Hallelujah!

The weeks are flying by. I keep feeling like I just barely wrote. We had a good week, we got invited over by members 3 times already this week and are off to some more tonight, so that has been a ton of fun. The perks of serving in a ward, working with members is always tons of fun. Give your local missionaries a chocolate easter bunny.

We got a really cool new investigator this week that we teach over skype. He got referred to the church by some member on an internet forum, and the secretaries sent him a Book of Mormon and some other stuff. He lives in a little town a good distance from any missionaries, so we skyped him. He was super legit, I love it when people really have a desire to learn, it makes our job so much easier. He would ask all the right questions and even asked us for a homework assignment he could do before the next time we talk. Super cool. It reminds me of last time I was here in Buda the Elder's were skype teaching a guy in Noway that Tom knew.

Easter should be awesome tomorrow. I started reading through the New Testament accounts of the Easter story this morning augmented by some Talmage commentary to prepare. It was super good.

I have been reading a bit in Jeremiah as well lately, and despite the reputation the Old Testament has for being dry it is actually super good. All about the scattering and gathering of Israel. I like reading through it as a missionary, because it talks about the work we are doing know, and reading about Jeremiah's life makes missionary work here seem really easy.

Happy Easter!

Parkinson Elder

Happy Holidays!

It's finally springtime here in Hungary. The weather is beautiful, despite the fact that there was apparently a blizzard in the hills on Tuesday (Elder Priest was on splits so I wasn't there, but he's also from Arizona so I'm not sure if I believe him). I do believe that he is a runner though, we have started going on some early morning runs, and he is fast.

We finally got our area mapped out and all of the members put up on it this week, and so we were able to put that into work a bit. We spent a bit of time looking up some members and tracting and streeting in their areas.

We spent a lot more time finding, we have a couple of potential investigators that we weren't able to meet with this week but hopefully will next week, and our one investigator canceled our teaching appointment. I have been working a lot to apply what we learned in the conferences, specifically to have a solid finding approach. There was one man that we stopped on the street on Wednesday with whom we were able to set up a time to go to his house on Friday, but when we went his doorbell ringer didn't work and nobody else would let us in the building, one said she there wasn't anyone of that name there that lived there. So we don't know if it was a bad address or just bad luck. He had been to church before so hopefully he will show up and we will be able to talk to him there.

Also, Elder Priest is playing the piano for an easter musical number tomorrow, so I got roped into singing a duet. Life lesson, take piano lessons.

We also had a national holiday on March 15th, so everyone was celebrating. The nice thing about missions is we get twice as many holidays to celebrate. For the rest of our lives.

I can't think of much else to write. Have a great week!

Love

Elder Parkinson

Line upon Line

First off, congrats to Hannah!

This week was awesome, we started it out with splits on Tuesday with the Miskolc Zone Leaders who are super awesome, we had a great day and found a couple of people we can hopefully go back to. There was one cool younger guy who let us in and we talked about the Book of Mormon, it went well, but I didn't think it was going great. We then asked if we could say a prayer before we left, and he asked if he could say it. He then said an incredible prayer, saying God, you sent these two boys to my door with a book and a lot of faith, and you know I have been open to this kind of thing lately, I'm interested to see where this goes. So we will hopefully go back to him on Monday and see what happens.

 We then had our mission tour with Elder Leimer of the 70, that took almost all of our time Wednesday through Friday, it was super good. All of the Zone Conferences went well, the first two were very similar, but the third one ended up being very different, it was really cool to see Elder Leimer adapt what he taught based off of the needs of the missionaries and the spirit. It was a bit draining, I was really tired by the end, but it was awesome.

That took up almost all of our time and made me forget about basically everything else, so that's all. Have a wonderful week!

Love

Parkinson Elder

Another Busy Week in Budapest!

The work here is still going fairly slow, but we had a couple of people that we were able to find who will hopefully start investigating. We were on splits on Tuesday and after a full day of finding Elder Martindale and I streeted a guy at night near a metro station. He had headphones in, and so at first he didn't hear and kept going, but then realized we were trying to talk to him, turned around, and we were able to talk. We weren't able to say a lot on the street but are set up to meet with him on Tuesday, so that's exciting. Also, headphone technology is really annoying as a missionary. And what is worse is when we think they are just listening to music and start talking to them and then realizing they are actually on a phone call. Technology these days is crazy. But I guess we need it to do our family history work. Anyway, the same day the other Elders also ran into a girl that Elder Priest had given a Book of Mormon to last transfer on the street, she has been reading it and taking notes, and now wants to meet. 

We will be having a mission tour next week by a member of the 70 so that should be awesome. We will be having 3 different Zone conferences and an MLC, so it will be busy.

We were able to go meet with a Serbian member family that I knew from when I was here last year, that was a lot of fun. When we were sharing the spiritual thought we had them read aloud a scripture in Serbian, and then we talked about it in Hunglish. They all speak 5 languages, it's crazy.

I honestly can't think of much else to write, but Elder Priest looks like he's writing a big long letter so if your still following him he might have more interesting stuff to say.

Also, it's strange that now when I introduce myself and talk about my family I can no longer say that half of my siblings on on missions as well. Maybe if they lower the age again David can get out before I come home. Or I could extend for 3 years...

Love

Parkinson Elder