Great Week

Monday, January 27, 2014

We had a great week this week!

Our 16 year old bap date passed his bap interview and is getting baptized on Saturday! We are so excited for him. It has been quite the rollercoaster ride teaching him, but he is now ready. Tender kid. We were practicing the interview with him because he was so nervous. When we talked about tithing he was like you pay 10% of your income and then later you get more back in return! I was like noooo. spiritually you get back more in return but not more money. or at least not all the time. Because the member that helped us out in that program with him told him about how he payed his tithing for the first time after being baptitzed and them 2 days later got some unexpected money back in the mail from something so the 16 interpretted that differently. so funny. 

P, the guy that B met on facebook and then brought to us. Came to church this week for the first time! Stayed for all three hours too and loved it. He brought me a present. It is a little book of Hungarian saints. He said, "They are all saints because they preformed miracles, and I saw this and thought of you because you are now a saint in my life because you are preforming this miracle for me. Meeting you has completely changed me life." Geesh we have only meet with him twice, and he has only been taught a restoration! the Book of Mormon is powerful. We are talking about the Plan of Salvation tonight so that should be exciting!! 

We did another church tour this week with a different bap date and he loved it!  (It is always interesting to me when people accept a bap date before they come to church) The only councilor in the branch presidency was there and he was awesome. It might have overwhelmed the investigator a little bit because when we got to the little geneolgy center in the building he told him that Hilter and Stalin's temple work has been done. Oh gosh. Our investigators goes, " that is morbid." so I changed the topic. haha. but he felt the spirit really strong in the branch house. 

love you all!

Sister Grigg 

Week 44

Monday, January 20, 2014

Dear family!

We had a crazy but amazing week this week! We had tons of programs scheduled all throughout the city so we didn't really have time to take meals. I felt so guilty because I scheduled them and poor Sister Hinckley was just coming in new to the area. And then blessing of all blessings we got fed a bunch of times! so we didn't starve. The Lord was certainly looking out for us this week.

We had some crazy cool experience. I told you last week about the boy that B met on facebook and then picked us up to meet him. That was last monday and then he went to institute on Thursday and then we meet with him last saturday and put him on bap date! How wild is that. It was so cool. The read from the Book of Mormon and said that both times he read that the message had been directly for him. so he knew that the Book of Mormon was true. He is 29 and the member is 24 and then there was only member there that is 26. It was so power sitting in that room listening to these 3 young single adults talk about how the Book of Mormon has changed their lives. one of which isn't a member yet and the other two were only baptized a month ago! It was one of the most spiritual moments on my mission, and I feel so blessed that Heavenly Father let me stay in Szombathely to be a part of it! I am so grateful that I got to stay. We have some really great work going on, and it is so humbling to be a part of it. I really just feel like an instrument in the Lord's hands. He keeps guiding me to these awesomely prepared people. I people are ready for the gospel.

Going on that line we put Z on bap date this week too! He is the one that got a little confused when we taught him the restoration because he thought we wanted him to become a prophet. Well we went back twice last week with a member and we taught him the plan of salvation and he was beyond prepared to learn about that. He loves his family. He had all the right questions: there can't just be a good and a bad place, what happens with all my ancestors who didn't get to be baptized and it went on.The member was so excited by it all too. So we gave him a bap date and he pulls out his work schedule and says he is working that day. but let's plan it because he can get it off work to be baptized. I was like we can do the saturday before and the saturday after but he wanted that saturday. It was really great. We are hoping to start meeting with his whole family soon. He understands that they all need to be baptized to get to the celestrial kingdom so hopefully we will let us come over when they will all be home. I meet his wife and daughter once but not to teach them.

We did a church tour with a family that Sister Daniels and I found and have been teaching. They are waiting on their answer to know if the Book Of Mormon is true. They are really interested in the gospel and we have really been working with them. The Church tour was great and they are finally going to come to church for the first time this coming week!! I am so excited for them.

well I love you all and I hope you all have a great week!

