July 28, 2014

Dear Family,

Sounds like you guys had a blast in Cali, it looked super cool; loved the pics, really made me miss the ocean a lot. Good to hear you all doing well, as for your challenge mom I did not do it this last week (because of transfers) and will be doing it this week.

Anywho, this week was an intense week full of many programs, little adventures, and a new comp.

Elder Meek is super awesome and super chill, his language skills are pretty poppin; he’s a lot better than I was at his age, that’s for sure! He is from Lehi, Utah and went to BYU for a while. He loves sports and also cereal, so we are going to eat tons of cereal this transfer! He also knows how to make quite a bit of Hungarian food, the other day we made töltött paprika, or stuffed pepper, which was pretty bomb.

So this week we were able to meet with a lot of people like Mrs. George the old néni and we also met with Christian right before Elder Redford left, which was sad, and also with Rose, and Laslo and I also finally set up to meet with Sajt again, vagyis cheese. LOL such a funny nickname and such a cool dude. So we had to do quite a bit of travelling this week so we weren’t able to get a ton of finding in, but we did have some intense finding adventures.

So we were tabling downtown and didn’t want to go back to Kispest because we had a program in the downtown area not too far away. So we decided to go tract around downtown Budapest for 2 hours or so. It’s funny because I’ve never tracted there before and almost no missionaries go there to tract… well, I found out why.

Besides the overall busyness, the people are just mean and do NOT like us. It took us forever just to get into a building to start tracting, and when we finally did we get to the top floor and this old bácsi is just like "what are ya doin??" I answer him normally, and he walks on mumbling and later yelling random things; then as we start talking to this lady who asks me who let me in and then telling me how we can’t be here, repeating herself like 6 times, but we ended up having a pretty good conversation. As I’m talking to her... the old dude pops up again!!!!!!! And starts yelling more random stuff, which I just ignored, trying to pay attention to the lady I was talking to. Super funny then later on, a story lower we see him again a story above us and he’s like "your still here!?!" then goes on talking to some other lady asking if the Christians already talked to her and what not. Then some other random lady came and kicked us out.

But at least the downtown area was super Pretty and European looking!

Then on Saturday we were tabling with the other elders, and this hobo comes up asking us for money, and we just tell him that we can’t give him money because it’s a rule for us as missionaries. So he keeps trying for a while, awkwardly stands there for some time . . . . . . . then just Flips the Table!!!! We just picked it back up and started laughing because for district meeting the day before, (also before our downtown tracting) was all about staying positive and turning our crappy situations into a good one, it was funny because I originally planned to teach about Charity, but I felt like teaching this other lesson instead; now I know why. Also during district meeting Elder Lynch told a story of a missionary while streeting or contacting, some guys drove by and egged him! And the missionary who now had egg all over him turned to his companion, and asked him to grab his camera and take a pic.

We forgot to take a picture, but the idea behind it is the same. We were in some bad situations these past days, but they were also some of the best and funniest situations of my mission. It truly was an amazing week!!!

Hope you all make the best out of your situations and have an even more amazing week!!

Sok szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

July 22, 2014

Dear Family,

Well this week was pretty intense; we actually had some troubles going from program to program because we had quite a few programs that were super far apart from each other which was very interesting.  One day in particular we went to a program on the outskirt of Budapest then had to book it back to the downtown area for another program with this very interesting new inv. named Julia; We held the program at KFC… super funny, but it went pretty good and we gave her a BOM.

Also TRANSFERS: so the big news… I’m staying! Woot! And my new comp is going to be Elder Meek, whom I don’t know, so I guess we will just wait and see. Elder Redford is going to Kecskemét, and Elder Swenson is also leaving sadly, we for sure had a lot of fun together, especially on p-days.

On Tuesday of last week we had a member of the 70 visit, Elder Leimer. And our investigator Laslo came to it and it was super good, I learned a ton of things and the spirit was just so strong there, it was a super good experience.

We also brought a member with us to go tracting which was not very successful sadly, but it was still pretty fun and a good experience, he talked a lot about how it is so much more effective if the members find people, a lot more effective than just tracting, than he told us that we should just street people, and while we street only street good looking women. lol. But members are a super important tool, I love bringing them to programs because programs are just always better with a member there; and most importantly they can become friends with the Investigators which really gets them involved in the ward and makes it so much easier for investigators to go to church; and the members can help and support them in all things. I believe that is the most important thing, just being a friend and being nice. So simple and yet so effective.

We also looked up this RCLA Margit, because the ward hasn’t seen her for a while, and when we did she let us in and was super nice and cool; she actually has a daughter that lives in Utah and married an American and she just talked about her for days! We just shared a little spiritual thought that went super well.

Also since Redford was leaving, we had this almost going away dinner with this super cool guy from English class who took us to TGI Fridays, we totally forgot to take pictures… sorry, but it was fun.

These were most of the highlights I believe. Other than that, just a pretty normal, average good week.

Hope everybody is doing fantastic and has a wonderfully amazing week full of indescribable adventures!

