I've exhausted my Hungarian vocab let's get into what happened this week (just kidding, I have actually learnt a bit more than that in the 3 months I've been gone). Woah, I just realised today is my 3 month mark, time really flies.

So I actually got to eat normal American food (well pretty close to normal) a bunch of times this week, which was pretty exciting. We had a less active member make us the best PB&J's that I've ever eaten in my life, we made ourselves some burritos for dinner and an American family in the ward invited us over for dinner, so the food was pretty great this week. But we also had a Hungarian member in our ward make us a little Hungarian food yesterday too, so yeah, food is good, let's move on.

So on Wednesday we had our greenie training, which was super cool for a lot of reasons. Firstly, getting to see my MTC district again. I really miss those guys, they were pretty cool. So it was great to catch up and hear how every one else's first few weeks of their missions were going. But the training itself was also really good, we talked a lot about the white handbook and our calling as missionaries, I learnt a lot from it. Finally Pékség! or Bakery I guess it would be in English, but yeah delicious Hungarian baked goods. The not so fun part on the other hand was that we got given all of our stuff so that we could spend another whole day sitting in a Hivatal, which we did this morning. So that's a real pain, but hopefully we'll get it over with soon.

So we had Stake conference this weekend, which would normally be great, except for the fact that the whole thing is in Hungarian, so I kind of just sat there picking out words here and there to try and at least get the topic of what they were speaking about. But when we were tracting the other day we tracted into this girl, who we talked to for a while and Elder Jensen gave her the number of a member in our ward. Then on Saturday night, she came to conference, so that was pretty crazy, but also pretty cool.

So funny story from this week, we were tracting in this 10 story and we knocked on this door and this guy in his mid 20's comes to the door with no pants on. So we just talked with him for a while and ended up giving him a Book of Mormon, all while he was pantsless. It was a strange experience.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, so last week after emailing we went to the Basilica and saw a bunch of stuff around there, so I'll send through those pics.

Anyway, Minden Jót Kivanok.

Sok Szeretettel,

McKim Elder

 We found a Kovács Jószef (well almost, Jószefné means wife of Jószef), that's Joseph Smith in Hungarian by the way

Hard work and Hospitals

Sziasztok!

Firstly before you freak out (mainly talking to Mum here), it wasn't me who had to go to the hospital, so don't worry but I'll talk about that later.

The first cool thing that happened this week was that we had a lesson with David on Tuesday and he was completely normal again, so we challenged him to be baptised on the 11th of June and he accepted! So that was really cool. He's also come to some activities this week and he bore his testimony on Sunday, he's pretty much golden. I'm really glad for David because right off the bat he's shown me that there really are people prepared out there and it definitely wasn't anything that we did that made David want to be baptised, he learnt it all by himself and we were just there to guide him onto the path. So if all goes well we should be having 2 baptisms in Pest this transfer which is amazing because there hasn't been a baptism here in almost a year. I guess it's just one of those greenie miracles that they always talk about.

After David we had Sport nap (sport day) where the first part of the hospitals comes in. So one of our zone leaders Elder Martineau did something to his ankle while we were playing basketball and hurt it really bad, so we ended up having to go to the hospital and he's probably going to be out of it for the next week or so. I know what you're thinking "that must suck to be his companion", well it does but not for that reason, right after that happened his companion, Elder Priest, had to go to the hospital where it turned out that he actually has appendicitis and he had to have surgery. So we've been helping them out a lot this week because they're both kind of dying in a hospital in Buda, so it's been an interesting week.

Other than that, we had zone training this week which was way sweet. Elder Martineau and Elder Priest are our zone leaders so they were both like dying but still taught pretty well. Then we just did normal work for the rest of the week, nothing too exciting. But we have greenie training this week and a few appointments with some members, so we're excited, this is going to be a good week hopefully.

Unfortunately I only have one picture this week, turns out the Villamos (tram) stops at a place called Szentlélek Tér or Holy Ghost Square. I thought it was funny anyway.

Minden Jót Kivanok! (I wish you all the best!)

McKim Elder

A busy week, lessons learned.

Sziasztok!

Well this week has been an interesting one.

Monday

So right after emailing, we visited our investigator, David, who we challenged to be baptised on my first day. But this time our lesson went a little different. To quote my companion "he was either drunk, crazy, possessed or having a stroke". He kept saying "the nephites created the earth" while we were teaching and that was about the only understandable thing to come out of his mouth. It was a weird experience. But he was at church on Sunday and completely normal again, so all is well I guess.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a pretty normal day. We headed over to Buda to visit a member in our ward and we managed to get lost for like 30 minutes, so that was great. I finally got to meet Marton, who is getting baptised in June, super cool dude. He's 17 and has pretty much the greatest hair I've ever seen, he's also going to be serving a mini mission for a month right after he's baptised, which is pretty crazy.

