Week 19

Monday, July 22, 2013

Dear Family,

First off next week is transfer week so the email will be coming on Tuesday next week since we switch Pdays transfer week. Fun fact next transfer will only be 5 weeks and then the one after that is 10! Whaaat. and then they will just be 9 weeks from then on out.

This week was such a good week. It was the zone goal to go all RAMBO but it was going to be a really hard to do so beacause of the kirándulás, the baptism, and going to Kecskemét for district meeting but we all worked hard and it was a super good week.

We put Gyula (I think I will just use first names it is easier) on bap date. Sister O and I set a transfer goal to find a family but instead I think we will be completing one! His wife, grandson (his grandson is Csaba who baptized Valentina, Marika, and Patrik) and wife Valika are members and is one of his children and then a daughter in law. So it was such a good experience. We were planning on bap challenging him after we watched the restoration film but we were talking about his book of Mormon reading and we gave him Alma 36 about repentence because he says he wants to change his life and the spirit was strong so we did it then and then it turns out Octber 5th is his birthday. So he will probably be baptized on his 60th birthday! how neat is that!

So the language Dad asked about it. I try not to talk about it in emails because it can be a discouraging thing for me. Learning Hungarian is literally the hardest thing I have ever done. It is teaching me a lot of humility and patience which is good. It is very easy to get discouraged and impatient with myself because of it but I am trying to be happy and such and just be patient and work hard because everyone says it will come. And strengthening my faith that it will come. We went on splits this week with the Sister Training leaders and the one I was with (Sister Fox) says I speak a lot and very well for my age in the mission and she says she is a good judge of it since they go on splits with the whole mission, but I dunno. I still have no idea what people are saying to me when they speak. Well ok that isn't true I can carry a conversation, but for example today when we went grocery shopping with the elder they were joking around that I could go senior next transfer (but I am positive that it won't happen since there is a group of 10 sisters the transfer above me) and then a néni came up to me and said something to me while we were waiting for the bus, and I had no idea what she said. haha. But it turns out she was saying that she found my berlet in the grocery store and gave it to the front and the grocery store was all like oh we know her she is the little foreign girl. haha. riot. I am the little foreign girl so that means the grocery store knows Sister O probably as the tall foreign girl. And how nice of that néni to come tell me that I had dropped my bus pass.

Sister Fox was really nice. And I really enjoyed splits. I was nervous and anxious for it, but there was no reason to be. It was neat to she how someone else does missionary work. She dies after next transfer and says that she is very comfortable leaving the mission because she knows it is in good hands because of sister missionaries like me she says. It was really encouraging to hear.

The big kirándulás was a good experience as well. They were celebrating pioneer day and these individuals are all the pioneers for the church in Hungary and so it was really neat to see them all pull through to organized this huge event. Kecskemét, Szeged, and Békéscsaba were all there. Are branch is so little, but you never would've been able to tell by the event it was such a success. They worked really hard for it. It was amazing to see them all pull through together.

We had a baptism which was definitely the best part of the week. Marika, Valentina, and Patrik were all baptized. It was so wonderful! The feeling of the spirit that was there while they were walking into the water and then when they came out just can't be described. The look of joy on Marika's face when she walked out of the pool was indescribable. Patrik was so excited all day Saturday and all day Sunday. Adri who got baptized last transfer told us about what see remember from her baptism and it was so great. I don't think they will ever know or understand how much they have changed my life (well Valentina wants to serve a mission and hopefully Patrik will as well when he gets older so maybe they will get it) Even just typing about it I can feel the spirit and am starting to tear up a bit. It was just such a sense of this is why I came on a mission to help people enter into the covenant of baptism to help them see how accepting the restored gospel can change their lives. To partake of the gift of the atonement. It is such a blessing to be a part of it and to see how much they have all change. I can already see such a change in Gyula from saying his first prayer and beginning to read from the Book of Mormon for the first time. He talks more. He has come to church things a lot since his family are members, but now he participates. It is amazing. I know the atonement has the power to change hearts and lives and I have seen it so clearly hear in Hungary. Since there is just one week left in the transfer I've been thinking a lot about the first 2 transfers of my mission and it really has been some of the best 12 weeks of my life. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary and even the the Hungarian language is so hard I am blessed to be a missionary in Hungary right now.

Ok well I love you all and have a wonderful week!

Sister Grigg

So this is from the kirándulás on Saturday and it is with a member and her husband who we put on bap dat for Oct 5^th this week!

and then V who got baptized and sister O and I.

I am matching making the branch. It is not a big deal. Here is member C who baptized V and there are the same age and both want to serve missions. C younger siblings were teasing V about her eventual sealing to C in the Salt Lake Temple. It was so good.

Here is Patrik and I. He is the one I told the story maybe like 2 months ago about when we put him on bap date. Some how the children's bap clothes got lost so a white shirt and pants worked instead. He was so excited for his baptism. It was one of the best experiences of my mission. I feel so fortunate that I got to see the whole process. Finding him, putting him on bap date, teaching him (and the elders finished the teaching process) and then him being baptized. And I'll most likely still be in Szolnok when he receives the priesthood.

Here is the Szonok Crew in Besenyszög for the kirándulás

V and I. Good thing I did my eyebrows that day because some Hungarians don't know how to take pictures and get super up close and in your face.

And her is an awkward picture of Elder Giacalone and I from the kirándulás (the quad unit activity). His Mom now reads the blog. so sometimes the people I serve with get special requests because their families read the blog. Kinda fun huh?

plus the yoda pictures of Elder Giacalone and I that he requested goes on the blog. That was when we got stuck in Ketcskemét in the vihar (storm...check me out with that Hungarian. It was one of the words I learned from church yesterday)

oh and another bap picture

it is kinda of selfish of me but where the baptism is is never a good angle for pictures so I look like a weigh a million pounds in all the bap pictures but whatever. It isn't about me.

baptisms!!!

V is the 17 year old girl. M is around 55. and P is 12 years old. It was such a special day for all of them.

We had a big (3 branch 1 ward) party to celebrate pioneer day and we had permission to wear non pross and we ended up rideing with President and Sister Smith there (everyone met at the branch house in Szolnok and then went to the place in a little falu (village) a half an hour away) and on the way back Sister Smith made president stop so we could take pictures in a sunflower field. And funny story the grass was taller than I was so I completely face planted on the way over there in front of the mission president and his wife, my trainer, and our elders. not a big deal. I'm over it.

here are more sunflower pictures. one I am squinting real hard and the other one my eyes are close but the third is golden because my hair is flowing very nicely in the light breeze. And Elder Miller has his arm around the sunflower.

K peace and blessings