Sok szeretettel,
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

July 14, 2014

Dear Family,

Well this week was interesting, because we couldn’t set up with anyone. . So we had very few programs and lots of finding which really didn’t go anywhere. But were trying and were working hard, and that’s what counts.
The trip sounded like it was super awesome! I really loved all the pics; and Justin is married now, so crazy! Everybody be getting married! Turns out one of my MTC teachers just got married and now is on his Honey moon here in Hungary!! I hope I’ll get to see him! Good ol Beaumont (Buja Oroszlán). Six Flags, we were just talking about that the other day, and how awesome it is; you know you got your money’s worth when you start to get tunnel vision LOL.

So this week was pretty normal, we had some really good programs with Laslo and Rose. Oh, super funny, on Saturday we visited one of our investigators by randomly dropping by and it turned out to be his BIRTHDAY!!!! Super random and very funny, he is Romanian, so his entire Romanian family was there. There were kids and people running around everywhere. We had some juice. . I seriously shoulda got a pic . . I totes forgot. But it was super fun and we talked with some of his grandkids who were super cool. Twas a fun time.

We also went out of Budapest for like 10 minutes, we were looking up a less active member who is 83 and that was pretty fun. It also rained like crazy this week, super weird, really makes finding super hard tho.

So, two weeks ago we gave this elderly member (margit) a blessing and last week she was completely better!!! It was super awesome to see the power of the priesthood and how it can bless others; it really makes me grateful for this power we have been entrusted with… and we should all strive to live worthy for these callings. But just yesterday she got another, different health issue, with her respiratory system, and Elder Redford being the beast he is gave her the blessing in Hungarian, such a champ. Now we wait for next week.


We also had a super awesome zone training given by the beautiful Elder Lynch and Elder Swenson, which was super good. They really just focused on bettering ourselves as missionaries and a lot on faith and hope, it was super good and I verily enjoyed it. At the end they gave a goal called Bob the Builder. And Bob the Builder is simply a personal goal that we set for ourselves each week and really strive to perfect that one goal, say working out in the morning, or not falling asleep during personal study . . . which never happens to me . . sort of. . . and then every week just making a new goal. It’s super simple . . . but that’s why I like it, it’s the small and simple things that really get work done.

Well, thats pretty much this week, sorry it wasn’t as csodálatos as the other weeks, but this time for sure I will send pics.

Sok szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS

July 7, 2014

Dear Family,

Buda Zone Conference

Well this week was pretty awesome!!! It was a bit hard because we weren’t able to meet with a lot of people, but we still had quite a bit of success. Probably the Biggest thing that happened was with Rose, because she had a pretty huge problem, but we fasted and IT Worked!!! The problem went away or at least 90 percent of it did!! We were super stoked; I’m so thankful that we had this amazing opportunity to experience this small Miracle! And it was a huge testimony to me that the fast does work, that God will bless us when we show him how willing we are, and for this I give thanks to Heavenly Father.

We also had some pretty good programs with her, sadly we had to move her bap date considering she is still having a WoW problem, but we will work on that. As far as finding goes, I am a personal fan of Tracting, I feel like it is the most successful here, but tabling isn’t too bad especially on Saturday when we go downtown. Also when we flyer trying to get more people to English Class, because English Class is a super good tool for finding people. Actually that’s how we found this one girl in Sopron who actually got baptized a couple weeks ago. I can’t remember what I nicknamed her, but she was the super cool 17 year old girl and was super golden. She was pretty much already keeping all the commandments.

As far as finding goes we found one guy who is super chill and his name is Alex but his nickname is Sajt (cheese) super funny. We met with him the other day and he is just so chill, I’m pretty sure he is a hardcore stoner, but he was super cool and we just talked about God and Prayer so we’ll see how the next meeting with him goes in 2 weeks from now.

Oh yea and for Fourth of July we had a HOT DOG PAR TEA!!!! Super good and delicious and pretty funny; really didn’t do all that much for it, but all well.

We also met with a recent convert and she just asked us a ton of questions about our missions, like why we went. What we learned. It really made me do a lot of thinking about how much I really have changed during this entire time in Hungary and even in the MTC… it was really cool to realize.

Other than that just normal programs, normal tracting and tabling, talking to lots of drunk guys. It’s always, fun. Reminds me there’s this one drunk hobo who is super mean… just an angry elf. And I realized that even though he is a jerk to us and is a bit crazy, he’s still a child of God and God still loves him. He’s probably had some rough times, and the bible teaches us to "Love thine enemies and bless them who curse you" (and this guy cursed at us quite a bit) and once I started to see him for who he really is, I started to like him more and more. Just kinda cool personal experience.

Also favorite aspect of missionary work would have to be helping people and really trying to help people better their lives through the gospel. The big city is pretty nice because there’s a lot to do on P-day but then again we have to take the metro everywhere, and I kinda like the smaller branches because you get to know everybody really well, but its super funny watching everybody here especially all the little kids.

Anywho stay cool everybody
Sok Szeretettel
Waldvogel Elder
VEMS