Wednesday

Nothing too interesting happened on Wednesday, it was my companions birthday, but you can't really do anything to celebrate when you have to get to work. So pretty much a normal working day.

Thursday

Our whole fiasco begun on thursday. So Elder Jensen hadn't finished everything he needed to do for his residency issue, so on thursday we had to go to another government building in Buda and it took out most of our day. So moral of thursday, Hivatals suck.

Friday

Friday started with even more Hivatal stuff, but that all got ended when it turns out the place closes at 11 on fridays and we got there at 12. But a cool experience from Friday night. From District meeting, we were going to a guy named Greg Hughes house, but on the way there Elder Jensen realised that he had forgotten the phone and we didn't have his address. So we know the general area and we're searching every single 10 story to try and find him but we have no luck. So I prayed and asked for help to find it. Right after that I looked up and across the street the light at the entrance of one of the buildings lights up and I just knew that it was it, but for some reason I didn't say anything. Then we ended up over near the buildings and we start looking at building 86/a then 86/b but I knew that it was 86/c that he lived in and still didn't say anything. Then my companion started walking away and for some reason I still didn't say anything and just followed him as we left feeling defeated after searching for over 30 minutes. Then when we got home, found our phone, and called Greg, lo and behold, he tells us that his building is actually 86/c the exact one I knew it was all along. So moral of a long story here is, follow the promptings of the spirit, because if I had just followed that prompting that would have saved us a lot of time and embarassment.

Saturday

Saturday was cool, we went to Vác again. It's a really great place and the people there are really just so much kinder and willing to listen to what we have to say. So we really enjoy going to Vác and the work just progresses so much better there.

Sunday

Nothing too out of the ordinary for sunday, Church, visited some people.

Today

Today we finally finished Elder Jensen's residency stuff (I think and hope) then we got to go see some of the sights of Kispest, mainly the Parliament building, so I'll probably send some pictures of that.

Okay that's my week, hopefully all is well back home and I hope everyone has a great week!

Sok Szeretettel!

McKim Elder

"That's not the language they taught me in the MTC".

Szervusztok!

So I'm finally in Hungary and what a ride it has been to get here.

So our final week in the MTC was so crazy, so I guess I'll give you all a brief overview before I talk about Hungary. The first couple days were pretty ordinary, just getting pumped to leave and stuff, but by Thursday everything got crazy. Thursday was our in-field orientation and it was pretty weird to be honest, it was basically 9 hours of cramming us with the things that they didn't teach us in the MTC (well besides like 98% of the language) and it even included a super weird/cheesy play. Then Friday, or Nem jó, Nem jó, Pizza Péntek as we like to call it, which started out like any normal friday. But on Friday night, Gabel Elder got up in front of all of us to tell us that because of a medical issue and Hungary's lack of great medical care, he wouldn't be coming with us, and that was hard. As far as we know he will join us out here soon, but not having him on the plane with us just felt weird. Saturday was basically our day for our teachers to hype us up about going to Hungary, so I loved that one. Also got that sweet tie that I sent a picture of the other day. Then Sunday was sad, lots of goodbyes, handing over our phone, writing in transfer journals and packing but we were ready to go and we were excited.

Monday

So I was pumped to fly with my district for the next day or so, until I found out that I wouldn't actually be sitting with my district because I got seperated for some reason. But I ended up with a cool experience out of it. I sat next to this guy on our flight to Atlanta who I chatted to for a bit because he was a pilot and studied Aerospace engineering. Then later on he saw me reading my copy of Jesus the Christ and asked if what it was, after I explained it to him he asked if he could read it. So he read it for an hour and a half, then when he finished I asked him if he had any questions and we ended up talking about the gospel and stuff for like 40 minutes. Also people paid for both our breakfast in SLC airport and our lunch in ATL airport, so that was super cool too.

Tuesday

So we arrived in Hungary, all super tired, and met with our Mission president, President Szabadkai, his wife and the Assistants. We were all just stoked to be there and the mission president took us on a scenic route to the mission home so we could see a bunch of Budapest, which is an incredible city, so pretty. We went out to lunch in a Hungarian restaurant, had interviews with president, talked to some people on the street, the day was pretty sweet. Then that night Sister Szabadkai made us a Hungarian dinner, then we got to go up to the hill which overlooks the whole of Budapest. It was absolutely incredible, one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Then we got to spend the night in a hotel, which was sweet.

