Last week of the MTC

Szervusz Csaladom!!

What a wonderful week this has been! I found out that if you ever want someone to be quite - tell them they can only speak in Hungarian - they won't talk at all! It has been a crazy week only speaking Hungarian but I felt my language skills go up and my confidence in the language increase. This week has just seriously been a week of miracles! I absolutely love the MTC!!! All of our lessons this week were amazing...last week pretty much all our 'investigators' dropped us and it was so discouraging! They ended up having us come back though and we gave the most amazing lessons! I felt my love for the investigators grow even though they were our teachers we were teaching. I found that if I focus more on the investigator and forget my weakness with the language the spirit is so much stronger and does all the testifying the investigator needs- i just need to move out of the way and let the spirit work through me! We taught again - one of our investigators who found bad info on the internet - and it was probably the most powerful lesson I have ever taught. I was able to recite the 1st vision by memory and then our companionship all testified. The first vision really is such a huge miraculous event and it's amazing to feel the power of the first vision when you are teaching someone. I am so grateful for Joseph Smith not denying what he saw and what he was told despite all that he went through! It was truly just an amazing experience and got me so excited to go teach the Hungarian people!!!!

This week we went and saw elder Bednar's character of Christ talk again. Jesus Christ really is the best example of everything! I have been learning more about Christ and how He turned out towards everyone else when He faced hard times rather than looking in on Himself. I have found that that works. When I looked outside of myseft this week and tried to help either my companions or an investigator, it didn't matter what my weaknesses were - I was somehow able to do it with the Lord. I saw a lot of miracle take place within myself this week and it's amazing to look at how the Lord is lifting me up. Last night's devotional was awesome! The speaker taught about how the MTC is like an incubator - it's creates the perfect environment in which someone can thrive and progress preparing them to be strong enough to enter the 'real world'. I leave for the real world this week. I was debating whether or not I was really ready to go to Hungary and to talk to people in a language that I do not even know. The MTC has been the greatest place and I've been able to learn so much here! I love being able to learn about the Church and Christ all day long! Now it is time to share that knowledge with those around me. Although we will be leaving the incubator, we will not be on our own because Christ will go before us and prepare the way and we will also have the spirit. The Gospel really is the greatest and most comforting thing I could ever have in my life!

Another thing I learned this week was living with no regrets. I am going to have many opportunities to act on my mission and I need to take a hold of many of them as I possibly can. I can't let them pass me by. I realized how incredibly fast time flies by - especially the closer it gets to leaving the MTC. In the temple this morning I just wanted to do anything to get time to stop and slow down! But it doesn't. So just enjoy the moment right now because it will go by fast. The Lord will give you opportunities and if you don't take them, they will be gone. I want to try to live my mission so that I can live with no regrets - I can act and see the miracles that come from acting.

This week we also got to meet the previous mission president of hungary - president and sister gassar - they have a daughter going to Finland who was in our zone and just left of her mission to Finland. They are going to serve another mission in Germany over the Swizerland YSA! President Gassar served in that same mission when he was 19. It was so cool to talk to them and hear their stories of how amazing Hungary is and what it is going to be like. They are amazing people and are going to be awesome missionaries! I am so excited to go there!

Speaking of amazing people, yesterday at lunch, Brother Heaton (he is in charge of the missionary department for the Church) and 2 others from the special buildings development of the church came and sat by us and talked to us for the whole lunch period. It was awesome! They asked us what we liked about the MTC and what they could be doing better. They are really getting ready for missionaries - they aren't sure what they are going to do yet but there are going to be some big changes at the MTC!!! They expect that there will be over 100,000 missionaries out in the mission field by next year. They definitely need to expand this MTc- it's crowded but they are doing a good job with so many people! They just talked with us and gave us a ton of really good advice - my personal favorite was when I get to Hungary to just speak the Language and forget myself. One of the guys who was talking to us was the person in charge of getting land for temples so we told him that Hungary really, really needed a temple! He told us that if we would do our part, he'd work on his part! WE just gotta get more members in Hungary! It's growing! That would be so aweseome to get a temple in Hungary! Today was the last time I got to go to the temple for 16 months - it was really hard knowing that I wouldn't be able to go for so long. It really honestly broke my heart. I have been able to go EVERY single week (except like 3 or 4) since I recieved my endownments and the temple has become such a special place in my heart. I am going to miss it so much! Make sure you enjoy being so close by and having so many temples so close! I am sure going to miss the temple so much but it is a sacrifice worth making to help bring the Gospel into others lives.

