June 2, 2015

Dear Family,

This last week has been crazy, filled with goodbyes, miracles and funny stories. The coolest one actually happened with my companion. We were rushing to a program and jump on this super crowded bus, so I’m kinda far away from my comp on the bus and can’t get over to him, so we were just waiting and then apparently this guy got on the bus right where my comp was... now my companion already ran into this guy a couple times before I came, and this man literally spat on him and cursed at him the first time, then the next time even raised a fist to strike him;  my companion raised his fist in defense and he kinda ran off… and now that same man got onto the bus and walked straight up to my companion, and asked "do you remember me from the last time we met on the bus?" Adrenaline is just pumping through my companions blood as he answers "yes" . . . . . then the man just simply says "I’m sorry" . . . . . . My companion was so shocked; especially since earlier that week he was like "if I see that guy again I swear Ima mess him up and stuff like that" he was just shocked and it was such a great story to be there for.

Other than that I’ll see all you guys in a couple days and tell you more stories... Pretty crazy.

Yea, this is super weird writing my last email. I don’t really know what to say other than I know that I was supposed to come to Hungary; and I love it here and the people soo much. Serving a mission was for sure the best decision that I have ever made in my entire life. Now it’s coming to an end, which is super sad and kinda hard, but I know that life goes on. And as long as I put my faith in God, strive to be better day by day and do my best to help others around me, listening to the promptings of the spirit that I can still be a missionary wherever I go.

Over the past two years I have learned and experienced so many things and I’m so grateful for all my blessings and all of the trials that I’ve had on my mission; and for everything that I learned from my trials and hardships. The gospel has helped me so much… To understand life so much better and help me want to become a better person and actually be able to achieve that. And most of all my mission has given me the opportunity to help others in the best way possible; which is to share the beautiful message of the gospel and to be able to help others change their lives for the better; to help support them in their trials and help them build their relationship with God. And it’s just the most amazing thing ever; there’s nothing like it. If anyone reads this who has their doubts about going on a mission, I will tell you right now that it will be the best thing in your entire life, no matter what.

Words can’t even describe how much I’m going to miss the Hungarians and all the friends that I have made here; I love them with all my heart and know that I will meet them again someday. minden magyarnak azt akartam mondani, hogy szeretem magyarországot és mindig lesz irva a szivemben, annyira hiányozni fog az egész ország meg minden magyar. és pontosan nem tudom amikor visszajövök de vissza fogok térni mindenképpen hiszen most ugy érzem hogy ez az otthonom. köszönöm mindent. és Isten áld meg a magyart!

It’s weird, but a part of me is still denying that I’m really leaving.

Hope yall do well, god be with you till we meet again

sok szeretettel

Waldvogel Elder

VEMS örökre

May 25, 2015

Dear Family,

That’s super cool to hear about everyone getting their mission calls! So exciting!! Anyway, this week was pretty good, difficult because it was just pouring all Thursday, Friday and part of Saturday which made finding a bit more difficult and less effective because literally when the weather is bad, so is everyone’s mood.

But we had some super good programs with E. which was awesome because we weren’t able to meet with her for a long time. We talked about a ton of stuff, but when I asked her if she read out of the Book of Mormon, she was like "well... no... but I realized something!" So I asked her what and she went on talking about how ever since she stopped reading out of the Book of Mormon that her life has kinda gone downhill and overall she just isn’t as happy. It was sad that she had to experience more sadness, but it was good to see that she realized the power that is in the Book of Mormon; we talked a lot about it and also about fasting and repentance. Then later in our next program, we talked about the law of chastity, the Word of wisdom and really just all the commandments and about baptism. She was like, "okay... so what are all the commandments that I need to keep" so we went through them fast and picked out the ones that are most difficult for her so we could work on them first. The spirit was just so strong during the program, which was by far the best part.

Also N. is doing super good; she actually came to church for the first time which was super good and for the most part she liked it... except for the last hour... but the second hour was super good because she had a ton of questions and really got into it.

