January 20, 2014
Alrighty
ladies and gents, be prepared for a new era to begin with Elder Magda and Elder
Flake!
Kewl
intro, right? Yeah, I thought so too (not being prideful or anything).
This
week has been an interesting week to say the least. But that's normal for
transfer weeks for several reasons: departing from old companions and going
with your new one, new area, people going home, new missionaries coming into
the field which means you're getting older and older, weather changes from cold
to colder, clouds that used to hold in the rain are now just letting it all
fall.....there may be more, but that's all that could come to my head. It was
kind of a sad thing seeing Elder Gaytán leave because we got a long so well and
we're now like best buds (I think......)! Plus we really got the work sky
rocketing here and all the investigators we're super bummed to hear that we
were being split up. Also, on Sunday he told the branch that he was sure that
he would be staying and that he was looking forward to be serving around them
for another transfer. But unfortunately that didn't happen. The branch was
telling me yesterday 'We thought he was going to stay! He said he felt like he
was' Well, that's transfers for yeah. Who can predict them, ha ha. However I have
been really enjoying these first few days with Elder Flake. He and I have been
getting along super well. He is also from Arizona and was born in the same city
as Elder Gaytán. He is 19, just a little youngster, and has 4 younger siblings.
He is already rocking the language for his age in the mission and we are
already speaking some great Hunglish
(English and Hungarian mixed together). Probably one of the greatest creations
of all time ha ha.
I
basically have one main story that I want to share with you. It's one of those
'Are you serious?!?!' ones, included with a face palm somewhere in the midst of
it. On Wednesday, transfer day, when all the missionaries switch companions at
the Keleti train station in Budapest, we woke up at 5:45 so we could meet Elder
Herd, the senior elder here, at 6:30 outside of his car to drive us to the
train station that took off at 7:00. Well, we woke up at 5:45, buuuuttttt right
as I turned off the alarm, my head hit my pillow and I was out again until we
got a call at 6:30 from Elder Herd asking where we were. Completely dazed and
still trying to gather what in the world was going on, I just told him that we
would take the later train that left at 9 because we knew we wouldn't be able
to make it. That's not the main part of the story. So we got up then and just
got ready and got on our train at 9. We arrived in Budapest at 11 and met all
the missionaries that were getting transferred. It wasn't until the time that
we were about to leave that I realiiizzzeeedddd.......I didn't have my keys to
the apartment and branch house........To skip the part about me panicking and
trying to figure out where they could be, I lost them. Basically I checked everywhere
that I was, where we went to lunch, where ever I took a step, everywhere! I
checked the train station and asked if they found keys from the train that we
took. They said for us to call them back later that night after they had done
their cleaning checks later that afternoon.
So, we went back to Eger, starting it off with
a wonderful adventure of how to get into our apartment and what to do to get
into the branch house when we need to meet with people. Luckily our land lord
had a spare key to our apartment, so we've been using that for the past few
days. However, we did call the train station back and they said they found some
keys on the train, but we had to go up to Budapest in order to get them. So we
got permission from President to take time out of our day and get them the next
day. We went up there, went up to the desk, assuming that all was good and we
were home free.........they weren't our keys. Super bummed, we decided to just
look around some of the stores nearby because we had a 2 hour wait till our
next train back. We stumbled across a really kewl soccer store that had
authentic stuff and I ended up getting an Arsenal jersey, being the Arsenal fan
that I am. So, to some up this huge fiasco of a mess, we lost our keys and are
still kind of looking for them and while we went back to Budapest to find our
keys, which weren't there, I got myself a shirt. We are currently looking for a
key copy place to make a copy of our apartment key and are going to be
contacting some people within the church here to see if we can get a key. You
can all face palm now, I'll allow it. I've basically been kicking myself these
past few days for this dumb move that I have made. Oh well, what can you do?
Outside
of that story, the work is still picking up here. There really hasn't been a
point for a very long time now and it has been such a sight to see. We are
finding people left and right and most of them have been from them coming to
us! That is the weirdest part of it all! Throughout my entire mission, at least
most of it, most of the investigators that I have found was through our efforts,
as in going up to people and being the one to start the conversation. But
recently it's been people walking up to us that are starting something and that
have been interested. That's when you know that they are going to be great
people to teach, because they actually have that desire to learn more about us.
With something that you quoted from Dallin H. Oaks, where he said that
strengthening people's faith in God is the most important thing we can do is
something so true! In the world that we are now living in, faith in God is
something that people need. Sure we would like for people to be a part of the
Restored Church, but if we are at least helping people come closer to Christ by
some means, than we have been fulfilling a part of our responsibility as
Christians. It is, sometimes, hard for people to understand that we are to be
examples and help people to grow their own testimonies of Christ. It's
something that I have been so glad to experience while I've been out here and
I'm looking forward to the day when I come home and be the same example towards
the people around me.
This is a photo from Pec. How I loved this area! |
Alrighty
ya'll, I'm going to have to close it for this week. I'm sorry, I don't have any
pictures for this week, but I promise I will have some more for you next week.
Maybe I'll include some throwback pictures to spice things up. Have a
tremendous week and don't forget to stay say to yourself before you walk out
the door 'Did I think to pray today?'
Love
you!
Blakesters
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