Sister Grigg

I got to see Sister O at transfers. She specifically asked if this picture would go on the blog so I had to send it home.

before Sister Daniels left we got to take a few pictures with people

those are all padlocks on the gates of the cathedral in town. It is a Hungarian thing. I have seen it before in other cities. I need to ask what the tradition is behind it.

Transfer week

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

So I am staying in Szombathely, which was a shock. Everyone thought I would be the one to leave. But I am staying and Sister Hinckley is coming. We were in the MTC together for like 3 weeks she is just 1 transfer below me. I am really excited she is super cute. We were also in the same district towards the beginning of my time in Hungary when I was in Szolnok and she was in Kecskemét. Sister Daniels and I are sad to be departing we had such a good time together here in Szombathely. We saw some really neat miracles happen while we were together and found some very prepared people that we are still working with. She is going to Sopron and opening sisters there for the first time. It is closest city to Szombathely. So we will still be in the same zone, which is exciting.

We had a wild week this week. We found this guy tracting 2 weeks ago and met with him for the first time and we taught an awesome restoration. Probably one of the best ones on my mission. Sister Daniels and I were really rockin it the spirit was there super strong and he was really understanding and asking great questions. Then when we bap challenged him he didn't quite get it because he thought we were asking him to be a prophet. haha. riot. and he didn't want us to come back. I was just like no way. we are not loosing you. So we chatted and he said ok you can come back so we went back with a branch missionary and had a great lesson and he already feels like the Book of Mormon is true and he only read the introduction. I love how fast Heavenly Father answers prayers sometimes.

So our recent convert has been doing missionary work like no bodies business. The elders are meeting with her mom's boyfriend's family. And we have meet some of her friends. She brings new people to church everyweek. This week she went back to the homeless place and brought 5 men from there in addition to the 6 children (they aren't really kids though). so sister Daniels and I sat next to her and rigth infront of the homeless men. And they were trying to sing the hymns (a few of them were not completely sober) and for some reason I just felt the spirit so strongly. I have no diea why but it was a touching moment. Sister Daniels and i looked at each other trying not to laugh. We had the funniest experience this week. We got out of program and we had missed a call from her and so we called her back and she was like do you have time and we had dinner left that night so I was like yeah she was like where all you I have a friends who wants to meet you. so she came and picked us up and we went to the branch house. I was asking how they meet and they had met 30 minutes before on facebook. she was like on date and asked us to come crash it. haha. but we had a neat program with him and set up again for next week. She just wants to share the gosepl with everyone. It is great.

We helped a woman quite coffee this week. she is on bap date for march and her husband got baptised a few months ago. It was a great program. we had just figured she was living the wow because her husband was. She was super nervous becausein the past when she tried she would get really bad headaches. but we told her we would pray and fast for her. Her faith was strengthened immensly by this. It could seem like such a small thing to the Lord someone trying to quite coffee but since it was important to her it was important to the Lord and he helped her.

Love you all and hope you all have a great week!

Sister Grigg

the woman who quicked drinking coffee this week an her husband.

Happy New Year

Monday, January 6, 2014

Dear Family!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful New Years. We had another extended Pday from 2pm on New Years Eve to the day after New Years. And it was great! There was a super fun branch party on New Years Eve and we had several investigators come (one came a little drunk so that was a little awkward and a different one in a mini skirt and everyone freaked out. it is fine.) we got permission to stay until 9:30pm and be home by 10 because we live a half an hour walk. And the walked home so was fun because there were fireworks going off the whole time. In Hungary the only time it is legal for people to do fireworks is from 6pm new years eve to 6 am new year's day. And let me tell you that they went off for the entire 12 hours straight.

We started off the first week of the new year well. B who got baptized a few weeks ago is doing super well, sharing the gospel with everyone like a champ. We had dinner last night with some of her friends. She told us to be chill and then one of the first things one of them asks me is are there rules about what you can't eat or drink. As he had just come back from being outside smoking and was holding gin in his hand. its fine. so I tried to not be all intense and just be like there are a few things that we believe that aren't healthy so we don't eat or drink them. and he asked for examples. and so I said alcohol and cigerattes, calling him to repentence in true missionary style. it's fine.

The church members were awesome this week with our investigators in church so that

was such a blessing.

