Week 69

Monday, July 14, 2014

Dear Family,

It was a great week! We went to Győr and gave a training. It was the nuttiest day ever. We went to one train station and missed  train so then went all the way across Budapest to a different station and magically caught a train their that was faster so we only made is 5 minutes late to the Zone Training!! Heavenly Father really is watching over us. 

The Spirit was a big help this week too. One of our investigators we hadn't had contact with in a week and so we decided to go see her. We set aside time but then felt like we should go early but we already had another program scheduled. We cancelled it and went and saw and put her on bap date! It was a good thing that we went when the spirit told us to because she wouldn't have been home at the earlier time. 

We went tracting and it was super rough that day. We kept getting yelled us and so we were trying to find a good building and finally got let in to a building. And we had a short program with an older woman who totally was just being nice and let us in. We were putting english fliers in the mailboxes on the first floor and were going to walk out but then we felt like there was somewhere else in the building. So we went to the elevator (which was suuuuuper sketchy) and went to the top floor, but it wouldn't let us get off so we went the the next one and the first door we knocked on the woman said no, but we kept talking and then she let us in. Turns out her sister is a church member in Romania. And she promised she would come to church in 2 weeks while we were there. It was cool because we really felt like we were an answer to this woman's sister's prayers.

Some other cool things with the spirit happened this week too. but no time!

Love you all and have a great week :)

Sister grigg

Here are 1 pictures from Barnabás's baptism 1 week ago. He was so funny and kept joking around that he was going to jump over the railing into the font and get baptised that way.

Week 56

Monday, April 14, 2014

Dear Family, 

No time this week. 

I got to spend the day with my mtc companion, sister maxfield and her companion sister Naegle which was great! 

On the train ride back home this mom and her cute 6 year old daughter sat next to us and the 6 year old loooooved me and so I spent 2 hours playing with her. She was an angle sent from heaven because she asked all the right questions. 

---why do you speak funny?

---what are the black badges you wear?

---why do you wear them?

unfortunately, they weren't from our city and lived and hour away. Right before they got off the train (we stayed on going further) i told her I had an easter present for her and gave her a pass along card with a picture of the savior on it. She goes it is jesus.  The little girl kissed it and her mom said they would hang it in her room. I told the mom that there was a website on the back it she wanted to learn more and she said she would look at it. 

it was tender. 

Ok love oyu and have a great easter!
Sister grigg

sister maxfield and i

selfie at parlament

Conference!!

Dear Family,

How amazing was conference?!?! It went by wayy to fast. Unfortunately we don't get to catch the Sunday afternoon session so I am excited to read it in the Liahona in a bit. We had a bunch of investigators come and a few of the less actives we meet with. One of which brought 2 friends! one of which we are meeting with this week. sweet. We were able to set up with a family that someone else brought to conference! It was just a weekend of wonderfulness!

It was fun watching the relief society broadcast knowing that Mom said she loved it and thought it was good. One of our investigators who came to that one said she wasn't impressed with any of the women, and I just had to laugh haha. I didn't really know what to say. But she loved the prophet so that was good. And she came to a different session as well said it was amazing and like it was meant just for her. Love how all of the church leaders were speaking to millions of people but how it feels like it can be just for us! A different investigator called conference exciting! I loved how he talked about the priesthood session. And was asking us all kinda of questions about home teaching because I guess they talked about it. So good!!

What were all you favorite conference talks?!

The one Elder Ballard gave about members and missionaries working together was so good! And it totally worked because right after that session one member who was watching it in English with us goes hey sister what are you doing Friday at 12:30, do you have a program scheduled. We responded no and he goes how would you like to come have lunch with me and my coworkers?! So great. So we are going to his work place to causually interact with his coworkers. Talk about a great leap of faith by this memeber. I am sure he is nervous and hopefully he doesn't know how nervous I am because the hardest part about Hungarian is the causual chit chat. I am so excited though! I know there is going to be someone in that room prepared to hear the gospel!

