Long time no write

So the fun thing about having 2 P-days within 4 days of each other is that not a lot of new stuff happens to write about.

Kispest ended on a good note, we got to have a really good last teaching with V. after a couple of crazy days beforehand, so that was a relief. It was weird not having to travel far again for transfers. After taking trains across the country for most of my mission I haven't traveled anywhere far for a long time. Anyway, we got to have the new missionary training which was fun, and dinner with the Szabadkai's and a departing missionary. Sister Szabadkai is a really great cook.

We had MLC on Friday which was fun. We had some guy from the area come down and talk to us about the churches 12 step program for quitting addictions, and how to use that. It's a good idea for implementation, because of lot of people here have addictions of some kind. I guess that's true for most of the world.

Also, this computer has spell check in English on. Really helpful. Spelling is hard.

I can't really think of anything else to write, really not a lot has happened since Tuesday. I'll write more next Saturday.

Have a great week!

Parkinson Elder

Moving Right Along...

Transfers again this week. I will be out of Kispest, but staying in the big city, going back to my old area of Buda. So the same ward I was in earlier (although I was only there for a transfer so don't know them super well).  This time I will also be serving as one of the assistants to President Szabadkai. So we'll see what happens with that. I think I will probably be emailing on Saturdays in the future because of that, just a heads up.

It was a fun week to end in KisPest, we found out a less active member we were working with was helping a friend with a move, so we got to help with that. That was a ton of fun.  It is nice to do some good physical labor.  Honestly it was also nice to do some work and be able to see direct results of it. We carry a bunch of stuff up stairs, now the cellar is empty. In missionary work it takes a lot of faith a lot of times to believe that our efforts are doing something, especially on some of those days when they really don't seem to be. So yeah, that was nice. We also got to try and break into a safe.

On that note, we had some good results to our missionary work as well. We had a good lesson last Monday with a new investigator we had met tracting right after she lost her job. She prayed for God to send help and we knocked about 30 minutes later. She couldn't meet then but we finally met Monday, had a good first lesson, she was Catholic and at first as we talked about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon she seemed pretty passive in regards to it, then the three of us (us and a member) took turns bearing testimony of the Book of Mormon and how it has helped us, and her countanence changed. We haven't been able to coordinate another meeting since but hopefully she will read and pray.

We had a little bit of a rollar coaster again with V. he is signed up to give the spiritual thought this week after English class so that will be good for him. Hopefully we should be meeting with him tonight and I'll get to say goodbye. It's been quite a journey with him, I've learned at least as much from him as he ever learned from us.

I also had an interesting thought this week. Whenever life is getting rough just imagine your life as if you were in a muppet movie. It makes it way better.

Love

Parkinson Elder

Dear to the Heart of the Shepherd

Dear Family,

Long week. But most if it is probably to long and complicated for this email so ask me when I get back.

Stuff that did happen- We were able to meet with a couple of solid less active members, they all went really well, none of them ended up making it to church which was a dissapointment, but hopefully this next week will be better.

We had another experience of being kicked out of one building and then getting let in twice in the next one. And to be fair I don't really blame the one guy for kicking us out, he was the first on the list as we were ringing in, said no, the next person let us in the building, we guessed the building layout wrong and were looking for door number 9 on the top floor, there were only 5 doors, so we ended up in some wierd area with the boiler room. When we came out the guy opened his door, and asked us what we were doing back there. We tried to explain but he told us to leave. Maybe if I had a more colorful tie on it would have looked less sketchy. 

Transfers will be next week, so I'll be writing on Tuesday.

This was kind of a lame email, I'll try to write a better one next week.

Love

Parkinson Elder

The God of Israel lead the Camp!

Busy week, I'll try to remember what happened.

We got to watch the world wide missionary broadcast on Wednesday, that was really good. A lot on just focusing on the basics, teaching about faith in Christ and repentace according to the Spirit. We then had a Zone Conference the next day, We talked a lot together about the broadcast and how we can apply it in our work. We also wathced a clip from the church history films on Zion's camp, I think it applies really well to all of us, how our most important job is to keep the commandments and God will lead us (On that note I read a talk by Elder Bednar in which he compared Moses 1:39 with D&C 11:20. Mind=Blown).

 I was then thinking of that the next day when tracting, we only had a little bit of time, and we were squeezing in an hour of tracting between weekly planning and a few RCLA's (we have a new mission goal to tract a hour a day. Well by new I mean 6 months ago but is has been re-emphasized), and we had one lady not be very nice to us early in on, and then soon after got kicked out of the building we were in. So it wasn't the best start, but I remembered back to the Zion's camp thing and we just kept at it trying to do our job, we ended up getting let in soon later by a guy in the next building who likes american basketball, american country music he needed help translating, and said he would come to church (he didn't, but maybe next time). Anyway, it was cool to see how the failure and getting kicked out of one building led us to success in the next building. It's all about God's timing. Sometimes it doesn't work that fast but it's nice when it does.

