Awkward district picture! wooooo! Haha.

This is pretty much our district.

Our Branch President is probably the coolest guy ever! We took a final picture with him and his family Sunday. I will miss them a lot! They're the best!

One of the temples in Székesféhervár

This is the highest point in Székesféhervár. It looks kind of weird, but it's super cool in person.

I'm sayin goodbye to Székesfehérvár! Sister Whitaker will be on her way to Eger tomorrow afternoon!!

Man, transfer weeks! I think I'm finally getting used to transfer weeks!! Packing and saying goodbyes, yeah that's never easy. Especially the last one, but I feel like I've accomplished the things I needed here and I have a new city waiting for me!

We had an overall pretty good week. My companion and I decided to do consecration week and that was a good opportunity for us to learn and improve in many aspects of our works.

I think one of the biggest things that happened this week is that we met with a guy (FM) who had been taught by the missionaries once in 2010, but then he went on a trip and then never reconnected with the missionaries. This guy that we met with has been totally prepared. We were a little apprehensive to meet with him because of well other matters but we met with him and it was probably one of the best programs on my mission. FM just accepted everything we had to say and had so many legitmate questions. He happened to not speak Hungarian, but rather English so that actually made teaching even easier. I felt the spirit so strong and we happened to teach him The Restoration, The Plan of Salvation, a little bit of The Word of Wisdom and Temple Marriage all in one lesson! I have never done that in a single lesson before. This guy was literally just eating what we had to say up. It was truly amazing. We hope we will be able to teach his family, we set up to meet with him again and he said he'd talk to his wife about meeting with us! Teaching FM was just a huge blessing in our lives! Our zone goal was to find a family to teach, and as my companion and I were getting discouraged because we had yet to find a family to teach then FM comes to us and we start teaching his family. Blessings do really come when we have faith in God and his ways.

We went to a Hockey game this past week! That was super cool! The Székesfehérvár hockey team is pretty good, although it's nothing like Hockey in America! Plus the safety glass around the rink, is really useless! The puck flew into the crowd like three times, luckily I don't think anybody was seriously injured but it was pretty intense!

Wow, this email is super lame...sorry! Next week will be good!

Sok Szeretettel,

Whitaker Nővér

Michaela Janae Whitaker

One of the most famous cities in all of Hungary, and the most famous city on the lake Balaton! And this is the water tower in the middle of town.

We went to Zone Training in Dunaújváros this week, and I got to see Sister Simons! One of my best friends that came to Hungary with me. We were in the same MTC group, she's basically the coolest person ever!

More castle pictures can you tell I love castles.

First picture is of my old district group and the second is the new group

This is kind of a mall at Velance. And this is the missionaries having fun on P-day

We went to our Branch President's house to eat and he has a rabbit and I caught it.... Oh, and the marks on my face... well my companion and I went on a morning run the other day and I was running and not paying attention and I hopped up on this concrete wall while running and ran straight into a tree branch... luckily it hit in the middle of my face and didn't poke my eyes out. I was SUPER lucky. That's kind of what you get for doing stupid things.

Ice skating on p-day in Hungary and trying not to be klutzy

Air sisters!!! and crammed into a car on the way to the pentecostal church.

We went to Velence  (which is the second largest lake in Hungary--next to the Balaton). Here are a few pictures.

Right before I came to email we went to a castle that's about thirty minutes away from Székesfehérvár, here are some pictures I took. It was really simple but pretty.

Beethoven stayed at this castle some time ago, so they have a big statue of him and a museum here.

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Hey, I forgot to include this in my blog email.

NEW MISSION PRESIDENT:  What an exciting weekend!  I’m sure that, by now, you have heard the news - but just in case you haven’t, the Church announced the name of the Mission President who has been called to preside over the Hungary Budapest Mission beginning on or about July 1, 2015. . . József Szabadkai.  President Szabadkai and Sister Adrienn Szabadkai live in Pécs.  He will be the first Hungarian to serve as Mission President!

That was an insert out of president's letter. We will be getting a new mission president this year and he's hungarian.. Whaaat?!? Craazy right. Just thought everyone would want to know that.

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Sziasztok Drágaim!

What's upppp?!? Dang, I feel like I haven't sent an actual email in forever! The holidays were so busy, crazy good busy! Man, I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do. I won't be able to write about everything but I will write about as much as I can.

