Off to the Big City

Transfer calls came in today. Big news, I'm headed to Budapest! I'll be on the Buda side (the city is split into Buda, Pest, and Kispest), which means I get the castle and a sweet view of Parliment. We'll have an actual ward, that will be exciting. My companion will be Elder Depallens, he is pretty old in the mission, I've seen him around a few times, but don't really know him. This should be a good transfer.

It'll be hard to leave Miskolc, I love this city. The work here is going super well here too, I finished off my stay here with a great week, we have a couple of cool new investigators and still some awesome old ones. Hopefully they turn into members at some point. I will also have to pack super fast, sometimes I think it would be nice if we had more then 24 hours notice on these things.

We finally got some people to come to church, we had 3 investigators there on Sunday. And the old Stake President (now in the Mission Presidency and over our area) came and spoke so it was super good. Our investigators thought it was great. Hopefully they keep coming.

Interesting story from tracting yesterday, we knocked on a door and heard an old lady calling for help. Apparently her leg hurt and she couldn't stand up. And she couldn't understand us well because old people have a terrible time with accents. We called the landlord and found another lady a floor up to help, they said they'd take care of it. Hopefully she turned out to be okay.

We also visited another castle today, it was awesome. Speaking of which, I got my camera to work today.  I haven't sent pictures for a while so I'll give you a bunch. You can decide if they are blog worthy or not.

Next time I write I'll be in Budapest! Have a great week everyone!

Parkinson Elder

They had a Christmas villámos​ (tram thing) running around Christmas. That's Santa on the front.

​The castle at night.

​The branch house, also super nice.

​Classic Hungarian ten stories. Also, notice how all roofs in Hungary are red.

​Our apartment was the top one between the statues. We had a nice place.

​Elder Loveland and I on top of a castle.

​Yes, they let us play with the real weapons. No, I don't know why my helmet has a beak.

​The full castle.

​This is Mancs, pretty much the Hungarian Balto. Not really sure what his story is but he's famous, and this statue is right outside our apartment.

​Baptism photo from a month ago. Ádám and Alexandra are in the middle, the other two are members, and then the Zone Leaders who taught Alexandra.

Simplicity

Really good week this week, but as always I have trouble remembering exactly what happened. I'll do my best.

We had some pretty solid tracting earlier in the week. I usually bring 2 Book of Mormons with me at all times, and the one time I forgot the second one on Thursday it turns out we could have used 3. But we are set up with one of them for tomorrow and gave the other a Plan of Salvation pamphlet, so hopefully it all goes well.

We're still having adventures with our awesome math teacher investigator. He's still incredible, but super hard to meet with because he's super busy. When we asked about baptism he gave a long response that was pretty much, Can I pray about it to see if this is what God wants for me and if so of course. I'll take that response any day, I'm excited to see where he goes.

We had Zone Training again this week. It was super good, the other Elders here did awesome, and we had President Smith come up as well. My favourite part might have just been at the start when all the new missionaries went up and gave short tesimonies. Simple but incredible. We have some awesome new missionaries here.

Sunday was a little disappointing again, we had no investigators show up at church. That is such an important step, we really need to get them to show up. Hopefully the future goes better.

I really liked a letter I just got from Dad about simplicity. The gospel is so simple, it is only when we try to mix in our own desires and priorities that it becomes complex. If we remove those and focus on what God has said, everything becomes very clear, even if that clarity is not exactly what we think should happen. It's all about trust.

Love

Parkinson Elder

It snowed!

We got the fist real snow of the year on Wednesday, it felt like the winter was finally starting. It's already all melted though and has started to get warmer, so I think winter might be ending again. I was expecting winters in Hungary to be a bit more harsh.

We had a solid week, a bit disappointing because we were expecting some new investigators to make it to church yesterday but they didn't show up. Good News though, apparently a new law just passed that will make all shops close on Sundays starting in the spring. I don't know the details, but that will be awesome, a lot of people work on Sundays so that will be a huge blessing and help to missionary work.

One of our best programs this week was a bit unplanned, a member showed near the end to come to a program right after, but that program had just canceled so she came in and talked with our investigator a bit, shared her conversion story, and they became great friends. Totally unplanned, but it worked out awesome. Those are the best times in missionary work.

We had a cool find this week, it was right after a man (same from last week's email) had tried to kick us out of the neighborhood. He got mad at us for trying to get into a building so we streeted in a big circle for a couple of minutes and then came back when he was gone. We that got in the building and found a cool man we talked to. Super nice, "Do you speak English (He was pretty much fluent), do you want to come in, let me take your coat, can I get you something to drink? (And he even knew ahead of time we didn't want alcohol)" Super nice, he is really interested in religion and how our church is different. We talked a bit and then set up for Wednesday.

We also had a member quote my favorite scene in the Lion King in a program. What does it mean to have the image of God in our countenance (see Alma 5, read entire chapter)? Consider the advice Rafikki gives to Simba right before Mufassa's ghost appears. Actually consider all of the advice Rafikki ever gives.

Something from General Conference (I got and read it through in December, so I'm a little behind) I've been wanting but forgetting to share. Everyone go read the scriptures more. And if you don't think you have time consider the talk from Elder Scott (I think it was him, I know it was an Apostle) in which he says reading the scriptures is more important than sleep, work, school, etc. So pretty much no one has excuses. The scriptures are awesome. Read them.

Love you all, have a wonderful week.

Parkinson Elder

A New Year

Happy New Year everyone!

This year has been super long and full of growth, looking back to starting my second semester at BYU seems so long ago, so much has happened since then. This year will be special as I will be a missionary for all of it.

We had a super good week here. The highlight of it was Gergő, one of the most incredible people I've ever met. We met at English class and got his number a couple weeks back and met once. He offered to say the opening prayer and said an incredible, humble prayer. We then met last week on Friday and Saturday and he came to all 3 hours of church on Sunday. He was getting along well with the branch members, and kept thanking us for the invitiation. It was an awesome fast and testimony meeting too so that helped. Anyway, he's awesome, I feel like he should be teaching us instead of us him sometimes.

We also had a cool experience where we tracted into a part member family. The kids are both super strong members, the son was the branch mission leader when I moved in, but the parents are not members. We talked with them and should start teaching them again now, hopefully that will work out.

I have started to really appreciate when people are just nice. Sometimes even when people some no if they are nice at the door it helps a lot. We were doing look ups last week of people who said to come back, and when we were trying to get into a building a guy came out and told us to leave. He then started walking down the street and yelling up to people in the buildings that the Jehovah's Witnesses were coming round so to watch out. It was great. Right after that we ran into a super nice man, he told us he was super sorry, he had people over, but can we come back Monday? Those little reminders that the world is full of awesome people, not matter how much it may not seem like it at times.

Lots of Love,

Elder Parkinson