I love being a missionary!!!

We have been so blessed this week! The work is finally starting to pick up a little more here and it has been wonderful!

N, A, and Á. They are the coolest family and we have been helping them with English because they were moving on sunday (yesterday). We were mainly helping them with english but then they started asking all sorts of questions about the church and about what we believe in. they ended up inviting us over to their house for dinner the next day and it turned out so good! I am going to really miss them. They are an awesome family.

we also met with another lady, g, that met with the sisters a while ago. she is really busy but we found out she reads the BOM every night. We had a really good lesson with her! Unfortunately she is super busy so cant meet very often.

we went back and met with A who we met on miracle saturday. She was the one who lost her husband. When we went over to her house, she immediately asked us to say another prayer so she could feel the same way she felt when we were there the first time. it was interesting that she doesnt believe it God, but wanted us to say a prayer. She knows there is something out there, she just has to find it. It was a good lesson with her.

we also met with L a few times from miracle saturday. He has come to church twice now and he LOVED it both times. He knows a lot about the bible and has been asking all sorts of questions about baptism. When we went to go over to teach him, he said that he had a little bit of süti for us (dessert) and he pulled out this huge cake and 2 giant milka bars haha!

We also met with é from miracle saturday this week too. we were planning on just going over there and giving her a BOM and then asking her when we could come back because we didnt have too much time. When we ringed into her apartment, she just buzzed us in without asking who it was. when we went up to the door, she opened it and told us that she knew it was us and that she knew we were going to come visit today. she said she had been waiting for us. she had some süti for us and we sat down to talk with her. She had been thinking a lot about us and about we talked about after we left and she had a lot of questions. we told her about the BOM and she politely listened to us. But afterwards, i just felt like we could not leave yet. There was something else we needed to say or do. i just had no idea what. so we just start asking questions and listening. it was such a good program. I just knew that God is so aware of her, even if she doesnt feel that He is. Now it is just up to her to act. God is so aware of His children. she also asked if we could say another prayer with her (and of course we did!) People feel the power of prayer.

we also got to meet with the families we found and they are all doing good! i love teaching families!!!! one of the families has a little 5 year old boy who is and has been pretty sick. As we were talking with the mom, I just realized once again how the gospel brings hope and literally a light into peoples lives. i love being a missionary!!

We also had another little adventure with our apartment this week haha! we were walking home one night when my companion told me that i had the keys. I was pretty  sure i didnt have them but looked. I didnt have them. And neither did my companion. We had no idea where they could be when my companion realized she accidentally left them in our doorlock. So instead of being kicked OUT of our apartment, we couldnt get IN to our apartment. We tried to buzz into our neighbors to let us in the building. that was our first time using the csengő box (the box to buzz into people) and we realized that there is a reason that no one ever buzz's into us....because our csengő box is broken haha! so anyways, we said a little prayer that someone in our building would be coming home soon so we could get home on time and this nice man, who had heard us trying to get into the building for about a half hour, came to our rescue and let us in. haha! we love adventures!!!!! haha!

Church was also awesome yesterday. We had one of the members of the district presidency for hungary come and speak and it was so good. He talked about weaknesses and how God has the power to make us perfect in one instant but He doesnt because having weaknesses helps us learn and grow closer to Him. Having weaknesses helps us grow closer to the Savior if we allow them too. We cant just shrink from our weaknesses but we have to stand and face them with the Lord. He also talked about how sometimes people think that when we follow Christ, everything will be easier and that is not true. Christ was the perfect person and did everything that was asked of Him. His life was not easy. Following Christ sometimes means that we too have to take up our crosses and bear things that are not easy because of our believe. it was so good! just the talk that i needed! Dont forget that as members of the church, we are witnesses of God at ALL times, not just in the 3 hours we are at church during the week. i love you all! Hope you are doing great! Laurie i hope everything goes well for you and the babies this week! i am praying for you guys! Love you all!

Falslev Nővér

MISSIONS ARE SO STINKIN HARD!!!! But I love it!!! :)

So this week has been a little hard, but I do have to say I have learned so much. I learned a lot about love and service this week. Missionaries arent just here to preach the gospel, they are to be servants and serve the people they are with every day. And it is amazing how when you serve, you come to love the people so much more.

This week we got to help one of the families here move. The 2 kids are recent members, the mom is  getting baptized next month and the father will hopefully come along soon. It was really good to help them move and get to know them better. They moved from the ninth story of one building to the 8th story of another. Talk about a lot of hard work. It was fun to help them for a while though :) And while we were moving them, we found out one of our old investigators lived in the same building and we got to talk to him for a while and set up to meet with him again.

