Dear Sister Whitaker, You are hearby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Hungary Budapest Mission. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months. You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, March 19, 2014. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Hungarian language.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
This past week has been awesome. So many great opportunities.
First of all, Tuesday was my birthday. I turned twenty-one. Watch out, I'm legal. That could be dangerous for any parties involved in the future. Tuesday happen to be the day that we went to Budapest for my last Zone Conference. Turned legal in Budapest. Party of my life.
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Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Wow,
this week has been awesome. I'm dying soon as everybody knows and I've
kind of been waiting for an amazing week to finish out this transfer.
This one, so far, has been that week that I've been looking for, but I
still have three more weeks so we will see if any of the future weeks
beat this one.
We extended a baptismal date to one of our
investigators. A really cute 23 year old girl (AH). AH is really special
to me, she is studying to be a personal trainer. Her and I get along
really well and often talk about exercising and stuff like that. She
speaks and understands English fluently so that makes talking easier.
Super solid. AH first started meeting the missionaries a few years ago,
just for the sake of learning English, but over time she's developed an
interest for the gospel. She's been taught all the lessons and she has
accepted everything, it's been pretty awesome to be part of teaching
her. Honestly, I don't feel like I've done that much, because I came to
Szolnok after she had been taught everything but the big three
commandments (Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, and Law of the tithe),
but we got those knocked out. Easily accepted them and now she's on bap.
date. Her baptismal date is scheduled for the seventeeth of October.
Unfortunantly, I won't get to attend but I will be there in sprit for
sure! AH is also going to talk to her family about meeting with us
because everyone in her family are really open to the gospel. Her dad
loves her reading the Book of Mormon to him outloud and her brother has
recently said that he wants to be baptized into a church but wants to
know which one. Lots of good potentials, right? It will be good.
For the rest of our investigators, they are doing well. We had one investigator at church this Sunday, which is really good.
Thursday there was a special broadcast from the Budapest Stake Center that we watched. For all of you Rapid City people who know Heather Shirley and her family...yeah, they live here in Hungary. Anyways her husband, Cameron has a stake calling and they arranged for a concert pianist from America (Dan...oh crap I forgot his name.) Wow, I stink. I forgot his name. Dan Culverall, Something like that. Anyways it was really good. He spoke and played beautiful music and even though we watched it through broadcast it was still really beautiful. His messages were inspiring and I learned a lot about having faith and trusting in the Lord, from him. The spirit was felt that night.
Love you all,
Whitaker Nővér
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Monday, August 31, 2015
Well
it's been another hot week here in Szolnok. What can I say. Summers
last forever here, but I've heard from a few little birdies that the
weather is supposed to be cooler this next week so I am highly
anticipating the "cold-front."
This week we tripled the amount of programs we had last week. That was an accomplishment in itself.
Progressing slowly, but still progressing.
Lesson learned this week:
Yesterday,
during church, we received a call from a family who said that they were
interested in meeting with us because their five year old son had
questions about God and the devil. I was kind of surprised that a five
year old boy would have questions such as those running through his
mind. The father requested that we meet that day, in a few hours. We set
up a time to meet with them at the branch house. The missionaries had a
few other meetings that required their attendance but we after we
finished those we met them.
The family was really nice in the
beginning. Turns out the mother's mom (the child's grandma) is really
sick and her time here on the earth is coming soon. The boy was curious
what would happen to his grandma and where she would go. I was very
impressed that a little boy would be curious onto this subject.
We
started teaching about the plan of salvation, but we were teaching a
five year old boy. YOU HAVE TO TEACH TO YOUR INVESTIGATORS NEEDS AND AT A
LEVEL THAT THEY WILL UNDERSTAND. No matter how old or young, uneducated
or educated, unattentive or attentive they are. I made the horrible
mistake of teaching everything I knew about the plan of salvation and to
a little boy who is five years old, he's not going to understand nor
pay attention.
I still feel really bad and the lesson ended
up with the parents saying that what we have said was good, but it's
been a lot of information for the boy and he's starting to lose
interest. They left and I felt like the worst! Why would I not sit back
and think about him and his needs.
I don't know what will happen out of it. They didn't schedule with us again. We didn't even get through the whole lesson.
I
definitely learned my lesson. We shouldn't teach everything we know,
and teaching according to the investigators needs is the most
important.
Oh well, no regrets, just lessons learned. We move on.
Other than that. It was a good week. My companion and I lost our keys on Monday
so we were hajléktalan for the begining of the week. Not really, we
stayed at a friends house. it was all good. We ended up calling our
landlord and getting another set of keys from her. She was super nice
and understanding. We really have no clue where they could have gone.