Well I leave the MTC on Monday!!! So crazy! Most of the people in our zone left this week - really sad! Our zone will be really spread thin after this - we had estonian, albanian, finland, and hungarian missionaries. After next week, they will only have 12 finnish elders, 2 sisters, and 2 hungarian sisters. Plus our branch president's last week is sunday so everything will change once we leave. The finnish missionaries who left this week missed their plane in Chicago to London so hopefully that doesn't happen to us! That would be so sad! Plus we have such a huge group!

I have really come to love my companions - they are my best friends and I can't believe I only have 5 more days with them! I really don't think I could have gotten better missionary companions that the ones I have!!!! It is going to be so hard to leave them but I know that we will be friends forever!!! I am really sad to be leaving the MTC but I know that it will be good for me - I've gotten comfortable with the MTC and it's time to move on and progress. Thanks for all you do and all the love and support you have given me over the years. I am so blessed to have such wonderful family and great friends! I love the Gospel and all that is gives me. God really does bless us with miracles every day. It's amazing to see what the Lord can help you accomplish if you allow Him. I love the Lord so much and I know that He lives. I cannot wait to share my testimony with the Hungarian people (we have to speak our first sunday in Hungarian - SCARY!!!) I can't wait to get to Hungary and finally be with the people I have really grown to love so much. I love being a missionary and feeling the Lord's love for His children. I love being a small part of the Lord's work.

I forget - Elder Holland came to the MTC last week to a random district and he said some really amazing things! He said that his favorite scipture right now is D&C 33. He said that the 11h hour is RIGHT NOW. That right now is the time that the Lord is really hastening His work and we are a part of it. Do the best you can and pass the test. There will never be missionary work like there is right now - so he said: make it count - make yourselfs tired, work work work. Work so hard that you don't have time to think of yourself or your inadequecy's. That is what I will try my hardest to do! I love being a missionary!

Hope all is well! Hope to hear from you soon! Love you all!

Falslev Nover

Opening your package!  It was like Christmas day!  Packages are the best!

All the Hungarian Sisters! So many! We are almost doubling how many sisters they have now! We'll see how that turns out with the language!

2 weeks of the MTC left

Szervusz Csaladom!

This week has probably been my absolute favorite week so far of the MTC! I really have the best companions and teachers in the whole MTC!!!! Our district has really gotten close and we are working so well together. It's amazing to see all the progress we are making together as a group. I love the MTC and am actually going to be sad to leave it. But on to bigger and better things! I am so excited to get to Hungary!!! We started our consecration week today by going to the temple and doing a session and initiatories  It was amazing! All the initiatory names I did were Hungarian and while doing them I realized how much I had already come to love them and I haven't even realized it yet. Every day I go to class and work my hardest so that I can serve the Hungarian people and speak to them of Jesus Christ. I've been a little worried because I felt I haven't had as much love for them as i should so it was just a nice confirmations to realize how excited I really am to go and speak to people I love and want to serve. I love the temple and the blessings it brings!!! I am going to miss it for 18 months! Only 1 more time to go before I leave! It was a great way to start off our consecration week - we found out no one else really does that here but I am so glad we do. We are really dedicating ourselves this week to become better missionaries and come closer to Christ. It is going to be a really hard week -I can barely speak Hungarian for a day let alone a whole week - But I know that it will push me so I will be able to speak better when I get to Hungary.

Yesterday we went to teach one of our 'progressing investigators' and we found a note on the door saying that she had found some things on the internet and no longer wanted to meet us anymore. Although she wasn't a 'real' investigator it really broke my heart. I wasn't expecting it and she was getting ready to be baptized. It made me realize how important it is to testify every lesson and every opportunity you have because you never know if that will be the last time you will have with that person. I am so glad that I had that experience in the MTC because it made me realize that I have to give it my all each and every lesson and really know what the investigator needs.