We had some great experiences tracting this week. We tracted into 2 families. One was so funny. The kids were nuts. We ending up having to do I teach a little bit while sister Daniels plays with the children and then we would switch. They were quite for about 1 minute during the opening prayer. The little boy put on a puppet show for me featuring a doll with out a name and a turtle. he did magic for Sister Daniels. The little girl was dancing the entire time and the mom was holding a 3 week year old. It was nuts but so much fun. Hopefully things will be a little more calm when we go back this week.

Last week was good but not without its trails. Everyone says that the good outweighs the bad on a mission and the good moments are so wonderful you forget about the bad. And I completely agree with the first part. The good is very very good, but at least for right now I can still remember the bad and the sad and sometimes it is so hard to not blame yourself. Like this week we had to push back 2 bap date that should have been this Saturday. And one of them I can't help but think it might be my fault. If only I had been more bold, better at the language or more this or more that. And one of the Zone Leaders today called to ask why he was off bap date, and after talking to him I thought maybe I should've just scheduled the baptismal interview, he probably would have passed. Maybe I just got nervous because the new branch president was in the lesson with us. The list can go on. I the end I tried my best to followed the spirit and Sister Daniels did too. I just hate the feeling that I could be a hinderance to the work rather than a help. I hate the feeling that maybe I prevented someone from entering into the covent of baptism. Maybe I halted his salvation. And he will probably be fine and get baptized in a month or maybe less time. Sister Daniels and I just have to trust the spirital prompting that we both got in the lesson not to schedule the interview. And if we felt that way during then am sure it still applies now even if I am doubting that spiritual prompting we received. It is like what the Lord said to Oliver cowldry in the early chapters of D&C (I have recently started reading that because I just finished the BoM as part of a distric goal to read it before the end of the year). I spoke peace to your mind what greater witness is there than that. I am being Oliver coldwery and doubting that my previous spiritual promptings. Preach My Gospel says you are a successful missionary when you follow the promptings of the spirit and can feel the Lord working through you. Sister Daneils and I did that so we were successful missionaries despite the unfortunate situation of 2 bap dates being pushed back.

Oh well, I ended this email on a little more of an intense note.

Love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Sister Grigg

christmas day monopoly

branch new year's party and our christmas tree

new years party

Christmas Eve dinner at the members than after I threw up. 

Christmas

Monday, December 30, 2013

I hope that everyone had a very merry Chirstmas, filled with lots of family and sweets. Because literally everyone has decided to give Sister Daniels and I an insane amount of dessert so we have been eatting dessert every morning for breakfast for the past week. It was a great week: we had some time to relax, spent a little more time with members that normal, and was able to talk about the savior a lot. 

Be warned it is a long one this week....Mom and Dad said my emails have been slacking the past couple weeks. So I really think I stepped up my game this week.

Let us start with Christmas Eve. It started out great. A member (who got set apart as a missionary a few days ago and is in the London MTC right now) took us to an investigators and we got to meet the investigators family, which was great. We are trying to figure out how to take a bus out there (they live in a little village) so we can teach the whole family instead of just the daughter at the branch house. And they were super nice and insisted that we take home a christmas tree. So we took that home. In Hungary people put up their Christmas trees on Christmas Eve, a few people the day before but pretty much everyone on Christmas Eve. And then we went to another investigators for lunch with a different member. So that was good. And then the rest of the day was a Pday until we went to a recent converts for dinner with the Elders and we will get to that in a second because it is good. Sister Daniels and I watched Joy to the World 4 times at least on repeat. but looking back it was actually great because as missionaries are just helping people draw closer to their Savior and watching that really helped remind me that we aren't here just to teach the law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom in a way that our investigators will want to live them but the commandments help us draw closer to our Savior. And we show our faith in him and our love for him by keeping them. and they help us be happy too so that is good. So we went to the recent converts with the Elders and it was the worst Christmas Eve ever. It was nice because she has no family and so we were her family for the evening. She probably cooked like all day and she was so thoughtful and sweet. We sit down and she goes everyone likes fish right? oh gosh. You know that I don't eat fish. It was fish soup. I had heard about it before and thought I might be able to escape my mission without eatting it. But I was wrong. I eat it like a champ. There were 1500 million little bones in every bite. It was so rough. There was so much food and she kept making us eat. It was miserable. and then so much dessert and she kept making us eat. We were there for a super long time and then we got home and I told Sister Daniels I didn't feel well and she thought I was being dramatic because we all know I am. But I wasn't. I threw up it all. Which in the long run was probably better because all the really gross food wasn't sitting in my stomach. So christmas eve night was really rough. but it is ok we got through it.