Everything is good now though. Then we lost our phone, that was kind of a
freaky story. We were at our friends looking for our keys, Sister
Rankin took the phone out because we had gotten a call. She claims that
she put it back in her bag, but then we looked in her bag and it was
gone. We looked around, called it. Nothing. A few hours later we get a
call that somebody found our phone in a window flower pot at the hivatal
(city-center). The flower box was on a window, high above our heads.
The guy who found it said he was watering the plants and he saw a phone
standing up in this flower pot and decided to call the first number he
saw. It happened to be our friends number because we were calling it all
morning. Anyways, phone was returned to us. We were just kind of
freaked out for the rest of the day how in the world did it get there.
Weird, right?
Be responsible, kids.
Whitaker Nővér
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Monday, August 10, 2015
Szolnok! Well, here I am. This place is completely different than
Debrecen. Little. Quiet. Not the prettiest. Filled with cool people
though. That's the point.
Transfer day was rough! All three of us got transferred out of Debrecen (white-washed). Among the three of us we had eight bags. Only one of our elders got transferred out. The day before we went up to Budapest we all got train tickets together because if we don't get them together we can't sit next to each other.
Our two and half travel to Budapest ended up turning into a seven and a half travel. #publictransportationproblems. To make a long story short... well there's really no way to make this story short. Basically, Wednesday morning comes earlier than I would have liked. We get up at seven to catch the eight o'clock train, but then we missed our villamos to take us to the train station so we had to call a cab. A cab rolls up and puts our bags in the back, well there's still three girls that have to make it to the train station so we ended up having to call another cab for us. We all arrive at the train station, looking for our elders. No where to be found. Time got close for the train to leave, we jump on the train, elders still no where to be found. Train leaves. We try and call the elders a million times, no answer. Ends up our train goes to a city, we have to get off, catch a bus that goes to another train, which eventually goes to budapest. well.... uhhh. Because we are three girls and had eight large bags with us, when it was time to get off the train and get on the bus in Nyíregyháza we spent most of the time trying to drag all of our bags that we ended up missing the bus. Ended up staying in the Nyíregyháza train station for two and half hours while waiting for the next bus. I literally ended up sleeping on a bench like a hobo. Don't worry though! We actually ended up doing some finding in the train station. Sister Sellers and I went to the little ladies room, but here's the cool thing in Hungary in order to use the bathroom you have to pay and you pay for exactly two square of toilet paper. Well the lady who took our money saw our name tags and asked about the church, so we had a little finding moment. Got some phone numbers átadtunk them to the missionaries in Nyíregyháza. That was cool. Finally the next bus came so we jumped on that one super fast. I passed out. I was just super tired the whole time. Sellers fell asleep too. What's the advantages of being in a trio? I don't know! Our third companion, Dohm, came to the rescue and ended up talking to this lady on the bus and gave her, as a referrel, over to the Miskolc elders. Wow, bam! Even through all this bad luck we are still finding people. No big deal. So we ride the hot bus for like an hour, get off, make it the second train on time (thank goodness) and "We're off to Budapest!" That train ride was the longest train ride of my life. I don't know why everything was so slow. The train ended up stopping twice in some random field for like thirty minutes. We didn't think we'd ever get to Budapest. When we rolled in it was three thirty in the afternoon. Everyone had already met at Keleti, grabbed something to eat and headed to their new cities before we even got there! Story of my life. It's okay. I got to say hi to a few friends that had been waiting on us.
Poor Sister Rankin had been waiting on me for a long time. I had just gotten off a train that I had been on for a good three hours, plus all the other switching over prior to that. Well I ended up turning right back around and getting a ticket for the next train to Szolnok. We jump on the train to Szolnok. All of a sudden this huge rain storm comes out of no where as were about to board the train. Rankin and I get soaked. My bags get soaked. Life can't get any better. Oh wait, but there's more. We're sitting on the train waiting for it to depart and all of a sudden train workers get on the train and say that we have to get off and go to another train, but the vágány for this train is on the other side of the train station. We get off the train, run (literally) over get on the other train. We have to stand because the train is packed and we take off for Szolnok. Luckily the train ride to Szolnok is only an hour and a half so not too long. After traveling for seven and a half hours, what's another hour and a half.
I got here to Szolnok, lookin pretty rough, but I got here.
First couple days here were good. It's only a million degrees but other than that. It's a pretty chill city. The people I've met so far are super chill and nice! They are like solid too. No games with them. They meet with us because they want to and are just super solid. Super nice though!
Transfer day was rough! All three of us got transferred out of Debrecen (white-washed). Among the three of us we had eight bags. Only one of our elders got transferred out. The day before we went up to Budapest we all got train tickets together because if we don't get them together we can't sit next to each other.
