26 September 2011 Letter (Nyiregyhaza)

I don't have very much to email this week as this was a pretty dead week and there's been less time than usual since my last email.

Wednesday, 21 September

Not a lot got done today.  We had personal and companionship study for the first time since Saturday.  We visited a really kind, old Neni for an hour and a half, missed our program with a family, and finished our evening with a meeting.  Because we missed our P-Day, we were able to email a little bit today, although, not for too long.  I sent an email to my Kicsi, and hope they enjoyed it.  My miracle today was that, although we missed our lesson with a family, they saw us driving, pulled over, and we were able to reschedule for tomorrow afternoon.  We'll get to teach them after all!

Thursday, 22 September

Today we taught two people and did a whole lot of streeting.  The first lesson was mostly review, followed by obeying the law of the land.  The second lesson was good, although I only had a class of 3 today, and none were new.  Despite going streeting for 4 1/2 hours, we only found one person who seemed even remotely interested.  However, that is also when my little miracle occurred.  We found a man again we had met last week, got a new phone number for him, and will try calling him again later to see if he'll keep the reading commitments.  (We were also supposed to meet with the family from yesterday this afternoon, but we showed up 3 times at half hour intervals, and no one was there).

Friday, 23 September

Today I went Tabelling for the first time.  We found out that it's more effective.  Scripture Masteries are incredibly long, especially Joseph Smith History 15-20.  My fun miracle today was that my companion and I only had to fix breakfast today, as we were fed both lunch and dinner, neither of which were planned, nor were either expected.  I also learned horse Kolbasz tastes good.

Saturday, 24 September

We had only one lesson today, which was on the Law of Chastity.  As usual, we quickly got off topic.  Luckily, a memeber was able to come, and she really helped the lesson become refocused.  We went fliering and streeting for an hour.  We didn't manage to street anyone except one old Neni.  We're also almost out of fliers.  Tonight we had some Szalona.  It's average on taste, is unique, but is super unhealthy.  (It's basically the fattiest part of pig fat (around the part that's usually used to make bacon), and it's smoked, then you heat it up over a fire and drip the melting fat onto bread, like super fat butter).  For my miracle, it would be managing to give a pass-along card to the Neni, the only one we managed to street today.

Sunday, 25 September

It's hard to street or tract on Sunday.  Sacrament meeting today went well, but we weren't able to meet with anyone today.  We went fliering for three hours, and as we passed through a neighborhood, we saw a member riding past.  We stopped and talked for a little while.  She recently got a new job and works the night shift.  That was my miracle for today.  Lastly, the other Elders went out tabling this afternoon, and they had an angry drunk guy (in his early 20's) come up and shout at them, punch one Elder in the face, overturn their tables, and spit repeatedly on the Book of Mormon's.  The two Elders picked up the books and table and just walked back to their apartment with the guy still standing there yelling at them.  I'm not entirely sure what I would've done if I had been there.


Random thoughts:

- I had a bit of an idea during personal study earlier this week.  When teaching the "Word of Wisdom", why not read verses 18-21 first, make those promises of specific blessings that come from the commandment, and ask them what they think the commandment might be that promises such large blessings? (I'm assuming that they'd guess something pretty big).  Then tell them what the "Word of Wisdom" asks us to do, and show them how easy it is.  If wanted, it's a good opportunity to share the story of Naaman, and show that we don't always need to go on big quests for miracles, but sometimes just small, easy things.

- Scripture Mastery are incredibly long, and they don't teach all the parts of most of them in seminary, but I figured there's a reason why all the verses were chosen, so I've been trying to start to look at those.  For example, in JSH 1:15-20, most people focus and memorize just the first vision, but there's more in there than that.  For example: the thought never occurred to Joseph that all the many churches could be wrong.  Joseph was a lot further spiritually than most of the people I'm encountering, and it's really making me wonder how many of them have even considered that all the other churches could be false, and the importance and significance of finding the one true church.

That's all I have for this week.  I look forward to reading all of your emails that I printed out.

Talk to you all next week!

Szeretettel,

Shipp Elder