I loved the talk that Elder Uctdorf gave about how the gospel is for everyone. Elder Erying's was super good. I loved how he started off by saying what choices do we make that bring us unhappiness and then what choices bring us happiness. And when we know about the gospel and have experienced the blessings and happiness it can bring why do we ever make choices that would lead us to not experience those blessings and that happiness!?! But we are not perfect so we do. 

This week was good! We went on splits and now the sisters in my mission get to do real legit splits like elders do. So that was way fun! It is always neat to learn from an older sister missionary. 

A member that has helped us out in several programs brought us dinner after a program he helped us with. He takes the Elders out to dinner  and now he likes the sisters enough to bring us food! So good. He was so nice and so excited to tell us he brought us dinner. He said he was going to cook for us sometime. It is awesome to see how much the members support us and to help us in the work, but that trust had to be gained through a lot of prays and hard work. 

I love you all!

Have a fabulous week!!!
Sister Grigg

That same member we went to fed us Serbian food for lunch and Sister Messinger hit her head on the staircase and so the member gave her this huge ice pack and made her sit there with it on her head. So good!

we go tabling by a metro stop and so there are always tons of people and the drawing was perfect to narrow out the people who weren't in a huge hurry that we could stop and talk too. 

The ward here is working on get the ward missionaries to teach the new member lessons. So we took a ward missionary out to a lesson to a member who got baptized a month ago. She was great. Her name is Marta. This is her. We had to take 2 different buses to get out to the members house because its was way out in the 15th district. And sister Magda and I always take selfies so there is that one.

Splits with Sister Chamberlain. Sister Magda and I spent the day with her in Kispest. While our companions worked in our area. She is such a great sister missionary!

We went tabling today with the elders and drew out a great plan of salvation. It was so great! I talked with a bunch of cool people who stopped to look at it and was able to set up a few programs with them for later this week!

csodálatos

Monday, September 23, 2013

Dear Family,

We have meet with this guy named Gabor 3 times now. It has been the coolest to watch him progress. He was just interested in English but now is interested in the gospel. He has started to praying for the first time in his life, and it was so cool to hear him talk about his experience with that and hear him bear testimony (although he has know idea that is what he was doing) as he talked about his new found communication with he Father in Heaven. He is getting baptized there is no doubt about it. We had a great member come with us once last week and he is coming to the lesson again tomorrow! I am so excited to keep helping him grow and progress. He responded super well to a soft bap challenge too! 

Laci (the investigator from Pest not the one from Szolnok) has been progressing too. We had an amazing lesson with him this week. We were able to find out more about his concerns about baptism and afterward and now hopefully we will be able to continue to work with him and address them. He is praying about a bapdate though so that is awesome. 

Renata is a new investigator as well! She is literally so cool! We found her last Pday during our working hours. She has the life, and I so want to be here. From meeting with her I realized how grateful I am for personal revelation. For the fact that our Father in Heaven wants to communicate with us individual and one on one. He wants to help us chose what is best for us and he knows. She has tons of amazing questions that make us think. We really have to tune into the spirit so that we don't say things hastely and give the wrong answer. It is so cool. She said the restoration makes perfect sense and of course the Plan of Salvation is God's plan. How cool is that?! Love it. 

I mentioned the cool thing tracting when I sent the pictures. It was just super fun to be in a neighborhood that looks like neighborhoods back in the states. I'll have to send a picture of the 10 stories that we normally tract in. We saw the biggest dogs at these családi houses though. Seriously, they were massive. 

We teach the cutes 10 year old girl ever. We talked about the 10 commandments this week and chastity (that was a first, teaching the law of chastity to a 10 year old) this week. She is so cute. When we asked why God would want us to be honest she said so we can live with our families for eternity. What a good answer. Every commandment God gives us is so that we will be better prepared to live with our families for eternity. So cool.

Did I mention that one of my zone leaders is Hungarian? The other is the youngest certified hypnotist in America. Pretty cool zone leaders huh?