Our two and half travel to Budapest ended up turning into a seven and a half travel. #publictransportationproblems. To make a long story short... well there's really no way to make this story short. Basically, Wednesday morning comes earlier than I would have liked. We get up at seven to catch the eight o'clock train, but then we missed our villamos to take us to the train station so we had to call a cab. A cab rolls up and puts our bags in the back, well there's still three girls that have to make it to the train station so we ended up having to call another cab for us. We all arrive at the train station, looking for our elders. No where to be found. Time got close for the train to leave, we jump on the train, elders still no where to be found. Train leaves. We try and call the elders a million times, no answer. Ends up our train goes to a city, we have to get off, catch a bus that goes to another train, which eventually goes to budapest. well.... uhhh. Because we are three girls and had eight large bags with us, when it was time to get off the train and get on the bus in Nyíregyháza we spent most of the time trying to drag all of our bags that we ended up missing the bus. Ended up staying in the Nyíregyháza train station for two and half hours while waiting for the next bus. I literally ended up sleeping on a bench like a hobo. Don't worry though! We actually ended up doing some finding in the train station. Sister Sellers and I went to the little ladies room, but here's the cool thing in Hungary in order to use the bathroom you have to pay and you pay for exactly two square of toilet paper. Well the lady who took our money saw our name tags and asked about the church, so we had a little finding moment. Got some phone numbers átadtunk them to the missionaries in Nyíregyháza. That was cool. Finally the next bus came so we jumped on that one super fast. I passed out. I was just super tired the whole time. Sellers fell asleep too. What's the advantages of being in a trio? I don't know! Our third companion, Dohm, came to the rescue and ended up talking to this lady on the bus and gave her, as a referrel, over to the Miskolc elders. Wow, bam! Even through all this bad luck we are still finding people. No big deal. So we ride the hot bus for like an hour, get off, make it the second train on time (thank goodness) and "We're off to Budapest!" That train ride was the longest train ride of my life. I don't know why everything was so slow. The train ended up stopping twice in some random field for like thirty minutes. We didn't think we'd ever get to Budapest. When we rolled in it was three thirty in the afternoon. Everyone had already met at Keleti, grabbed something to eat and headed to their new cities before we even got there! Story of my life. It's okay. I got to say hi to a few friends that had been waiting on us.
Poor Sister Rankin had been waiting on me for a long time. I had just gotten off a train that I had been on for a good three hours, plus all the other switching over prior to that. Well I ended up turning right back around and getting a ticket for the next train to Szolnok. We jump on the train to Szolnok. All of a sudden this huge rain storm comes out of no where as were about to board the train. Rankin and I get soaked. My bags get soaked. Life can't get any better. Oh wait, but there's more. We're sitting on the train waiting for it to depart and all of a sudden train workers get on the train and say that we have to get off and go to another train, but the vágány for this train is on the other side of the train station. We get off the train, run (literally) over get on the other train. We have to stand because the train is packed and we take off for Szolnok. Luckily the train ride to Szolnok is only an hour and a half so not too long. After traveling for seven and a half hours, what's another hour and a half.
I got here to Szolnok, lookin pretty rough, but I got here.
First couple days here were good. It's only a million degrees but other than that. It's a pretty chill city. The people I've met so far are super chill and nice! They are like solid too. No games with them. They meet with us because they want to and are just super solid. Super nice though!
Church on Sunday
was amazing! I don't think I've felt more welcomed in any branch before
than Szolnok's. Everyone here was super nice and greeted me like they
knew me! Everyone came up to me and stroked my face (my favorite....
hahahahaha). But really, there are a lot of coool members here. Guess
who followed me to Szolnok. Kovács Kira, my hungarian companion I had in
Pápa. She even gave me a S/O (shout out) in chruch. First S/O in
Hungary. I can scratch that off my bucket list.
Oh I forgot Saturday
night we went over to our MCL's (Mission correlation leader) house and
had a little game night with his family and some other members. It was
so fun. Played lots of games, laughed at our language barrier at times.
It was a good time.
I can't really talk about our
friends, down here in Szolnok, yet. I just introduced myself to the
majority of them this week, but next week will be good and full of
teaching and success. I can't wait.
Eight weeks and
I'll be on a plane back to America. I'm excited but it will definitely
be hard. Gotta finish this strong. Thanks for all your support while
I've been out here. Love you all
Whitaker Nővér
Monday, July 27, 2015
Facts, Miracles, Blessings.
Fun fact: I had a great week this week, and
found out that my companions and I were an answer to multiple different
prayers this week. Details coming soon...
Fun fact, that's
not so fun: I only have one hour to email every detail of my
life/feelings so I'm sorry if my emails start to become super lame or
short, but I'll try to do my best to encompass all my thoughts and
feelings in this little email.
