legacy.

October 14, 2013

Well, let us start with an exciting look into missionary life. This video (it's the one entitled Mit Lehet Tudni a Mormonokrol?) was filmed last transfer with the assistants to the presidents in our mission. The first elder is elder andersen, and he knows the law family super well. he goes home next week. It's in Hungarian... but why not check it out?

They are building a house next to where we live... and it is totally different than they build buildings in America. They don't even really use any wood in it. We had an investigator make fun of us for building our homes with so much wood. He kept telling us how they were going to just catch on fire and burn down so fast... meh. Whatever.

Speaking of wood... The mission leader here unexpectedly went to the hospital and he had been working on cutting all of this wood. So, they asked us if we could stack it. I thought, no big deal. We visited someone, and then went with the Steels out to stack it all. We were still in our skirts and everything... and first off--he lives off a dirt path and then off another dirt path and then we literally drove through a forest, and then we went off another dirt path and found it. Mind you, none of this happened quickly... And then we got there and there was actually a HUGE pile of wood... huge. So, we talked to this old 83 year old neighbor with a cow and a wheelbarrow and I asked if I could borrow it (wheelbarrow, not the cow) he said there was some corn in it and i should just dump it out, and when i dumped it, a scythe fell out too. Like, one of those curvy blade things that they use in the restoration video. To say we were out in the boonies means nothing. I loved it though. Super hard work. It took a really long time, but I really loved it. I haven't done service like that is a really long time. Most hungarians aren't all that excited about accepting service. We later went back and talked to the cute old bácsi man, and he just talked to us about everything. We talked him about tithing and about the law of chastity and about the restoration. He was so surprised that there could still be young, virtuous girls in the world, and I felt like it was a great compliment, even though he is an old timer, it still meant a lot. He actually kind of reminded me of brother Cox. It was a very nostalgic day. Made me think of Randolph too.

Speaking of Randolph...

I went to Szeged this week to give a training and I got to get a picture with the Smith's!! It is always so fun to see them and I always really like it. We gave a training in Szeged and it was really great. I guess a couple of missionaries really liked it, and as long as it was inspiring in some sort of way, then I am good with that. We gave out little treats from America and that was really fun. Scripture chases. We also went to a zone training in Miskolc (that is a longer story about how we didn't end up giving our training because of missing a train #missionaryproblems) and I really just love meeting together as missionaries. Like, we all have this goal of moving forward and success and being everything that we should be, and that can happen. They do farewell testimonies of the missionaries that are leaving at the end of the transfer, and just the way things work out, there are five elders going home next week, and then three weeks later the transfer really ends. But, we got to hear 3 of the 5 farewell testimonies. The one that really struck me the most was in the Szeged zone training. The elder was super composed and really well spoken, and then he talked about how sometimes he calls back old areas to check up on people he taught and worked with, and it always breaks his heart when the missionary says, you know what, they're actually inactive now. He just started crying and talked about how he knows he can go home because he did the work he could do, but that we have to keep up the work and keep doing our best. He said that he knows that the missionaries in the areas he was in are doing their best and that he is glad that they can be there now to help continue in the work he started. I just really felt like it was just this, legacy. Like, am I working hard enough to honor my "fathers"? The missionaries that have come before. I mean, they had goals and dreams and success, and failure, and what am I doing to help heighten the work that they started? I really, really liked everything he said. It even made me cry! But, hey, i am a sister missionary, it is all cool :) And then in Miskolc we were reviewing goals. We have a goal to get 200 baptisms this year in our mission, and we were talking about goals for this month to push us towards that, and we talked about the faith of our fathers, the zone leaders, and people that thought we could really do this. We can't give up now!! Gotta keep going. It was actually really inspiring. Super great.

This is us yesterday after church. What a surprise when our favorite Taiwanese friend walked into the chapel door wearing a suit!! I helped him kind of tie his tie during the opening song, but yeah. It was super cool to see him show up in a suit. I mean, having investigators come to church in the first place is really cool, but when they show up looking really good in a suit, that is just... awesome! I loved it.

 Sister Oberhansley and I were talking about musicals that we had seen and she asked me which show had the best costumes. It was just, really nice, because I love fabric, and I love clothes, and I love sewing, and I love costumes, and I love theatre. Sometimes I freak out, and I am like, what am I going to do when I get home!? And I am a crazy mess, inside, naturally, and it was nice that we just kind of talked about it and I still love it. I don't want to go home and go back to school to actually be something random and totally different... so that is good :)

Yesterday we had an hour to kill, so we went out streeting. That is when we talk to people... on the street! There are a lot of people here from different countries. Most of the time we've got Africans and Middle Easterners. We stopped this really tall guy from Nigeria and started talking to him about how we are missionaries and then he was like, okay. Tell me about your church. What? Coooool. So, we went over to a bench in front of a library and we just talked about everything. He had tons of questions, and he kept apologozing when he questioned what we were talking about, but I loved it. I read somewhere recently, that our church is all about questions. You should ask questions. But you shouldn't just ask, you should also be willing to find them. That is what Joseph Smith did. So, we just invited his questions and we ended up talking for quite a long time... He sees so many churches and they all say they are true, so, how is he supposed to know which one really is true? Great question. We will be talking on Wednesday so he can understand more about that. We referred him to mormon.org and gave him our names so he could look up our profiles. Hope my profile isn't super lame!

Well, the church is true. I love it.

Sok szeretettel,
Kennedy novér