We had a transfer the first day of January. Both of our Elders who were serving with us left! It was pretty sad! We became really tight as a district and it was really really hard to say bye to both of them, but we know that where they are now is where they need to be. Anways we got two new elders. One of them is Elder Ehardt. I served with our dear Elder Ehardt in the MTC and he is probably one of the funniest people I know. His companion Elder Chambers came to the country just two months before we did, so in other words we are a relatively young district. In fact, 70% of the missionaries here in the mission came last year, which there are about one hundred missionaries in Hungary Budapest mission, so seventy of them are pretty young. For this reason there are a lot of people who are taking "co-senior" or "senior" positions very early, but they are all capable of doing it. As far as a district, it's been pretty good. We only have two weeks until the next transfer, and I'm about ninety percent sure that I'll leave...unfortunantly. My companion and I have done transfer-ology (when we try to figure out where and who everyone will be with next transer) and we don't know exactly, but we have figured out that a couple people from my MTC group (sisters) will have to train. Oh gosh, I feel like i'm still a greenie here in Hungary. The thought of training, kind of scares me, but we'll see what will come out of it.

We have had some dang good lessons the last couple weeks! We meet with one of our investigators, who has been meeting with a LONG time. I think I talked about him in last email. He is the same one who first met with the missionaries by getting an Angol Ora flyer from the missionaries on the street. Yeahh...that guy. We'll call him NT. Anyway, he is a real cool dude, NT has been meeting with the missionaries for about three years. You know... sometimes people meet with the missionaries because they're interested in learning English from them. Sometimes they meet because they are interested in the church, and somtimes they meet because they made real good friends with the missionaries. This is kind of the case with this investigator, as I kind of said in last weeks email, sometimes we forget our purpose as missionaries. People are just so cool and rendes (classy) here and you just can't help but just make friends with them and treat them like your friends back home. Well NT is like one of those cool guys who you just want to be friends with. Anyways a couple weeks ago we sat him down and we told him that we really love meeting with him, but he wasn't keeping his commitments and just didn't seem interested in what we had to say about our church, but more for the friendship. Of course we were nice, and told him that we would love to continue to help him with English or with any other questions he had regarding our church or anything, but that we thought it would be better to not meet as often. At the time I couldn't really tell how he handled it, I had just a feeling that he was a little set back by it, because the missionaries had always, for three years, gladly met with him.  We didn't schedule with him again after that program. Now keep in mind this was before Christmas. A few days before Christmas the Elders and us went Christmas Caroling to a few members and investigators houses. NT called us the night we were caroling and said that he wanted to meet. That was a big surpise to my companion and I. We told him we were caroling and he was a little disappointed that we couldn't meet. Then we had a  thought we should drop by NT's house while we were out. We walked to his apartment and rang his door bell. It was a complete surprise for him, He let us in and we talked to him for a while. While giving the spritual thought, Elder Whiting asked NT how his life has been different since he's met with the missionaries, he admitted that his life has changed for the better and that he feels like he is a better person than he was three years ago. That really stuck with me and I really wanted to hear him out. We arranged to meet with him later that week. The day came when we arranged to meet with him and we had a really good program with him. We talked about a lot of things. He really loves the church and all it's teachings, but he has a few things that are keeping him from being baptized. One of the things is that his father is not very fond in him joining the church, his father has made it clear to him that he will disown (is that the right word...? It's super hard to speak English) him if he joins our church. I understand how hard that would be to NT, he really loves his father and the relationship between a father and son is super important. My companion and I shared a few stories of people we know, that have had the same worry before joining the church, and we shared stories with NT and how it wasn't easy for the people in our lives to join the church, against their families wish or desire, but they did and everything after that fell into place. One of my favorite scriptures that says it better than I could ever is 3 Nephi 13:33, " But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Really though, people fear about if they pick to follow God that their life will fall apart, but this scripture says (to me) that if we obey and follow God everything else in our life will fall into place according to God's will. We shared this scripture with NT and bore testimony that this scripture really brings us comfort in our lives when we have to choose what the world wants or what God wants for us. It was just a really solid lesson and at the end NT said he felt really good when we talked seriously about things that he was worried about. We told him that it was the Holy Ghost and he said, "Yeah, I felt the Holy Ghost and it's a feeling I want to feel more." We encouraged him to pray about our message and to ask God whether it is true, because realy, we can sit here in Hungary for eighteen months, or the rest of our lives and tell people about God and how much he loves them and such, but until they act on their faith and really ask God for an answer they will just be leaning on our testimonies. There's nothing more important than getting your own testimony and knowing for yourself , through personal experiencees, that this is Jesus Christ's restored church on the earth. So we told him to go home and pray to know if this is true. WE MEET WITH HIM TONIGHT AND I AM SO EXCITED TO HEAR WHAT HE HAS TO SAY! Sorry, but as a missionary when one of your investigators makes just even the tiniest step towards God it just makes your life and confirms why you're here. That's how I feel right now. I just love NT so much and I know that he will be so happy with this gospel in his life, he's just naturally a happy person as it is, and I can't wait for the day that he will be baptized!

