Another week has gone by! What happened, you ask? Good question :)
We
had some really awesome programs this week. The one I wanted to write
about today was with a girl named Reni. She is about 20 years old and a
university student here in Szeged. We've been meeting with her for
awhile and we asked her to pray about the Book of Mormon last week. (We
really are here to introduce people to the gospel material and
principles, then we encourage them to study it themselves, and take the
time to ask God themselves if it is true or not.) Anyways, she came to
us this past week and told us that she wasn't really searching for a
change. She liked her church and her life and didn't see what was so
different about ours. I prayed for some great inspiration and started
talking to her. I explained that we really respected her strong
relationship to God and really truly respected her church and religion.
I explained that we are here to introduce these things that we believe
are true and that have brought us a lot of happiness with others and to
invite them to learn about them. I drew a picture on the board that an
MTC instructor had shown us of all the blessings we receive after being
baptized into this church-- listing things like the gift of the Holy
Ghost, priesthood, temples, etc. etc. As I wrote the list up there, I
stepped back and looked at it all and something in particular popped
out. I told her that really the biggest blessing I think we get is the
opportunity to go the the temple and make promises to God. That felt
like the right thing to be talking about, actually, so Sister Papritz
and I started explaining what temples were. The program ended with us
giving her some more information about temples (feel
free to follow the link and check out this issue of a church magazine
all about temples) and with her going away a lot more contemplative.
Even if she decides she doesn't want to meet with us anymore, I know we
needed to better explain the significance of the temple to her so she
would truly be able to make the choice. I'm so glad I was able to
follow the Spirit's guidance in that lesson! It is so cool how much God
cares about each and every single person we teach :)
We had some funny tracting stories this past week.
We talked to this one old bácsi for ages and ages. He told us how he
read from the Bible and then shuffled over to his bookcase to try and
find it for us. He couldn't find it, though, so we finished our
conversation and moved on to the next door. While we were talking to
the people there, we heard a call from down the hall. "Hey girls! I
found my bible!" The bácsi had come out into the hallway waving his
Bible to show us haha :) We gave him a big thumbs up and thanked him
for sharing :P
Other fun news, the young adults in our branch
participated in a dragon boat race this past week! Yup, you read that
right. Basically, they crew-teamed in these long canoes with dragon
heads on the side down the Tisza rivers against other dragon boat racing
teams. They recruited the young adults from other cities around Szeged
(and even some from Romania!). Sister Papritz and I had three
investigators on the team, so we went and cheered them on :) And it was
definitely a lot of fun!.... buut... they weren't very good haha.
(They had only practiced once before the races.) But they got to race
three times, getting better and better every time (they really synced up
after getting a durmmer). They never won an individual race, but they
ended up winning third overall, taking home a TROPHY! We were shocked,
but totally happy for them! It was very random, but a lot of fun :D
What else has happened? Hmm.... on kind of a random
note, there is currently a GIANT wine festival going on in Szeged.
There will actually be various festivals (one on the bridge here this
upcoming weekend!) and concerts and plays all summer long, and right now
it happens to be the wine festival. We have to walk by it every night
on the way home, and, while obviously we don't participate in the wine
tasting, we get serenaded by Hungarian musicians all night long :P
Oh and I gave a talk in church yesterday! Yup,
missionaries give a short talk every Sunday in this ward. Actually,
most missionaries in Hungary have given talks their entire missions, but
since I started my mission in the biggest ward in Hungary, I've never
had to before! This was the first chance I ever had to give a talk in
Hungarian! I was pretty nervous (mostly because I never had done it
before) but it went pretty well. To summarize, I based my talk on this talk
from last conference about how we need a church. It is a question I
think most of us run into a lot-- WHY do we need an organized church if
we are basically good people anyways? Basically, the church helps us
become better people, giving us the opportunity to take the
sacrament, serve others, and to reinforce and strengthen our testimony.
Anyways, I think it went pretty well-- a lot of people came up and
thanked me for it, saying that I had helped them think about it in a
different way than before. And the Romanian girl told me my Hungarian
was really good haha :P
So, anyways, this week has been fun :) Sister
Papritz and I again got standard AND spoke Hungarian for 6 plus days
this week (we have a goal to do that every week this transfer and so
far, we are three for three!). We are having fun, but still working
really hard :) Life is great!!
Love you all!
Kramer Nővér aka McKenna
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