Notes from Kaposvár

Hello again! 

First news is that the baptism last week did not go through. We still don't have a font (although Elder Martineau and I went out to a nearby lake to scout it out for baptism spots), the real problem is we haven't been able to meet with our investigator all week, crazy work again. Kaposvár just had it's first murder in probably a decade so that's not helping (don't worry Mom, it's still a very safe city). So we prettty much have no idea what is going on with her, we just keep praying.

We did have some good success finding this week. With the nice weather we have abandoned the 10 stories and moved to the normal houses, they have some gorgeous dogs out there. We also found some great people. Early in the week one man let us right in and gave a Book of Mormon, had a good talk. Only problem is he believes his time in the military under the Russians destroyed any hope he has of being religious. He also offered us pálinka (homemade alchohol) and "hard drugs". We stuck with fanta and the scriptures. Hopefully he reads. Hopefully everyone reads.

Then on Saturday we met 2 people we were able to return to yesterday, taught them both the restoration. The first man was a little hard to teach because he kept going on tangents about the government, aliens, and underground Catholic hideouts in Turkey dating from 200 BC. He was accepting of our message though. He also pointed out a fun pun in Hungarian. Whenever we say God gave his power to prophets, it also means God gave 6 apples to prophets.

The second was an old couple, the husband was very quite, mostly just listened as we taught his wife. She loved it though, was super touched that we gave her a Book of Mormon, came out to share this message. In tears at the end of the program. God is putting people in our path that want to hear our message, it is super cool.

Also, when walking down the same street I overheard a few Néni's on the other side of the street talking about us. They were actually saying super nice stuff. That made my day, there are people that appreciate us.

Final thought, the more I read the scriptures the more I realize I don't understand them and need to read them more. God gave us the instruction manuel for how to get to heaven, we just need to read it.

The weather is actually starting to get hot here. It is beautiful!

Have a wonderful week!

Parkinson Elder

Trains

Spring is going strong here in Hungary, and our suitjackets just came off. It is feeling good.

We are hoping to have a baptism on Saturday, but we still haven't been able to find a place to do it. The spot they usually use in under rennovation and we haven't found another one yet. Satan is defintely working on this one. Our investigator works for the police and for the past week every time we get a program set up she has gotten emergency called in the day of the program and had to cancel. She still made it to church after working a long shift last night though, she wants to be baptized. Where there's a will there's a way.

We had a Zone Training on Thursday in Dunaújváros on working with members, member missionary work. That was super good, we've already used some of the ideas we got from the training and it has gone well so far. The travel was a little less ideal, it was a 3 hour train ride where we had to switch trains twice, and on the way back after waiting for an hour to get on the second train we accidently got on the wrong train back to Dunaújváros. So we had to go there and back again, wait another hour in Pusztaszabolcs, and then catch the right train. In my defence the train we wanted came in as 1, and then split in 2 on the platform and went in 2 sepererate directions. On the bright side we were able to share a little about the Plan of Salvation with a women on the next train so maybe it all was supposed to happen.

We have switched our tracting area to actual houses instead of apartments, it has worked out well so far. A lot of nice people, and some success. We met one really cool old man who had met with the church at the Washington DC visitors center when he lived there for 2 years, and he said he almost got baptized. Then he came back here and I guess he lost contact for over 10 years, very excited to meet again. That was a big morale boost at the end of a long day.

Fun story of the week. My companion cooks up some kolbász (basically sausage but better) with his eggs. Takes one bite and then has his throat set on fire. I go read the package, Pokolian extra csípős kolbász. Translation - Extra spicy kolbász from hell. We'll have to be more carefull when shopping in the future.

Keep reading the scriptures! Have a great week!

Parkinson Elder

Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeségetekért

I didn't know what to title this so I thought supercalifragilisticexpealidocious would be good but I decided to use the longest Hungarian work I know instead. Classic Hungarian, take a 5 letter word and add 8 endings and a prefix to make it more exciting.

First full week in Kaposvár, I now know my way around everything prety well. Switching cities is always difficult, that first week I have no idea what is going on. I have met pretty much everybody by now though.

We have some sweet investigators here, we should have a baptism later in the month and hopefully more will follow. We had 6 investigators in church on Sunday which was awesome. That is the good thing about moving to a new city - getting to meet all of the amazing people here.

The branch here is great too, a little bit bigger then Tatabánya, about 40 people in church on Sunday. We have an awesome branch president who has only been a member for a year. I really want to work on how we work with members. Out here I have quickly been able to develop Elder Parkinson's first law of missionary work, Referrals > Tracting (Referrals greater than Tracting). I've also been going through our Area Book at night looking at old investigators, I feel like a lot of people get dropped when transfers happen that I want to look back up. My last companion was also out here for 6 months earlier in his mission so I told him to send me some names.

I can't think of much else that has happened, I started reading through the New Testament this morning. I've been thinking about trying to read the standerd works on my mission. I might save the Old Testament until post-mission though, we only have so much study time out here.

I can't think of much else that happened this week. A guy form Guam bought us ice cream. The weather is getting hotter, we can start taking suit jackets off later this week.

Love you all, have a great week!

Parkinson Elder

Easter in Kaposvár

It's been a great last week, it feels like forever ago that I was sending my last email in Buda. Also, we had P-day this week on a Tuesday because Easter is a 2 day thing here, so they wanted us working on Easter Monday.

Kaposvár is a beautiful little city, I still don't know branch people very well because of General Conference, but those I have met are great. Elder Martineau is my new companion, he's a cowboy from St. George who has been here for a transfer. Super good worker except for weeks like this when he gets super sick and has to sleep a bunch. Luckily we found some nice soup packets at the store and now he is up and running again.

Conference this week was awesome. To quote our branch president - "When Satan goes to sleep he looks under his bed to see if Elder Holland is there". I believe that's true for all of our leaders. To me it seemed the big theme of conference was the family, a lot of talks on that. I also really liked hearing the parable of the sower as a missionary. I have seen the reality of seeds upon stoney ground out here, fast conversions to the missionaries that go inactive. I want to work more to convert these people to Christ. That is when they will stand strong through trials. My favorite part was the last 2 talks (for us at least), Elder Holland and President Uchtdorf back to back. It really made me think a lot about the atonement, how incredible it is, our role in relation to it. I read a lot in Romans this morning on the subject, chapters 3-7 are super good. It all comes down to giving our hearts to God so that through the power of the atonement he can lift us up.

We had a cool experience on the train ride out here, a man from England was sitting across from me, so we started chatting. He said he had seen a lot of anti-Mormon films, so I told him to go watch Meet the Mormons, and Elder Martineau had an English Book of Mormon so we were able to give that to him. It's so wierd meeting people all the time and hoping we helped them out when we will probably never see them again.

Some fun things this week. We went tracting yesterday and a nice old néni gave us some chocolate easter bunnies. Later my companion tried it and immedietaly spit it out. I looked at the ingredients list, turns out they had a bunch of alchohol in them. It's the thought that counts I guess. We also met an 88 year old man on the street who said he spent 10 years in Siberia after WW2. Another reminder to me that Hungarian history is intense.

Love you all, enjoy the spring!

Parkinson Elder