The Very Hungary Missionary

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Happy Tuesday!

This week in Pápa has been pretty good. There's a mini-transfer this week, I was fortunate enough to stay in Pápa in my cozy tri-companionship. Unfortantely, we are losing one of the Elders, but he has been placed in a city where the people are waiting for him to bring them a message of everlasting happiness. We will be receiving a new Elder, of couse, to replace the departing Elder. It will be good.

One of the highlights of the week was that we had a really good program yesterday with one of our investigators and a member. We were really concerned about this investigator because he doesn't seem to be progressing and it seems like he wants to just chat with us rather than listen to our message. As it is, he does most of the talking when we go over there, so we wrote a few questions for him to answer, (What do you hope to get out of our visits? Do you feel that our teachings are helpful? What can we do to help you understand better? etc.) at first he just looked at the piece of paper and said "Yes, Yes, Yes" and gave the paper back. We decided to go through the questions with him and have him give more detailed answers, and with the members help, he actually seemed to open up to us, listen and understand what we were telling him. The member was a HUGE help to us. He told our investigator that it is important that we are always striving to come closer to Jesus Christ and that we do that by taking little steps at a time, but sometimes we have to make bigger steps and just have faith that God knows what we need in our life and that everything will work out. Then he invited him to our District Conference that will be in Szombathely next month, and the investigator said he will come! "W.H.A.T? Megegyszer (one more time)... Komolyan (are you serious?)" That was just amazing because we have tried to invite him to church, but he hasn't came yet, but then this member goes in and not only invites him to church, but invites him to District Conference in a different city and then he says he will come.
This was just a testimony to me about how significant members are in missionary work. Now, I don't want to sound like I'm bashing on the Elders here, but I found it very interesting, because earlier, yesterday when of the senior sisters and I were streeting together, we ran into the Elders and I told them that we would be going to teach our investigator with a member and then told them which member we were going to bring, and both of the Elders said, "Good Luck with that one..." and then one of the Elders said, "there are some members I wouldn't bring and that's one of them..." I didn't think anything about it but had total confidence in this member and it turned out to be one of the best lessons I've had in Pápa as well as in my mission, thusfar.
I know that members are SO important in missionary work and Heavenly Father knows who needs to come and inspires us, as missionaries, who to call. We are truly just instruments in Heavenly Father's hands, he does all the work, through us.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to be here in Hungary, serving and teaching these wonderful people.

Szeretlek,

Whitaker Nővér