Let me tell you how this was manifested to me....
Missionary
work is hard. You get letters from missionaries and as you read them
you think that their life is perfect. They have no hard times, they only
talk to nice people, everyone accepts everything they say, the
investigators they are teaching are golden, the members work with them
perfectly. You rarely hear of any complaints in missionaries' letters
home, let's be honest.
Well, I'm here to tell you that a
missionaries life is not sunshine and butterflys all the time. In fact,
you experience a lot more gloomy days, rain storms, and roses with sharp
thorns (both literally and figuratively) than people would think.
Missionaries are told to write all the happy stuff home, and not be
negative in their emails to family and friends back at home. Which is
understandable, but I also believe that you need to be real with people.
Take me for an example, I try to write positive things in my emails and
about how my investigators' progression is going, but I won't lie and
I'll say that this life is hard.
This was especially true
a few weeks ago, I was having a hard time. I didn't know what I was
doing out here and at times I questioned whether or not I should be out
here. You get these feelings quite often as missionaries. You might be
doing all you can to preach the gospel, but people aren't accepting
anything you say, or they seem interested until you go back, ring their
doorbell and they end up hiding behind their window curtain so that
they're "not home." Things like this happen and sometimes it's hard to
stay happy and cheerful about being a missionary.Well, this indeed
happened a few weeks ago, and I didn't know why.
I can
say that I am grateful for my mission because one of the many things
that I've learned from it is "behind every storm comes a rainbow." Weeks
can be hard, but I know that if you endure and do what's right, God
will give you that beautiful rainbow that you deserve.
After
my "storm" a few weeks ago, I saw my rainbow this week. I was waiting
for it and wasn't sure if it would come but it came.
Basically
what happened is that we met with two of our investigators. I talked
about them, well at least one of them in my last email. Husam. The guy
from Iraq. Do you remember him. Okay, well listen to this. Wednesday was
his birthday and he was supposed to go to Australia to go vacation with
his family. Well something came up and his family wasn't able to travel
to Australia when they had planned to, so they had to post-pone his
celebration, which meant that Husam had stay in Hungary for the time
being, meaning that he would be away from his family during his
birthday. We couldn't let this happen so we decided to throw a little
Bowling Birthday Bash for him. Before we gathered all of our friends to
go bowling we met with him and watched 'The Restoration' film with him.
We watched it in his native language (Arabic). Didn't understand any of
it, but it sounded pretty....weird. Anyways, after the movie--before we
could even say anything, Husam pipes up and says, "I love that story.
Everything that was in that movie was true. If you want to know the
truth, you need to ask God and he will give it to you. I love Jospeh
Smith." Who says that? We didn't even ask him anything but he just said
that by himself. Oh, how we love Husam. Then! This is the best part.
Here is one half of my rainbow. There was a silence after we were
talking about Joseph Smith and Husam all of a sudden says, "Can I tell
you guys something really quickly." "Of course Husam, anything." Then he
said this: "I have a lot of friends at the university and I really like
them, but they're always asking me to go to the bars, clubs, or discos
with them and I'm not into that stuff. I don't drink. I really like my
friends but I was praying to God to send me friends who wouldn't ask me
to do those things but to bring me closer to him (God), because I
believe that there are two types of friends. Those who bring me closer
to God and those who take me away from God. After I prayed I met you
guys on the street and I knew that God sent me you guys to be my friends
who would bring me closer to God. That's all I want to say." AHHHHHH'!!
I just get goosebumps writing about that. I can't even tell you how
happy we were when we heard that. We were practically on cloud nine (Is
cloud ten a thing?) I can't even tell you how great the feeling is when
you find out you have been an ANSWER to someone's REAL SINCERE prayer to
God. God exists and he looks after all of his children.
The
other investigator who I don't think I've talked about yet. His name is
Ugo, also from Nigeria. Long story short, for Young Single Adults a few
weeks ago we went to the big stadium park to play capture the flag with
our investigators and the YSA people. It was sooo fun!! We were divided
into our teams and sent to opposite sides of the park just to come back
and run a lot trying to protect our flag. Anyways, Sister Dohm and I
were running towards our opponents side of the field and you have to
keep in mind we were playing with like six of our friends from Nigeria.
