Hungary Budapest Mission

Hungary Budapest Mission

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

November 29, 2014

Dear Family,


Sorry I wasn’t able to email earlier, it looks like our p-days will for sure be on Saturdays every week. It’s been switching so much not even I can keep tract of it. But other news NEW COMPANION!!! Awwwwwww snap!!! And guess what . . . its Elder Blackman from my MTC group!! We are super stoked and we have already been having a ton of good times together! It’s been super hard though because this week with transfers and all the Christmas packages. But I can’t wait for Christmas; here it’s like the coolest thing ever. There are all these little shops that sell super cool stuff, tons of decorations all over the place and most people are just overall happier.


Work has also been going supa good. We had some super good programs with our investigator E, she had a ton of questions with the law of chastity but we only had like 15 min. so we just talked about it for a while and gave her a little pamphlet that talks about it and then the next day when we met she was like, "I read it and it literally answered all of my questions . . " and we were just like..."WOWOOOOWOOTT" because for a while she just could not understand why this commandment is important. So it was super awesome. We also had another program with our inv. A. who is an eternal investigator and is now just starting to progress. And it was awesome because we decided to talk about and focus on church, because he just would come randomly, and we really just promised blessings and shared our on personal stories and it was awesome. Afterwards when we asked him if he would come... he was still hesitant. But he ended up coming!! So hopefully he will come tomorrow.

Other than that... not to much going on. Just more secretary stuff, it’s always fun seeing the new missionaries and getting to meet them all. Yup, wish there was some more exciting stuff to talk about, maybe I need to break my ankle again . . . speaking of I’ll send some pics of it, when it first happened... but it’s a ton better now.

Anyways have a fantastic week!!!

Sok Szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS
November 17, 2014

Dear Family,

So this week was pretty intense. I should probably start off by saying that I sprained my ankle super badly while playing soccer and had to go to the Hungarian hospital; and now I have to wear a brace for 4 weeks and the past couple days I have used crutches. But it’s cool because It could’ve been a ton worse... I really lucked out and learned quite a bit from it. Literally right after I sprained it, I limped over to a bench and sat down and this lady came up and started talking to us and turns out she was a physical therapist!!! AND helped out on a soccer team!! So she gave us some awesome advice and helped quite a bit; it was super sweet! Then this member came up with the idea to sit me on a bike and lead me back to the branch house. This guy was super nice and he just kept trying to cheer me up all the way while he was guiding me back to the branch house. Then an investigator who also sprained her ankle super bad knew exactly where to go and what to say (because she was Hungarian and apparently the hospital people can be kinda dumb sometimes) so she came with us; and THEN we ran into a recent convert who worked at the hospital and he guided me around and helped with everything... I’m just soo grateful for all these amazing Hungarians… they’re truly the nicest people on earth.

I also remember that a while after it happened I said a little prayer in my heart and it was interesting to see that the pain didn’t go down, it still hurt quite a bit, but it was my attitude about it that changed. I also remembered the story of the elder who got egged and instead of getting angry he told his comp to take a picture; so I did the same and took a picture… sadly it’s on one of the other elder’s cameras, but I’m hoping that I can get it from him by next time.

So that’s kinda how consecration week ended… Apparently I didn’t sacrifice enough LOL. But our week was pretty tough considering there was a ton of stuff to do in the office. And my ankle is not working. But on the Bright side we had a super intense stake conference where two 70s came!!!! And the stake presidency for the one stake in Hungary was changed which was CRAZY!!! Because the last stake president was the first stake president in Hungary and has been for 8 years straight! Anyways both 70s were sooooooo awesome and gave the greatest talks I have heard in person for a long, long time. The spirit was just so strong especially as he was calling the new stake presidency; because even I had some doubts, but afterwards I had no doubt that the new president was called of God. Also K. came to conference, which was super awesome, even though he kinda left very fast.