Our other investigator, I think I talked about him in last week's email to. SA is what we'll call him. He is a baptist that we meet with and he's just a great guy. Up until the lesson with him last week, we haven't ever been able to teach him a solid lesson because of time and other subjects being brought up so my companion and I said that we would teach him a solid lesson, which we had planned a really good lesson, but we ended up answering his questions about our church. It was really good, and although sometiems things got a little intense, he wanted

the answers and we gave them to him. It was really good. That's something I really love is when people have questions about our church. We unfortunantly ran out of time, as he had other questions he wanted to ask us, but we didn't have enough time to answer them all so we will be meeting with him tonight too, and we are excited to talk to him about his other questions.

I think I said this already, but we meet with SI, our pünkosdi (pentacostal) investigator and we went to his church a few weeks ago and it was a really good experience. I will probably be transferred in a few weeks so I wanted to go back and say hi all of our pentacostal friends again. Gosh, they are just a super nice group of people. This time we took the two new elders and one of the coolest members here in Székesfehérvár. It was such a good time. They all greeted us like we were best friends and we even got puszi (kisses on the cheeks-equivalent of a hug in America) by a few of the older people. You know, you don't know these people, but they're so nice. I just want to emphasize the importance of member missionary work again!! It's super important. Bringing our investigators to church, or rather, getting them to come is really hard, and when they do come we want them to have nothing but a good positive experience. I would just encourage all of you, if you see a new face in church, whether it be one of the missionaries investigators or just a visitor, say hi to them!!  Go up, introduce yourself and just be a friend, because a lot of those people have only a few people (probably just the missonaries) that they actually know, so just having a friend can make a world of difference with their experience.

Oh goodness, I don't think I've talked about our cute little Ági. She is a little néni (old woman) who we teach weekly. The Elders tracted into her last transfer, but with her schedule and such, we decided that we would meet with her, but oh man....can you say delicious food?!! Every time we go over there, she just makes SUPER good food and we walk out of there SO stuffed. We can barely walk, but she is just super cute. She made us rokott krumpli this time and then made this really good diós and alma dessert. It was super good!  We had a good lesson with her. She lives in a ten story building, but there are two bedrooms in her house, and well interesting arrangement, she rents the other bedroom that she doesn't use to this family, or rather, this father and his son. His girlfriend comes over a lot, and she's been having problems with them the last couple weeks so we talked to her about they can maybe resolve their conflict and instead of just being mad and avoiding their situation they could instead sit down and talk about things and maybe resolve the conflict.I mean let's be real, just being mad but never trying to fix the situation gets you nowhere, so hopefully that get's all fixed.

HAHA! Oh Gosh, I almost forgot, so we went and did look up's the other day (when we go and look up less active members). We had heard a lot about this certain Néni, so we decided to look her up. It only took us an hour to actually find her house, but we were SO glad we did. Okay, listen, so we walk up to the csengő (door bell--outside of the ten story) and ring her. She answers and I explain to her that we are the missionaries and all she said was "jöjjetek be!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Not going to lie, I was a little worried that she'd be a little crazy, we get to her door and just as we are about to knock she opens the door and she's this cute little short néni. Oh my goodness, she says "gyertek! (come in)" We sit down and the first thing she says to us is that "my boots were NOT good!" Then she goes into this long story about how she bought boots from one of the stores in the mall, but they weren't comfortable so she tried to take them back, but they wouldn't take them back. It was probably the most detailed, long story I have ever heard in my life and not to mention here is this seventy-five year old woman making all these hand motions and pretty much acting out the whole story out. Oh gosh, it was just so dang funny! This lady is pretty much active, but the weather is hard on her body and that's why she's not been coming to church, but in the summer she was an active member. We talked to her a few times about someone coming to bring her to church. Hopefully she can, but not going to lie, we were about to give up giving up trying to find her building because where we thought it was, it wasn't then when we thought we were in the area that it was at, we weren't. We searched a long time for it, but we finally found it, and i'm glad we did and didn't give up because in some way, I think she needed our visit, but we too needed a good conversation with her. We had a good talk with her! We felt the spirit really strongly and we both went out of the program feeling good. God puts people in our life, who has big impacts in our lives, he knows why, even though we don't always know.

