Monday, October 24, 2011

24 October 2011 Letter (Nyiregyhaza)

Monday, 17 October
Another P-Day come and gone.  Today we had 3 lessons.  Although it was a P-Day, we met with L in the morning, tried to meet with A, who would've been a new investigator, in the afternoon, but we got dogged, and we had FHE at H's in the evening.  While it was nice to have work, it did break our P-Day into shorter segments and made it harder to do shopping and email.  In our lesson with L, she continued the whole "saved by grace alone" thing, and then we got held up talking about tithing.  I plan on limiting our lessons with her to less than one hour in the future.  Lastly, we watched "The Road to El Darado" today, the first movie I've seen while out here.  For a miracle I would have to choose the slightly warmer weather we had today.

Tuesday, 18 October
I'm currently on splits with Elder F.  This morning we met with M for the first time in weeks.  She really is kept busy by her new job at the factory.  We're going to meet again next week, and also start meeting with her daughter on a regular basis for English.  She offered us wine multiple times during our visit and had a hard time understanding that we will not drink any alcohol.

Met with D agian.  She's progressing, but so, so slowly.  We got some pizza from a restaurant tonight, and Elder M and I found 19 bone fragments on our slices, each about the size of half a dime.  Last of all, while streeting I decided to turn onto the campus of a nearby college, and we spent nearly an hour walking around, and trying to see if we could advertise the Church or Angolora there.  While there we ran into H.  It's quite a small world.  My miracle came as a realization about the great blessing of America's standing, past and present, on religious freedom.  That's something that has existed from the founding of our nation, and will hopefully continue to last for a long time.

Wednesday, 19 October
Today I spent the day filling the role of senior companion while on splits with Elder F.  Today was a good and successful day.  We started by teaching L who informed us that she will be out of town the next couple weeks, so we won't be able to meet.  We swung by R's reestablished contact with him, spent 40 minutes talking to him, shared a quick lesson, and set up a lesson for next week.  While he hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon, he has been praying regularly.  I also started setting up our Facebook finding efforts.  We went tabling and found a Neni who said she knows a member of our Branch, said she likes what she's seen of our Church, and hopes to attend Sacrament Meeting this weekend with two of her sons.  Today's miracle also happened during tabling when a man with a camera walked up.  In short, he runs a page in the local newspaper, and wanted to advertise our giving away free books, so he asked a couple questions, brought a young woman to pose with us, and took a couple pictures.  Hopefully that actually gets advertised.  That would be quite fun.

Thursday, 20 October
Two more programs fell though today, but luckily we still taught four.  With M we reviewed the Plan of Salvation.  Luckily her hand is starting to do better.  We also taught B and A a second time; however we aren't sure how interested in the Church they actually are.  And last of all we had Angolora. This week went better than last week's class, but it is still taking some getting used to.  I know I've written about memory before, but the miracle I want to remember today is still having my Patriarchal Blessing memorized and always being able to think of the blessings in it.

Friday, 21 October
We met with two new people today.  The first was X, who we are meeting with in part to teach English.  We aren't quite sure how interested she is in the gospel yet, but will find out in future lessons.  We also met with S, who's one of the oldest members in the Branch (in how long she's been a member, not actual age).  She's been a member for 16 years.  Her conversion story, of a friend simply inviting her to church is today's miracle.  While at her house, one of her cats kept staring up at the ceiling light.  It was fun and interesting to watch its pupils shrink to 1/5 of their normal size, and get the cat-eyes with the little slit.  On our way back to our apartment, a Neni chased us down on her bike.  She said all kinds of strange things, and grabbed our hands to make a prayer circle.  It freaked us both out a little.

Saturday, 22 October
Tracting and streeting are still proving unsuccessful.  After eight weeks, and several dozen hours, we've never managed to meet with a single person we've found while streeting, and M is still the only person we've really found while tracting, and she's been able to meet less and less lately.  The only lesson we had was with M2.  I was in charge of the lesson today.  It went well for the first 30 minutes, but during the last ten we started talking about baptism and learned that she still believes in the Catholic version of it.  It made it really easy to choose a topic for our next lesson with her.  The miracle today was having someone from Angolora call and say they want to start meeting for private lessons, outside the usual class, which will mean we can give her a 30 minute spiritual thought each time we meet.  Tonight we got with the other Elders and made Tacos.  That has been the most American food I've eaten while out here.

Sunday, 23 October
I am so stuffed, and feel both content and a little miserable (but that part is getting better).  We had a lesson at 3:30 with a woman who fed us the biggest meal I've eaten on my mission.  It was 5 courses and she was so pushy about having us eat it.  It was so good, but also so much food.  The hardest part though, was that within 40 minutes of finishing we went to another lesson where we were fed again....why?....why couldn't we get those kinds of lessons on different days?  Anyways, it was all great food and now I'm going to go experience the miracle of sleep. (Also, the Neni that Elder F and I found while tabling didn't come to church with her two sons, nor did the advertisement appear in the newspaper).

That's all I have for this week.  Talk to you next week.

Szeretettel,

Shipp Elder

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