Other than that, not too much else to report; we did see this dog stuck in the Duna (the Danube river) and then his owner jumped in and saved him which was pretty cool and totally random...



Other than that, everything’s going pretty normal; except next week will be my last email sooooo yea.. .kinda weird.

Anyway, hope you are all having an awesome week!!

Sok Szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

May 18, 2015

Dear family,

Well this week was super crazy and intense; I don’t even know where to start...

We had the coolest opportunity to be able to take Elder Leimer (from the quorum of the 70) to one of our programs, which was the coolest thing EVER!!! We had to pick him up from Buda and take him on a 1 hour trip to our program. On the way we got on a bus and while looking for a place to sit, this super nice guy got up and let us sit down together and then sat to the right of me. After a while Elder Leimer hands me a pass along card, and looks at me... then looks at the guy... and so I caught what he was hinting at, so I wrote our number on it and gave it to the guy... it was super awesome. He was way cool and one of the nicest Hungarians ever!! We just started talking about a ton of stuff and a bit about religion while just getting to know him; and then this lady in front of us starts talking to us and is like... Hey I went to your English class before, but I’m super busy. Is there any way I could skype or something like that with you guys? So we started talking to her about how we could meet up sometime. Then she asked us what we are doing here, and why Hungary. So I talked a lot about what we do as missionaries and such to both her and the other guy and it was just AMAZING! We talked for about 25 minutes or so until we had to get off. And we got both of their numbers… super awesome!

Then our program was great; it was with a recent convert who is way awesome and he just shared a ton of experiences and stories that were super cool. We mostly talked about the Book of Mormon and the power within it.

Then on the way back we did some more finding and he was teaching us just a ton and we learned so much about missionary work. He told us stories from his mission and now I’m super stoked to be able to go and find in a different way; because it’s much more natural than the way we were doing it and we had so much more success! Literally, nobody actually rejected us! It was seriously a miracle and I’m so grateful for the opportunity that we had to go with him and be able to learn so much; especially just form his example... it was awesome!!

Other than that, we sadly weren’t able to have a lot of programs this week. Our main progressing investigator E. got super sick and I felt bad for her. We’ve also had to give quite a few of the people we meet with away because of the boundaries, which is sad. So this week we had a ton of service projects which was super cool. We helped move some furniture for like an hour and we were going to paint a fence but it got cancelled. Then on Saturday we went and cut trees for like 4 hours and it was pretty tough, but super fun.

We also met this super funny kid while basketball finding who was like 10 years old and ended up giving him a Book of Mormon and teaching him a bit about it. Pretty funny kid.

Also we got to meet N.'s family which was super cool. Especially because at first the dad was kinda sketched out about us and didn’t like the fact that were missionaries; but we got to meet him and he is super cool. We got along super well and now he seems to be a lot more open. So that’s cool.

This week were going to have a special emphasis on finding and also meeting and finding less actives and help to get them back. Hope yall have a supa dupa week!!

sok szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

May 11, 2015

Dear family,

Well Skyping for the last time was super awesome, kinda weird considering I’ll be home before I know it, but I’m glad that we still got to talk a bit. Really I already told you guys most of what happened this week, but for those who I didn’t get to skype… here... we... gooooo...

SO this week was crazy! We had quite a bit happen. First off while at Burger King on P-day this girl comes up to us and starts asking where were from in Hungarian and later we figure out she’s an American who has lived in Hungary for 6 years now and speaks perfect Hungarian. We talked with for her for a while and she was super cool and invited us to her concert. It turns out that she was on rising star (some TV show here in Hungary), supa cool and we invited her and her boyfriend to come play basketball with us on Saturday which was super fun. We got to know them pretty well and they are super religious; it was cool to see, because you don’t meet too many people here who are striving so much to follow God, so I’m super excited to see them again.

Also we had some pretty good programs and some pretty normal ones; we did meet with this 14 year old recent convert who is super cool and way funny and we really just talked to him about preparing for a mission and just trying to get him to read at least one verse a day out of the BOM.

Also on Saturday there was this ridiculously Drunk guy at English class... who of course came into our beginner class and was making it super hard to teach; so my companion is like , I got this and takes him out to the hall and starts just talking about his drinking problem and teaching him the WoW. Which was super funny because he was out of his mind, but my comp Elder M. did a super good job and was really trying to help him; which was cool, because the man really was sad and his life was hard. SO my comp has been a good example to me.

We also had stake conference which was awesome because I got to see a ton of amazing people (from other cities where I served) that I’ve missed like L, B, A, P, Z, the list goes on and on. The conference was AMAZING which kinda made me sad because E. said she was going to come, but ended up not and it would’ve been super good for her. So I’ll just have to tell her about all the awesome stuff she missed.

Anywho love you all and hope your all doing awesome!

sok szeretettel

Waldvogel Elder

May 4, 2015

 

Dear family,

 

Well this week was pretty tough, but we had some really good programs. Really we just got dogged and had a ton of programs cancel this week which kinda stunk, but we had some really good programs with E. and with an other RCLA.

 

It was super funny though; on our way to the RCLA program my companion turns to me and is like... "aww I hope she made palacsintas!" and then I just turned to him and was like "if we believe and have enough faith there will be!" then we just kept joking about it . .like "I can smell the palacsintas from here." Then when we got there I just started busting out laughing, because she really did make PALACSINTAS!! So flippin funny; even funnier is that we planned on teaching her about hope in all things. Really small thing but I’ve learned to enjoy the little things and the tender mercies of the lord, even if they come in the image of little palacsintas.

 

Then we met with E. a couple times this week and actually made rakott krumpli with her which was super fun. But we also had a really good program with her. She has been worried about her best friend, who we also meet with sometimes, but she has been going kinda downhill lately and it’s super sad to see. We really want to help her, but she kinda is just avoiding us a lot; but once again we had another really good program on Hope, which kinda seemed to be the overall feel of this week considering it’s been so hard. We’ve really had to just keep on going and focus on the positives; keeping hope that it’ll get better.

 

So we hope this week will be better and I hope that you guys are all doing well and I hope that you all have an amazing may 4th.

 

May the 4th Be with you . . . always.

 

Sok Szeretettel

Elder Waldvogel

VEMS

April 27, 2015

 

Dear family,

 

Well this week was pretty good, weren’t able to meet with as many people sadly, but we had some super good programs; we had a super good one with D. and his girlfriend. We taught the word of wisdom because D’s girl did not understand it; but we brought this member who had a super strong testimony about it because he converted 3 years ago and before that was a super hardcore partyer and drank all the time and he was able to answer all their questions and just did an awesome job.

 

Everyone else is doing pretty well. We had a good program with N. where she brought one of her friends who already met with missionaries like 15 years ago. Super cool it was.

 

Other than that, everything else is going pretty much the same. Finding was interesting; we went tracting for like 2 hours and had no success at all, just nobody talked to us. One older lady did for a coupled minutes until she read our nametags, then just turned around and left without a word . . . awkward. So we decided to go do some basketball finding randomly in a park nearby (because my comp is super good at it) and we found these 2 kids and played with them; and they are hilarious, super cool, C. and B. So we invited them to sport nap and told them a bit about why we are here as missionaries and got both of their numbers, super cool.

 

Anyway, hope that your all doing well, also yea I can skype for Mother’s day, don’t even know how I’m going to do it, but we will somehow.

 

Have a fantastically awesome week!

Love

Elder Waldvogel

VEMS

April 20, 2015

 

Dear Famiry,

 

Yea it was seriously a miracle I got my passport back, pretty sure it was stolen, but the lady who I talked with was super nice and kind. Apparently she just found it sitting on a park bench and called the police; super lucked out, except I don’t believe in luck.

 

This week was pretty crazy and awesome, I got a bit sick and was kinda stressed out for a while about my passport, but now I’m feeling a ton better. We met with a ton of people, really nothing too different, but our Saturday was super crazy!!! So much happened.

 

In Hungary, two times a year they have this crazy cleaning session where for an entire week they just throw all their old trash and junk onto the sidewalk (next to a street) and then it just MAGICALLY disappears. A member asked us to help her mom throw out a ton of junk that was left over from her ex-boyfriend who was like a hoarder; so we go and there’s a giant pile of junk. And as we start throwing stuff into a pile on the street, some gypsy guy comes up all excited and calls his buddies and as we go back there’s 5 of them digging through the trash, and helping us unload junk onto the pile; they were even telling us where to set stuff down, so flipping funny.

 

Then while digging through trash this kid who is helping us opens this suitcase on a chair and finds a mouse . . . so we all gather around to look at it; I start digging through all the junk to find the mouse and I see its tail underneath something, so I slowly lift it up and there’s just this super cute mouse chilling there . . . then it runs straight towards me and just suicide jumps at my face . . . scariest thing of my life. . . I literally just screamed like a little girl for like 10 sec. straight, while it hit my belly, then fell down and ran off. LOLS! Then later we punched through some old windows we were throwing out, pretty fun stuff.

 

So we did that most of the day which was a nice change up. Other than that, normal missionary stuff trying to help people come closer to God even though some of our investigators are atheist and are very adamant on not praying. Yea, story for later.

 

Hope you’re all doing super good!

Love,

Elder Waldvogel

VEMS

April 13, 2014

 

Dear family,

This week was super good, we had a ton of programs and next week we will probably have even more. We celebrated Easter at this older ladies home, who was super kind and rather lonely, because both her sons already left the nest. But we had a pretty good program with her and talked a lot, pretty fun.

 

Honestly there was so much we did this week, I’ll just tell you the highlights. We were able to finally meet with our bap date D. who is super cool and flippin hilarious. he is like 20 and speaks super good English. Really here in pest most of our programs are in English. It’s super weird and I don’t like it, mostly because I can finally speak Hungarian and now barely use it anymore, super weird. But we had a good program with him. Also had a good program with E. where we just helped her with some of her questions; she is super cool too. Also I promised to make some brownies for another investigator tomorrow since it’s her birthday . . we’ll see how they turn out.

 

Also there is this super legit girl who is 13 and comes to church all by herself since her mother passed away and she lives an hour and 15 minutes away. Her dad came to general conference and is now willing to meet with the missionaries, so we went over there and got to know them and really answered a ton of their questions. We had a super good program with them mostly because the girl has a super strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and of the church. She was seriously one of the best members that we ever had at a program and she is only 13!!! It really just showed to me the power that the youth can have, especially since there was another member, V. who is 14 or so and he also had a rock hard testimony and is just such a stud!! Really I love it here, there’s a ton of awesome people that we meet with and it’s amazing.

 

Pretty much other than that just doin missionary work. The work here is super good so we don’t do as much finding.

 

hehe super funny story, so we were just flyering and streeting people in this super busy area and this drunk guy who’s like 25 comes up to me . . Super close and puts his arm on my shoulder and says "love the lord! Go and preach the good word of love to the people" and stuff like that and then he just straight up kissed me on the cheek . . it wasn’t like the whole puszi thing it was a straight up kiss on the cheek, super gross but pretty funny.

 

Hope yall have a good week and such

Sok Szeretettel

Waldvogel Elder

VEMS

April 6, 2015

Dear Family,

 Yea it’s kinda weird being back In Budapest, but its super cool. Its seriously my favorite city úgy hogy . . . But luckily we did have the opportunity to watch conference and this time we could watch it in English; which was awesome, because Hollands talks just aren’t the same in Hungarian. We got to watch all of the conferences except for the Sunday afternoon… but we were just happy that we got to hear Uchtdorf and Holland and the Prophet. It was way good and helped me a ton. There were so many good talks and the priesthood session was especially good! But it was super funny that the first session we watched was just all about families and getting married, almost made me kinda trunky.

So my new companion is Elder Murdock from somewhere in northern Utah, he is super cool, pretty athletic too so I’m super excited to have some sport naps, with him. The work here is super good!! We already have like 16 or so programs planned for this week. But super funny stories already, My first day here we just did some area book work which was good because we found a couple people. Most of them can’t meet for a while because of Easter, but we did manage to set up with one guy name C. who speaks English. Super weird because most of our programs are in English here, kinda mad because I can now speak Hungarian fairly well and now it’s like Useless!! lols

 

C. was a very interesting man who is very talkative and is very obsessed with reincarnation; he believes its evil but is scared that it might be true. We tried helping him out but he keeps on focusing on the negative and repeats himself a TON. Told us like 10 times that he won’t change religions, but we will see. Hopefully we can help him. We had another program after his so we left him kinda fast only to later hear him in the hall arguing with a member. So we ran and tried to get him out but he had to go to the bathroom, so we went back to our program. . . long story but pretty much took him about an hour to leave after our program because he just kept loitering around. . .super funny.

 

Also we went tracting one day, just randomly and some lady told us we were already there earlier. . . so we just kinda shrugged it off. Then later we were let in from these 2 girls who also spoke English. They also told us we were there earlier and we just totally thought it was like Jehovah’s Witnesses or somebody. Then we continue on and run into a néni who was like hey I already got a card from you guys; she showed it to us and it was for sure a Mormon card, so we call the other elders and they were tracting the same exact building literally 2 hours before us . . . what were the chances!!

 Not too much else happened other than conference and meeting some new super cool investigators. We also teach a lot of English classes here which is pretty cool, but pretty new to me, cuz we only did it once a week. But its super fun. Other than that like nobody can meet because of Easter and they are all going home to some random falu. Anyway hope that you guys are doing awesome, make sure to reread your general conference talks and notes!! And have a very merry kellemes and happy Easter!!!

 

sok szeretettel

Waldvogel Elder

March 31, 2015

Dear Family,

Well pretty big news . . . TRANSFERS CAME!!! This is my last transfer and my last area and it looks like I am LEAVING Eger and going to Pest now!! Budapest is literally broken into 3 parts and now I will be serving in the last part. Super funny, but really sad because I’m super going to miss the people here in Eger, even now I’m super sad just saying goodbye is like super hard, also I have a ton of stuff to do today and we are emailing at a new place so I can’t really send any pics . . . sajnos.

 

But this last week was super good; we had really good programs with C. and also with A. and his family. We taught the family the restoration and the dad had tons of questions that we answered during the second program with the Plan of salvation. It was amazing to see because it answered every single one of his questions. And he has been reading out of the BOM a lot so we are super excited. C. was having a really hard time but we met with her twice and she is now doing awesome!! Especially the last one we watched Jeffery R Hollands talk "broken vessel" and it was sooooo goood. Then she came to church and Klinger Gábor came (the prior stake president) and he gave one of the best talks I have ever heard in person and the entire talk was practically dedicated to C. It was amazing to see just how much the spirit helped him know what to teach.

I seriously have no time. . . I’m sorry . . . but I would like to get a summer job if possible when I go home. . . so pleez keep your eye out.

Love you all!!

Waldvogel Elder

VEMS

March 23, 2015

Dear Family,

That’s super sweet that you sent in the info for the apartment, I’m super stoked! As far as classes go, I did get a 4 on AP US History so that should fill that requirement and I did AP calculus also, but I think I want to retake calc 1 and then take calc 2 next semester just as a refresher; because I forgot all math that I knew. And of course physics and computer science sound fun!!!

Anywho this week was super good, because first off we found this super awesome family who I already love, they’re sooooo funny! We tracted into them and they wanted to meet, but didn’t have time, so we set up for a later time and finally got to meet with them this week; which was AMAZING!!! The Dad A. hurt his leg really bad, pretty sure he tore his Achilles heel and now is bed ridden which was super sad. But he is hilarious and had a ton of questions; and we just joked around a ton. It was super funny. Later we helped them move houses which was pretty fun just because we rarely get chances to actually do service, so it was super fun, and we got to meet more people during our first program with them; their mom came in and she already knew us from when we tabled and it was super cool because she read a pamphlet and saw some of the references to the book of Mormon and also wanted one. They are just the nicest people; we will also meet with them next week.

We only have a couple more minutes so I have like no time... sorry. But the rest of our investigators are doing good, I'll email and send pics next week.

Love you all!

Elder Waldvogel

VEMS

March 16, 2015

Dear Family,

Well this week was super, super busy and super, super awesome too! Mostly because we had elder Patrick Kearon give training at zone conference which was by far the best one I’ve had ever! He also gave a talk at stake conference last year that I also loved. So he is one of my favorite 70s!

We did have another super good program with C. where we went through some questions she had, and in the end it turned out super good! Later that day we set up with a new inv. and then go to meet with him 5 hours later; we walked over there which took us an hour, call him and he isn’t there and going to Budapest or something!! I was so mérges. We also had a super good program with the Trio where at least one of them started to read out of the BoM a lot which was super awesome; and we super stoked because he’s starting to progress and is really close to baptism. I’m just super stoked about him because he would make such a good missionary!! We also met with S. which was pretty average but always good. Also had a super good játék est with a lot of people and went to family night which was good. Then we had an awesome program with the sisters investigator who wanted to meet with us for some reason. But we really got along with him and it was super fun. It was really helpful to him. Then we had zone conference and district conference on Sunday, so over all we were super busy and barely even able to get any work in this week sadly.

The zone conference was soooo amazing I was so pumped afterwards. Kearon talked a lot about the real reason why we are out here and our job in bringing God's children back home and really just loving our investigators; and to not even use the word investigator and instead use friend. Because they really are our friends; and we want to help our friends and know the gospel will help them be happier! He also talked a lot about choices and deciding right now to simply be happy and if we know who we really are and where we are going, then that knowledge is really what can help us be happy. So we want to really focus on the plan of salvation this next week and hopefully we will be able to meet with some more people, especially since last week while tracting we were able to do some look ups and set up with 2 super cool people; so we hope that that works out well.

Well hope you all had a great week! That’s super cool that you got to see Ryan and the Zacchillis! Do you know where Ryan is going for college? Also hope you have another fantastic week!

Love you all!!

Elder Waldvogel

VEMS

March 9, 2015

Dear Family,

So I’ve decided that USU is the place to go. As far as rooming, I will most likely room with Elder Lynch who is now there; because he is living with 2 other missionaries and they still have one room open. I will email him for sure and see if I can stay there. You can also try and contact him if you want. Also WHEN DOES IT START? Just out of curiosity, I would like to know because I believe I was signed up for summer at BYU.

So this week was super intense, just because so much crazy stuff happened and we were super busy, especially on Thursday and Friday and church was pretty intense also.

But we had another super good program with C, where we just talked about hope, keeping positive and that she can do this. We also talked a bit about baptism, which was super good. Then we had an amazing program with the "the gang" where it was all of us missionaries and them and we just bore a ton of testimony and talked to them about baptism and trying to get them to commit to pray about the church to find out if it’s true or not. The spirit was just so strong, it was super amazing. Sadly we’ve been so busy we haven’t been able to meet with them since, but I’m super stoked to be meeting with them again.

On Thursday we ran into "Yo man!" G. and set up and met with him, which was super funny; not really interested in learning more about the church, but hopefully soon with time. Then we had a couple other good programs, taught English class then had to hurry to the train station to go up to Miskolc to go on splits with the ZLs. Super funny because one was Godderidge and the other was my boy Raymond who I knew really well in the MTC. We went on splits together which was super sick. Raymond is a flippin amazing missionary, so of course we had some super good programs, my favorite was the last one, because it was this super cool gypsy family and there was a TON of them in this tiny apartment. They were just flipping hilarious and we had a pretty bomb lesson with them. Overall the splits were super good and super fun!

On Saturday we kinda took it easy because my comp was still sick, so we didn’t do tooo much, but we went streeting a bit and then we got a call from a member inviting us to family home evening so this young member could teach a lesson to us so she could get her young women’s medallion. It was super funny, because were just like sure, not really knowing what to expect. So we go and talk for a bit and the one girl looked super nervous and then I figured out why… when she started to speak and said the she was giving the lesson on the law of chastity. Really for us it wasn’t bad, but she was pretty nervous at first. But it actually turned into a super good program and they had quite a few questions that we were able to answer; so in the end it turned out pretty good.

Also on Sunday after church I was just dead. I had to translate a talk for Elder B. which really wasn’t too bad, but then the Sunday school teacher didn’t show, so I ended up teaching which I actually really liked and it turned out to be super good and it was pretty fun. But then for priesthood I also had to teach the lesson and there was only one other guy there and it was F... who is almost deaf and it’s almost impossible to understand because he talks super-fast and groggily (like there are Hungarians who can’t even understand him sometimes) so I just tried teaching a lesson to him which turned into him trying to teach me and talking for 30 min straight; which wasn’t bad, but it just gave me a headache, lol. In the end it was really good and I learned a lot and was able to better my language skills... it’s just tiring.

Any way, hope you guys are all doing amazing!!

Sok Szeretettel

Waldvogel ELder

VEMS

March 2, 2015

Dear Family,

Well this week was an interesting one. Work is slowly picking up, but we still have a ton of people who are sick and I’m pretty sure that I’m also getting sick slowly... but hopefully not. We met with J. and his family twice this week which was sweet (I also ordered Dad a super sick whip) and we had some good programs with him; but J. is also sick :( which stinks because he’s been so happy and smiling a lot, but during our last program he wasn’t feeling so good.

We did have a super good program with Sz. which was sweet because we just taught him how to pray (using the prayer burger, which he loved) and he has never before prayed so we are really trying to get him to pray and he said He would try it out, but only by himself, so I was pumped for him... He is just super cool.

We weren’t able to meet with C. because I accidentally called the wrong C, like 3 times!!! And I was confused why her phone was always off... then I finally figured it out; but it’s cool because she ended up coming to FARSANG; which is a Hungarian tradition (similar to Halloween) where they all dress up and dance and have a feast. SO we spent most of the day preparing for it and helping set up… AND I also made Brownies!! It was super fun and we had quite a few people show up.

Also on Thursday we ran into this super awesome dude who spoke fluent English and was super smart… He came up to us and was like "Mormons? More men and More women!" Super funny and he talked about how religious he was and also talked about a ton of stuff…especially about the original diet and how it can cure diabetes; then talked a ton about how bad most religions are, but he likes us and we gave him a book of Mormon so hopefully he will read it.

Gotta go soon, but we also had quite a bit of success with finding this week so that’s good!

Send more stuff next week

Sok szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder

February 23, 2015

Dear Family,

Well this week was pretty crazy, but overall pretty good. So last week we had interviews with president and he gave us a lot of ideas for finding, so this week we decided to apply what he talked about into our finding, and it was actually super cool because we actually had quite a bit of success. We found some people who are okay with us coming back next week; most of them aren’t super interested, but there is one really cool couple that seems interested, so I’m way stoked to go and meet with them. We also went streeting kinda late at night which really stunk and was pretty hard, but we kept going and it was super awesome because we met this lady who was SUPER interested and had a ton of questions, so she invited us into a little coffee shop to go and talk. She was super nice and ordered us some hot chocolate and we had an entire first program with her, which was super awesome! But we couldn’t get her phone number because she said she would just call us when she wanted to meet. But it was still super awesome, especially since we were dead tired.