The city is great. We have funny things that happen a lot. I love my companions. Our investigators are doing well, progressing, and our find efforts have been going well too. I love being a missionaries and I love the gospel!

Sister Grigg

Ok so we had a little accident today. We were with the elders and we were trying to get on the metro and the doors accidently shut. So one of the elders (our district leader Elder Seegmiller) went on splits with 3 sisters today for about 10 minutes while we waited for the next metro and caught up with the other 3 elders again...opps!!! (2 sets of elders so no worries no one was alone). so of course we had to take a picture to document it.

We went tracting in a different area today and found some családi houses. Normally we just tract in 10 story apartment buildings. One of the ladies was so nice at first we were talking with her neighbor and she was like you shouldn't be here and then we walked along her fence and she kept talking to us and wasn't interested so we handed her an English flier just to show that we are nice people and teach free English. See was like oh my grandchild might be interested and so I asked for his phone number and she invited us in feed us grapes (homemade) and water. We were fasting that day but looked at each other and decided to eat them because she kept telling us to. And we chatted with her for a bit and she is a nurse! so of course we were instant friends. Nurses are the same in every country (love you Jenny and Mom :))...they tell you how amazing of a profession it is and how you can work as a mom, a grandmom, and just anytime of you life.

so I kinda like the idea of sending the pictures before the long email. (Katie was upset that I called it short last week :)) so I am going to do it again. 

since I serve in the city ya know I am like a little hipster now (don't worry I totally know I am not really hipster). I wear my awesome glasses and take the metro. it isn't a big deal. as Sister Magda says how did the hipster die? He drowned in the mainstream. And way did the hipster burn her mouth on the soup. She ate is before it was cool. I love my companions. 

And the other picture is Sister Magda and Messinger as we wait for the metro. 

Post-sickness week

Monday, July 15, 2013

Dear Family,

Post sickness week has been good. So we spent last Pday in Budapest because we were already up there for the doctor, which was really fun. We went to St. Istvanne's cathedral and went up to Buda Castle. Pictures are included.

More importantly, we have 2 baptisms this week! So excited. The Szolnok branch's goal was 10 convert baptisms this year which is huge because last year they only had 3. We have 2 baptisms this week and the elders have 1 (it is that boy P who I told the story about a month and a half ago, the branch president said it would be better if they teach him and that was a few weeks ago) so with these 3 baptism the branch will have had 9 this year, which is super exciting! Unfortunately a few of them are already inactive. Baptism is a huge deal but even bigger is retaining them and enduring to the end. Our baptism last time the 17 year old girl she has yet to take the sacrament since her baptism. She comes to church every week and always comes in a skirt or dress now but always comes late. so we are really working on punctuality. She is so sweet. already plays a big role in the branch and her heart is in the right place. Speaking of skirts and dresses V who is getting baptized this week bought a skirt because she didn't have one and everyone else wears one. It was so sweet when she told us that because we hadn't said anything. Another one of our investigators has been dressing more modestly because people in the branch have told her. It is kinda funny. Sister O and I just think come to church we don't care what you are wearing; we will talk about the modesty thing later haha. Speaking of church yesterday a woman we gave a pass along card a while ago showed up a church today. We didn't get our number or set up with her or anything but she came to church because she needed some comfort. I was playing the piano so I didn't really get to talk to her, but she ended up staying for all 3 hours.

We put L on bap date this week. He is the one who's birthday party we went to my first week in the country. We have been meeting with him endlessly lately and we were able to put him on a bap date. I really believe that since he has been keeping his commitments to read and come to church he has been able to progress. Unfortunately, he won't pray on his own. He says very good prayers when we meet, but it afraid of seeing a vision like Lehi and Nephi did in 1 Nephi, which is kind of really funny, but it is ok. He called us yesterday and said that he read because I am szigorú when we extend the commitments. Which means strict haha. He gets really distracted easily.