We also found 3 families this week! Hopefully we can meet with them again. One of the families we had a really good program with and you could really tell that their family needs the gospel. They had a little 5 year old boy who is the cutest little boy but has a really bad heart and is sick. The mother told us that she had been praying lately for help because she doesnt know how her family is going to keep going through all that they are going through. We were able to testify of how the gospel blesses families and how the Book of Mormon can help us. And the families spirits were just raised so much when we left. I love being a missionary!!!!!

Saturday was also my companions birthday. It was a really good day. The members here are the best and we totally surprised her! We were in a program with one of the recent converts and all the members came in and surprised her with a big cake and desserts! She was shocked. The members are so thoughtful here and just trully love the missionaries. I love Hungary!!!!!

Sunday was District Conference. Everyone was coming from Eastern Hungary. We had Elder Donaldson from the area 70 come. I was so excited! Everyone from Nyíregyháza was coming and everyone from Miskolc was there. I was in 7th heaven! I loved seeing everyone again! I got to see H again too and it was so good to see her! In relief society, I sat on the second row and I was just beaming. I was so happy. I had gotten to see everyone from Nyíregyháza and everything had just been going perfect that day. Then Elder Donaldson got up and he looked at me and I knew right then that he had really 'noticed' me cause I was so happy. I thought, 'oh no, he is going to make me do something'. So I was a little nervous in relief society, but he just spoke for a little bit and then went to the priesthood session to talk.

After relief society the actual meeting started. It was so good! L came. One of the people we met with from last saturday and he LOVED church. Right before elder Donaldson spoke, all the young people (including the missionaries) got up and sang 'titkos ima' (secret prayer or something like that). And the whole front of the room was just filled. It was such a powerful song. THen when we went to go sit back down, Elder Donaldson called all the missionaries back up. This is when I started paniking because I knew that I was going to have to do something. So I just started praying so hard. We stood up in front of everyone and Elder Donaldson just started explaining about how missionaries look when we walk down the street, how we treat others, how hard we work, etc. And as I looked out over everyone, I saw so many people that I have come to know and love in just a few short months. I saw so many people I look up to, so many people who are so strong and have so much going on in their lives. and I was just overwhelmed with love for them. And I knew I was going to be speaking to them. And I was so scared. Then Elder Donaldson said 2 of the missionaries were going to come speak. I knew one of them was going to be me, but I just kept praying that I wouldnt have to do it. So he chose the elder on my right, elder Whiting. I was filled with relief for about 2 seconds before the next thing I heard was 'Why are you laughing? You sure have been happy all day so why dont you come up here too?' (sometimes being happy all the time gets you in trouble haha!)

Elder Donaldson took us and said that he needed one of us to speak of the restoration and the other to teach about the atonement. I knew that I was going to be speaking about the restoration as soon as he said it. And Elder Whiting was so prepared to teach about the atonement. Talk about a lot of stress!!!!! Everyone who I loved was there, looking up to me. I was so scared. As soon as I got up there and just before I started speaking, my mind went totally blank. I have taught the restoration SO many times, but yet I had no idea what to say. I started out and spoke probably the worst Hungarian I have ever spoken in a long time explaining Joseph Smith. It was horrible. haha! But then I came to the 1st vision. And the only part I could remember was the first word. I repeat the first vision every day. But I tried it. And it was amazing how the spirit just took over. As I started with the first word, the next word came and the next word and the next word. Everything else followed. Along with my testimony. When I started bearing my testimony, I heard Elder Donaldson say to the interpreter behind me, 'now I can feel it, she is being her testimony'. Elder Donaldson had specifically asked not to have the interpreter interpret what we were saying. I know that was I said was far from correct Hungarian, but it was said with the spirit. And after elder Whiting talked about the Atonement. Almost every person was crying. It was so good.

When we were done, Elder Donaldson came and shook our hands and thanked us. When he grabbed my hand and looked at me, I knew that this man really did have power. I dont know how to explain it, but you could just feel it from him. Anyways, then Elder Donaldson talked about the Iron rod and how clinging to the rod is like holding hands but grasping to the iron irod is like hugging someone. You dont ever want to let them go. Miskolc loved that! Miskolc is the city of hugging. Everytime someone leaves or comes, you always get a hug! It was a really good talk.

Afterwards, we had a meeting with new members and investigators with Elder Donaldson. He had some of the recent converts get up and share their testimony The first one up was P from Nyíregyháza. It was such a tender mercy for me. He talked about how we found him (we had rung his doorbell three times because we couldnt figure out how if worked and he had been coming down the stairs to yell at whoever had rung his doorbell three times....looking back on it, if I mess up on a csengő-doorbell, I usually just skip it and go to the next one. I never ring it again). And he also talked about the change in his life. It was the first time that he had ever shared his testimony. It was a tender mercy for me to really see the change in his life from before he was baptized to after. He was just so clean. It was a really good meeting.

And then Elder Donaldson asked to meet with just the missionaries. We then found out that tomorrow (aka today) he is getting on a plane to fly to salt lake city to have a meeting with the President Monson. He bore such a powerful testimony to us and told us to just keep going and to keep the Lords work moving. He had such a powerful impact on me yesterday. I realized that as a member of the church, you are a disciple of Christ at ALL times, even when you least expect it and necessarily dont want to do it. As a disciple of Christ you are His living representative of who He really is. You are the voice that can be the one reaching out to others and helping them to grasp (or hug) to the rod. It was such a good Sunday. It was so hard and I really thought I was going to have a heart attack, but God needed to show me that I can do hard things. We can all do hard things. And the spirit makes up for what we cannot do. I know this church is true! I know that Joseph Smith was called as a prophet of God. He did, in reality speak to God. He recieved an answer to his prayer. God will and does answer prayers. I love being a missionary! I love you all. Share the Gospel! You will be so much happier when you do.

Falslev Nővér

Spring is here!  It is so beautiful!  I love Hungary!

Our week of miracles!!!

This has been the greatest week ever! And we just got transfer calls this morning and I am staying in Miskolc!!!!!!!!!!! WAHOOOO!!!!!!!! I am so glad that I am staying. I was a little worried that I may be leaving and so I was so relieved when I found out I was staying. I love Miskolc! and this week we will be having a district conference on Sunday so I will be able to see people from Nyíregyháza again. I am so happy!!!!!

So the beginning of our week was a little depressing. All of our investigators either couldnt meet, didnt pick up, or didnt want to keep meeting anymore. We were doing a LOT of finding. Then on Thursday we had Zone Conference and it was so awesome. We had Elder Dyches from the Europe Area presidency come and speak to us. Before he started, he has us all come up and shake his hand and he talked to us for a little bit. When I went up, to my surprise he said 'Falslev' right so I asked him how he knew how to say it. He said that he had an Elder Falslev that served in his mission that was a really hard worker. Come to find out that he was D's mission President. So that was pretty cool. Elder Dyches did a really good job teaching and I learned a ton from both him and his wife. They talked a lot about following the spirit and having to do the hard thing and not give up. They talked about how God puts us in the 'fire of affliction' - puts us in the things that are really hard to do - so that we can become something more, become something stronger. It was such a good refresher and I learned a ton. But I was also just a little frustrated afterwards because I have felt like I have been doing everything to have the spirit be with me, but yet still we have not been having too much success with actually teaching people. So I decided that this week, I was just going 'to do the hard thing' and work super hard no matter what happened. And oh boy, did we experience miracles this week.

Friday night when we were looking at our next day, we realized we had nothing for the whole day. just a bit depressing. My companion then told me that this was her first day on her mission that she has not at least SOMETHING planned. So then we decided that instead of making that day really hard, we were going to make it also the best day she had ever had on her mission. I told her we could try to get 3 let ins the next day.....1 let in for every 2 hours of finding. Then she looked at me and said, ' no, i think we can get 5.' just to give you an idea of how that is a lot...we planned to get 3 let ins for all of next week. we just really havent been getting let ins hardly at all lately. But we decided to do 5 let ins....almost 1 for every hour.

When we went out on Saturday, we did an hour of streeting first and when we left, there was hardly anyone out on the streets and the very few people who were on the streets did not want to talk to us. We had forgotten that is was a holiday and on holidays, people especially do not want to talk to us. so needless to say, i was a little worried that we would go tracting and we maybe wouldnt have as much success as we had planned, but we decided to just go for it anyways. We prayed so hard!!! Im pretty sure I have never prayed so hard my whole mission. And it worked.

15 minutes after we started tracting we met M. He let us in and we started doing some survey questions with him and i asked him if he was religious. he then told us yes and that he was already baptized into our church. we were shocked. Come to find out, about a year after he got baptized he got a job and he had to work every saturday and sunday so he went inactive. He had just got laid off of this job a month ago and had been thinking about coming to church again and then we knocked on the door. It was an awesome program! (we later found out that the members had been trying to contact him for a while but his number and address had changed.)