This week was still hard because once again we couldn’t meet with a lot of people because they either got sick or they were super busy. But the programs we did have were pretty good; not too much change really, but overall good programs. We ‘re really hoping that this week will be better for meeting.

Yea, I think the ENTIRE mission knows about sister Moffat and Elder Ekstrom getting engaged, because we were just soooo shocked and did NOT see that coming!

Hope you guys are doing awesome!!

Sok Szeretettel

Waldvogel Elder

February 17, 2015

Dear Family,

So this week was pretty intense for many reasons, one being valentine’s day, the other is that we had to go up to zone training in Miskolc and later on Sunday and Monday we had to go up to Budapest for "new Missionary training" so Winegar could go to the most wonderful place on earth . . The Hivatal. It was super fun though because we got to spend the night for a while with the other trainers and just talk for hours and then Elder G. (another trainer who is also half Hungarian) and I went to the Secretaries house to spend the night which was super fun, because I already served with B. and C. Elders… We just ate palincsintas and played some board games. Overall it was super fun, but the train rides were super tiring, but Elder W. is a beast and on the ride back he would just start talking to people on the train in Hungarian and ask if he could practice Hungarian because he was new and he would practice and hold conversations for like more than half an hour. THAT’S MY BOY!! He’s really starting to learn the language now, it’s super hard to teach him, just because I want to teach him everything at once, but he has such a drive to learn this language, he’s going to be an awesome missionary.

Meeting with people was pretty hard this week just because like everybody cancelled :( but on the bright side we did meet with some new people and we had some success tabling too! my comp and I felt like tabling so we head out for 2 hours and during it D. and H. (the B's granddaughter) came up and chatted with us for a while, then left. I thought it was noteworthy because it was valentine’s day and D. has a girlfriend who he wasn’t with and instead was hanging out with another girl, LOL. Then our land lady comes and starts talking to us and so does this super old néni who is like 70 and she pointed to a Joseph Smith pamphlet talking about how she read it and asked when he is coming to Hungary . . . whelp, I told her he passed away, but then I likened it unto the modern prophet and our landlady was also talking us up and was like telling the lady to take some pamphlets and we gave her a BoM; she also talked about her daughter who is also looking for the truth. Super awesome!

Also Valentine’s Day was a bit hard just because literally everybody was in couples and not super willing to listen; but we did see a dog who was WALKING ITSELF!! In America you walk the dog, but in Hungary, the dog walks himself! He seriously had his own leash in his mouth. LOL gotta enjoy the little weird things.

Also we met with another band of nénis from the area book, which was super funny because as we got to know them they had a BILLION questions about missionaries and what we do and what we can and can’t do. Super funny, and later the one wants to take us to go shopping for some old time kézimunka (Hungarian traditional dresses) that Elder W. wants to get for his mom because his mom is Hungarian; she was born in America and speaks very simple Hungarian. It was a really fun program.

Also church was super good, we had a church leader from the district who gave a talk and then Priesthood was super awesome!! we talked about making good decisions and later shared a video by Jeffery R Holland which was the super awesome one where he talks about getting in our faces a bit with just enough heat to singe our eyebrows, just like a coach does towards the end of the game; and the spirit was just so strong, and we asked our inv. and a young member if they liked it, and they really did and so then we asked why they liked it . . . and you could tell that they felt the spirit and even our one inv. said that he just couldn’t describe it and at the time there was also a super cool leader in the stake that was there and he talked to them about serving a mission and our inv. asked about what they need to do and we just testified and it was super amazing.

Well, that was pretty much all of it. Have a spectacular week

sok szeretettel

Waldvogel Elder

VEMS