Man, I wish I could just put all my thoughts in your brain right now. The mission is truly an amazing experience... I wouldn't trade it for ANYTHING in the world. As missionaries we get asked a lot by members, investigators, people on the street: "Is it hard to leave your home and family for such a long time?" I often tell them that it is hard, but it's worth it. Seeing people change because they have a relationship with their Father in Heaven is the best experience in the world. No doubt!! Yeah, I'm missing my family, friends, and school, but I am gaining so much by just being out here serving the Lord. I love him and his Gospel and will always stand as a witness to his magnificent power and love. I know that his email was a lot about my investigators and such, but I love them so much and they're so dearly important to me, I can't even explain how much the Hungarians mean to me, they will be forever in my heart and my home away from home. I actually got a call from a lady, who was investigating the church when I was in Sopron, the other day and it made my day. They are just all so precious to me and I love them.

I also love you all so much and hope everything is well!!

Sok Szeretettel,
Whitaker Nővér

So there is like this beautiful swan that was on the beach...

The second picture is the funny story when Elder Ehardt and Attila tries to make friends with it and it just ends up hissing at them. It was scary but probably one of the funniest things ever!

The first picture is with one of our investigators, he has a cool Spalding coat from the Székesfehérvár basketball team, I commented on it and he asked me if I wanted to try it on so I said, Hey, why not...

Second Picture is just of my companion and I in a little kiddie ride in the Plaza. Nobody was in the Plaza because it was New Years Day so we decided to jump in it and take a silly picture.

This is a more readable copy of what Michaela tried to post this morning. Michaela Janae Whitaker

My dad informed me this week, that the bishopric (in my ward back home, I'm guessing) asked him to talk about missionary work and about some of I've learned and some things I do, as a missionary in the Hungary Budapest Mission. I figured I would just make that the topic of my blog email this week. I know... I've been out for almost ten months and I'm just now getting these things out, but hey, better late than never, right?
Honestly,  I'm not a very good writer, so don't be surprised if this email is everywhere!!

 What do I do in Hungary?

We spend a lot of time finding, my companion and I have about ten people in our "investigator pool" right now. Ten active investigators. Five of those ten are progressing. Lately it's been really hard to meet with people because of the Holidays and such. There are many methods of finding that we can do here. We tract (knock on doors--ten story buildings with five doors on each floor, give or take), street (walk on the street), table (set up a table, put flyers on it and talk to people walking by), bus find (ride buses and talk to people). Those are our main sources of finding. We are expected to get ten hours of finding time in a week. That sounds like a lot, but really, it's not. We usually don't have a problem achieving that. Time goes by super fast, when you tract a few ten stories or ride a few buses to get somewhere else in the city. The rest of the time is teaching programs to people. We don't have a limit of how often we can meet with anyone, so sometimes we have one program a week with a certain investigator sometimes we have three programs a week with the same investigator. It all just depends. We usually meet at the branch house, which is in a rented out building on the second floor. It's nothing fancy, but

As far as on my pdays and stuff. 
Sheesh, we do everything. We recently went to a members house for Christmas and they live really close to the Balaton, which is like the biggest lake in Central Europe. It's beautiful and huge. Christmas Eve, my companion and I were off, but there was nothing open so we decided to go shoot some hoops at a basketball court for a few hours. We met a really nice little boy, who just started learning how to play soccer. Good thing my companion is super good at Soccer. They played together for a while, and then I just shot hoops. You know... this is what we do in Hungary. Then again later, we met with him and played again. it was super good. On Christmas we had dinner with the Elders and then skpyed our familes. It was so great to see my family!

New Years, our branch had a New Years Eve party, we eat, and did karoke. It was super fun! We had a really really good time! Then the day after, we got some of our branch members and investigators together and we went ice skating. It was super fun.

 What have I learned?

Okay, first of all, I've been in Hungary for almost eight months! I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. I am officially running downhill now. I passed my half-way mark last year, and as I reflect on the things that I have thusfar experienced I am blown away and humbled by them. Hungary is absolutely stunning. It's truly beautiful, filled with much history. I look around me everyday and am just in awe with my surroundings. I could talk all day about the things that I've seen or places I've been, but really, I didn't come here to enjoy the scenary or be a tourist. I came here to be a missionary, and as a missionary our purpose is to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End." Although, I'll admit it's easy to forget your purpose as a missionary. I can't even tell you about all the cool people I've met since I've been here. For example, right now I am in Székesfehérvár (second transfer here--fourteen weeks and counting). It's safe to say that I've gotten really comfortable with the area and people here. We actually meet with a lot of young people right now, and I'll admit, when you talk to young people on a daily or weekly basis, the desire to just hang out with them is there. We talk often and they're just so willing to help us with the language and anything we need. All of our investigators at one time or another have said to us, if you need ANYTHING just call me! It's so nice! I often have to remind myself that I'm not out here to make friends, but I am here to teach them about their Heavenly Father who loves them so much. I really love these people and I want them to find the same peace, joy and happiness that I receive from this gospel, so that's what keeps me going and as much as I would love to be best friends with all of my investigators, and just chill with them, it's equally important that they form that relationship with someone who knows them better than I do, better than I could ever know them, honestly. 