Also E. is doing super well. We just set a bap date with her for December 20th since her birthday is on the 24th. And she is just so ready; we talked with her about baptism because we weren’t too sure how well she understood it, but she pretty much understood it perfectly and really everything else perfectly also… it’s just amazing to see her sheer amount of change!! Other than that we kinda got dogged quite a bit, but we did have some super good programs with some other people that were super awesome!!

Well hope you are all having an amazing week, and that it continues into a fantastic month filled with wonder and amazement

Sok szeretettel
-Waldvogel Elder
VEMS csak az egész idő alatt!!

Monday, November 10, 2014

November 10, 2014

Dear Family,

Well I don't have a lot of time to email (sorry), but this was a pretty normal week other than the fact that we had to go back to the hivatal because there was a "technical error" (whatever THAT means) and we had to just retake a picture; but it only took like an hour so not that bad. Also lately we have been having a lot of success from tracting, it’s pretty crazy. I’m a 100 percent sure that the spirit was guiding us, because there's no way we could've found some of these people. Especially on Sunday when we just tracted a random building and one of the last doors turned out to be this guy who used to come to the English class in Kispest that I knew!!! It was super sweet and sooo random… I was so surprised! I was like "don’t I know you??" and it was really good because he is in a pretty hard situation nowadays. So it was super awesome to see him again.

Also this next week we have decided to have a "consecration week" so we will be only speaking in Hungarian to each other, soo yea, we are just going to go crazy hard this week. WOOOT!

Also ever since E. quit smoking she has been doing AWESOME like seriously; she is so much happier, it’s such a big bizonyíték that the word of wisdom is not véletlen. Super awesome!

Other than that just going around being missioanryise doing secreateiazry stuffs

Sorry gotta go

Love,
Elder Waldvogel
VEMS

Saturday, November 8, 2014

November 3, 2014
 
Dear Family,

Yea so I hope I get to go to L's baptism, it would be awesome!! Plus we had this Halloween party last week for the YSA and L. was there and he dressed as a missionary... It was the funniest thing ever! He made a nametag that said "Elder L... The church of being Awesome and Humble." and then he would introduce himself to everybody speaking super poor Hungarian in an American accent. SOOO funny. We also had 3 inv. come to the party and they had a super awesome time, so that was good! 
We also had a super intense jam packed week, it was crazy!! We had a super good program with K, we have been meeting with him a few times a week and for one of the lessons, a member that we invited to another program came an hour early so we just invited him to come to our program with K; it was awesome and they got along super well. It’s funny because they seem soooo different, but either way it definitely wasn’t by chance that he came early!
Also there’s this member here who is having a lot of issues lately and he was kinda smack talking my companion right after English class. We were about to meet with L (the older inv. here who is now progressing super well) and then our inv. just starts telling him to calm down and then ends up like provoking the member and they were super close to getting into a fight. Elder G. broke up the fight while I backed him up, it was super crazy; but kinda funny because our inv. is like 60 and the member is like 24. Pretty sketchy!
 
But it’s cool because we had a super good program with L. where he just decided that he really needs to read the Book of Mormon all the way through. Which we were pretty pumped about.
 

Also we have been working with E. a ton lately on quitting smoking, and super awesome, she just started quitting on Saturday… We went over to her house and threw away all of her cigarettes and had a pretty good program with her. We kind of also made a promise that we would also stop drinking soda to help show her that we are also trying to stop something unhealthy. And so far she has been doing super good! She came to church and it was amazing for her. It was a way good fast and testimony meeting and church overall was just bomb! That and we also promised her son M. that we would get him a tie, and he was super excited. We then later took a mirror pic with him, which I’ll have to send some time.
 
We also had an encounter with a very interesting man who wanted to talk to our superiors about learning how to defend themselves against the communist’s hypnotists. Super weird, he came to church though just to talk to bishop but left before it started... Poor bishop!
 
Also we went to Jánoshegy, round 2 and it was super fun! We found this giant super cool dog that we ended up calling Leo and he was awesome. It was also super foggy and we hiked through this forest; it was pretty creepy but at the same time prettty sweeeeeeeet, it was way fun.
 