Something else really cool is my branch president and his wife were just called to serve as mission presidents in Kenya. I am so excited for them! My branch president has had a great impact on me and I just know he is going to be a great mission president.

On Sunday during relief society they have all the new sister who have arrived the same week stand and this week was amazing! My first week here we started to fill up the back part of the gym a little bit - they were quite a  few sister missionaries. Now it is almost full of sister missionaries! Before long we won't all be able to have relief society in the same room together anymore. It gave me the chills seeing before my eyes the rapid progression of missionary work. They are trying to get the MTC ready in Mexico too and have been doing some technological tests here for the preparation of the Mexico MTC. It is going to be a big one there! A lot of missionaries here speak spanish - they all call us hermana's and we tell them "no we are noverek" haha! It is great!

This week I feel like I've grown a lot spiritually. We were talking about Elder Bednars' fireside of having faith and not shrinking. That is also what Elder Ballard spoke on a little when he came to the MTC. Elder Bednar spoke on having the faith enough NOT to be healed of the trials and afflictions we face but to go through them with faith knowing that we are doing the Lord's will. It reminds me of the quote "faith is not know what the future holds, but knowing who holds the future'. We were talking about this in class and my teacher made a point I had never thought of before. In the scripture it talks about faith moving mountains. I had thought that that was a huge miracle to have enough faith to pick up a mountain and move it. But my teacher talked about how faith doesn't always work like that - in fact rarely. Faith is the little things each and every day - it's moving the mountain one shovel full of dirt at a time. It takes work to have faith and to maintain it. I just loved that analogy. We can move the mountain - it just may take a lot more effort and work than we originally thought. That is how I feel Hungarian has become for me. LOTS of hard work!!!!

To kind of go along with that, last night we had Paul Johnson of the 70 come and it was an awesome devotional! He had us think of where we wanted to be at the end of our mission. As I was thinking about that, I thought about when I first got to the MTC and how long it seemed that I would be here. It seemed like going to Hungary was forever away. But I am getting my flight plans tomorrow. Life goes by SO fast! Missions go by so fast! Some days seems like they will never end and other days seem like minutes - that is why it is so important to make every day count. They go by fast! So much happens! He talked about how the greatest test of life is learning how to completely submit our will to the will of the Lord and that will be the greatest test of my mission - learning how to do whatever the lord needs me to do when He needs me to do it - not later. The world makes it seem like that is weakness - submitting to another's will but that is truly what gives us strength as missionaries. He also said that the greatest battles we fight are not on the battlefield itself but within ourselves - dealing with the natural man. We are not perfect. We will make mistakes. That is why we have the Atonement. We just have to keep trying and keep going. I realized that my hardships with Hungarian have been because of my selfishness. I have been struggling, I can't speak it, I have a lot of weaknesses rather than focusing on those outward of me. Bro Johnson said the greatest growth is found when we turn OUTWARDS. Sometimes we are so focused on ourselves and our own growth that we don't allow the Lord to work through us.  It was just an amazing talk! I loved it!

Something else I learned came from my companion - I was very nervous about consecration week and last night she just simply said "well good thing you can laugh in every language" How true that is! And I added Love and kindness also. No matter what language you speak or where you are in the world, you can always laugh, you can always be happy, you can always love and you can always be kind to others even when they are not kind to you. I just love being a missionary and learning so much about the Savior and serving others!
I get my flight plans tomorrow. I'll let you know next week when I plan on calling. Hope all is going well and hope to hear from you soon! Szeretlek titiket! I love you all!

Szeretettel (with love)
Falslev Nover

More of the MTC

Szervusz Falslev Csaladom!

Well this week has been great! It feels like every week is the exact same in the MTC. My MTC teachers are the absolute best teachers in all the MTC!!!!! They have helped me so much! Last week they decided that I was going to start teaching pretty much all my lesson's by myself so I couldn't rely on my companions to do the talking for me. It has been SO hard! I now really know why we are sent by companions! It is hard to teach a lesson by yourself especially when you don't really know how to speak the language. It has been the best thing for me though. It has helped me get some confidence in speaking the language and it forces me to just say words even though they may not be right. I have no idea what I say during any of the lessons but I feel good about them! It has been a really good experience for me! I'm not sure how much longer I'll be teaching by myself for.