A little about teaching: We are actually teaching two people right now, that are super religious. One of them is baptista (baptist), we will call him (SA) and the other is pünkosdi (pentacostal), we will call him (SI). It's not been easy. We actually went to our pünksodi investigators church the other week and it was really really interesting. SI's dad is actually the preacher and the leader of the pünksodi church here in Székes and we talked with him on the way over there and he was telling us about how God told him that he needed to build a pünkosdi church in Székesfehérvár. When we teach about the Restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints, we obviously talk about prophets and the two things God gives prophets which are Revelation and the power to act in Jesus Christ's name. We have definitely had interesting conversations with SI. Of course we respect each others beliefs and have an open conversation about things, but recently we've just had a rough time. SA is another one of our investigators that is very devoted to his church, but he investigated the church for a while, he had a set baptism date and everything and then a few days before his baptism he called it off and said that he needed to think, then joined the baptist church. Basically, my point with all this is that I've met a lot of people here in Hungary who are very devoted to their religion. Two-thirds of the people in Hungary are Roman Catholic. Then, of course, there are other religions too. I think I've learned that people in Hungary are very open to speaking with us even if they're another denomination, and they're interested in what we believe as Mormons. SA and SI have both told us that they are open to speak about our beliefs and such but that they would like to stay baptist/pünkosdi. I heard before I came to Hungary that Hungarians are closed off and not very open, but honestly, from all my experiences so far, I feel like they are more open than people give them credit for. There have been a few times that my companion and I would go tracting and we would tract into somebody who is roman catholic, methodist, baptist, some other religion, but we would still talk about the Book of Mormon and at the end we ended up giving them a copy of the Book of Mormon with them commiting to read it. Do we always get a phone number or let in from it? No, but they accepted it.

We have another investigator, we'll call him NT. NT met with the missionaries about three years ago. The first contact he had with the missionaries was on the street when he had an Angol Ora (English Class) flyer given to him by a couple of elders. He told us his story and it's quite interesting. Three years ago, he got an English Class flyer, he put it in his pocket, with the intent of throwing it away when he got home. When he got home, he reached into this pocket and pulled out the paper. When he went to throw it away, he said, he just couldn't let go of it. Eventually he came to English Class for the first time and met the missionaries, he felt really good when he was around them, eventually it became winter time and the weather got really bad, but NT still wanted to go to English Class, even when it was blizzarding. He just had such a strong desire to go to English Class. He told us of one time that the weather was so bad. It was snowing and the wind was blowing really hard, but he knew he needed to go to English Class. He went out and the wind would literally blow him off his feet, causing him to fall on his butt, on the ice. He said he literally slid all the way to English Class on his butt. He would get up a little ways, cautiously walk on the ice, and then it would blow him down and he would slide a little way, he did that all the way to the Branch House. He was the only one who came to English Class during that weather, but he came. The missionaries had a lot of one on one time with him, and started talking to him about the gospel. Although he hasn't yet accepted the gospel, he still to this day believes that God gave him those missionaries, who gave him the English Class flyer and since that, his life has changed a lot. We are still teaching him, but he realizes that he has changed since meeting with the missionaries, a good change.

There are people here in Hungary searching for the truth and their run-in with the missionaries is not just an "accident." God knows, he knows who we need to find and who needs to find us and then he provides a way so that happens. 

I want to talk a little about member missionary work.