Also sum pics...
 
I especially love Godderidges face

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

October 27, 2014

Dear Family,

Well we had another pretty crazy week, not a lot of new stuff has happened. E. is progressing very well now with smoking; we brought this member who also used to smoke and she was the BOMB! It was awesome and now E. really has that desire to quit smoking. Also we met with K. a couple times this week and he is soo flippin awesome; and is slowly becoming more and more interesting in the gospel and the Book of Mormon. He even came to a baptism on Saturday, which was sweet.

We also met with this super legit family, they are members from Serbia and have lived in Hungary for a super long time. They are like all geniuses; they each speak 5 different languages. There are 3 boys who are super funny, especially the oldest who is about 17; he so cool and speaks way good English. It was a really good program.

Also, I met up with L. from Kispest and it was way cool to see how much he has progressed. He finally has accepted a baptismal date and he straight up told me that he asked very specific questions in his prayers and got very specific answers. I was filled with so much joy and happiness when he said this, because the entire time we met, I just kept telling him to keep at it and answers would come… and FINALLY after months of hard work and determination, he got answers to his prayers.

Other than that it was pretty much a normal week, doing normal office secretary stuffs... fun stuffs. Anyway, hope that you are all having a wonderful week!

Sok Szeretette!

Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

Also I’ll make sure to get those essays done!

Thursday, October 23, 2014

October 21, 2014

Dear Family,

For some reason, my computer doesn’t like your last email, and I can’t open it . . . so if you could send me another one that would be cool; especially because I really did want to talk about starting my application but now that’s all I can see and also that it is important . . . so yea.

Anyways had a pretty intense week and an even more intense Birthday filled with unlimited plot twists, sprinkled with surprises.

But first our week!! Honestly I can barely remember it considering all the crazy stuff that happened; and because there was a senior missionary conference. During it, we were the only ones in the office. I would say that we were bored, but we had quite a bit of work to keep us occupied.

We did meet with quite a few people this week which was super good! We also just started meeting with this super awesome guy "K". We teach him English and he is the flippin funniest dude ever!! I can’t even begin to describe his amazingness; you would just have to meet him. We’ve had some pretty good programs with him and during our last program we talked a lot about the BOM and now he is super interested in reading it.

Sadly though we haven’t really heard anything from G… he kinda just dropped off and we’re pretty sad about it, so please just keep him in your prayers.

We really just had tons of supa good programs, it was really a great week, but it’s just all a blur because last night got CRAZY!!!

So yesterday we went to the Hivatal (office), which is the greatest gift I could’ve gotten! It was pretty sweet! We got out pretty fast, which is good; then we came back and celebrated a little then a missionary who was going home because he needs surgery, couldn’t go home because his flight cancelled, so he ended up coming with us and it was super sweet. I also talked a bit with L. (from Kispest) who now has a Bap Date!!!! Which is insane because he is the type of person who won’t commit to do something unless he is like super sure about it; and general conference helped him out a TON. It’s amazing at how great of change he’s gone through.

Then we went home and decided we wanted to get some madár tej and make loads of French toast. But then suddenly we got a call which shortly changed everything and we got another missionary!! So we kinda just hung out and made French toast and played a little bit of finger soccer, which was pretty cool.

So we had quite a bit of unsuspecting turns. But overall it was super sweet!

Hope yall had an excellent week!!

sok szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

October 14, 2014
 
Dear Family,
 
So, P days seem to be an ever changing thing as a Secretary, soooooo, I can’t make any promises, but hopefully the week after next week will be normal Mondays again. And it is soooooooo much better with the Bagozzis back; I am sooo flippin grateful for the finance couple.
 
Anyways yesterday was my first real Hivatal Day!!! wooot! It’s like my most important job where I go with all the new missionaries and wait in line for ever and then have them sign some stuff and then they should be able to live in Hungary legally for 2 years. It’s quite magical really. But it all went well and we somehow survived; Ill be going next week also, so that’ll be good.
 
