I'm Singin' in the Rain!

Yesterday was a big national holiday (Day of Pentecost), so everything was closed, including the library. So we are emailing today. Next week is transfers so I'll be emailing on Tuesday then as well.

The good thing about the holiday yesterday is that almost no one worked, and so we finally got to meet with J., the man who wants to get baptized but we haven't been able to meet for a while. He is such a good man, just life is hard. We need to get him married too, and we can't just have the bishop or branch president do that here, it has to be done by a city official or something, and that costs money. He said something in the program I really liked "all these (the commandments) are easy, it's life that is hard". I feel him on that one.

It's been raining most of the past week on and off, mostly just a light drizzle, just enough that people are much less likely to talk with us on the streets. We did spend some nice time back in ten stories, I haven't tracted those for a while, so it was fun to go back to. One day it was raining and we went out, Elder Martineau suggested a prayer before we decide what building we go to, and afterwards we started trying to get in. I had to go through the top 5 floors before anyone would let us in the building, but as we went through the next 5 floors we had 2 people that said we could return, a good lesson in patience.

We also got a good bike ride in the other day doing a look up from the area book, a lot of hills. We made it out there though and found a nice big family, not interested in meeting any more though. But right after that we met with another old investigator, and were able to meet a family friend, nice 24 year old guy who is looking for God. So we gave him a Book of Mormon and got his number, God places people in our path who are ready, it is so cool.

Last week of a great transfer ahead, it should be awesome. We'll see what happens on Tuesday.

Love

Parkinson Elder

Trains and Name Days

I'll start of with a bit of Hungarian trivia- in Hungary there are only about 500 different names, and no other names are allowed. Then each name has it's own special day, so everyone here has a name day, pretty much just an extra excuse to party and probably break the Word of Wisdom. Why is this important? Today is my name day! Boldog Név napot nekem! (Happy Name Day to me!)

This week felt a little slow, we had interviews in Budapest, Zone Conference in Dunaújváros (overall 12 hours of train time), and Elder Maritneau has been a little sick (if you are his parents reading my blog he is doing wonderful, no need to worry, your son is awesome), so we didn't get to spend as much time working as usual.

We had a cool experience on Saturday, in one short block of streeting before a program the first and only person we talked with accepted a Book of Mormon and said we could meet later, after the program we went tracting and at the first door we gave out a Book of Mormon and they said we could come back later as well. That felt nice, it is moments like that that make all the rejection worth it.

I can now officially say I've been bit by a dog on my mission. There are a lot of dogs when we go tracting, usually pretty nice, often loud. I try to pet them a lot so they won't bark and I feel it breaks the ice with the people at the door if they see I am petting their dog, but this week one nice looking dog suddenly lunged at my hand. I think he really just wanted the Book of Mormon in it, but he knicked one of my knuckles instead. Not much, but it drew about half a millimeter of blood, so I can make a good story out of it now.

I've seen a couple of Kuvaszok during my mission tracting, they are huge! They always were pretty nice, I don't remember if I petted any of them but I don't think any of them tried to bite me. I'll search for them this week and let you know if I find any.

Also, on the animal theme we have a nice bird nest with some babies right outside our apartment. I think the baby birds just left the nest a couple of days ago.

This week I hit my year mark as a missionary, time has been flying so fast. We'll find some new investigators to celebrate.

Parkinson Elder

Looking for a baptismal font spot

Stork's nest

The field is yellow, all ready to harvest

Bird's nest by apartment.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day again to Mom! It was great skyping with you all. Although now that we just talked I'm not really sure what to talk about.

We had Stake Conference on Sunday, we were able to watch it on brodcast from the branch house in Kaposvár. The Stake President gave a super good talk at the end, he gave a sweet extended annalogy to the Lion King. We are all like Simba.

We had some more good finding this week. We had a good let in where we could teach the restoration, the Lady couldn't believe we gave out free Books of Mormon. When I said that not everone excepted them she said, "why not, it's the truth!". That's what I keep thinking! So hopefully she enjoys that. She also had some Catholic friends come over when we were there that she tried to pull into the program, they were not interested at all, but she said she'd talk to them later about it. Also, as we were walking out in old lady was walking by that yelled, I know these boys, I met them on the main street. I guess she talked with missionaries at some point too.

We did splits this week, so I was with Elder Winkle for the day. It worked great because we had programs that day with both of our athiest investigators, and both of us have a special place in our hearts for athiests. The programs went super well.

Love you all, enjoy the springtime!

Parkinson Elder

Fasting and Prayer

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Love you Mom! Hungarians celebrated Mother's Day yesterday, I'm looking forward to skyping on Sunday!

Some big news came in yesterday night, our Branch President (and ward mission leader, also a convert of about a year, basically awesome) called us up and said that he had gotten in contact with Z., our investigator that had a baptism date who we have been out of contact with. We haven't met for 3 weeks and it was looking like she might have dropped us. Prayer and Fasting works, he set up a time for us all to meet later this week. Awesome news!

We've been working a lot this week with another investigator this week, he knows everything is true and wants to be baptized (he asked us for a baptismal date), so we are working with him to get there. It was super humbling teaching him, super kind but has a very hard life. We had a super good fast and testimony meeting yesterday which I think helped, and he just found new work. Again, prayer and fasting works.

We also got to go out with the Millers (the senior couple here) to visit some less actives. One super humble home, they love the gospel, are trying to scrape up the money to move closer to Kaposvár so they can start coming to church.

Another fun fact about our ward, we have an older German couple here, she speaks fairly good English and some Hungarian, he doesn't speak much of either. So in church I translate to her and Sister Miller and then she translates to him. Works great except in Priesthood I just translate straight to him as best I can, when he has comments he types them into Google translate in German, and I translate the English into Hungarian for everyone else. I might have to start learning German soon.

Love you all! I can't wait for Skype next week!

Parkinson Elder

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