Okay so we saw a black guy walking on the fountain blocks (maybe you
remember a picture of me on those?) Basically we thought that it was one
of our friends guarding the flag, so we were trying to walk on both
sides of him to ambush him, but as I got closer I realized that we did
not know this guy, but we just assumed that he was one of our friends
because of well... yeah. Anyways so we ended up running past him,
yelling to each other in English. We ended up getting our flag in the
end and as we were walking back to our side, we saw Sister Sellers
talking to this guy that we originally thought was one of our Nigerian
friends. Okay, this long story isn't very short, but that guy turns out
to be Ugo! AND! That night Ugo had some responsibilities at his church
that he attends, faithfully every sunday, but he felt prompted to go to
the park that night. In his words, "I had no clue why I was there or
what I was doing because I was literally alone with no one, but I just
decided to park my bike and walk on the fountain blocks until I knew why
I was there. Then the Asian (Hey, that's me!!) and her friend ran past
me speaking English, and I just had to know what you guys were doing and
what kind of organization you were with." God exists. He had no reason
to be in the park at that time, but he was! He met Sister Sellers and
set up with us the next day. Our first program with him was right before
the bowling party for Husam (which he ended up coming to and meeting
Samuel, which is one of our other Nigerian friends--they actually go to
the same church, but have never talked until they both met each other at
one of our events. Mormons--bringing friends together, but really
though!), so we actually had to rush, but we set up with him for the
next day. That program was amazing. We introduced the Book of Mormon to
him through the pictures in the beginning and he loved it. We invited
him to the baptism on Saturday and he was like "Yeah, I'll come. I've
always wanted to be baptized, how do I become baptized?" Oh, boy we have
a lot to tell you bout baptism. But oh my goodness. We <3 Ugo and
all of our other friends!
God sends you miracles.
Speakin
of miracles. Hamid got baptized on Saturday. Ahhh! Pictures are up on
Facebook if any of you want to see them! That was awesome. Hamid is
pretty much the sweetest guy alive. It was such a special day for him
and for us. He was already glowing before he entered the water, but
after he got out of the water he was shining. It was so great! Baptisms
are special events.
This week we also had the
opportunity to go up to Miskolc for zone training. Such a hot, long
train ride up there, but it was worth it. President Szabadkai was up
there with his wife and it was nice to talk with them.
That
was the highlights of my week that I can write in an hour. I'm sure
there were more, but hey, that's what a journal is for so I can just
read them to you in a few months. What the flip? I have to be a regular
human being in two months. Not about that!
It will be
nice to be with family and friends again, but either way, family will be
across the ocean no matter where I am. I love these Hungarian people
and will always keep them close to my heart.
God loves you.
Whitaker Nővér
Days and Days.
Hey
everyone!
I'm sorry that I haven't been the best on writing. Things got a little turnt and I haven't had a lot of time the last couple emailing sessions, but I'm here now and ready to tell you all about how exciting my last couple weeks have been.
First of all, since last email, Sister Sellers and I picked up another companion, Sister Dohm. Which makes Sister Sellers and Sister Dohm sister training leaders and I'm just kind of this awkward third person in their companion of leadership, but we've found a way to make everything work out and have been goin good ever since. Unfortnantly I have not taken near as many pictures as I should. You can say that I'm failing as a photographer of the great lands of Hungary, and I will not have any pictures next week, because I gave my camera to one of the members here in Debrecen who is going to a European Area Youth Conference in Romania and I thought he'd want to take a few pictures, as he doesn't have a camera. Sooo, next week I might be able to swipe a few of my companions pictures, if they take some. In general, we don't take a lot of pictures, but we'll try harder this week.
Okay, so I am in Debrecen, which is another college city (just like Szeged- I miss that place so much!) which means there are TONS of young people here and not just young but there is such a diversity of people in this city. People literally from all over the world come here to go to college.
So that being said, most of our investigators (99.4% of them) are foreign young kids who have come over for school, but let me tell you, they are the most legit people ever. Let me tell you about our little diverse group of friends.
Yael.. Yael is pretty much the sweetest girl ever. Yael is from Israel and has been studying in Debrecen for a few years now. By the way, she has been the BYU's deal in Jerusalem, how cool. She is studying to be a doctor (i forgot what branch) and loves it. Her first language is Hebrew so unfortantly we can't get any materials in her mother language, but of course, she speaks English so we can still teach her and give her english materials and she understands them pretty well. All of the foreign people that come to the University of Debrecen have three language choices that they can learn by, Hungarian, English, or German. The majority of the foreign students learn through english, obviously. Anyways, she is the sweetest. We didn't even street into her or tract into her. She actually went on to mormon.org and requested a Book of Mormon and asked to meet with the missionaries in Debrecen. This was all on her own. That was the first sign that she was legit. The second was when we actually met her. We taught her the first half of The Plan of Salvation, after we had talked about everything we asked her if she had any questions and she had a few questions, which we answered accordingly, then we asked if she had liked everything that we had taught up until now and she said "Yeah, I really like this and I can't wait to learn more about what happens after our life here in on earth." I was pretty much fel van dobva (on cloud nine). I had never had someone tell me that they couldn't wait to learn more about what I'm called to teach. Usually it's more of a "Yeah, I like this, it sounds nice," or something along those lines, but she was more than excited for our next program with her.
Before we met with her for the second time she had gone home to have her brother help her study for one of her big exams. I guess Israel is just a three hour flight so she just hopped on the plane and went back to Israel. Some days go by and we get a call from Yael and she says that she had just thought about us and wanted to call us to see how we were doing. Can I say adorable. That moment when your investigators daily contact you (RR, and now Yael). Then she asked us if we wanted her to bring us back anything from Israel. How sweet is this girl? Too sweet! We told her that we weren't picky and that we'd accept anything she brought back for us, only if we could pay her and she said "I only accept hugs as a method of payment." Oh my gosh, what a sweetie.
Yael eventually came back and got to meet with her again, she ended up bringing us back some crazy Israelian food and some good chocolate too.
Her next meeting we planned to teach her the second half of the Plan of Salvation and thought that would be good, based on her excitement about the first half, but then we got in there and started to review the first half again and she had some really good questions that we answered and before we knew it, time was up so we only got to earth life again, but we can move on next time, with a sure knowledge that she really understands the first part. Oh Yael is so great.
Husam- Oh my goodness there is not a more precious man on this earth than Husam. Husam is from Iraq and is studying at the Debrecen University to be a doctor. We met Husam on the street while talking about Hungarian class. Oh, I guess I haven't talked about that. In addition to English class, we also teach Hungarian class because so many foreign people are here to study, but they don't know how to speak Hungarian so we try to help them to at least get the conversation starters/basic questions down so they can get around Hungary. Husam accepted our Hungarian class flyer and we started talking to him, on the street, about why we are here and our purpose as missionaries. From the very beginning he was interested and asked us to explain more about our work, but we were on our way to a program so we got his number and told him that we would love to explain our calling as missionaries if he would like to meet sometime. A few day later we called him and set up a program with him at the branch house. It was neat to see his reaction when we told him what we are doing here in Hungary. He was very impressed by our desire to be here and our discipline of not wimping out and going home because our families and homes are missed to us. We gave Husam an arabic Book of Mormon and had him read Moroni 10 3-5 to us. That was so cool, even though it was in this super strange language that he was reading right to left, upside down, sideways I still felt the spirit and it was a good experience. Husam is very interested and loves to meet with us. This Wednesday is his twenty-fifth birthday and we are going to watch the restoration film with him in Arabic, that will be good. Then we are going to take him out for dinner. It will be good. Husam is just the cutest middle eastern guy ever, that's all you need to know.
Kevin, Usman, David, Samuel- Okay, these are obviously four different people, but they all came from Africa. I think all four of them came from Nigeria. No, I think that's wrong. I don't know. The point is that they all are from Africa and they are probably the sickest dudes I know. No doubt. They all come to our Hungarian class but they also come to all of our branch programs like Family Home Evening, Game night, Young Single Adults. It's so fun. When I first got to Debrecen, Sister Sellers told me about all of these people and at first I thought they weren't too interested in the gospel, more to hang out with the missionaries, but I met them a few weeks ago and we talked and they all are super religious and are open to talk about God. That's cool. Kevin actually came to church on Sunday, so that was really cool! I think they all are really legit, we just haven't been able to set up with them yet. Actually, this week we've set up with Kevin and Samuel. Usman is the elders, which they have met with him already but it's a working process. Works moving in Africa, I hear so it's not surprising that they are open to hearing the gospel message.
Lol, so did I mention that we have a new mission president and he's Hungarian? Probably the coolest guy ever. He's doing great things with this mission. A few weeks ago I got the "opportunity" to go to MLC, which is mission leadership council. It's like when all of the zone leaders and sister training leaders and have a meeting with our mission president. At first I was not very excited to go to this meeting. Three hours of training, in Hungarian, but it turned out to be a SUPER good meeting! I actually ended up taking some notes and I felt spiritually renewed after the meeting. Wow, that was super cliche, but it was true. I don't know how else to describe it. The point is that we had a really good meeting and I love our new president. He get's mad respect from me.
Oh did I mention we have a baptism this Saturday. Well, it's not "our" baptism, it's the elders, but we are so excited. Oh my goodness. I didn't write about our man boy, Hamid. Hamid is from Iran. He was actually a soilder in the army. It's a long story how he ended up in Debrecen Hungary. I won't explain all of it, but the important information about him is that he was in Sweedan, met with the missionaries there, got taught all of the lessons, had a bap date, then had to come to Hungary. Eventually he got hooked up with the elders here in Debrecen, they reviewed everything with him and extended a bap date, he accepted, and he will be meg lesz keresztelkedve (he will be baptized) on Saturday. We're so excited for him, he's such a great guy and so ready!
Some more great news, you all remember RR, our baptism down in Szeged. I was informed this week that 1. he invited one of his friends to church, he came, and loved it so much so he asked to meet with the missionaries. After their second program with him, he asked how he could be baptized so now he is on bap date down in Szeged (way to go RR being a missionary). 2. The elders down in Szeged acutally met RR's cousin on the street and invited him to church, the same day that RR brought his friend to church so RR got to church and was way surprised to see his cousin sitting in the chapel. haha. Now his cousin is meeting with the elders as well as his friend being on bap. date with them. 3. RR got the priesthood yesterday! Wooo! Everything is going great. Szeged is a land of miracles, I'm convinced.
This is pretty much my life these days. I love it. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but unfortnantly in two short months I will have to trade back reality for this life of happiness. I dread that day, but it is going to come whether I want it to or not. Just know that things are going super well here in Debrecen. I love it. Transfers are in two weeks so we will see what happens with that, but I'm sure everything will be fine.
Much Love,
Whitaker Nővér
I'm sorry that I haven't been the best on writing. Things got a little turnt and I haven't had a lot of time the last couple emailing sessions, but I'm here now and ready to tell you all about how exciting my last couple weeks have been.
First of all, since last email, Sister Sellers and I picked up another companion, Sister Dohm. Which makes Sister Sellers and Sister Dohm sister training leaders and I'm just kind of this awkward third person in their companion of leadership, but we've found a way to make everything work out and have been goin good ever since. Unfortnantly I have not taken near as many pictures as I should. You can say that I'm failing as a photographer of the great lands of Hungary, and I will not have any pictures next week, because I gave my camera to one of the members here in Debrecen who is going to a European Area Youth Conference in Romania and I thought he'd want to take a few pictures, as he doesn't have a camera. Sooo, next week I might be able to swipe a few of my companions pictures, if they take some. In general, we don't take a lot of pictures, but we'll try harder this week.
Okay, so I am in Debrecen, which is another college city (just like Szeged- I miss that place so much!) which means there are TONS of young people here and not just young but there is such a diversity of people in this city. People literally from all over the world come here to go to college.
So that being said, most of our investigators (99.4% of them) are foreign young kids who have come over for school, but let me tell you, they are the most legit people ever. Let me tell you about our little diverse group of friends.
Yael.. Yael is pretty much the sweetest girl ever. Yael is from Israel and has been studying in Debrecen for a few years now. By the way, she has been the BYU's deal in Jerusalem, how cool. She is studying to be a doctor (i forgot what branch) and loves it. Her first language is Hebrew so unfortantly we can't get any materials in her mother language, but of course, she speaks English so we can still teach her and give her english materials and she understands them pretty well. All of the foreign people that come to the University of Debrecen have three language choices that they can learn by, Hungarian, English, or German. The majority of the foreign students learn through english, obviously. Anyways, she is the sweetest. We didn't even street into her or tract into her. She actually went on to mormon.org and requested a Book of Mormon and asked to meet with the missionaries in Debrecen. This was all on her own. That was the first sign that she was legit. The second was when we actually met her. We taught her the first half of The Plan of Salvation, after we had talked about everything we asked her if she had any questions and she had a few questions, which we answered accordingly, then we asked if she had liked everything that we had taught up until now and she said "Yeah, I really like this and I can't wait to learn more about what happens after our life here in on earth." I was pretty much fel van dobva (on cloud nine). I had never had someone tell me that they couldn't wait to learn more about what I'm called to teach. Usually it's more of a "Yeah, I like this, it sounds nice," or something along those lines, but she was more than excited for our next program with her.
Before we met with her for the second time she had gone home to have her brother help her study for one of her big exams. I guess Israel is just a three hour flight so she just hopped on the plane and went back to Israel. Some days go by and we get a call from Yael and she says that she had just thought about us and wanted to call us to see how we were doing. Can I say adorable. That moment when your investigators daily contact you (RR, and now Yael). Then she asked us if we wanted her to bring us back anything from Israel. How sweet is this girl? Too sweet! We told her that we weren't picky and that we'd accept anything she brought back for us, only if we could pay her and she said "I only accept hugs as a method of payment." Oh my gosh, what a sweetie.
Yael eventually came back and got to meet with her again, she ended up bringing us back some crazy Israelian food and some good chocolate too.
Her next meeting we planned to teach her the second half of the Plan of Salvation and thought that would be good, based on her excitement about the first half, but then we got in there and started to review the first half again and she had some really good questions that we answered and before we knew it, time was up so we only got to earth life again, but we can move on next time, with a sure knowledge that she really understands the first part. Oh Yael is so great.