We have some pretty crazy stuff going on lately, especially with the work here; it’s going super good! Especially with probably one of the most legit investigators ever!! His name is G. and he is golden. He actually called the secretaries wanting to meet and already did a ton of research and believed in most of it already! sooo cool! Last week we meet with him like 4 times and he also came to General conference (Which was also flippin Legit btw) and we gave him a Bap date for Nov. 1st. I really hope he gets baptized; he is so prepared and every program with him is awesome. He’s got an awesome sense of humor. He is going through a super hard time right now though and he is looking for a job; so far he has only found one opportunity and that’s to be a truck driver in Germany... pretty cool!
 
Literally so much has happened this week and there’s no way to even get close to fitting it in. But our other inv. E, who is also super cool, is going through a difficult time as well. She was super down and it was super sad. We tried our best to cheer her up; the last time we meet with her it was quite a bit better, but still hard. So on Wednesday we are Fasting with her, so hopefully that goes well.
 
Sorry for such a small email with not much epicness, anywho hope you all have a good week and stay awesome, and stuffs.
 
Sok Szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

Monday, October 6, 2014

October 4, 2014

Dear Family,

That’s super cool that you got to talk with Bence, he is such a cool guy; hopefully I’ll get to meet up with him sometime again. Also as far as following the Holy Ghost, there was this super cool story I wanted to share that happened while we were still in Kispest. There was that super cool girl L, who ended up missing our program, and unfortunately we forgot to get her number and we only knew her address… but she lived with her mom who’s another religion and she didn’t want her mom to find out... so we were kinda in a pickle. Then one day we planned to go tracting again around the area we found her and I just kept hoping that we would run into her so we could get her number. SO we go and tract for like 2 hours and when we start to head back, were just walking down the sidewalk and I see this other path and tell my comp "hey lets go down this grass path" we start walking and hear this voice like "hey" and it was her!!! Super cool… As missionaries these experiences literally happen ALL the time, it’s truly amazing! I believe as long as we are doing the right things and trying our best and have hope, faith and charity everything will turn out okay.


Anyway, Secretary life is pretty crazy. The last 2 weeks were INSANE, especially with the Bagozzis gone and there was transfers plus 3 different zone conferences! It was just so hectic, but it was also pretty fun; especially since we met with quite a few people and had some super good programs. The funniest was with this new convert who lives alone; We walk into his place,and see this 3 year old girl standing there playing with blocks. . . and we are just like "whaaaaaaaaaa????" super confused, but he offered to watch this girl and she was soooooo funny; like the cutest little girl ever. She was super shy at first, then later she would just giggle like crazy. Sooooo cuki and when we left she also wanted to come with us… so flipping funny.


So, as secretary I pretty much just take care of people coming into the building, the office phone and I also do all the paperwork for the new missionaries so they can live here in Hungary for 2 years. Other than that I work a lot with updating information and taking care of mail. It’s a lot different and it’s kinda sad that we don’t go out and work as much, but it is a necessary job, and someone’s gotta do it, soooo yea

My new comp is awesome; he was actually one of my ősi from the MTC so he was in the older group of Hungarians at the MTC. We have a lot of fun, and we are going to try to make the office more fun . . . somehow.

Also I’m super stoked for general conference, hope you all got your spiritual cups ready cuz they about to get filled!!

Sok Szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS
September 22, 2014

Dear Family,

Well transfers were pretty intense this round. Mostly because I have been called to go to BUDA and serve as Secretary! So I actually got my call on Thursday and had to leave on Saturday to go start getting trained on how to be secretary... I’m still lost and confused half of the time, but it is slightly getting easier. That and I have like no time, because I’m sooooo busy. I will have to let you know how everything goes sometime later… We don’t even know if/when P-day will be next week, because the Bagozzi's (the other office financial senior couple who run the entire mission financials) will be gone for 10 days, so we have to watch the office pretty much the entire time. So yea next week will be a blast!!!