V. was having a pretty rough week this week, so we spent a lot of time with him. It's just a reminder that the consequences of sin can be lasting even if we repent, he has made so much progress, but after so many years of alchoholism he has a lot to rebuild in his life, and not a lot of experience. So we have been trying to help him as best we can, and the ward members are still giving him great support.

We had some cool programs with a few less active people, hopefully we can get some of them back to church.

It snowed again, and this time it was sticky. One day when tracting we saw a guy make a small snowman in the courtyard of the building. By the time we had gotten to the bottem it had fallen over, so we put it back up. Daily act of kindness. Doesn't seem like much, but I was able to build my first snowman in at least 2 years so that was sweet.

Love

Parkinson Elder

Knocking on Doors

Dear Familyl,

Ever since V. has gotten baptized things have been pretty quiet, meeting with him so often made me forget about how few other people we were meeting with. He did pass the sacrament this week though. And just got called as ward organist.

We spent a lot of time tracting, we actually got let in a couple of times, we were able to teach the restoration and give out some Book of Mormons. It's so great teaching something that makes so much sense. We had one guy let us in, we were talking about why the restoration was important in connection to the priesthood authority and baptism, he said, well what about all those people that lived between the Savior and Joseph Smith. Great question, the spirit world and baptism for the dead. He said it made a lot of sense, I'm just hoping he prays about it and reads the Book of Mormon.

We also had more success with some less actives. A couple more of them we were able to get into contact with. One of them we were talking with and realized that we had just talked with her daughter, also inactive, over the door phone a couple of days earlier, and are going back there tonight. Small little connections.

I can't really think of much else that happened, I am looking forward to that missionary broadcast on Wednesday.

Love

Parkinson Elder

Gathering Israel

This was a great week, we spent a lot of time doing some look ups on less actives, we had been trying to look all of them up by before the holidays ended, that didn't happen (lots of inactive people here in Budapest), so we are still going. We also have a ton of people to look up again that haven't been home. We were able to find one cool family that we went back to on Saturdaay for lunch, and were able to share a good message. They also have a son on a mission so we'll see what happens. For some reason I feel like I owe that missionary to take care of his family. He is doing his job, we'll try to do ours.

We have also had some cool success tracting the last few days, on Saturday we got let in halfway through our first building and were able to teach an older couple about the restoration (unfortunately they were not interested in hearing more), and yesterday the first people we talked to let us in and we were able to teach again about the restoration to a family. Hopefully we will go back to them, and they also gave us a neighboor as a referal. It was a good experience to feel that God was guiding us to those who would hear our message.

Also, here is a picture from the baptism.

V. is still doing great, he came to a teaching with us last week and was a big help, he is trying to serve as much as he possibly can. We had another investigator come to church on Sunday and during Sunday School V. shared his story and testimony for a bit. She asked us afterwards "how did you do that". We didn't do anything, it was V. and divine help. Anyway she said that was a testimony builder for her. So he's already changing lives.

Closing thoughts, the local store has this thing where you can fill a bucket of oranges and buy it for 950 forint (about 3 bucks). Thanks to some inside info I have in the spherical orange stacking buissness, we got 28 oranges.

Love

Parkinson Elder

New Year, New Life

Big news of the week, V. is a priest. He got baptized on Saturday, confirmed on Sunday, and then had a quick interview with the bishop and was given the priesthood during priesthood meeting. Also, speaking of priesthood meeting, we had 30 people there. And thats not even counting the Bishop and first counsler who were doing interviews. Thats possibly twice as big as the biggest priesthood meeting Ive ever seen here, and 10 times my first week in Eger. So the church is going well here in Budapest. 

V. said he feels like a completely new person, he looks like it too. He called us up last night and told us he was free all day and if anyone needed any help with anything he was ready to serve. Also, his mom came to the baptism and to church yesterday, hopefully we will start meeting with her as well. The ward members were great with that, after the baptismal service we had some snacks and she sat down by herself. I thought, I should go talk to her, make sure she is fine. 2 seconds later she was swarmed by a bunch of women who started chatting with her. Also, he played the organ at the baptism which was super cool. Did I mention he is self taught and can't read music?

Besides that I can't think of a ton that happened. We had a ward New Years party, which was a lot of fun, but none of our investigators showed up.

We had a couple of new people that we met with, including a guy from Italy that let us in and a guy from Argentina that told us we could come back. We also met with another really poor guy that is also apparently a really good pianist and oranist. Conincedence?

Oh, it also snowed today. Its officially winter. Its getting a lot colder too. I am starting to feel some sympathy it for those Minnesota missionaries back in the day.

My camera just died so I will send baptism pictures next week.

Love

Parkinson Elder