Remember that funky program I talked about a few weeks ago with Z brother's? They came to get her bike and we asked them if we could talk about prayer for 15 minutes and he prayed at the end. He is really interested so we set up with him this week, which is exciting. We are going on splits this week with the sister training leaders and I am nervous. It will be the first time I'll be away from Sister O and doing missionary work with someone else. But it will be good preparation for when we part ways at transfers in 2 weeks. This week is also a huge church party thing on Saturday. A ward and 2 other branches are coming and so is the mission presidency so it is like a huge deal and President Smith gave us permission to go if we only shop and email today instead of taking a pday. So we are having lunch after this and then just working the rest of the day.

We had zone training this week in Szeged, which is a further train ride for us than Budapest. So we have to wake up early and it takes the whole day, but it was really good. Szeged is a super pretty city and on the train ride there, we saw lots of sunflower fields.

I almost forgot to tell you all that we went to a wedding this week! A member invited us to her niece's wedding and President Smith said we should go because it was only a half an hour so we went. I didn't understand a thing, let's be honest, but it was neat. Very different from the weddings I have been to in the states.

We found the best ice cream place ever this week while we were tracting and trying to get into a building we kept seeing people with ice cream cones so I just asked them where the ice cream place was. Actually it was a dad and a daughter on bikes and I kind of superly weirdly ran after them and stopped them. Sister O was dying, but we ended up getting way good ice cream. Oh while we were tracting yesterday I made a woman cry. It was so said. It was my turn for the door approach and I borrowed a good Sister O question and asked her from where she receives happiness and she cried and wouldn't take the plan of salvation pamphlet. I felt horrible. We did more tracting than normal this week so that was fun.

Ok well I love you all! Have a wonderful week everyone!

Grigg Nővér

Sister O and I at Buda castle. We didn't realize we would be in Budapest last weekend so yes I wore the same skirt for 3 days. Thank heavens it was reversible.

We spent 1 night at the buda sister's apartment and they got feed by the Stake president so Sister O and I made palacsintas, which are Hungarian pancakes. Dad they remind me a bit of Swedish pancakes. 

The Parliment building. This is the view from the Buda side of the river from the castle district. 

Here is the gross concoction of meds I had to take 3 times a day. eww that is the bathroom at the mission home in case you thought ours was that nice. 

We spent a lot of time on trains this week with coming back from buda and then going to szeged. 

Here is St. Istvánne's cathedral and inside the cathedral. Don't worry, they still have his hand, which is what the other picture is. 

Here is lunch at an Italian place in Szeged that wasn't really all that Italiany

The elders were in Budapest as well for new missionary training for Elder Giacaloni so we met up with Elder Miller so there is a pic with the 3 of us 

This is the Szolnok crew in Szeged for zone training 

I am in my second transfer! wild.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Dear Family,

Melegem volt. those are the words that best describe the week. Other than the weather is has been a good week. Since we stayed together we didn't go up for transfers so we were just able to keep working.

So no worries the email place has some great rap music going on for us right now, since I know you are all concerned.

Elder Giacalone is here with Elder Miller. Fresh from the MTC. People call him the "teljsen zöldi" and I am the "részen zöldi" or he is the complete greeny and I am the part greeny now, according to the branch members. Katie met him through one of her friends before he left on his mission. So that is some fun stuff. He is doing great. there is a picture of our little Szolnok crew...but Elder Miller didn't want to stop so the picture is of him walking away. His family reads the blog Ally so that is more for their benefit.