Wednesday

Today was the day that we got our companions and greenie areas. I was given Elder Jensen as my trainer and I'm serving in the area of Pest. So I get to start out my mission in the city. The first day was pretty cool, my first lesson was with a member named Margit, who I just so happened to have skyped with during one of our TRC's in the MTC, so that was really cool. Hungarian is hard though. Our second lesson I got to extend a baptismal invitation to this guy in his first lesson and he accepted, he was super prepared for the gospel, he already knew everything. Then we had American night (the name is getting changed because of me apparently) so I got to meet some members and investigators as well as eat some PB&J's.

Thursday

Interesting day, had some lessons fall through, did some tracting, taught english class. A pretty normal missionary day. Except we got back to our apartment super late and President Szabadkai called us at like 9:30 and we weren't back yet, so that was fun. Oh we also got super lost today.

Friday

Had district meeting and Lunch with the Bishop. Hungarians really like Yiros so I'm pretty keen for more of those in the future. Just more tracting and stuff, nothing too interesting.

Saturday

Saturday was cool, we went to a city called Vác which is in our area and met with some investigators out there. The first house we tracted we talked to the lady for 30 minutes and gave here a BoM and stuff. Then we taught a super long lesson to one of our other investigators. Then of the 3 people we got to talk to on the way back to the train, we placed 2 BoM's and got a return appointment, so it was a sweet day.

Sunday

So church is hard when you don't understand a thing anyone is saying, and when you have a lot of meetings to go to, but it's an all round pretty cool experience. I'm definitely excited to be able to actually understand people though.

Then today we had to go to a city called Veszprém to get some residency stuff sorted out for my companion, so it was way cool to get to see another one of the cities, especially one of the smaller cities.

So that's my adventures in Hungary so far.

Sok szeretettel (With much love)

McKim Elder

So close I can pretty much taste it!

Jó napot! (Good day)

So I'm officially less than a week from leaving this wonderful place that we call the MTC. I'm really thankful for the time that I've been able to spend here, but I'm looking forward to heading out into the field. Also due to the fact that I'll be travelling, probably won't get an email out next monday. Sorry!

Anyway this week was super sweet, definitely one of my favourites so far.

After we had an apostle come and speak to us on Sunday, we didn't really think there was much that could live up to that for our tuesday devotional, that was until I walked in and saw that the speaker was Terence M Vinson, who is the only Australian general authority in the church (I think until Elder Meurs was called on saturday). So that was a super cool experience. He gave one of the best talks I've heard from a general authority here, it was all about faith and miracles, just an all round sweet talk. He didn't help my argument against everyone in Australia knowing each other though when I told people that he was actually my Mum's bishop, but it was still super cool.

Thursday was super cool because firstly we got to leave the MTC again, which is always fun, but when we returned the rest of our class was all talking to our friend Farkas Elder, who grew up in Hungary. So he was giving us heaps of tips and stuff with Hungary and just all round getting us super pumped. Then he started talking to our teaching in normal Hungarian talking speed and it was pretty terrifying, but he's a super cool guy and he loves helping us out.

Friday started out interesting with skype TRC again, but nothing too crazy happened, we didn't even get a real Hungarian this time which was kind of disappointing but our lesson went well and nothing went bad, so I guess it's pretty successful. The rest of friday was pretty boring until we finally received the one piece of mail that we had all been waiting for, our flight plans. That just got us super pumped to leave this place and it really hit how close we are to being out into the real world again.

Then this weekend was an awesome experience getting to watch General Conference (Általanos Konferencia) live with almost 1000 other missionaries. I've never enjoyed conference more than I did in my first conference as a missionary. All the sessions had some fantastic talks, but the Saturday morning and Priesthood sessions were probably my favourite two sessions. It made it even better that we had time to review the conference sessions together as a district and discuss what we had learned and how to apply it to our missions and lives.

After conference we had our usual sunday night devotional, which we thought was kind of weird because we had just listened to conference for 10 hours, but it was sweet because the devotional ended up being from BYU vocal point, who are like a world famous a capella group from BYU. We originally thought they were just gonna sing for us and that kind of stuff, but they all bore testimony of their missions in between their performances and it was actually so spiritual, it was crazy, but it was still a great break from our usual.

Okay, so that's my week, the next time I email will probably be from Hungary!

Szeretetemmel!

McKim Elder

PICS!

The Hungarians with the real Hungarian (Farkas Elder, which literally means Elder Wolf)

 Chilling between conference sessions.