Husam- Oh my goodness there is not a more precious man on this earth than Husam. Husam is from Iraq and is studying at the Debrecen University to be a doctor. We met Husam on the street while talking about Hungarian class. Oh, I guess I haven't talked about that. In addition to English class, we also teach Hungarian class because so many foreign people are here to study, but they don't know how to speak Hungarian so we try to help them to at least get the conversation starters/basic questions down so they can get around Hungary. Husam accepted our Hungarian class flyer and we started talking to him, on the street, about why we are here and our purpose as missionaries. From the very beginning he was interested and asked us to explain more about our work, but we were on our way to a program so we got his number and told him that we would love to explain our calling as missionaries if he would like to meet sometime. A few day later we called him and set up a program with him at the branch house. It was neat to see his reaction when we told him what we are doing here in Hungary. He was very impressed by our desire to be here and our discipline of not wimping out and going home because our families and homes are missed to us. We gave Husam an arabic Book of Mormon and had him read Moroni 10 3-5 to us. That was so cool, even though it was in this super strange language that he was reading right to left, upside down, sideways I still felt the spirit and it was a good experience. Husam is very interested and loves to meet with us. This Wednesday is his twenty-fifth birthday and we are going to watch the restoration film with him in Arabic, that will be good. Then we are going to take him out for dinner. It will be good. Husam is just the cutest middle eastern guy ever, that's all you need to know.
Kevin, Usman, David, Samuel- Okay, these are obviously four different people, but they all came from Africa. I think all four of them came from Nigeria. No, I think that's wrong. I don't know. The point is that they all are from Africa and they are probably the sickest dudes I know. No doubt. They all come to our Hungarian class but they also come to all of our branch programs like Family Home Evening, Game night, Young Single Adults. It's so fun. When I first got to Debrecen, Sister Sellers told me about all of these people and at first I thought they weren't too interested in the gospel, more to hang out with the missionaries, but I met them a few weeks ago and we talked and they all are super religious and are open to talk about God. That's cool. Kevin actually came to church on Sunday, so that was really cool! I think they all are really legit, we just haven't been able to set up with them yet. Actually, this week we've set up with Kevin and Samuel. Usman is the elders, which they have met with him already but it's a working process. Works moving in Africa, I hear so it's not surprising that they are open to hearing the gospel message.
Lol, so did I mention that we have a new mission president and he's Hungarian? Probably the coolest guy ever. He's doing great things with this mission. A few weeks ago I got the "opportunity" to go to MLC, which is mission leadership council. It's like when all of the zone leaders and sister training leaders and have a meeting with our mission president. At first I was not very excited to go to this meeting. Three hours of training, in Hungarian, but it turned out to be a SUPER good meeting! I actually ended up taking some notes and I felt spiritually renewed after the meeting. Wow, that was super cliche, but it was true. I don't know how else to describe it. The point is that we had a really good meeting and I love our new president. He get's mad respect from me.
Oh did I mention we have a baptism this Saturday. Well, it's not "our" baptism, it's the elders, but we are so excited. Oh my goodness. I didn't write about our man boy, Hamid. Hamid is from Iran. He was actually a soilder in the army. It's a long story how he ended up in Debrecen Hungary. I won't explain all of it, but the important information about him is that he was in Sweedan, met with the missionaries there, got taught all of the lessons, had a bap date, then had to come to Hungary. Eventually he got hooked up with the elders here in Debrecen, they reviewed everything with him and extended a bap date, he accepted, and he will be meg lesz keresztelkedve (he will be baptized) on Saturday. We're so excited for him, he's such a great guy and so ready!
Some more great news, you all remember RR, our baptism down in Szeged. I was informed this week that 1. he invited one of his friends to church, he came, and loved it so much so he asked to meet with the missionaries. After their second program with him, he asked how he could be baptized so now he is on bap date down in Szeged (way to go RR being a missionary). 2. The elders down in Szeged acutally met RR's cousin on the street and invited him to church, the same day that RR brought his friend to church so RR got to church and was way surprised to see his cousin sitting in the chapel. haha. Now his cousin is meeting with the elders as well as his friend being on bap. date with them. 3. RR got the priesthood yesterday! Wooo! Everything is going great. Szeged is a land of miracles, I'm convinced.
This is pretty much my life these days. I love it. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but unfortnantly in two short months I will have to trade back reality for this life of happiness. I dread that day, but it is going to come whether I want it to or not. Just know that things are going super well here in Debrecen. I love it. Transfers are in two weeks so we will see what happens with that, but I'm sure everything will be fine.
Much Love,
Whitaker Nővér
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