EVERY MEMBER IS A MISSIONARY AND SHOULD BE ENGAGED IN THIS WORK. I have a HUGE testimony of member missionary work and how important it is. I'll admit, when I was back at home I didn't go on splits too much with the missionaries, I didn't give referrals to the missionaries back at home, but I SHOULD HAVE. Us, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints , have the responsibility to bring others unto Christ. One of my favorite general conference talks of my life is Elder Ballards "Following Up" talk in the April 2014 General Conference. He talks about how each member can be a missionary he says this, "To help you in this process, I invite all members, regardless of your current calling or level of activity in the Church, to obtain a copy of Preach My Gospel. It is available through our distribution centers and also online. The online version can be read or downloaded at no cost. It is a guidebook for missionary work—which means it is a guidebook for all of us. Read it, study it, and then apply what you learn to help you understand how to bring souls to Christ through invitation and follow-up. As President Thomas S. Monson has said, “Now is the time for members and missionaries to come together, to work together, to labor in the Lord’s vineyard to bring souls unto Him.”I love this so much. You don't need a black nametag to be a missionary in this church. Just by our actions alone as members, we can serve the Lord as missionaries. I
I want to share a quick experience that I had a few weeks ago when I went to the Pünkosdi church with our SI. First of all, all of you who don't know SI, he's probably the sweetest person ever. He loves God and Jesus Christ and has grown up in a very religious family. When he invited us to his church, I was excited. I really wanted to go. Before we went, he explained to us in the car what it would be like, and what they usually do. It made us feel a lot more comfortable knowing what was going to happen than to just go into it blindly. As we pulled up to the church and SI parked the car, we walk to the door and SI goes in first, I think we were expected because when we walked in, everybody (literally) came up to us and said hi to us. The younger people (our age) all came up and shook our hands and were just so incredibly nice. I was so amazed. Everybody was just soooo nice. We sat down and after the service all of the younger people came and pulled their chairs next to us and we ended up just talking for an additional hour. They had a lot of questions about us and what we do as missionaries, etc. When my companion and I went home that following night, we realized how important it is on the missionaries and members part to make the investigator feel welcomed. I can count a number of times that, I saw somebody new back at home, at church and I just said to myself, "hmm, I've never seen her before...she must be visiting," and that's it. I didn't make any attempt to say hi or introduce myself or anything. I have seen this in Hungary too, but we all do it. I just know now how important it is to make people feel welcome. Having your investigator come to church is one of the greatest moments in your teaching, because it really shows their faith, in what your teaching and in their Heavenly Father. I would hate to bring an investigator to church and then have them go back to their friends afterwards and say, "Yeah, I went to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and nobody, besides the missionaries said hi to me..." 
Now that I've been in Hungary for a while, I know how much harder the work is when members do not participate in missionary work. It makes it a lot harder. When people willingly help, they show their support and love for the missionaries, but more importantly God and His work. 

I wear a name tag, everyday that says Whitaker Nővér and it doesn't just have my name on it, but it has Jézus Krisztus on it as well. By wearing my name tag, I represent Christ just like every member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Shouldn't we all be Christ-like in words, thoughts and actions? I've met too many people here that have been offended by someone's words or actions. Be smart and act as if Jesus Christ was standing beside you.

Do you notice the difference in length. I definitely feel like I've learned a lot more than I've done. You definitely learn a lot in the mission field. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission. It's been one of the biggest blessings in my life!

I could stay here all day and tell you about experience and lessons I've learned since being in the beautiful country of Hungary, When I get back I will definitely fill all of you in! These are just the ones that come to my mind now. I hope you enjoyed it!


Thanks everyone for emails, letters and the support

Szeretlek benneteket,
Whitaker Növér

Boldog Karácsonyt és Új Évet!

 
My dad informed me this week, that the bishopric (in my ward back home, I'm guessing) asked him to talk about missionary work and about some of I've learned and some things I do, as a missionary in the Hungary Budapest Mission. I figured I would just make that the topic of my blog email this week. I know... I've been out for almost ten months and I'm just now getting these things out, but hey, better late than never, right?
Honestly,  I'm not a very good writer, so don't be surprised if this email is everywhere!!

 What do I do in Hungary?

We spend a lot of time finding, my companion and I have about ten people in our "investigator pool" right now. Ten active investigators. Five of those ten are progressing. Lately it's been really hard to meet with people because of the Holidays and such. There are many methods of finding that we can do here. We tract (knock on doors--ten story buildings with five doors on each floor, give or take), street (walk on the street), table (set up a table, put flyers on it and talk to people walking by), bus find (ride buses and talk to people). Those are our main sources of finding. We are expected to get ten hours of finding time in a week. That sounds like a lot, but really, it's not. We usually don't have a problem achieving that. Time goes by super fast, when you tract a few ten stories or ride a few buses to get somewhere else in the city. The rest of the time is teaching programs to people. We don't have a limit of how often we can meet with anyone, so sometimes we have one program a week with a certain investigator sometimes we have three programs a week with the same investigator. It all just depends. We usually meet at the branch house, which is in a rented out building on the second floor. It's nothing fancy, but

As far as on my pdays and stuff. 
Sheesh, we do everything. We recently went to a members house for Christmas and they live really close to the Balaton, which is like the biggest lake in Central Europe. It's beautiful and huge. Christmas Eve, my companion and I were off, but there was nothing open so we decided to go shoot some hoops at a basketball court for a few hours. We met a really nice little boy, who just started learning how to play soccer. Good thing my companion is super good at Soccer. They played together for a while, and then I just shot hoops. You know... this is what we do in Hungary. Then again later, we met with him and played again. it was super good. On Christmas we had dinner with the Elders and then skpyed our familes. It was so great to see my family!

New Years, our branch had a New Years Eve party, we eat, and did karoke. It was super fun! We had a really really good time! Then the day after, we got some of our branch members and investigators together and we went ice skating. It was super fun.

 What have I learned?

Okay, first of all, I've been in Hungary for almost eight months! I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. I am officially running downhill now. I passed my half-way mark last year, and as I reflect on the things that I have thusfar experienced I am blown away and humbled by them. Hungary is absolutely stunning. It's truly beautiful, filled with much history. I look around me everyday and am just in awe with my surroundings. I could talk all day about the things that I've seen or places I've been, but really, I didn't come here to enjoy the scenary or be a tourist. I came here to be a missionary, and as a missionary our purpose is to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End." Although, I'll admit it's easy to forget your purpose as a missionary. I can't even tell you about all the cool people I've met since I've been here. For example, right now I am in Székesfehérvár (second transfer here--fourteen weeks and counting). It's safe to say that I've gotten really comfortable with the area and people here. We actually meet with a lot of young people right now, and I'll admit, when you talk to young people on a daily or weekly basis, the desire to just hang out with them is there. We talk often and they're just so willing to help us with the language and anything we need. All of our investigators at one time or another have said to us, if you need ANYTHING just call me! It's so nice! I often have to remind myself that I'm not out here to make friends, but I am here to teach them about their Heavenly Father who loves them so much. I really love these people and I want them to find the same peace, joy and happiness that I receive from this gospel, so that's what keeps me going and as much as I would love to be best friends with all of my investigators, and just chill with them, it's equally important that they form that relationship with someone who knows them better than I do, better than I could ever know them, honestly. 

A little about teaching: We are actually teaching two people right now, that are super religious. One of them is baptista (baptist), we will call him (SA) and the other is pünkosdi (pentacostal), we will call him (SI). It's not been easy. We actually went to our pünksodi investigators church the other week and it was really really interesting. SI's dad is actually the preacher and the leader of the pünksodi church here in Székes and we talked with him on the way over there and he was telling us about how God told him that he needed to build a pünkosdi church in Székesfehérvár. When we teach about the Restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints, we obviously talk about prophets and the two things God gives prophets which are Revelation and the power to act in Jesus Christ's name. We have definitely had interesting conversations with SI. Of course we respect each others beliefs and have an open conversation about things, but recently we've just had a rough time. SA is another one of our investigators that is very devoted to his church, but he investigated the church for a while, he had a set baptism date and everything and then a few days before his baptism he called it off and said that he needed to think, then joined the baptist church. Basically, my point with all this is that I've met a lot of people here in Hungary who are very devoted to their religion. Two-thirds of the people in Hungary are Roman Catholic. Then, of course, there are other religions too. I think I've learned that people in Hungary are very open to speaking with us even if they're another denomination, and they're interested in what we believe as Mormons. SA and SI have both told us that they are open to speak about our beliefs and such but that they would like to stay baptist/pünkosdi. I heard before I came to Hungary that Hungarians are closed off and not very open, but honestly, from all my experiences so far, I feel like they are more open than people give them credit for. There have been a few times that my companion and I would go tracting and we would tract into somebody who is roman catholic, methodist, baptist, some other religion, but we would still talk about the Book of Mormon and at the end we ended up giving them a copy of the Book of Mormon with them commiting to read it. Do we always get a phone number or let in from it? No, but they accepted it.

We have another investigator, we'll call him NT. NT met with the missionaries about three years ago. The first contact he had with the missionaries was on the street when he had an Angol Ora (English Class) flyer given to him by a couple of elders. He told us his story and it's quite interesting. Three years ago, he got an English Class flyer, he put it in his pocket, with the intent of throwing it away when he got home. When he got home, he reached into this pocket and pulled out the paper. When he went to throw it away, he said, he just couldn't let go of it. Eventually he came to English Class for the first time and met the missionaries, he felt really good when he was around them, eventually it became winter time and the weather got really bad, but NT still wanted to go to English Class, even when it was blizzarding. He just had such a strong desire to go to English Class. He told us of one time that the weather was so bad. It was snowing and the wind was blowing really hard, but he knew he needed to go to English Class. He went out and the wind would literally blow him off his feet, causing him to fall on his butt, on the ice. He said he literally slid all the way to English Class on his butt. He would get up a little ways, cautiously walk on the ice, and then it would blow him down and he would slide a little way, he did that all the way to the Branch House. He was the only one who came to English Class during that weather, but he came. The missionaries had a lot of one on one time with him, and started talking to him about the gospel. Although he hasn't yet accepted the gospel, he still to this day believes that God gave him those missionaries, who gave him the English Class flyer and since that, his life has changed a lot. We are still teaching him, but he realizes that he has changed since meeting with the missionaries, a good change.