Oh the weather. Words can not even begin to describe how hot it is. It has been in the 100s this past week. Thankfully not a lot of Humidity but the rough part is that there is no break from the heat because no where is air conditioned. Like I know I have been hotter in my life but I have never been this consistantly hot for this long. It is going to be a long, hot, and extremely sweaty summer. But it will be good. Funny story about the heat. We went out with the Elders on a bus (which Hungarians don't have the best hygiene in the world so it is way smelling haha) like a 30 minute ride to a village because they meet with a members husband who is not a member. Z. so I realize the whole initial thing might not be the best because everyone's names seems to start with Z. and the wife is B. and they fight a lot which causes him to smoke and that is the thing holding him back from baptism so the Branch President decided Sis O and I could go teach B how to be a good wife because we as a 21 and a 20 are completely qualified on this subject. We give really good advice let me tell you. So since we had no idea how to do this the spirit told us to talk about Christlike attributes and we started with patience. And she knows that she isn't patient and was really willing and accepting to talk about it and how to improve. so it was a really good lesson. But we meet in the kitchen, and it was swealtering. The Elders came out of the livingroom with Z to go look at the baby chicks (yes chickens, that is right) and the three of us are fanny ourselves with family proclamation pamphlets looking completely wilted, is the word Sis O uses to describe our condition. I think we looked like death but wilted is probably a better word. ok maybe this was one of those you had to be there stories.

We had 2 of the funniest programs yesterday. One of our investigators called because she had left her bike there after church and said her brothers were going to come get it if the gate was still open. Oh and this investigator, Z, brought me shoes yesterday. heels. apparently my practically shoes aren't cute enough. She made me promise to use them so I wore them during church. So we went back to the branch house and I was like let try and met with them and Sis O was like ok how would you say that in Hungarian. She is so good. They are 17 and 19. we had met the 17 year old one before. he is dating his sister's (who is 21 and dating a 40 year old) good friend A who is 30 (we have met with her and Z before). apparently the whole age difference thing isn't a big deal here. so we were like hey do you have 10 so we can chat about prayer. So we went in to the branch house and talked about prayer for 15 minutes and gave them a book of mormon and one of them said the closing prayer. during the lesson he was like how do you pray. seriously what a perfect question.

Then we went tracting, and we got let in! Which was my first time being let in, but in all fairness we haven't tracted a whole ton. It was a Mom and her 2 daughters and she also has a son who wasn't there. We told her that we knew our message could help her be happy, which is what synch the deal. or more accurately the Spirit touched her heart at that moment. She isn't happy because the kids' Dad took off about a year ago. So we got to know her and she doesn't really believe in God because of all the bad things that happen. We talked about God and Christ and that they have a plan for us and we introduced the Book of Mormon and talked about agency. We are going back over there this week, which is really exciting! I was reading in 3 Nephi 17 this morning which is one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon and in verse 17 is talks about how no one can understand the joy the people felt when the Savior prayed for them to the Father. And I hope when we pray with people that they feel that joy. That they can feel their Father's in Heaven love for them. That it invites the spirit.

We had a great lesson about tithing with one of our bap dates. M. She is the one that is quitting smoking. It has know been 2 and a half weeks since she quit! She is good friends with a member of the branch which is how the missionaries were introduced to her. seriously that is the best way to do missionary work. through the members. If investigators already have that immediate connection it is just so good. V the other bapdate we met with and talked about the word of wisdom and she is now in Jacob! The member there grilled her in her normal fashion but V impressed the member. It was really funny because the member is a néni and then started talking about boys with V and if it was ok to kiss. such a riot.

A who was the one who got baptized almost didn't show up to her confirmation this week! ok seriously now it is like funny but yesterday during sacrament meeting was the most stressful 1 of my life. we were sitting there and Elder Peterson and his new companion had taken a 2.5 train ride so that he could confirm her because she had asked him too and President gave the permission. and then she wasn't there. we called her twice then the elders called and she answer and she had overslept. oh 17 year old girls on summer break. but she got there and was confirmed right after sunday school. we had a great program with her after church and she is doing so well. seriously. it is amazing to see the change in her because of the gospel and even the change since her baptism a week ago! love it. we are going to call her next week before church to help her get there on time. she is cute, in her prayers she asks Heavenly Father to bless her with punctuality. We are hoping to met her mom this week.

Love you all and have a great week!

Grigg Nővér

Sis. O and I