My last letter....

Wow. Time goes by so fast. This is really hard. We have had such a great week. I dont even think I can explain all my emotions in an email. It has been so great!

We had a Hungarian Rost last p day....it was a huge miracle! It was beautiful weather the whole day and then as soon as we left the branch house with everyone, it started to DOWNPOUR!!!! Everyone was so sad! We had been planning on it for so long. So we stopped under a bridge, said a prayer that it would stop raining, and did some yoga for a few minutes. Pretty soon it stopped raining and we went and got a fire started. It was delicious! A Hungarian roast = pure bacon fat dripped over bread with onions and peppers. SO DELICIOUS!!! And so unhealthy! haha! Best roast ever! And the biggest miracle of it all, we were talking to our branch president a few days later about the roast and he said that in all of Szolnok it downpoured for hours....there was only one little area where it didnt rain and that was right where we were doing our roast. Miracles do happen! God has really watched over us this week and our investigators.

We also got to go on a crazy drive with the Smiths this week. We got lost and were going on all sorts of weird roads. But we ended up finding the city of storks and that was really cool! Enjoy the journey while it lasts!

We also went to see this guy named S B. He is hilarious and he loves the missionaries. He isnt a member but the missionaries do a lot with him. We went out to his house with the Smiths and he is really into hunting. We were looking at all of his things, when we turn around and saw S B running at us in a big wild boar pig skin. Sister C about had a heart attack. I was laughing so hard! Wild boars are big! haha!

All of our investigators are doing so well. I wont lie though...it has been so tough to say goodbye. So tough. I am just so glad that these people really are in the Lords hands. The Lord is taking care of them. Every program has just been perfect this week. I have come to love these people more than I can even describe over a simple email.

On Sunday during primary, all the kids and the primary teacher got up at the end and sang me a song. As stressful as primary is sometimes, I love those kids with all my heart! This week has just gone by so fast.

Yesterday, we went and met with M along with the branch president. We had one of the best programs again. It is amazing to see the difference the gospel can make in someone's lives. Afterward, M and I said goodbye to each other. It was really hard. M thanked me for teaching her about enduring to the end. I was honestly a little surprised by that...I thought she was say a lot of other things before she said that. And then she just sincerely thanked me for never, ever giving up on her. I always came and loved her no matter what she did or what she said. She thanked me for enduring to the end with her because now she finally knows what she needs to do to get her life back in order. The greatest of Gods miracles are really the miracles that take place in peoples hearts.

I cannot believe this is my last letter home as a missionary. I feel so many different emotions. I have learned so many things on my misison. I have had so many hard times. I have had so many good times. I have experienced so many heart aches. I have experienced so many miracles. But no matter what I was experiencing, God was always by my side, cheering me on to be better. To become something. The Lord has just taken me on the most marvelous journey I have even been on. He has given me so many gifts and has only asked that I share them with others. In sharing them with others, my life has become so much more meaningful. God does speak to us today! He is so aware of us. We need but only search Him.

I am so grateful for my mission. I am so glad that the Lord gave me enough strength through my trials that I did not give up. I love being a missionary. And I am excited for the opportunity to go home and continue to serve and grow. Thank you for all your love and support for me on my mission. I really do have the best family in the entire world! I couldnt have done it without you all. I love you lots! And I will see you in a few days.

Falslev Nővér

This is L. We found him on the day that we got 5 let in programs....our miracle saturday. He just got baptized on Saturday. 

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS JASON AND SHELECE!!!!!!! That is so exciting for you both! I cannot wait! Our family just keeps getting bigger and bigger! We trully have been so blessed!

Well, this week has literally been CRAZY. And very emotionally exhausting. But its been great all at the same time. Its just crazy how fast everything can change.

It has been pouring rain all week this week. We have had some fun times in the rain. One day, we were just having a hard day, and it started to pour on us when we were walking home. We had no umbrella's....well we had mine but it broke. We looked at each other and wanted to cry but then we decided to just dance in the rain. We were soaked! But hey, that small decision made us so happy. Happiness trully is a decision. It cant be based on our circumstances.

This week we have spent almost every day with the M. I love those girls with all my heart. Unfortunately, I cant say a lot of what happened this week. But I am just hoping and praying that we can continue meeting with them. We will see what happens this week. If anyone could majorly use some prayers, this family could! We started the stop smoking program with one of the girls and it has been going really good! She has been trying so hard! I hope that these girls can be baptized soon!

We also had a cool program with G and her family. We talked about the Holy Ghost and it was an awesome lesson. They learned a lot. Afterwards, G turned to her mom and asked if she could be baptized. Her mom said yes! So we are really going to start teaching their family. They are the coolest family ever! I am so excited!

É is doing well and just more and more excited everyday to get baptized. She is so excited to be clean! We are just continuing to support her until she can really make a decision with what she wants to do about being married. She is going strong though!

Church was awesome yesterday. We got to teach primary and it is honestly just my favorite to teach the kids! I feel like I have learned so much from the children here. It helps me realize how I need to change to develop more attributes.

M is also doing well still. She came to church again yesterday and just loved it. We went to visit her this past week, and about 2 minutes after we got there, the elders and the Smiths had decided to come visit her too. So we had 6 missionaries to visit her! haha! We decided to sing a song to her and began singing and her dog didnt like it very much. He was growling at us the whole time and we were having the hardest time not laughing. We made it through about the first 3 verses when we all just started laughing from the dog growling at us because he couldnt stand our singing. M just couldnt stop laughing. I have never ever seen a bigger change in someone in my life. She is so much happier and seems like she just doesnt have the weight of the world on her shoulders. The gospel really is easier when we are able to turn our hearts to the Lord.

This week I have learned a lot about the blessings of keeping the commandments. I have wondered a lot about why there are so many horrible things that happen in this world to people who cant necessarily control their circumstances. I realized that even though your life may not be perfect and you will still have hardships, keeping the commandments is what really keeps us in safety. Keeping the commandments is really what brings blessings and happiness. God gives us the commandments and we have the choice to obey them.

I love this gospel so much! I cant believe time is running out so quickly! I love being a missionary! I love you all! Have a great week!

Falslev Nővér

MIRACLES, MIRACLES, MIRACLES

Wow! I wish you could all just be here right now. This week has been awesome. Its just hard to put it all into words....except that basically I just want to take all of these people home with me! haha!

This week we had an awesome program with É. I asked her what she had been learning from the BOM and she just said that she wants to get baptized even more. She realized that she has to change and really act. And it all came to her as she was reading the BOM. She set a baptism date for Sept. 21 so hopefully she will be ready for it by then! She is doing awesome and is learning so much. We have had some really good programs with her also. She is hoping she can get baptized before then. It is just hard because she still doesnt feel like she has gotten an answer of what she needs to do with her partner. She is doing awesome!

Also this week, we spent a lot of time with the M. I LOVE THOSE GIRLS!!!!! We had the funniest program ever teaching them the law of chasitity on tuesday. We taught them at the branch house and the elders were there. We told the M that they needed a plan of what to say when they had a hard time keeping the word of wisdom or the law of chastity. So we had the elders come in and pretend to give them alcohol and things. It was hilarious! But it was amazing that even though it was a practice, afterwards, the girls really grew in their testimony about it just practicing telling someone why they dont drink and things. It was a super good program.

The next day, we decided we were going streeting and we found D on the street having a really hard day. We havent been able to meet with her by herself and so we had a program with her. It was one of the most heart breaking programs I have ever had but D told us everything. And at the end of our lesson, she just looked at me with tear-fillled eyes and just said the only thing that brings her happiness is the church. And the only thing she wants is to be able to be baptized and to have all the bad things washed away from her. She cant wait to be baptized! And she agreed this week to start on the stop smoking program. She really wants to do everything she can to get baptized. Even when everyone and everything else in her life tells her that she cant do it. She is seriously just my hero. We asked the branch president here to give her a blessing as she starts the stop smoking program and to watch over her this week. It was such a powerful blessing. It was one of the most tender moments of my life. I am so grateful for the priesthood.

We also went and got icecream with the M girls this week. And they just covered me with icecream! It was all over their face and their hands and they just got it everywhere without realizing it. I was sticky everywhere! But I could just only love those girls anymore. They could really use  some prayers this week if anyone would like someone to pray for :)

On Saturday we had a big cleaning day at the branch house and it was so much fun to clean with all the members and our investigators! A lot of people showed up and it was just a good time to talk to everyone and have fun while doing service. Right at the end, we went over to F M's house with the branch president. She has totally and completely changed her life. It was such a great program! And she wanted to come back to church! We went and picked her up on sunday and when she opened the door, she was in the prettiest dress and she just looked so happy. She looked like she had just unloaded 100 pounds from off of her back. She loved sacrament meeting and just said that she finally felt like she was home. She finally felt peace. And she is coming to english class and wants to start learning more again. Miracles happen.

This week we also got to go help a member who is really struggling. She has a huge garden and it has been a lot for her to handle and the weeds have just been going crazy and her garden was really dry. We went and helped her. She has no running water at her house, so we had to haul all of the water in buckets from a big barrel clear back into her garden to water. Irrigation is such a blessing! It was quite the job to do. And I couldnt believe she had been trying to take care of that big garden all by herself. It was good to help her in the garden. I love service!

I learned a valuable lesson this weeks about miracles. Miracles really are not in healings, and in just the physical things. The biggest miracles are the miracles that happen within our own hearts and in the hearts of other people. The gospel really does change people. It heals their hearts and lightens their burdens. I love this gospel so much! I am so glad to be a missionary! I love my life! And I love these people more than I can even express!

Falslev Nővér

The gospel really can change people!

Wow! I love being a missionary. I cant believe another week is already gone. It has been a great week.

Our investigators are doing great! We have had some really good programs this week. We met with É and it was such a great program. She was having a really hard time this week. We asked her to bear her testimony to us this week and it was so simple but it really made her realize that she does know a lot more than she thought. And it also helped her realize that she can use the priesthood right now in her life. She asked for a priesthood blessing and we had one of the Elders give it to her. It was such a good blessing. I am so grateful for the priesthood! It really is so powerful! and was just what she needed! We just have to continue to help her make those steps towards baptism. She is just great!

We also had a good program of inviting the spirit into the M home. For some reason, I kept feeling like we needed to go over to the girls house on a certain day when we didnt really have a lot of time. I am so grateful we ended up going even though it was for only a few minutes. I think God sent us there to protect the girls. I love being a missionary. We were able to just take the kids in the room and we started seeing primary songs with them. It was really hard for them to sing at first, but as we continued to sing and sat around in a circle, you could just literally feel the spirit protecting us. And it calmed everything down that was going on in their apartment. God literally does send angels to watch over His children.

K is doing so well! We met with him and he had read LOTS out of the BOM and he had studied all about the priesthood in the back of the BOM and had a lot of questions for us. He said that he loved church because he just felt like this was his place. He has been going to another church every week but lately he had been feeling that he wasnt in the right place. He loved church and has been learning a lot. Unfortunately he is going to be working in another city until the middle of July so we cant meet with him for a while. :(

We also went on splits to Debrecen. I got to go with Sister Jensen again! It was just like old times! I love her! and learned a lot from her! It was a really good time. We even got to run a short marathon on the way to Debrecen haha! I mistook the bus numbers and got us on the wrong bus. We had to run forever to the trainstation carrying all of our things. I was so exhausted! But right as we walked up on the train platform, the train came. If we would have been a minute later, we would have missed it. Thank goodness for the little every day miracles!

This week, we also got to do a family night with É and D, and B and the two kids (both the husbands couldnt come :(. ) Anyways, we did a cool activity with them about following their parents voice and being like sheep following a shephard. We read John 10 with them and it was a really good lesson. It is amazing to see the change in them each and every time we meet. They are getting more and more warmed up to the Gospel and learning bit by bit by bit. We also played the game 'dont eat Pete' with the reeses pieces mom sent me. I was laughing so hard! They loved that game so much! And I think the adults enjoyed it even more than the kids. And they loved the american candy....they ate the whole bag!!! haha! It was a great night!

But my favorite day this week, was Sunday. Church was just great! We had quite a few investigators come and all the talks were so good for them! Primary turned out really good and all the kids were good! And then Sunday night we were just going to go around and try and do a little bit of streeting. And I kept having this feeling that we needed to go see M. She is an RCLA who we have met with almost once a week and honestly, she is the most hard-heardened person I have ever met. I did not want to go meet with her last night because I knew I would be really frustrated after we left the lesson. I have been wondering why we even bother going back to her....honestly it is because the branch president has just kept asking us not to give up on her even when she tells us she doesnt want our help and doesnt want to talk about 'our God' or anything. Anyways, we only had 20 minutes left, I was tired and just wanted to start heading back home, but we ended up going anyway. And it was a miracle program.

It started off how it normally did....it was super awkward. Didnt really know what to talk about. She had even started to make fun of my hungarian a little. I just really wanted to leave. She tolds us that she found a job and things had finally started to look a little up for her. But when I looked at her, I knew she wasnt happy. And then the question just popped out of my mouth....M, are you really happy? She just turned and looked at me and I knew that I had asked the very question that she had been thinking herself. And it was just amazing as the spirit took over. I knew exactly what scriptures I needed to read with her. One of them spoke about being humble. She turned to us and said, 'I have been too prideful and havent listened to God. I am tired of following my own path. Will you help me be humble? It is a huge weakness of mine'.  We ended up reading Ether 12:27 which used the exact phrasing of her question in the scripture. It was an amazing lesson. When we ended the lesson, we asked her to kneel down and say a prayer asking God what she needed to do. When we all kneeled down and she began her humble, repentant prayer, it just literally felt like we were all surrounded by angels. I just couldnt help but feeling an overwhelming amount of love for M even though she hasnt been very nice to us since the very first day I got here. All of that was forgotten and I just wanted nothing more that for her to just come back to church and come back to the Savior. That is exactly the same way that the Savior feels with us. When we repent and we have that desire to improve and do better, He doesnt care what we have done in the past, He just wants us to come unto Him and make a better life for ourselves in the future. He wants to lead us and guide us. And as we ask for His help, He will be more than willing to send it. Sometimes we are just too stubborn and prideful to recognize it. It was an awesome lesson.

When coming home, I made quite a few phone calls telling the branch members that they really needed to go over and see her. I couldnt help but think of the parable that Christ gave when a man who lost 1 coin out of 10 and when he finally found the coin he told all this neighbors and had a big feast so that they could also rejoice. It was an awesome learning experience for me. Being a missionary is the greatest blessing in the whole world! I love being a missionary! It is the greatest feeling in the whole world!

I know that through the Gospel, everyone can change. No matter what their circumstances or past mistakes are. I know that the gospel can literally lift burdens and guilt and shame away and replace it with peace, happiness, and forgiveness. The gospel is powerful. It can change people in an instance. We just have to be the ones who first decide to open our hearts. I love this gospel!

Love you all!

Falslev Nővér

I love being a missionary! Life couldn't get any better!

I seriously cannot believe another whole week has already passed. Time seems to go by so fast.

Our investigators are doing so well! We have had some good experiences this week.

We went over to see s and see how his leg was doing. I made him brownies but got a little impatient and the outside was burnt and the inside was delicious! haha! So we went and just got him some other treats. We also took him a new liahona. We found out that he knew a mormon guy where he was serving in the military and he really appreciated his standards. He also told us that he heard a lot about the BOM and he saw that his kids had one and so he thought he was going to start reading it. So we ended up going home, writing our testimonies in his own copy and gave him one. they are the coolest family ever! He also told me a lot about using the ROVER equipment and things that dad has done. it was fun to hear his stories. and being over behind enemy lines really got him thinking about what is most important in life. We were so happy!

I also had my last zone conference this week. It was such a good zone conference. We watched a short clip from the movie 'facing the giants'.  this football coach is sick and tired of his team already thinking they are going to lose when playing games so he makes one of the leaders on the team do the 'death crawl' across the whole field. But the coach blindfolded him so he couldnt see how far he had come. the boy was only supposed to go 50 yards but he ended up going the whole field length. And it is so true with us....sometimes the world sets standards for us and we never think we can even reach them. But as we put our blindfold on and trust in our coach (Christ) we are able to accomplish a lot more than we ever thought possible. it was a really good conference and i learned a lot in it.

So on Friday, F called us and told us that he wanted us to come over and see a lamb slaughter. His son was graduating from 8th grade so they were throwing a big party the next day and going to slaughter this lamb. We didnt have time that night, so we sent the elders and they had so much fun. The next day, we went over to their house for dinner and it was the craziest ever. We had just gotten back from meeting with an RCLA and she had fed us TONS of food and then we went straight to F's. I wasnt really feeling very well either and so i was hoping to sneakily just get by with just taking a little bit of food. i almost got away with it, but at the last minute F saw so he grabbed my plate and he filled it up. And man, does he really know how to feel a plate! he put more on my plate than the elders! So much that food wasnt even staying on the plate. And this isnt like your typical well-balanced meal of veggies, bread, meat, etc....this is ALL just meat. Oh my gosh! I have never felt so sick but I sure did get a lot of help eating it! All the other missionaries were busting up laughing because they knew how full I already was and my companion got away with only eating a little. It was really nice to meet all of F's family though. They sure did make us feel like family haha! It was a good cultural experience for us. I love the F!

Also this week, we met with someone new named K. He asked us for BOM a few weeks ago and has come to sport day a few times. He was asking me all sorts of questions but was still a little hestitant to meet. But this week we finally met with him. And the program was awesome! The spirit was so strong but at the end he seemed a little nervous. i was super bummed at the end cause i honestly thought we had given him to much information and he was a little overwhelmed. Then just before church starts, i turn around and he came to church! And the whole meeting was just perfect for him! he told me that he could only stay for the 1st hour and after the first hour he asked if it was okay if he stayed for the whole church meeting. It was awesome!

But I think the highlight of my week this week was the M. I LOVE these girls! We have been through a lot with them this week, but it just makes me love them even more! These girls have so much to overcome in their circumstances but they have such pure and simple faith. it is wonderful to see. During the week V asked me if our sholders always had to be covered. i told her yes and explained a little about why. She came to church on sunday in a pretty blue dress with a pretty pink cardagain that covered her sholders. She wanted to be just like the Sisters and cover her sholders. Then we went over later Sunday night because V wanted to take us to her grandma's house to teach her grandma too. V was also wearing her cute pink cardagain to cover up her sholders. On the way over to her grandmas, she asked me if I was going to be coming to a camp with them branch on August 2nd. One of the members told her no that I would be going home. V turned to me in the most heart-breaking way and asked me in i would be there for her baptism on Aug. 17th. I told her no. V just stopped and ran to me and gave me the biggest hug I have ever got and started bawling. And that just got me bawling. I think that was really the first realization I've gotten how little time I have left. I am pretty sure i have given these girls my whole heart and when V started bawling, i just felt like my heart was starting to fall apart. i love this little family so much! We ended up continuing on to her grandma's house and it was like V was another companion and little sister missionary! She was helping me explain everything about the BOM to her grandma and was telling all of her cousins and everyone who would listen. I was so proud of her! I have learned so much from her! And i cant wait for her to finally be baptized. she has been waiting for so long!

I love being a missionary. This is the happiest time of my life. There is no where else or anything else I would rather be doing right now. I know that obeying the commandments and living gospel principlies is really trully what brings happiness in our lives. And sharing that with others brings joy that you cant even describe. I love being a missionary!

Love you all!

Falslev nővér

Another week already????

Wow. Time is going by so fast. This week has been crazy busy. Some of the funny things that happened this week though:

It is super hot here....and so we decided before we were going to eat lunch one day to soad our feet in cold water in the bathtub to cool down. Well my companion forgot to flip the water off from showerhead to bathtub (I still think she probably did it on purpose haha!) and so when I turned on the water I was expecting the water to come out from the bathtub but it came out from the showerhead and cooled me right down....in fact I just pretty much had a whole new shower that day! I was soaked! We laughed about it for a pretty long time.

Also this week, Sister Cropper was saying one of the prayers and I think as soon as I kneeled down, I just fell asleep. I dont remember any of the prayer. Anyways, she finished the prayer and I was still asleep so she just left me there for about 5 minutes before we had to go to a program. She woke me up and it scared me pretty bad. I had no idea I feel asleep. Its also been the joke for the week haha! The Lord really does give you energy to keep you going during the day....its just sometimes hard when you finally stop moving haha!

English Class - I felt like I needed to do the spiritual thought in english class this week. And I felt like I needed to share one specific verse 2 Nephi 25:26. But I didnt want to share it because that is exactly the same scripture that Sister Cropper shared last week. But I felt like I needed to do it and so I added a couple of other verses with that scripture and bore testimony of why I am a missionary and how much I love the gospel. There was one new person in our english class who spoke hardly any english, she was sitting in the very back. She started bawling when I shared the scipture. God really does know exactly what His children need.

Our investigators are doing well. We had a super crazy weekend with them all.

Saturday we went to a less actives daughters graduation and helped her with a lunch afterwards. All of her family was there who arent members so we got to talk to them a lot. Her niece was super nice and friendly to us and we got to talk to her for a while. She wanted to show us her dog so we went over to her house thinking we could just see this little cute dog. It was the biggest dog I have ever seen in my life. I think it was the same type of dog from the sandlot. It was huge! And as soon as he came to see us, he shook his head and all of his drool got all over us. We stunk like dog the rest of the day. I wish I could send some pictures of it home. You will have to wait til I get home to see.

Then as soon as that was over, we ran over to the branch house because the misionaries had volunteered to plan the branch activity. It was all sorts of crazy when we got there, a ton of people had come. We were all going over to have a hot dog roast and we had planned to do a 'Tree of Life' activity with them. We were waiting for some other investigators to come so all of our other investigators waited with us. When we were almost to where we would turn down a street to go to the place where the fire roast would be, I just had an overwhelming sense of what being a missionary really is. When we were walking, I was holding little M's hand, D had her arm wrapped around my other arm V was walking in front of me talking to me, S had to hands on my sholders trying to steer me, we had É and her family walking with us, B and her family, 4 less active members, and some other members walking with us. Then coming from the other direction I looked out and saw sister Smith walking with F and all of his family and some of their cousins. From a ways away, F waved to me and just had the biggest grin on his face. It was in just that small moment that I just really felt that this is what missionary work really is about. Bringing people along with you towards the Savior. We hadnt even started the actual activity but I started tearing up just looking at all these people whom I love so dearly and I just had the most overwhelming love for them. Being a missionary is seriously the best thing in the world! I love these people so much!!!!

The activity was awesome! We were a little bit disorganized but the spirit really helped! We set up a short rope course and had obstacles along the path. The elders were the tempters (and they did a good job...they got a lot of people off the rope...everytime they got off they had to 'repent' and start over) I was on the rope and I was the GATE on the path telling people what they would face on this journey. As each one of our investigators came to talk to me, I only had a short 1 minute or so to tell them what they needed to do in order to stay on the course to the tree. And one of those things they had to do was baptism. It was not a very long time to say anything, but it doesnt take a long time for the spirit to testify to someone. It turned out to be a really good activity. I think everyone learned a lot from it. Everyone eventually made it to the tree though....the little kids were the funniest because the elders could get them off the rope so easily! It was a really good activity.

Then we just got to roast marshmellows and hot dogs and let everyone talk with each other. it was a great day! And it was a great turn out!