All of Christmas Day was a Pday and we met the Elders at the branch house and played a little basketball and played monopoly then skyped at a members which was great.

The Day after Christmas we went over to a member family's for lunch. They were the first family to be sealed in Hungarian. All the family's before that were either done in English or more common German. How neat is that? They showed us pictures of their sealing. It was so inspiring to be with this family and see them trying their best to put the gospel and Christ at the center of their family.

We had a great program with one of our investigators on bap date for Jan 11 this week. Chastity is a hard commandment for a lot of people, but as he has been reading and praying he has gained a testimony that it is a commandment from God. The spirit was super strong as he was talking about how sad it is that the world doesn't live according to it and how much better the place would be if everyone lived in align with God's commandments. It was humble to see him get teary eyed as he talked about it. 

We got a new bishopric this week and we are in a district so part of the mission presidency came down for it. On Saturday there was a baptism so they all came down for the baptism too, which was super neat. it was fun to have president and his wife here. It was such a powerhouse of leadership in church and at the baptism because the stake president was also here visiting (we aren't part of the stake though) so the district presidency, the mission presidency and the stake president were here. nuts. that is like all the leadership in the country. I translated for Sister Smith during church and the baptism which was a little nerve racking. I may have made up a few things. who knows?

Funny thing. We went tracting once this week and someone answered through the buzzer thing outside the apartment building ,"no one is here right now. i am not home." ironic. Sister Daniels and I were dying. 

I feel like I had a super spiritual week, but I can never convey that in my emails home. Just know that I am so grateful for Christmas because we celebrate Christ's birth. Someone asked what is more imporant to us Christmas or Easter? I said that at Christmas time we celebrate the Savior's birth but we always talk about why he was born; he was born to be our Savior and Redeemer. To suffer the sins, temptaions, pains, and sorrows of mankind so that we can be redeemed from sin and death. without Easter Christmas wouldn't really be important. We generally celebrate chirstmas more and the christmas season and spirit of christmas lasts for longer, but we always remember the role that Christ's plays in Heavenly Father's plan. I asked her what she thinks and she like Christmas better because she likes baby Jesus better and baby Jesus is the one that brings the presents. I said that's nice. sometimes is it hard to have appropriate reactions in a differerent language.

Love you all and have a great New Year's

Sister Grigg

baptisms are the best

Monday, December 16, 2013

It was such a good week! Because I got to go to an investigators baptism in Pest! It was amazing. I was on splits with Sister Westover in Buda (which was great) and so we crossed the river and went. It was so great. She had also served in Pest and on the way there I just thought a lot about my time in Pest and how much I loved it. Sister Messinger and Magda and I had a lot of really cool things happen with our work while we were there. It was such a great period of my mission. It was the neatest thing to be at the baptism because it went like how Sister Messinger, Sister Magda and I imagined it. We invited a member our second program who then came regularly once a week. And after we walked out of that program we were like Stephen is going to baptize him! and He did! I said the closing prayer and afterwards Gábor said, "as soon as you started praying I thought, I know this voice and all those feelings came rushing back to me from all the times we met." It was so nice. I was just so touched that from my voice the Holy Ghost brought to his rememberence all the times I had met with him and taught him the gospel. It wasn't the words I said that he remembered but the fact that we had the Holy Ghost will us during all those times of teaching him the gospel. When he came out of the water I was just overwhelmed with love for him and so happy for him and making those covenants with Heavenly Father. I was standing next to Sister Magda who was one of my companions when we found him and taught him. We walked back into the chapel together with our arms around each other, smiling. I leaned over to her and whispered we did good. We were so young in the mission, didn't really speak Hungarain, and had no idea what we were doing, but we did good those 7 weeks. We worked hard, we found in him, and brought the Holy Ghost to our programs, which was all that Gábor needed.