But my last week in Kispest was super good, and my first few days in Buda have also been way good. I’ll have a much more in detail report hopefully next week. Until then, I’ll just leave with you’re all awesome and if you have any questions about what a secretary does feel free to ask because I neither knew what they did.

Hope you’ve all had a great week and may it be followed by countless other fantastic ones!!

Sok Szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

Sunday, September 21, 2014

September 15, 2014

Dear family,


Yea I’m feeling better now, and YES I did indeed receive the package and THANK YOU!!! I love the peanut butter MNM’s and also the drugs . . . especially the airborne, reminds me of when Brent put one straight in his mouth, LOL

So this week was super good as far as finding goes; because we decided to just tract like madmen this week and IT WORKED!!! We found a couple of way legit people; one was this girl who was just super friendly and very cool. We have yet to meet with her, but hopefully soon. Also this super funny bácsi who is very religious and just completely willing to listen. Love this guy; and a couple others who we are going to look up later, so we will see if it goes anywhere.


Other than that we also had more super good programs with M. and L. For M, just wanted her to pick a new bap date, but she didn’t get around to it considering her little girls started school and the other one is sick etc. So I wanted us to kneel down and offer a prayer and ask God right there when the perfect date would be. She ended up wanting me to offer it, so I did and it was super amazing! The spirit was super strong and right after the prayer she told me that what I said was exactly what she needed to here to know how and what she needs to do. Also with L. we just got super into temples and garments.. So pretty intense.


Last week for p-day we went to this super cool puzzle place where they lock you in this room and you and your group have to work through countless different puzzles and locks and find the combinations in order to escape. It was super fun, I just tried to hack the codes . . Wasn’t too effective, but in the end we survived!!

Then on Friday and Saturday there were a couple of ward activities that we went too that were super fun. During one, this guy did kendo and he showed us his katanas and some moves and talked a lot about it. It was LEGIT and I was super interested in it too. The other one took about 3 hours, but at least we showed the ward that we care and got to build better relationships with them.


Other than that, just a normal week . . Oh yea . . also . . WE BOUGHT 2 TIE BAGS!!!! We decided to split them up and all chip in. We just got them today and it was super sketchy but super funny . . and the bags were sooo flippin heavy!! For just a bag of ties, each bag was like 22 pounds. So, probably going to be sending some ties and also some pics home soooonish...

Anyway, it was good to see that you all survived the insane flooding and such, hope yall have a good week!


sok szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

September 8, 2014

Dear family,

Welp this week was pretty normal for the most part, except we did quite a bit of crazy sturf on P-day... We went to this cat cafe where they just had drinks and cats... everywhere. On the tables and on the chairs; just chilling. It would’ve been cooler if they actually cared, but they were just super boring cats who like didn’t like to be pet (probably because they get harassed so much). But it was still super funny and totally wouldn’t be allowed in America.

We also went to this pirate restaurant that was similar, but there were turtles everywhere. We ate right above this pond thing just filled with turtles and fish. Feeding the turtles was like watching a turtle gladiator battle, it was sweet!

Twas a good p-day!

Then the rest of the week was chopped full of a lot of finding. Sadly we didn’t have too much success, but we did have some pretty awesome programs.

With M. we just talked about all her fears with baptism and really just tried to get to the root of the problem, which for the most part is her husband, considering he is not religious, egyáltalán nem. But we worked through most of her problems and we asked her to pray about a new bap date. She is SO close to baptism and has such a rock solid testimony; and the spirit is always soo strong in her programs.

We also had probably one of the most intense programs with L. We just started teaching the plan of salvation. . and things escalated quickly when I tried to answer one of his past questions; which led into even more questions, which got super ridiculous and are by far the hardest questions I have ever had on my entire mission. Things I’ve never even thought of before, but in the end it was a super good program and he really liked it.

Other than that pretty average week with some pretty good programs. Also our neighbors (who just happen to be romans (gypsies)) had a huge party and there was techno house blasting from morning to night. Later some drunken guys came out screaming and freaking out and said some HORRIBLE stuff, which I would say, but my mom told me not to use those words. It was super funny though!