And everyone liked it so much....they came to church! We had 11 investigators come to church yesterday. One of which was someone we had just talked to on the street. It was great we had so many people at church, but I am pretty sure I looked like a chicken with my head cut off. I have never been running in so many different directions once sacrament was over. Dealing with kids can be sure crazy sometimes. When church was done and all the craziness of the day was over, Sister Cropper and I took a deep breathe and started walking home to finally get some lunch. Just as we walked out the door, the bird decided to give us another wonderful gift of luck and pooped all over us....it got all over in my hair and other over Sister Croppers hair. I am so glad that the birds have decided to love us so much. I have never had problems with birds pooping on me until now. But we did get quite a good laugh from it. We really needed a good laugh!

It has just been an amazing week this week. This week I learned a lot about what is really means to change....not just your behavior but your nature and your character. And change all starts with what your desires are. That is why is it so important to have good desires and good thoughts. With every good or bad thing that happens, we are always changing - for better or for worse. That is why we are commanded to remember Christ at all times and in all places so we can become more like Him. I also found a new favorite quote: 'Brick walls are there for a reason, they let us prove how badly we want things.' We will find a way over the challenges 'brick walls'  in our lives, if we just dont give up and let God help us find a way over them.

I love being a missionary. I love this work. God does live and He does know His children. This gospel is true. It is also the only true  way to happiness in life. I love my life!

FAlslev Nővér

A crazy week of adventures!!!!

Wow! Time is just flying by so fast! I cant believe it! I feel like I just emailed you all yesterday! Things are really just going wonderful here. We have had the best week ever!

We started teaching one of the members boyfriend this week and it is going awesome! He is already reading out of the BOM and our first program was awesome with him. He came to church yesterday and loved it. It is amazing how much better and smoother the programs go when members are so involved with the lessons. It goes a lot smoother when they already have friends and have someone they trust!

This week was also very interesting. We had a lot of weird run ins with birds this week....the first one being the most interesting. We had been streeting and decided to stop for a little ice cream break. We were sitting down and eating ice cream when this lady we had streeted just a few days earlier saw us and came over to show us her cute 3 month old baby. She was adorable!! As we were standing there looking at how cute this little baby was, I felt something land in my hair. I reached up to see what it was and sure enough, to my great pleasure, there was bird poop all over in my hair. But this bird was really smart, it didn't just me, it got all three of us. The lady's jacket was covered with it but she didn't care because she was really in love with showing us her little baby. She just kept right on talking with us. So I wiped the disgusting bird poop out of my hair with my little ice cream napkin and we moved over about 10 feet or so and kept talking with this lady. About 5 or 10 minutes later, I felt another BIG drop all over my arm. I looked down and my arm is just covered in bird poop. DISGUSTING! And I didn't have any more napkins to wipe it off. It also landed all over the little babies car seat thing and got a little on the baby. But the lady was so into her baby that she didn't even care. It was so funny! I cannot believe I got pooped on not just once but TWICE! Even after I moved! But apparently, getting pooped on by a bird here in Hungary means you will have a lot of luck....so getting pooped on twice just means all the more luck, right? Haha! So funny!

We also got to see a storks nest with 3 little babies in it. Those nests are huge! And so are the birds! And we also found a little baby birds nest right by our apartment door that have 5 baby birds in it. The little boys in our apartment get so excited to have us see the birds whenever we come home. Today we were also walking along the road, when a little bird fell out of its nest right in front of us and dropped on the ground. It was very confused and had no idea what to do. So needless to say....birds have been our best friend this week haha!

I also got to go to a Hungarian hospital this week. We were visiting one of the less active members there. I will just say that Hungarian hospitals are very different from ones than I am used to. I am so grateful so technology! It was a little crazy going to see the hospital here.

Our investigators are doing awesome. We had a program with D, A, and G and did trust falls with them and talked to them about faith. I think it was a really powerful lesson for them all. They all wanted to say the prayer at the end so we all let them say a prayer. And they actually prayed for things they wanted. Hearing a child say a sincere prayer is one of the most tender moments. No wonder God loves His children so much. It was such a good and fun lesson!

On Saturday, we had the craziest day but it was so good! We had a sport day and played soccer. We have been trying to get a lot more people to come and this weekend we ended up having 22 people come! And all of them were our investigators besides 2 members. It was awesome! And crazy! The night before, at game night, we met A and G's dad. He has been serving over in Afghanistan and just got home a little over a week ago. He is awesome! It was so cool to talk to him. I was talking about his time over there and he started telling me a little about his job. He trains other soldiers to use equipment and things. I asked him if he had ever heard of the predator airplane and he said of course! He said he has used that lots over there and that is has been their eyes. He said that it was saving tons of lives there. They couldn't have done a lot of what they did without it. I thought that would be good for dad to here! IT was cool to talk to him about it. He speaks perfect English of course too so that made it a little easier to talk about military things.

Anyways, so we invited him and his family to sport day and they said they were all going to come. Super awesome family! So he comes to sport day a little late and we had so many people he was trying to figure out who was on who's team. Anyways, he starts to play on our team and he is super good at soccer! After about 15 or 20 minutes of playing, he lifted up his daughter on his back and then the ball came over to him. So he too quickly put his daughter down and we all heard a big pop and he was down for the count. I felt horrible. Anyways, long story short, they went to the hospital and we went over and visited them later that day. We found out he tore his Achilles tendon and has to have surgery on it and it will take 2 months to recover. It was so sad! But he was super nice about it! So that was crazy.

Right after sport day, we came over to the Smiths to have a program with F and his family. They made us stuffed cabbage. It was delicious! We had another good program with F and he still wants to be baptized. He has read a lot and is doing good!

E is doing well. We had a lot of good programs with her this week. I love her family so much! She is going to have to make some really tough decisions in her life. But we had some members there and they told about their conversion stories. These members are my hero's! They sacrifice so much. They really are so strong here. I just love these Hungarian people so much.

Yesterday was also a little crazy. All of the M came to church and a few other children. And we found out after sacrament meeting that the person who was teaching primary couldn't stay so we had to do a last minute lesson. It was so crazy but we had a lot of fun! It was fun acting like a little kid again and singing all the primary songs. We taught them the song, 'do as I'm doing' and they loved it! It has been a great week!

This week I was learning a lot about patience. I have been learning so much about the Christlike attributes. This was my favorite scripture I found on patience: Hebrews 12:1 'let us lay aside every weight...and run with patience the race that is set before us'. We are all in Gods hands. When we trust in Him, the weight of the world doesn't have to weigh us down. We just have to keep running and keep being obedient to what the Lord has commanded us. I love this gospel and am so happy! I love being a missionary! Best thing I have ever done in my life! Love you all! Have a great week!

Falslev Nover  :)

Another week FULL of Miracles!!!!!

Wow! This week has been FANTASTIC!!!! I just really feel like I am on top of the world right now....well I guess I am according to Hungarians. You go to other places but when you come to Hungary, they literally say that you come onto Hungarian...that Hungary is like a higher place. They are so funny! And so right! Hungary is just the best!

Well funny story of the week...last week in english class, one of the students came up and told me that I would be a 7 million forint wife in I was from the country he was from because I am so white haha! I laughed so hard! So for about   minutes our whole english classed talked about how white I am. I have been laughing about it so hard this whole week! I love Hungarians!

Our investigators are doing so well. I just love them so much!

J. She is a young girl and she has been meeting with the sisters for quite a while. She has just recently started reading out of the BOM and it is amazing how much people start to progress when they act and just READ!!!! (If you ever want Heavenly Father to really bless you, just act...all the blesses just start pouring out!) and anyways, we had a super awesome program about baptism. Such a great program and she is praying about getting baptized. She is an awesome girl!

The M are doing well. Unfortunately they got in trouble this week so of course, the logical punishment is to not let them go to church or let them meet with the sisters. So it is going to be a long week without meeting with them :( I am going to miss them! This week though they were doing good and reading a lot. We also taught them some other primary songs to sing in a piano recital we had on Saturday. They did so good! And they loved singing the songs. We sing them every time we go over to their house now and its amazing how well it brings in the spirit. One day we went, the whole family was fighting and it was just pretty chaotic. I told the kids we were just going to start singing the songs we learn and by the time we finished singing, everything was calmed down and we were able to start our lesson. I just love those girls so much!!!!!!

D, G and A. They are awesome! This week we had them be the teachers and they taught us the Plan of Salvation. I was so proud of them! They really have learned a lot! We gave them little CTR rings and they thought they were the greatest thing in the world. And the lesson was just amazing...I am FINALLY really starting to learn how to teach kids. They opened up a lot more around us and it just felt good to finally teach a lesson that they actually really understood. They are the coolest kids ever!

So I have been studying every week on a Christlike attribute and this week the attribute was Knowledge. I realized that when I decide that I want to study/learn something, God provides me with the experiences I need to learn. We have to desire to learn and then act before God can lead  us to where we need to go. Anyways, it was amazing to see how the Lord really helped me use everything I have been learning over the past couple of weeks to really experience miracles this week. A couple of examples:

We met with a less active member and we were a little late to the program. Anyways, to make a really long story short, she was really not happy that we were late and because we were late she wanted to make sure we knew how mad she was. It was turning into one of the most frustrating lessons and I almost got to the point where I just wanted to stand up and leave instead of teach her....but I had remembered that morning I had read a scripture in Moroni about praying with all our hearts for charity and love. I prayed so hard that I could just somehow love her and be patient. And my whole entire outlook just changed. I just bore a simple and sincere testimony to her and said we needed to leave. She made it clear that she would not be coming to church for a long time and we left. And then came the MIRACLE! She came to church. And she got up and bore her testimony of how she had let in anger and bitterness. When she was angry and bitter, she couldnt continue to follow Christ and turned her anger toward everyone else. It was a total transformation from when we had met with her just a few days before. The gospel and the Atonement really can change anyone.

Saturday we had a really fun piano program and President and Sister Smith came and so did F and all his family. They actually sang some songs in the program. WE also had a ton of other people come to see it and it turned out to be really nice!

President and Sister Smith stayed the night and came to church the next day. It was such a good sacrament meeting. F came and it was really good for him. He learned a lot during church! President also came to a meeting with the missionaries and the ward members and we talked more about working together. The members are awesome here! The work is really going to start moving forward in this little branch. But the biggest miracle yesterday was the program last night at F's house.

Teaching at F's house it always a bit of a challenge. It is usually pretty loud and hard to get people to listen. So we said a really heartfelt prayer for help during this program. Anyways,  the fed us some birds that they had killed that day and some other delicious food! And things were getting a little crazy again. Then I just finally got up enough courage to tell them that we had something important to say and that they all needed to sit down. F sat right down, and we started reading out of the scriptures out of  Nephi 27 about the gospel of Jesus Christ. As soon as we started reading, everyone started to calm down. It was by far the most powerful program I have ever had with him. As I was teaching about baptizm, everything that I have been learning about lately just came to mind, I was able to say everything clearly and perfectly in a way that they understood, and the spirit really was the one that took over and told F what he needed to here. The whole family was quite for over an hour!!!!! That is a MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And F wants to be baptized on July 20th. And his brother in law came and sat in on the program and he would also like to be baptized now and start meeting with us. I really stand trully all amazed at what the spirit can do with people. Reading the scriptures are powerful. Prayer is powerful. And there is absolutely no way to describe how powerful until you actually experience it for yourself. It was an amazing program!

Right after that program we had a program with É and her family. T actually listened to us and we taught him. He said he will pray with his family! He wont say the prayer yet, but just to get him to do something with his family is a huge miracle!

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!!!!!!!

This week I also learned that the gift of tongues isnt always for you to speak perfect Hungarian...its for the others to listen and to actually understand what the spirit it trying to tell them. God gifts really are true. God really does fulfill His promises.

I love being a missionary. It is amazing to see all the miracles and blessings that God gives to those who just do what He asks. God does bless the obedient. I just love being in this country and serving the Lord! This really is the greatest work to be doing! I love you all!

Falslev Nővér

GREENIE FIRE!!!!!! Whoo!!!!!!!

Man I dont even know where to begin this week. It has been so crazy. But just awesome! It has been so much fun to have 3 new greenies in Szolnok!!! Seriously...we needed it here! They are so awesome and so good already at the language. The teachers in the MTC only spoke Hungarian to them the whole time they were there from day 1. They could only speak Hungarian to their teachers too the last 2 weeks. And they got to skype with actual Hungarians so their pronounciation is a lot better. The MTC has really improved! It is amazing!

My companion is Sister Cropper. She is awesome! She already knows what she is doing....she just has to get a little used to the culture! We have had so much fun this week though seeing all the things in Hungary. I forgot how different everything was when I first got here. I have gotten really used to things here.

Our investigators are still doing good. We have had some awesome programs with É this week with some of the members. Members make a huge impact when they come to our programs! It seriously is like night and day. É is really trying to decide what she needs to do to be baptized, It really is a very hard situation. She is doing awesome though and just keeps learning and doing everything she can! One thing that I learned from her lesson this past week that really impacted me was that sometimes, as human beings, we like to worry a lot. And this past week, I have been worrying a lot. It has been a pretty crazy week. Anyways, I just realized that I have spent so much time worrying about things that when it finally comes time to do them, I dont have enough energy to even do what I want/need to do. Sometimes we spend so much time worrying about things that when it finally comes time to do it, we have already spent all of our energy and have wasted it all for nothing. Such a good lesson for me this week!

Nothing too  crazy has happened to us this week. We have just been trying to get everything settled in and get everything going for this transfer.

Yesterday we had to go to Budapest for greenie training. So sister Cropper was in meetings all day and I just got to go have fun with some of the Sisters from my group. It was so much fun! And such a good p day. We went up and saw buda castle and then we went to János's mountain. It is this tower that you can hike up to and overlook all of Budapest. It was beautiful! We decided to go last minute and we just wore our skirts....it was so hot and we were sweating so bad! Everyone along the paths kept looking at us like we were freaks too because we were all hiking in skirts haha! It was so much fun though! And it was cool to see over Budapest. When you are in Budapest, the city seems so big and huge but looking down at it from the mountain it seemed so small and seemed like such a little place compared to all around it. It was kinda a visual for me for our life. God can see our lives from a tower on top of a high mountain and we are wandering down on the streets of Budapest. Sometimes we dont know where to go or what street to go on, but God has given us the tools to make it through and guide us through it. God can see the big picture. He sees that 'the city' (even though it seems really big to us) is just a little part to our big journey. And our journey really leads to the most beautiful place...back to where God is to see it all - to really see the big picture of things. It was such a good hike!

And also when we went to Budapest it was just me with the 3 greenies. The other to elder trainers stayed here to save money. It was so much fun taking all three of them. They talked the WHOLE train ride about how much they already love hungary and what they thought was so cool about Hungary! It just made me realize a lot about how much this has already become my home and this is normal for me. I love Hungary so much!!!! Also when we got to the mission home, President Smith showed me a picture that reminded him of me. It was of a big mama duck and a whole bunch of chicks following her. He said that that was me bringing all the greenies in and everyone started laughing. It was so much fun to just see the new missionaries so full of fire and ready to talk to anyone and everyone! It has been a really good week.

Well I love you all and hope you are all doing great! I hope you had a great weekend!

Szeretlek!

FAlslev Nővér

Change, change, change. We all love change right?

Well, today was another transfers. Changes are hard but they are needed and it will be great. I am a little nervous for this transfers....actually really nervous. I am going to be training. We will have 3 new missionaries here in Szolnok so it will be a fun time. Sister Jensen is going to Debrecen and I am so sad to see her leave! It has been a great transfer with her.

Some of the highlights of the week:

Last monday for p-day we went to this place to play Hungarian Mini Golf. It is a lot harder than normal miniature golf....they have all sorts of obstacles and if you dont get past the obstacle you have to start back from the beginning. The owner was super intense too and kept telling us that we werent playing right haha! And after we went mini golfing, we went to a marshmellow roast. It was so much fun! After we were walking home with one of the members and she is deathly afraid of frogs. I have never seen a frog since I have come to Hungary. Ever. But this member really is deathly afraid of frogs. We were walking home and we saw this huge frog on the street. Needless to say, it scared the member a little bit. I was laughing so hard! It was a good p-day!

Also this week, we have been fed a ton! Mainly by the Smiths. They do so much in helping us with our investigators. On Saturday night, we were going to have an FHE with all of É's family. We were so excited because we had T coming. He really wanted to come and this week he has been really participating in the lessons. But at the last minute, he didnt come on Saturday. It was devastating, especially to É. But we still had a really good lesson. We made a path through the Smith's house of the things we need to do in order to obtain eternal life. D and her friend G were there and they loved it. I think it also made É really think. They were still talking about the lesson on Sunday so hopefully that helps É to act now. We had a really good lesson with É yesterday too about having to decide whether or not to be baptized and exercising her faith to do hard things. So hopefully we can finally get her on the track to baptism this week. I just love her so much! She is going through a lot right now.

We also had another dinner on Sunday with the F family. It was a little bit of a hard lesson. But we did our best. And the dad did come to church so that was great! It was a little crazy trying to get them all paying attention, but I think they got the point of why we are here as missionaries. I hope so anyway.

The M are doing well....we were sad because they didnt come to church yesterday! I guess they slept in. But we had a really good lesson on the Word of Wisdom and we are just hoping that they can keep strong! Its hard when the rest of their family doesnt keep the Word of Wisdom either. We sure do love the girls though!

This week has been raining A TON!!!!!!! One minute the sun was shining and the next it was pouring rain. And it just kept pouring and pouring and pouring. We went to Szeged for Zone conference this week and we ended up missing a connecting train so we were stuck outside in the rain for a while. That part was too bad because we all had umbrella's but then the wind started blowing really bad too. Needless to say, my umbrella kinda got ruined and just started catching rain to drop on me rather than keeping the rain off haha! It was quite an adventure and we were very late to our meeting. But hopefully this week will be better weather. :)

But also because of the rain, we decided to go tract a 20 story building so we wouldnt have to keep wakling in the rain for a long time. We started and we got 2 let ins and they were both really hard. One let-in had some very bad experiences with religious people saying one thing and doing another and the other let-in just wanted to bible bash. It was a super long day of tracting and we were both getting a little discouraged. But on the last floor, the last door, we met J. She was awesome! SHe was so interested about the BOM and was really excited to meet with us. She really wanted us to meet her husband also who was from Nigeria. So we set up with her to come back another time. We went back and she was pretty excited to see us, and then she told her husband about us. He came to talk with us. He is baptist and he definitely did not want anything to do with us. It was pretty sad. He sent us away, even though J still really wanted to learn, and when we left we just heard him yelling at her. It was pretty sad.

Yesterday we went out to a little village about an hour away to visit one of the members. They are a super strong family here and they always feed the misisonaries right before the transfer. She really went all out and made us the best soup I have ever eaten over a fire and made us all sorts of Hungarian food. It was delicious! We found out that the mom was the last one to become a member. She was an investigator for 4 years, and she loved the missioanries, but did not want one thing to do with our religion. Her husband told her that they need to feed the missionaries and she found out that the missionaries would just eat pizza for dinner so she ended up having missionaries over to eat at her house every single day for the 4 years she was a missionary. She said she went through quite a bit of food! She loves feeding the missionaries! They are just an awesome family! The members here are awesome!

This week I have been studying a lot about charity. And as I have come to study more about charity, I have come to love more of these people more. When missionary work is all said and done, or whatever we are doing, it all comes down to loving people as Christ loves them. It is the most wonderful gift in the world to be able to love someone so much and to help them come closer to the Savior. I love being a missionary. It has been the greatest time of my life. Yes, it is super hard, but I wouldnt trade it in the world for anything! I love this gospel! And I love you all! Hope you have a great week!

Falslev Nővér

These are some pictures from sport day.

I love Mother's Day!

It was so good to see you all and talk to you all yesterday. It was very weird to see how different everyone was. I was a little bit surprised...especially the kids. But it was so good to see you all! it went by too fast. It was a perfect ending to the week!

Well I pretty much told you a lot about most of our investigators yesterday. But they are all doing good....yes they all have struggles and we are just hoping they pull through it.

Someone i didnt mention though was M. She is a young girl who has never even learned about God. We have met with her a few times and asked her to pray. She has been trying to pray but tells us that it is really weird and she hasnt really liked it. But this week she told us that pray is staying to seem normal now and that she says she feels something different when she prays. Super cool!

After I skyped with you all, we went over to the m girls to see how conference went...we were so nervous they were going by themselves. It was an awesome program! They learned so much...really learned and took notes and it was amazing to see the difference they had with their family. they were so much nicer and spoke so much kinder to one another. When people learn about the gospel, their nature really is changed. They are so excited to be baptized on Aug. 17th and were so excited to tell everyone about it and learn more about baptism at the conference. The older of the girls said the closing prayer and both Sister Jensen and I almost started bawling in her prayer from some of the things she said. sometimes we have wondered if we really are making a difference in teaching these kids, and yesterday we realized how much they have changed and how well they are doing. It was an amazing program. I love these girls so much!!! And so do the ward members here too which is a huge deal!

After that we went over to E's house and had a family home evening with them. It was such a good lesson! Her husband hasnt really participated in the lesson and last week was a really rough lesson with him. But last night he came in for the prayer and read some scriptures with us. It was a huge step. We had the 10 year old daughter try and move her bed across the room by herself but she couldnt do it. So her dad went and helped her. The lesson was perfect and we talked about how our Heavenly Father can help us do things that we physically cant do on our own. It was an amazing lesson! And we got T to be willing to come to a family night at the smith's house! That is huge!!!!!!! He is so totally different from what happened last week. It really was a miracle.

This week I have also been studying about the Christlike attributes. I realized that in every single attribute, as you develop that attribute, it helps you to act more as Christ would act. We cannot develop the Christlike attributes without acting. I also learned that Charity is the greatest of all the christlike attributes, because it includes all of the attributes. We cannot have the other Christlike attributes without having charity for the people we serve....love that lasts forever. Charity is the pure love of Christ that lasts FOREVER....not just when we do what God wants, not just when we are happy, not just when we are sad, but it is there at all times. we are the ones that allow us to let the worldly things into our lives so that we are not able to feel the pure love of Christ.

Anyways, sorry this is a short letter this week. We dont have too much time for emailing. Love you all!

Falslev nővér

Running,running, and more running.

This week has been super  crazy. We have been running everywhere. We are usually pretty lucky when we run to catch things like the bus but i think our timing is starting to get worse. We had interviews in Budapest this week but we wanted to meet with É before we left. It turned into a super serious program with her about baptism and we ended up getting out late and missed our train. We ran all the way to the train station and had 1,5 minutes to spare before the train left but the ticket lady wouldnt give us a ticket :( But luckily we finally got another train and ran to the mission home. We were still a little late but interviews went well. It sounds like there will be a lot of change this next transfer.

We only had time to go tracting twice this week and both times we didnt get to go for very long. The first time, we found a guy name J and we had an awesome program with him.His wife had just died a few months before and he had been wondering if he would ever see her again. It was an awesome lesson and we had just enough time to meet with him. The 2nd time tracting wasnt so successful....we had 2 different men come and tell us to leave before they called the cops. They were both wearing speedos. It was quite an experience.

May 1st was a huge holiday in Szolnok. It is like Labor Day in America and they really went out. They had like this carnival thing in the middle of this street and we met pretty much everyone of our investigators there. It was pretty funny because they took us around introducing us to all their friends because we are American and speak Hungarin weird. It was some good missionary finding though. Hungarians really know how to celebrate.

We also played the candy bar game where you wrap a candy bar in newspaper and everyone has to try and open in with spoons for game night. It was so funny!!! They loved it! The people here are so funny! And there are so many kids. They keep my creative juices flowing. Hopefully I can keep it up.

We have also seen a lot of miracles this week. We went out to see an RCLA that lived quite a ways away. She hasnt been answering our phone calls but we went out there anyway and she told us that she had been expecting us to come. She didnt have any money to call us and was praying that we would come. She had been sick and said she really needed the visit.

É- we have had quite a few programs with É this week. She wants to be baptized so bad but she hasnt been able to talk to her living partner about getting married. In one of our programs, I learned so much from her. I felt like she was teaching me so much! She talked about how she felt like she had never noticed the good things that she had in her life and that she was always looking for something more. The more she looked for something more instead of being grateful for what she got, the less she found. It was such a good lesson for me to learn. I really need to look and be grateful for the things that I do have now, rather than the things that I dont, because I may not always have those good things around me. I love É so much!

Yesterday was probably our craziest day of the week. The M came to church again by themselves. I love them! The branch members are really all starting to love them too. They sang in church for Hungarian Mothers day andthey did such a good job. Primary was good too. A little crazy but I think they learned something. After church, the branch president came with us to their house to meet their parents and talk about baptism. The girls want to be baptized SO bad, but there is still a lot to understand. Luckily, the branch president is super supportive and is even having the kids go to Budapest for Stake conference next week without the sisters. He felt like the ward really needs to help with the kids and get them really strong in the gospel. It was a super good program.

After that we had just gotten home to do some studies when the Smiths called us. They told us that one of the members husband had just left her and she really needed some help. She lives pretty far away and so the Smiths drove us out there immediately. It was a good thing we went when we did. She was having a really hard time. We read Alma 34 about how we can pray anytime and anywhere with her and she was supposedto stop after a few verses but kept reading to where it talks about how we cant just pray but we have to serve others too. She talked about even though she is in a hard situation (aka her husband just left her, she may lose her job, she may lose her house, she cant come to church and she is losing pretty much everything) she still needs to serve others. That is what true converstion really is. To look outside yourself even when everything else is falling apart. Awesome how the spirit works and lead her to just the verses she needed.It was a really sad program, but by the end she at least smiled a little bit. We will hopefully be able to meet with her again a few times this week.

Then we had a program with the F. It was super awesome but also super hard. This family is the greatest family ever and gives us everything even though they have nothing. We talked about the priesthood and the importance of baptism. It is just so hard to know the needs of our investigators sometimes. This program we were able to stick more with the scriptures though and that really helped bring the spirit. The scriptures really do tell us everything that we need to do better than what anyone else can do.

Then we went over and had another program with É. We were going to be there when she talked with her husband. Hardest and most awkward program ever. When she told him that she wanted to get married so she could get baptized, he told her she cant get baptized, they arent getting married and walked out the door. It was devastating. We had done a special fast with her too this week. It was really hard, but I think she is becoming stronger and being able to rely on the Lord more because of it. She is an awesome lady! And I love her daughter too!!!

And today we also met with N. We have had some of the best programs with him. But we werent sure how interested in the gospel he really was. So we invited a member to come, and he freaked out and said he didnt want to meet anymore. That was a little bit of a hard program but I also learned a lot from it.

Right after that we had a program with M though and it went so well!! He read and prayed about being baptized and he thinks he may be ready in the summer. He said he has been getting a lot of answers to questions. Things are going so well with him.

Anyways....thats short run down about our week. Things are really going great even though sometimes we have no idea what we are doing. But it really is amazing the miracles that we have  seen every day as we just go out and get to work. God does qualify the called. All He asks is that we serve Him and trust in Him and somehow the rest of it all works out. Its been a good week! I cant wait toskype with you all next week. I love you!

FAlslev Nővér

WHOO!!!!!! Missionary work is the best!

Wow. This week has just been filled with so many miracles. I dont even know where to start. Our investigators are doing so well!

This week we went on splits and they were pretty crazy. It took us a long time with traveling to split so we didnt have a lot of time to plan all of our programs. I now know why we really have a lot of time in the morning to plan....when you dont plan your programs dont go as smoothly. But I did learn quite a bit and we had a good time! I went with Sister Rupard so it was good to be with her again.

We also met with É and she is going to have to make a really hard decision of whether she wants to get married or not. It is a really hard decision and we have been praying for her a lot this week. She told us though after we talked about what she needs to do to be baptized, she read more than she has ever read out of the BOM before. She is doing so well, we just hope she can hang on when it gets rough.

Also this week we didnt really have a whole lot of time for finding so we tried to do some finding through the area book. We found this guy who really wanted to meet with us the next day and we thought it was going to be so cool! We asked Sister S to go with us and when we went to go find the guys house, we found out we read the directions wrong and were on the wrong side of town. So we got in a very nice, long run in the rain. When we got to the building, we buzzed into his apartment and found out that he was working even though we had talked to him the night before. So frustrating. But then Sister Smith said that another old investigator had been in that same building. So we tried to just buzz into someone who would let us into the building. This nice lady who was coming into the building finally let us in, but as soon as she let us in, there was a guy standing by the elevator and he started screaming and yelling at us that we were coming into the building. Sister Jensen and I were a little scared because we didnt really understand quite what he was saying, just that he wanted to get us out of the building. But Sister Smith, (she is used to not understanding people) just went right ahead and started walking up the stairs. Sister Jensen and I didnt really know what to do, so we just followed Sister Smith up the stairs while the guy was yelling at us. Luckily he didnt follow us and didnt call the cops. And we found and had an awesome program with E. She was going to be baptized last summer but her mom got really sick and had to stop investigating. She still had the BOM out on her table and a gospel principles book that she reads out of often. It was a really good program and she said she wanted to start meeting with the missionaries again.

Also this week, we experienced another miracle. We have been trying to visit an RCLA who the missionaries have not been able to visit for over 3 months. We ended up having just a few minutes and we got let into her building, she was home, and come to find out, she had been offended and was scared to come back to church. It was a really good program! And the timing worked out perfectly! Its amazing how sometimes you dont think you will have time to fit everything in, but when you put the Lord first, everything else fits right into place.

We also had 2 baptisms yesterday. It was a beautiful day yesterday and everything went perfectly! It was a yong 25 year old girl and an older lady who got baptized and they are really going to be a good strength to the branch. We decided yesterday that we were not going to walk the M girls to church but to see if they could get their themselves. Sacrament meeting started and the girls werent there. We were so sad!!! But about 15 minutes after it started they came!!! MIRACLE!!! We were so happy! And to make things even better, they were really good the WHOLE DAY long! They tooks notes during the talks, we got them ready to sing for mothers day next week in sacrament and they are super excited about that, and then they went with us to the baptism right after. All the members helped with them and the girls loved seeing the baptism. It was such a good day! And we are hoping their parents will come to see them sing next week. It was an awesome day at church yesterday!

We also met with the F family. They made us another delicious meal! And we talked about baptism with the father. All the family was there and also listening. It was a hard lesson. He really wants to be baptized but doesnt feel like he can have such a gift for him. They really are the greatest family. Anyways, we thought it was a really rough program, but we finally got F (the father) to say the prayer at the end and it was such a powerful prayer. The whole family was quite (even the 2 year old who had been screaming almost during the whole thing) and the spirit was so strong. During his prayer he stopped and then just said 'Lord, I promise I will be baptized and do what you want. Just please help me get there'. It was awesome!

Today we met with M. He is the coolest 19 year old kid ever! We had a really good program with him. He also asked us to pray for his brother today that his brother could get accepted into this school and he called us a little bit after his program to tell us that when he got home, his brother had gotten an acceptance letter in the mail from the school and the acceptance letter had come a lot earlier than expected. M was so excited to tell us! We were so happy for him.

Things have just been going so well with things. It is so hard - I really have never been so tired in my life. We are running and going all the time. But it is the best feeling in the world to really see the change that the Lord can bring into peoples lives. Being a missionary is the best! Love you all!

FAlslev Nővér

Wow what a week!

Time is going by so fast. I cant believe it has already been a week. It seems like it has been a few hours. Yesterday was still easter holiday here so everything was closed. That is why I am emailing today. This week has been awesome! I just dont really know where to begin.

 É is awesome! She really wants to be baptized and she comes to everything. We had a baptisimal date with her and then today we met with her to talk about what she needs to do before she gets baptized. It was a hard program. She has to get married before she get baptized. It is so hard to see how much some of these people have to go through in order to get baptized, but it will be so worth it in the end. We are hoping she still keeps going! She really wants her daughter to be baptized still if she cant but we will see what happens. They are such an awesome family!

On Friday, we decided to put on an easter egg hunt/scavenger hunt game for game night and we were a little worried about it turning out. We had quite a few people show up (pretty much all of our investigators) and it turned out so well! They had so much fun! At the end of the scavenger hunt, we hid the cookies out by the tree in the back of the branch house, but after we set up, the sprinklers came on. So when they found the prize, the cookies were all soggy, but they loved the game anyways! We were laughing so hard seeing all the kids race around and try to find the next clue. We hid one of the clues under a chair and they had to find out which chair it was. One of the girls found the clue and yelled out she found it and pretty soon a huge dog pile of children was on top of her all trying to get the clue. It was so funny! I love the kids here! They are awesome!

All of our investigators are doing well. We have had a lot of good programs with them. We dont have too much time to do finding but Sunday we went finding and we tracted into this older lady that tried to sell her apartment to us. We were laughing so hard! She said she needed help locking her door and she was trying to show us how to to work it. She couldnt figure it out, so she gave the keys to me. The key ring had like 20 different keys on it. When I finally found the key that worked to the door, she lost what key it was so I had to do it again. Then some boys started coming up the stairs to the building and she yelled at them to come over and talk to her. When they came over, she said 'these pretty girls are for sale. If you want them you can have them.' haha! We had no idea what to say! Neither did the boys. It was pretty funny. We had some pretty good laughs talking to her. I love the nénies (old ladies) in Hungary! They are hilarious!

Easter was really good this year. We had a nice Sunday Easter dinner at the S's house. One of the sisters that just finished her mission came and visited with her parents. It was a really good dinner to talk to them. We only had 2 kids in primary this week so primary was a lot less crazier. It was really fun!

Yesterday was the greatest day. They have a tradition in Hungary that the day after Easter, the boys go around and they spray the girls. They can either spray them with water (which isnt really spraying but more like dumping water) or they can spray them with perfume. I guess it is symbolic of spring and girls are like a flower. The boys dont want the flower to wilt and so they have to spray them. The boys have to say a poem to the girls and if the girls like it, the boys can spray them. If not the boys have to say another poem. Then after the boys spray the girls, the girls give the boys a chocolate egg. So knowing this, one of our family investigators, called us Sunday night like 5 times within 10 minutes so we thought some sort of emergency was happening with them. Turns out, he just wanted to invite us over to their house at 8 in the morning. He wouldnt tell us why, but we told him we would come. We thought they were going to drench us. (they like to joke with us so we thought for sure they were going to get us wet). They live a little far away so we had the S's take us to their house. We pulled up and all the sudden, 12 boys come out of the house and are all lined up. We thought 'oh no, we are really gonna be drenched'. Then they all pulled out perfume and started spraying our heads. There was so much perfume. It was dripping off of my head haha! It was so funny! It was a really cool tradition though. Then they said they had another surprise for us inside and we went inside and they had literally prepared a FEAST for us. There was no room for even plates on their table and they had more food on the counter. I almost started bawling. This family has a hard time even affording food for every meal. They treated us like royalty. They sat us down and served us and then they all sat and watched us start eating (a little intimidating when tons of people are watching you - they had their cousins and siblings all over). They are just the most giving family ever! I love the F! They have the cutest little 2 year old daughter that wanted to come home with us when we were leaving. I love this family so much!

So after that big feast, we went over to another nénies house and she made us another easter lunch. I was so full! We have talked to her quite a bit on the street and she invited us over for easter dinner. It was such a delicious meal! I thought I would burst!

Then we had a FHE with the F over at the S's house. It turned out so well! We talked about the real meaning of Easter and it went so well with the children. The famils is just so united and love each other so much. That isnt very common in Hungary all the time. It was a really good time with them. The dad is the one who is really investigating the church and he is praying about baptism right now. He reads a ton out of the BOM so we are hoping now that they will just come to church!

Then after that, we went and roasted hot dogs with the elders at a park. It was so much fun! It started to get a little bit dark and we noticed that bats were out. We were all having a grand time until the bats started diving at us. They didnt hit any of us but they got a little too close for comfort so we are started running away. Bats were everywhere! We arent sure why there were so many bats but it was quite an adventure.

This week I also got to study a lot about the Atonement and the resurection. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed with just helping all these people and knowing what to do and doing what Christ would want done. But then I realized that that is why I have the ATonement. We do not just have the Atonement to help us be clean and free from our sins, but to also empower us to do those things that sometimes seem impossible to do. The Atonement is not just used after we had done something and made a mistake, but it gives us the strength to do the things that the Lord needs us to do. I am so grateful for the Atonement that I can gain the strength that I need to do what the Lord needs me to do. I love this gospel! And I love being a missionary! It is the greatest gift in the world!

I love you all! Hope you had a wonderful easter!

Falslev Nővér

1st birthday party. That is a firework thing that put in his cake. It was a giant birthday cake! 

me by the little river they have here. it is beautiful here!

szolnok is super pretty!

szolnok is super pretty!

awesome looking bridge that is super cool at night. it is all lit up at night. i just dont have a very good night setting on my camera :(

some of the food for Easter.

SZOLNOK!!!!!!!

Wow. This has been the craziest week ever. But it has been really good. Szolnok is awesome! It is a lot different here. It is so clean and the people are so nice! I cant believe it. And there is so much work. We have had to run everywhere to get to places on time. we have a ton of investigators and it is so nice!

Szolnok is small but beautiful. We have a senior couple here and they are SO helpful and nice. It is so nice to have a senior couple. They have helped us out a ton.

So to start off with some of our investigators....the first people I met were D, G, A and E.  We teach them english and do a lot with them. When I first met them, they all showed me their BOM's and what they read in them that week. It was a lot difference teaching kids but it was really good. We also got to meet with their family last night and we were able to get the dad to participate and listen. It was a really good lesson. We see this family almost everyday. They are awesome.

Then we met with M. He is super cool! And is really interested in Joseph Smith. We showed him the restoration movie and he said that he felt like he is a lot like Joseph Smith right now and is searching for the truth. It was a really good program with him.

And we have the M family. Wow. I love them so much but it was quite a shock for me. They have 12 children. And it is a little crazy teaching them. In fact really crazy but they are awesome. The kids are learning a lot and they have been reading and praying together as a family. The parents are slowly getting more interested in the church so we will see what happens. They are a super loving family though.

We also went to Szeged from training this week and it was so beautiful! It was fun to see another city. It was a good meeting.

Church was honestly the craziest sunday. We went and picked up the M for church. We usually only have 3 kids that come with us but this time we had 5. The oldest is 12, then 10, then 9, then 8, then 4. We also had a few other kids come to church. Needless to say, we had our hands FULL. The branch is small here. I think there was about 10-20 people who were actually members. Sacrament meeting was good. The kids did pretty good and one of them even got up to bear their testimony.

Then we had primary. We got to teach primary :) there was only 8 kids but it was crazy. They are all investigators. But it was so fun to see them sing. They learned the wise man and the foolish man song and they loved it. We went over to their house for a birthday party for their 1 year old brother. They had a lot of extended family there that we were able to talk to and that was cool. All the kids also got up and showed their parents the song they learned in church. Everyone really enjoyed the song.

We also taught another family last night who is awesome! We are just teaching so many families and so many children. It is great! But we also have to be really creative. We do a game night here and we have more investigators than members come. We also do FHE's here a lot. THe work is just moving so great! I love being a missionary. I have been learning so much from the children here. They have such simple, but pure faith. It is the greatest to here the children pray. I couldnt help but feel the love of the Savior for His children when they pray. Heavenly FAther really does know us. It is the best thing to be a missionary! I LOVE MY LIFE!!!!!! And I do love Szolnok. I do miss Miskolc but Szolnok will be good for me also.

Love you all!
FAlslev Nővér