 Going back was great. I got to see a few other investigators I taught while in Pest and a few members that helped us out.

This upcoming week should be a good one as well. We are going up to Budapest again for zone conference. We have to get up at like 4 in the morning and we wont get back til late. Which is a little stressful because it takes out a whole day of working. We are getting an investigator ready for her baptism on Saturday! We are so excited for her. She passed her baptism interview this past week and is excited for Saturday. I am so excited. She is one of the reason why I feel like I needed to come to Szombathely. It has been amazing to teach her the gospel and watch her progression.

Merry Christmas!!!

Love you all

Sister Grigg

So I got sick this week and the branch members and our investigators freaked out. I got lots of "gifts". One incident was super funny. It was 9 at night so Sister Daniels and I were planning for the next day, and we got a phone call from a member that said they were outside our apartment. Sister Daniels and I walked outside and there were 3 members while tea and medicine. It was super tender. And also they felt guilty because one of them was the person I got sick from. Hungarians literally make the best tea ever. Sister Daniels and I learned the secret so no worries.

Gábor's baptism in Pest!

more of Gábor's baptism

One of the members here in Szombathely, who Sister Daniels and I are obsessed with. She got back from her mission in Finland like a month ago.

selfie shot of the district, the old one that is.

last shot of the district before 2 of them headed off for transfers. the elders are now in a tricompanionship with a new elder.

Week 39

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

It is transfer week once again. And Sister Daniels and I are staying together again!!! I am so excited. I feel like Sister Daniels is like another Katie, Jenny, or Ally, or something, just one of my sisters. I am so glad we get to spend the holidays together.

It was a great week! There was someone I taught in Szolnok who got baptized and then 2 people I taught in Pest got baptized and then there is another baptism in Pest on Saturday and President gave me permission to go to that one because I will be in Buda on splits so I am so excited for this week! And we have a few people who will be baptized this coming transfer here in Szombathely so that will be fun to help them get ready.

One of our investigators ended up in the hosptial this week! So Sister Daniels and I went and visited her twice and were able to get some teaching in. She said a prayer with her own words! It was amazing.

Another investiagtor invited us and all the elders over for dinner so that was super fun and she is getting baptized soon and then it came out that she doesn't feel like that the LDS church is the only true church. We couldn't even address it because we had to run to another program or else we would have been late. But we met later that week and talked about it and the great apostacy and asking God our questions. She still really wants to be baptized because she likes all the commandments and the friendship. It was so neat. While she drove us home we passed another church and she asked if we knew what it was and we said yes and she goes, "oh they are different they are not like us Mormons." It was the best. And then yesterday as we were walking to the branch house to meet with an investigator she called and goes I am forsure about my baptism (I didn't know she was unsure  because we scheduled the bap interview so I was a little confused on the phone) and she goes I know it is all true. And so I asked how it happened and she shared a cool experience out of reading out of the Book of Mormon. It was the neatest thing to hear her say, " I know it is all true. I know the Book of Mormon is true." I am just so thankfully that Heavenly Father blessed her with a moment like that so for the rest of her life she can look back on that time with the Holy Ghost as the moment she got her answer. I feel so blessed that she called us and shared that expereince with us. This is the same girl that I made the deal with God that I am will name my firstborn daughter after her if she gets baptized. And she is going too! I am so happy for her. The gospel will bless her life so much!

Love you all so much!

Sister Grigg

There is a nice christmas thing set up in the main square

They celebrate Mikolás here and it was the 6th of December. So santa comes and brings chocolate into the kids shoes, which they leave on the windows. So sister Daniels and I tried it and what do you know. Mikolás came!! so great. Interesting fact about that. On christmas it is Jézuska or baby jesus that brings the presents. so I asked what happens if they don't believe in jesus and it is still jesus that brings the presents.

And this is the investigator that was in the hospital. [A/N: I have no idea where this picture is.]

part of the district