There are people here in Hungary searching for the truth and their run-in with the missionaries is not just an "accident." God knows, he knows who we need to find and who needs to find us and then he provides a way so that happens. 

I want to talk a little about member missionary work.

EVERY MEMBER IS A MISSIONARY AND SHOULD BE ENGAGED IN THIS WORK. I have a HUGE testimony of member missionary work and how important it is. I'll admit, when I was back at home I didn't go on splits too much with the missionaries, I didn't give referrals to the missionaries back at home, but I SHOULD HAVE. Us, as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints , have the responsibility to bring others unto Christ. One of my favorite general conference talks of my life is Elder Ballards "Following Up" talk in the April 2014 General Conference. He talks about how each member can be a missionary he says this, "To help you in this process, I invite all members, regardless of your current calling or level of activity in the Church, to obtain a copy of Preach My Gospel. It is available through our distribution centers and also online. The online version can be read or downloaded at no cost. It is a guidebook for missionary work—which means it is a guidebook for all of us. Read it, study it, and then apply what you learn to help you understand how to bring souls to Christ through invitation and follow-up. As President Thomas S. Monson has said, “Now is the time for members and missionaries to come together, to work together, to labor in the Lord’s vineyard to bring souls unto Him.”I love this so much. You don't need a black nametag to be a missionary in this church. Just by our actions alone as members, we can serve the Lord as missionaries. I
I want to share a quick experience that I had a few weeks ago when I went to the Pünkosdi church with our SI. First of all, all of you who don't know SI, he's probably the sweetest person ever. He loves God and Jesus Christ and has grown up in a very religious family. When he invited us to his church, I was excited. I really wanted to go. Before we went, he explained to us in the car what it would be like, and what they usually do. It made us feel a lot more comfortable knowing what was going to happen than to just go into it blindly. As we pulled up to the church and SI parked the car, we walk to the door and SI goes in first, I think we were expected because when we walked in, everybody (literally) came up to us and said hi to us. The younger people (our age) all came up and shook our hands and were just so incredibly nice. I was so amazed. Everybody was just soooo nice. We sat down and after the service all of the younger people came and pulled their chairs next to us and we ended up just talking for an additional hour. They had a lot of questions about us and what we do as missionaries, etc. When my companion and I went home that following night, we realized how important it is on the missionaries and members part to make the investigator feel welcomed. I can count a number of times that, I saw somebody new back at home, at church and I just said to myself, "hmm, I've never seen her before...she must be visiting," and that's it. I didn't make any attempt to say hi or introduce myself or anything. I have seen this in Hungary too, but we all do it. I just know now how important it is to make people feel welcome. Having your investigator come to church is one of the greatest moments in your teaching, because it really shows their faith, in what your teaching and in their Heavenly Father. I would hate to bring an investigator to church and then have them go back to their friends afterwards and say, "Yeah, I went to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and nobody, besides the missionaries said hi to me..." 
Now that I've been in Hungary for a while, I know how much harder the work is when members do not participate in missionary work. It makes it a lot harder. When people willingly help, they show their support and love for the missionaries, but more importantly God and His work. 

I wear a name tag, everyday that says Whitaker Nővér and it doesn't just have my name on it, but it has Jézus Krisztus on it as well. By wearing my name tag, I represent Christ just like every member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Shouldn't we all be Christ-like in words, thoughts and actions? I've met too many people here that have been offended by someone's words or actions. Be smart and act as if Jesus Christ was standing beside you.

Do you notice the difference in length. I definitely feel like I've learned a lot more than I've done. You definitely learn a lot in the mission field. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission. It's been one of the biggest blessings in my life!

I could stay here all day and tell you about experience and lessons I've learned since being in the beautiful country of Hungary, When I get back I will definitely fill all of you in! These are just the ones that come to my mind now. I hope you enjoyed it!


Thanks everyone for emails, letters and the support

Szeretlek benneteket,
Whitaker Növér