I leave in less than 3 weeks! On March 25! So soon!!!!!! I am not sure what time I leave or when I will be able to call you....we get our flights plans 10 days before we leave so I will let you know hopefully they week before I leave. Next wednesday we start our consecration week (our concentration week as we keep calling it). I think Hungary might be the only one to do it, but from the time you leave the temple to the next week you go to the temple you can only speak Hungarian - no English. And you also think of some other things to sacrifice in order to prepare for leaving. I am really excited for it but it is going to be nagyon nehez....very hard!!!! We still have troubles doing just every other day all day long Hungarian. It will be a good opportunity though!

This week I have really gotten excited to go to Hungary! My teachers have told us the funniest stories! I guess they have different animals names over there so ruff ruff is a pig not a dog. One of my teachers, when she was a new missionary asked what the meat was and she didn't know the word for pig so the investigators said ruff ruff and she thought she was eating the family dog instead of a pig. Another one of my teachers was giving away hot chocolate to talk to people and he made a sign that said "free, fresh, hot kisses' instead of chocolate. He had a lot of funny stories with that one. One of the most powerful was about water polo though. Hungary has won more gold medals than any other country combined in water polo. My teacher told us after WWII, the Hungarians had really gone through a lot and the Soviets were taking over everything. He talked about the olympics for water polo and it came down to the Soviets and Hungary for the gold medal. It was a really intense game and the blood was red from the game. It was really brutal but Hungarian ended up winning. Hungary is a small country that has gone through a lot! My teacher made the comment that sometimes it seems like Hungary has been like a lost little country that no one cares about. But the Lord cares about them. And that is why He is sending them the Gospel. The growth in Hungary is amazing! We just got new Hungarian Hymn books that they have never had before. They just got a Hungarian Preach my Gospel. It's just so cool to be apart of missionary work right now and to go to Hungary! I can't wait! It's amazing how my love has grown for people I don't even know yet this week!

This past Sunday we watched a MTC devotional from Elder Bednar on the Characteristics of Christ and it was the most amazing talk I have ever heard! He went through the miracles that the Savior performed and some of the trials He faced. During every single one of His trials, He always looked outward towards others rather than on what He was facing. Even while He was dying on the cross, He made sure that His mother was taken care of and was giving words of comfort to the other two people being crucified. It was such an amazing talk! I just love the MTC and all that I am learning here! It's so great to see so many more missionaries come each and every week!

Being a missionary has been the best decision I have ever made. Ever. It has been the hardest thing I have ever had to do but I feel like during those hard times, that is what makes me grow the most. Every day I feel the Savior guiding me and leading me to what I need to learn and do. I was reading in 1 Nephi 17 this week about Nephi being commanded to build a boat. HIs brothers kept telling him that he would not be able to do it and they would not help him. It was probably discouraging for Nephi because his brothers had no faith. I imagined Nephi looking at all of his boards scattered everyone and his tools and wondering how in the world he was going to be able to put it all together so that it would withstand the storms on the sea. I felt like that has been me with Hungarian - I feel like I have all these boards and tools scattered everywhere - vocab, grammar, grammar books, teaching, etc. and I'm not sure how I am going to put them all together so that I can speak Hungarian. But Nephi started with one piece at a time. Although it may not have looked like a boat in the beginning, he just kept going and didn't give up. And in the end he succeeded, learning a lot about the Lord in the process.  I just love reading the scriptures everyday. They really have become so near and dear to my heart. I just can't wait to share something that is so close to my heart with the people in Hungary and help bring happiness into their live. To help them realize that they are not a forgotten people and that God really does love them. I am so excited to be able to literally see the church growing with all the new missionaries coming in!!!! What a great time it is to be a missionary! I love being a missionary!!!!!!

I hope you are all doing well! Hope to hear from you soon! I am so lucky to have such a wonderful family! Thanks for all you do and for all your kindness! Szeretet titiket! (I love you all!)

Falslev Nover

Our cool new Hungarian shirts that we got!  

We all dressed up as the colors of the Hungarian flag and we didn't even realize it til the middle of the day!!! We didn't even plan it!