2 doors after m we tracted into a. When I knocked on her door, I just felt this overwhelming happiness come in me. She wanted to know how on earth we could be so happy so she let us in. Come to find out, A lost her husband 1 month ago and she had hardly left her apartment and would not even let friends or relatives into her house. she couldnt believe she let us in. We also found out that she was very Atheist. we had a good program with her though and by the end she said that she is sure that there has to be a God or something bigger because  she could see it in our faces and she could feel it when we talked to her. So awesome!

1 floor later, we tracted into L. when we sat down on his couch, I noticed that he had a restoration pamphlet lying on the table next to his bbible. i asked him about it and he said he had recieved in 6 months ago from the missionaries and he had been waiting for them to come again but they never did. he had been wanting to come to our church for a while now. he belongs to a club that is over by our church house and he sees our church house almost every day and wonders what is in there. He had read the restoration pamphlet many times and loved it. so awesome!

by this time, we only had about an hour and a half left and i was so exhausted. we had had amazing programs and had been working so hard, but I honestly didnt know how i was going to do 2 more programs. I just remembered praying and telling the Lord that I could not do this with my strength alone. And we just got up and started going again but this time completely with the Lords strenght. We went and did a whole building and got probably some of the hardest door slams ever. and by the time we finished we only had about 45 minutes left. We said one of the most heartfelt prayers I have ever prayed asking to find 2 more people that needed the gospel. The first door after our prayer we met B and m. B had been searching out and learning about different churches and he was very interested in what we had to say. we left a BOM with them and bore out testimonies and said that we would return later.

we only had a half and hour left to get another program. we said another prayer and got to work and we found É. meeting with her was probably one of the most powerful programs i have ever had. She looked at first like she was just going to slam the door on us and then something stopped her, her face softened and she opened the door and let us in. we got talking with her and we found out that for the last little while she had been angry at God because of some of the really hard things she has gone through lately. she didnt understand why God had left her when she needed him the most. We talked to her a little while about why bad things happen and then we asked her if we could say a prayer with her. Before I prayed i asked her if there was anyone I could pray for and she said her husband and that was all that i knew. I said the prayer and the spirit just started speaking cause it sure wasnt me. i have never spoken hungarian that well before, I said things in my prayer that i didnt even know about her, and it was just so powerful. After the prayer, é was just bawling. she said that she hadnt been able to feel that way in a long time and just opened up to us and told us everything. She also told us that she does not let any one in her door because she has had some scary experiences so she usually just opens the doors, sees if she knows the person and then shuts the door quickly. But when we knocked on the door, something stopped her. Such a powerful program

We did it. we got 5 programs in...not just 5 people who felt bad and just let us in, but 5 people who really needed to feel God's love. I was so beyond exhausted that night, but it was the best feeling in the world just to be so totally led by the spirit and just to experience God working His miracles through us. It was just an amazing day! i love being a missionary. there are no words to describe how wonderful it is to be doing the work of the Lord and seeing the Lord work to help His children. This church is so true. There trully is a God who loves His children and knows them each individually and is so aware of each and everyone of our needs. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!!!!

Falslev Nővér

happy st. patricks day!!!! 

 i love the members!

A and i on the bobsled thing at tapolca! so much fun!

us playing at tapolca. it was so much fun!

I love being a missionary!

So first off, I would just like to thank you ALL for reminding me of how much longer I have left...which isnt very long. Every single one of you mentioned how long I had left. Thanks for giving me a heart attack. I cant believe how fast time flies by!!!! Being a missionary is just the greatest.

So last week we had a super fun p day. We went with some of the members to Tapolca. we went on these bobsled type things and they were so much fun!!!!! i love the members here! they are so cool! then we went and played on some of the playgrounds. It was so much fun to be with the members and get to know them better. These members are such a great example to me! It really does cease to amaze me how incredibly strong they are. So many of them have so many trials in their lives because they are Mormon. For a lot of members, life got a lot harder for them when they became a member rather than getting easier. It just ceases to amaze me how strong they are and what examples they are to me!

So I'm not going to lie....this week was a pretty hard week with the work. Last week we fasted that we could find some more investigators and it was so hard this week cause we didnt have a whole lot of success in finding. We did get one let-in this week and it was so funny because we had just said a prayer to finish up when the doorbell rang. It was missionaries from another church and they were very brupt with the man about us. Anyways, we ended up leaving and the missionaries from the other church were waiting on the steps for us to come out. They wanted to bible bash with us but we had to get going to another program which didnt make them very happy.

This week they had nő nap (girls day) here. we went to the palacsinta house restaurant and had the best palacsintas ever! they were so delicious! and then on sunday they had all the young men gives roses to all the girls. i guess on girls day, boys can go up to girls and tell them happy girls day and then spray them with water and that means that they like them. i guess its a good thing i am not a hungarian girl because i would not let someone come get me wet and not get them wet back haha! i love Hungarian traditions!

Last night, we did have a tender mercy. We met with this lady named I. She has 3 older kids and is going through a super hard time. her husband of 24 years just left her 5 months ago because things started to get hard financially with her family. We had an awesome program with her and she was just so humble. It is amazing to be a missionary because you can have a little glimpse of how much Heavenly Father really does love all of His children. And in the process, you also understand how much He loves you too. It is really hard being a missionary sometimes, especially when it seems like no one will even give you the time of day to listen to what you have to say, but it makes all the work worth it when you can help that one person who needs it the most.

Thanks for all the letters! i love you guys tons!

Falslev nővér

Just a week full of adventures!!!!

This week has been the craziest week ever just full of adventures! I am pretty sure I have told my companion every day this week about how whatever we are doing it 'will be an adventure'. it has been a great week.

We went on quite a few adventures trying to find our way around different parts of Miskolc. It isnt too big, we just both haven't been here for too long. It was cool to go see different things that Miskolc had. Also this week we had a small waterfight with some of the members. we were just flicking water at each other and come to find out, both of the members and my companion have never been in an actual waterfight. I was shocked. I am pretty sure that was almost a weekly occurence when I was growing up.

Our biggest adventure though was Friday night. We had just been walking home and we were coming down our street, when I noticed 3 people who were acting kind of funny and police were walking after them. I grabbed my companion and started walking faster so we could get home. As we passed our neighboring apartment house, I glanced over inside and it was swarming with police all over on the staircase. So we ran down to our apartment and got in and thought everything was good. We walked up to our apartment, and I called one of the members to plan a few things for the next day. I was sitting down at the kitchen table, we had been home for probably less than 5 minutes, when someone banged so loud on the widow right beside me that I thought it was going to break. I almost peed my pants. It scared me so bad. it was a police officer. We went out and opened the door for him and he told us that we had to get out of our apartment and out to the street right away. i didnt think we would be too long, so we just grabbed our coats and purses and left. We got back out on the street and our whole street was blocked off, there were cops everywhere and they were kicking everyone out of their houses. I was trying to find someone I could talk to to see what was going on, but the police wouldnt talk to us. So i called the elders and they came to our rescue with the car. They speak better hungarian too so they also asked the police what was going on. They just told us we had to get off the street and that we couldnt go back to our apartment probably for the rest of the night or longer. So we were homeless sister missionaries haha! anyways, But everyone was taking really good care of us. the members were all trying to figure out what happened, the elders took us to the branch house, and we were trying to figure out what to do with President. By then it was pretty late, so President just decided to rent us a hotel. it was the nicest hotel ever! we had a delicious free breakfast and everything. it was just weird being in a hotel. But the next day, the elders went back to check our apartment and everything was just back to normal. We still have no idea what happened. But we were safe. And we were well taken care of be everyone around us. It was a great adventure!!!

Our investigators are doing awesome and we have been able to find a lot of new people this week. One day, we had quite a bit of time to do some tracting and we were wondering where to go. We just started walking, and both of us felt like we needed to go into a certain building, but both of us thought it had already been recently tracted so we werent going to do it. We did it anyways and we ended up finding 3 investigators in the building and 1 of them was a super nice family that we are meeting with again next week!

I have also learned this week the power that a smile and a little bit of laughter can be. it really can just cheer up anyone's day. yesterday, there was a man who came to church who speaks no Hungarian at all, but all the people love him. Come to find out, he had come on some teaching appointments with the sisters here to visit a family that lives in a little village about an hour bus ride away. it is a family of 15 and they are really interested in the church and we still talk with them on the phone, but we cant teach them anymore because of how far away they live. we can only teach them if they come to church. And this family loves this man even though he cant speak the language. So he told us he is going to go to their house to try and help them come to church so we can teach them, even though he cant speak the language. it was amazing to see that actions really are so much more powerful than words. it is amazing what a little smile, a little laughter, and some kindness can do. words are necessary.

well i love you all! hope you all are doing great! talk to you next week.

Falslev Nővér

this means 'this is my city' and on the petals of the flower it has 5 popular things that are in miskolc.

us after our waterfight.

us in our hotel room! it was so nice!

getting some dinner with some of the members :)