Rolling in the Heat

Summer is rolling around in full now, this week it was in the 30's and humid, luckily the city put up a misting thing on the main street, basically a big arch that sprays mist, a great way to cool off. The mayor just won my vote.

This week we had difficulty setting up with a lot of people. Our finding was super good though, we had a lot of people we talked to tracting and on the streets, the only problem is that we have had a hard time setting up with them again as well. And one man we had a super good talk with at the door and gave a Book of Mormon answered the phone yesterday saying super quickly that there was a misunderstanding and he doesn't want to meet. I suspect he Googled us and found some bad stuff.

We did have a really great streeting experience the other night, I started talking to a guy on the street, and following the idea from another Elder in the district I asked if I could share a favorite scripture from the Book of Mormon. Right when I finished a big bachlourette (no idea how to spell that) party walked up, from what I understood one of the girls told the guy he was supposed to eat the candy that was tied on a necklace around her neck, all the other people whipped out Iphones. At this point I'm thinking, well, there goes the spirit and now we're about to be all over facebook. Luckily he turned them down and asked if we could keep talking on a bench nearby. We had a great talk and were able to give his number to the Pest Elders (he lives in Pest).

We also had some great pinch hitting from the other Elders, Elder Winkel (same one with the scripture sharing idea) made a deal with one of our investigators that he wouldn't drink energy drinks or soda for the rest of the transfer if she wouldn't drink alchohol for the same amount of time.

J. is also officially in Switzerland now, at first we thought he wouldn't go, because his friend was having trouble leaving behing his pet king pythons, but I guess they worked it out, he called Sunday morning and said he was off. I hope he can continue to progress there.

I also finished the New Testament, now on to D&C. I love the scriptures.

Enjoy summer vacation back home! Stay classy!

Love,

Parkinson Elder

Been a While

The library didn't have internet last week, so we weren't able to email. I'm still alive. A lot has happened in the last two week, we had a mini transfer a week before the transfer and so I got put in a trio for a week, and now I am with Elder Lee, who is starting his second transfer.

Sad to hear that Elder Perry passed away. Our Branch President was out of town so Elder Miller was conducting church and announced it, I was translating for him when he said it, so it took me by suprise.

We had a big art festival in Kaposvár last weekend, booths lining the streets selling stuff and live music. It made for a lot of really good streeting time, the streets were packed all day, the only problem is we live a block from the main square and the music was still going strong at 10:30.

We had a fun last P-day last week, we went out biking through a little trail in a nearby forest, and founf a small lake a a natural spring to drink from (none of us brought water).

We had some good teaching moments as well this week. One sad moment was that J. will be moving to Switzerland in a week for work. It will be a big blessing for his family because he will make much better money, but I will miss him. He is planning to attend church still, and I know we have at least 2 Hungarians serving there so hopefully we can put them in contact with him.

We also had an investigator who finally read the Book of Mormon. I ask every time we meet and she always said no, but at the end of last program she said she would and called later saying she had read and liked it. That was sweet. She also fasted yesterday. I'm starting to not believe her claims to being athiest.

We had a couple great let in's while tracting, one was a lady who said she wasn't really interested, but offered us some water. We accepted so she let us in (she actually gave us apple juice). We talked with her and her husband for a little bit, and then he asked us what news we had brought. So we taught them a quick restoration. They said we could come back in the future, so well see how that goes. We also had another awesome one, after 3 long hours of tracting in the heat a lady let us in before we even said who we were. We met the husband and said we were missionaries, and so he asked what our message was. We shared the restoration and Book of Mormon with them, they loved it. She skimmed through the first 100 pages in the program, kept pointing out similarities to the Bible. I see lots of potential there.

That is about it summer has come around, it is starting to get hot. Luckily my companion is from California so he's good with the heat.

Congrats to Mike and Mindee on the wedding and to Ben on the mission call!

Love,

Parkinson Elder

Staying in Kaposvar

We didn't hear from Elder Parkinson this week.  The library computers were down so they called the Millers, the senior couple in the area, and asked them to tell us they'd email next week.

Transfer calls were this week.  Elder Parkinsons' companion is transferring to Szeged and he will get a new companion named Elder Lee.  Elder Parkinson will become the district leader in Kaposvar.

We are looking forward to more information next week.

Karen 

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