Hope yall have a good week
LOVE
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

September 1, 2014
Dear Family,
Nice picture, P. (a supa cool member here) told me she talked with grandma C on Facebook; I thought that was super cool.Yea that was Elder Lynch’s farewell party we had on P-day it was way fun. . Pretty ridiculous too.
Anyways this week was pretty good. . it was also pretty crazy, we got dogged a couple times, the worst was when we went to Mr. Ds. we were standing in front of his building when this Jehovah witness lady starts talking to us, and it turns out they are also meeting with Mr. D at the same time . . ya super awkward. Then he pretty much took them in and told us hecouldn’t meet right now . . . My comp and I were pretty down after that roundhouse kick to the face.
Then we had splits on Saturday which was pretty cool. On Sunday we taught Sunday school, which was pretty good; we kinda went over on time, but all well! Oh, I also had my little bunny preside over the meeting. LOL
Other than that everything was pretty normal; we had another good program with M; super cool story, so after C gave her that priesthood blessing she started smoking less, and her husband who is not religious at all and who drinks and smokes just completely stopped drinking and smoking etc. just out of the blue. . . it was super cool because while giving the blessing actually mentioned him a few times, and it was amazing to see the power of the priesthood working firsthand.
Also we haven’t been able to meet J. (the older guy yet) because he is going into the hospital for some tests, but we really want to get him baptized as soon as possible!!
Well hope yall are doing amazing, I know I am, LOVE YOU ALL
Sok szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

Thursday, August 28, 2014

August 25, 2014

Dear family,

Well, this week was CRAZY!! Just soooo much happened! I’ll try to fit it all in as little space as possible.
First off my comp had to get surgery!! He was just getting a mole removed on his foot, but it still kinda stunk, because it hurt to walk for some time. So it made it a lot harder to get out and work. One day he actually used a cane the entire day, sooo funny.

We also went on a super cool hike with one of the other elders investigators who we also meet with  
sometimes, and we went up to this super cool tower on top of hill that overlooks all of
Budapest. It kind of looks like a sandcastle, LOL; But it was super fun.

We had the opportunity to celebrate a Magyar ünnep!! Which was super fun! It is the independence day for Hungary and we just hung out with the other elders and a member for most of the day, walking around, went to a museum, checked out some little attractions and then at the end of the night . . FIREWORKS!!!! Super cool I took some pics and videos, it was super pretty with the fireworks bursting over the duna or danube with Buda Castle in the background all lit up.



Later in the week my comp and I both caught a cold or maybe it’s just allergies . . I don’t know, all I know is that our noses were super clogged and it wasn’t too fun. Then to make it even better we were dogged twice and then Mrs. A. dropped us :( it was super sad, because she just totally gave up hope and gave us back the book of Mormon . . I felt horrible just because I felt so useless. . .

But on the bright side a less active member that we started to meet with, finally came to church!! wooot! Success! It was super cool to see her there after all the bad stuff that happened. And Lazlo is also doing good and actually came to church even though he was still feeling super gross from the hospital. Also, this really old guy came to church last week randomly and he wanted to be baptized. Now we are meeting with him and our first program went super good!! He is super prepared, already believes everything and wants to be baptized!!!

So lesson is that we gotta dig through a lot of mud and dirt before we finally find the diamonds and reap our reward!


But by far the best part of the week was getting to see ANDY again!!!! Also getting to meet his family, they’re super cool! We just kinda hung out most of the afternoon on Sunday and I got to show them around Budapest; it was seriously so awesome to be able to see him again, we had so much fun. We really didn’t do much because it was Sunday and we were also fasting, but it was still by far the highlight of my week. We also took some pics of course!! So I will send you those. I do gotta admit that Andy has some luscious hair nowadays.




Also transfers were today, but I’m staying, so nothing new except Elder L. is dying (going home) so that’s kinda sad. Anyway, hope you all have an awesome week!

Sok szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS