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 :)

This week has been good! I got my new companion on Wednesday. Sister S. She is awesome! I love her already! It will be a great transfer with her.

This week has been kinda a crazy week with transfers and things. Unfortunately we didnt get to do a lot this week but we did meet with a few investigators. L is doing awesome! We met with her again and had a really good lesson on prayer and God. She had read from the BOM. She said that she has never been interested in religions before. She has studied about them in school but she said that there was just something that interested her in our church. She says that everyone is just so happy. She is just the best! I love teaching her!

We also met with P again who A and I tracted into last week. We had a good lesson with him and taught him english. A was super helpful in the program and did really good explaining things. i cant believe she has really only been a member for a few weeks! SHe is already a good missionary!

This week was also Farsang...I am not sure what that is in english (It is kinda like halloween I guess). It was awesome! The main street was just full of booths and concerts and there were people everywhere! The branch here also had a big farsang party and invited people from other cities. It turned out really good! They dressed me up as a witch! and my companion was dorthy from the wizard of oz. There were quite a few people there and we played a lot of games. They also had a donut tasting contest...best donuts ever! The donuts here are deep fried like in america...they are like sweet bread donuts and they are delicious! The donuts were a lot better than the pig jello. I wasnt going to try it at first, but then decided i need to at least try it. Bad choice. haha! It was so gross! They cook the pig fat with a lot of onions and then just stick random parts of the pig in it. The old people here think it is a treat to eat! haha!

This week I learned a little bit about Mary and Martha. They were both preparing for when Christ would come to eat dinner and when Christ came, Mary stopped and came and listened to the Savior whereas Martha kept busy serving and getting things ready. Mary had chosen to serve and do all that she could, but then she knew when to stop to make sure she was still doing the most important things. Mary chose the Savior's companionship over the small details. It was good of Martha to keep serving, one-sided service, however devoted may become neglect. Martha was so busy and worried about the details of things that she forgot WHY she was serving. I feel like that is sometimes how we can get in our lives. We get so caught up in wanting to be good servants and get caught up in the little details, that we forget to learn from the service we give. We give our service but we dont really give our heart. We dont serve as the Savior served.

Well I hope you are all doing well. I love you all!

Falslev Nővér

E (one of the members that helps us ALWAYS!! It is so nice! She is the greatest.) And me and Sister Peterson. This was on the way to see the castle.

 Disgyög castle. It is one of the oldest castles in Hungary. They are remodeling it right now though so that was sad we couldnt go inside. It was huge!

the advance of modern technology.....haha!

one of the crazy things you can get at the farsang booth

it was farsang here this week and the main street was closed down and they had all sorts of booths on the streets. it was so cool to see! 

one of the crazy things they had at a booth at farsang

Miskolc has a lot of cool paintings on the buildings.

so we were walking down the street for farsang and decided to get some big crepes (oriási palacsintas). They were delicious! However, we only grabbed forks and Hungarians always use knifes to cut things. So I helped E cut her crepe and then fed it to her while we were walking. It was pretty funny.

R and D from Nyíregyháza came to the party! I love them both so much! It was good to see them!

me eating pig jello hungarian food. Most disgusting food I have ever eaten. It is pure pig fat with different parts of the pig meat in it. I thought I was going to throw up when I ate it. The hungarians got a kick of watching me taste it though. The older people here love it. 

part of the meat that is in it. disgusting. haha!

me with one of the members B.

me with my new awesome companion...Sister S!

I love Miskolc! :)

TRANSFERS!!!!

Well you probably already figured it out by now, but today is transfers so that is why I am emailing on a different day. We kinda had a little stressful week this week thinking about transfers. We thought for sure that Sister Peterson was going to have to go home but we did a special fast and yesterday we went to the doctor and found out that she can try to do some physical therapy and see if that helps. We were so happy that she is staying!!!! But that also meant that she had to leave to be closer to Buda. She is going to Dunaújváros with Sister Fresh and Sister Sexton who is serving in Dunaújváros is coming to me in Miskolc! I am excited! It will be a good transfer.

This week has been really good. We went for splits to Debrecen on Tuesday and it was really good. We met the coolest young couple there that was really interested. I learned a lot on transfers!

This week we also had zone training here in Miskolc and it was so good! We have awesome missionaries in this mission! We talked about super hero missionaries and how we can become them. It was also brought up how missionaries can be so tired all the time. At home, we just experienced stress in one area usually - when we went to school, we exercised our brains, then we would go with our friends to get exercise socially, and then when we wanted to get physical exercise we would go to the gym. But they were all stressed seperately and when one got to be too much, we would take a break with one of the others. But on a mission, you are stressed in all areas and all the same time and you cant take a break. It was pretty funny when we were talking about it, but it really is so true. Being a missionary is the best, but it is also pretty tiring!

This week we taught T and her son and had the best lesson with them. T has been meeting with the elders for a while but then decided to meet with the sisters instead. When we went over there, something in the family had happened just before we had come and we could feel that it was pretty tense in the house. Luckily we had a member with us and really helped us with the lesson. We talked about how the gospel really can help families be stronger and have better relationships and by the end of the lesson both mom and son were crying and hugging each other. We are also starting to meet seperately with the son. They are the coolest family!

Funniest moment of the week: on Saturday we had a sport day with the ward, and I told one of the elders about the egg joke. It was hilarious! I wish I could send the video. My favorite part of the video is when he looks straight into my camera and says 'let this be a lesson to all of you.....never listen to sister Falslev'. It was hilarious!

Also this week we got to go on splits again with some of the members here. We were doing a special fast and got permission to go on splits. I got to go with the girl who just got baptized a few weeks - A. She is the strongest member already! It was such a good experience for me. I learned so much from her. She is so excited about the gospel right now and just wants to tell the whole entire world that she is mormon! It was so fun to go with her! We started tracting and we got some pretty bad door slams. No one wanted to talk to us. And so I just started praying so hard that we could just meet one person so it would be a good experience for her! Towards the end of our split, the last door we knocked on, we met P. He let us in and we explained the BOM to him. When I got to the picture about Jesus Christ teaching the Nephites, I turned to A to let her explain it. She bore such a powerful testimony. I was just so touched that she has only been a member for a few weeks, but she really has such a powerful testimony! I learned so much from her! And we are meeting with P again! A was so excited! It was such an awesome split! These members here are really so strong and teach me so much. I really think that I learned more from A than she did from me.

I just love being a missionary. God really does love being merciful and giving us the things we desire. We just have to ask and work for them. God is with us.  It is amazing to see His hand in this work and to be a missionary! I love being a missionary! It is the greatest!

Love you all lots!

Falslev Nővér

this is the first egg that I cracked over his head. Super funny!

 finding out that it was a joke.

I could not stop laughing. He could not believe I did it.

when he looked at the camera and said 'let this be a lesson to all of you...never listen to sister Falslev.' haha!

this is part of Miskolc. The buildings in the background are all what the buildings are like all over Miskolc. They have so many 10 story buildings!

Another week as a missionary :)

This week has been so awesome! And so crazy!

First off, we met with this young girl named L this week and she is awesome. She speaks perfect english and she is the one who asked us if she could meet with us to learn more about the BOM. When we met with her, she had read quite a bit from the BOM and had lots of questions. I asked her why she wanted to meet with us and she told me that she felt like there is something here that she needs. She said that everyone that she had met that was Mormon was just so happy and there was something about them. It was a really good lesson!

We also got quite a few let ins this week and had some really awesome lessons with people! We met this one lady named I who said we could just come in for hot chocolate but wasnt really interested in the church and by the time we left, she asked us if we could come back and tell her more about the church. It feels so good finally getting more people to teach!

We had also one of the hardest programs I have ever taught this past week. This lady had invited us over because she wanted to know more about the BOM, but in actuality she just wanted to tell us why the BOM was wrong. She just had all these scriptures laid out and everything to tell us how wrong we were. It was so rough. It turned into an environment that we could not teach with the spirit and so finally I just stood up, told her we had to leave and started walking out the door. That didnt go to well. It was one of the roughest lessons ever, but I learned so much from it. I am just so grateful that I can recieve answers from God and that I dont have to rely on my own interpretation or my own knowledge of what things mean. I dont know everything, but what I do know, I know because I have learned it from God. It was a really good learning experience for me.

We also had a baptism here in Miskolc on Saturday. It was such a good baptism! It was her and her family (her mom and brother) got baptized last year. She is so cool and is so strong! It was awesome to see her baptism because you can see how close the gospel really does bring families. After she was baptized, her brother ran up to her to give her a hug and then the mom came over. They were all just bawling and were so happy! That is what makes missionary work so worth it right there!

We also had one of our investigators, A and A come to the baptism. A loved it and asked me when she can get baptized after the baptism! So we are meeting with them today and hopefully can talk about a date with her. She is awesome!

After the baptism, we had a family night over at one of the members houses. There were just all the young ward members there and it was amazing to see how strong they are and how much they really love each other. They all talked about what they felt like and what they experienced when they were baptized and how much the gospel has helped them in their lives. There might now be a ton of members here, but man are they strong! And they are always helping each other spiritually. It was just a testimony builder to me to hear all these recent converts testimony! So powerful! This branch really is just like a big family here! I love it!

This week I also decided to start reading out of Jesus the Christ again. I love learning about Christ! One of the stories that really stuck out to me was the story of Christ casting out the Demon in the little boy on behalf of the little boys father. The father pleaded to Christ to take the infirmity from his son and Christ replied to him that if he could just BELIEVE, then he could do it. The man cried out 'I believe, help thou my unbelief'. Jesus the Christ talked about how it was interesting that Christ said to believe, not to have faith. I started thinking about what is the difference between to have faith and to believe. I read Alma 32:27 and came to the conclusion that we all have to start with belief. Belief is a choice on our part and it is the first step in acting. Sometimes that is all we can do. But that is all we have to do, because then God gives us the gift of faith. All Christ asks us to do, is to just make that conscious choice of believing and trusting in Him, and then He gives us the faith in order to overcome our trials and pull through.

Well i hope you have all had a good week! Love you all lots!

Falslev Nővér

Week of Miracles!

This week has been so great! We have seen so many little miracles each and every day. The Lord really is involved in His work.

Things are going good with investigators here. We dont have a ton of investigators right now...but they are coming! One of our investigators I have really been struggling getting to understand. I have been trying to talk to her to really get to know her but I have just had the hardest time getting to know her and what she needs. We have had a few rough lessons just now knowing what to say and things because she isnt very talkative. But on Friday, I had a breakthrough!!!!!! HARRY POTTER!!!!!! I just wanted to get to know her better and what she liked and it was just not working out too well. And then for some reason, I told her that I loved to read and that I really liked Harry Potter. She changed so fast and continued to talk to me for the rest of the night and really opened up to me! I was so glad I finally got a way to talk to her and get to know her better! Success! And teaching has been going better with her.

Also this week, we tracted into this cute older couple who have met with missioanries a few times. They showed us their BOM that the missionaries gave to them and inside the front conver was a 'secret message' from a missionary in english saying how much he loved this city and these people here. It was from 1998. It was kinda fun to read. The couple is awesome and when we told them there was a little prophet they couldnt believe it!

So all the young singles adults in all of Hungary are doing a special 40 day fast so that they can get more young single adults into the church (so they can actually all get married!). We decided as a companionship that that would be one of our goals this transfer is to find a young single adult. And man, once we have decided that, we have met SO many young single adults. God really does help in bringing our goals and desires into realities. We just have to set the goal and strive for it. We have tracted into a lot of young single adults and met with a lot but 2 of them have really stuck out to us.

(we also have a lot of the ward members call and ask us specifically what they can fast for WITH us. It has been so powerful! These ward members are awesome! They are so involved in missionary work and it really does help so much!)

One night, we got dogged and we only had an hour before another program at the branch house. No one was on the streets and it was freezing cold! So we decided to just do a little bit of tracting close to the branch house. These buildings have been done so much by missionaries and so sometimes we run into people who are tired of the missionaries coming. Every door we knocked on in this one building we got yelled at. We were just about to leave the building and go streeting when we decided to do one more floor. And that is when we met B. She let us in and we did a little survey with her and then started talking about the Bible and the Restoration. She had been having so many questions that about the bible that her bible teachers could not answer. It was an awesome lesson! We gave her a BOM and she was super excited to start reading it!

The next young single adult we met was in our english class. She speaks super good english. After our class, I went to ask her where she had heard about our english class and come to find out, she had gone to our english class in Eger and had recieved a BOM there. And then she asked me if she could meet with us to find out more about the BOM and where she should start reading. She is awesome and we are excited to start meeting with her!

This week I have realized the power of desires and setting goals to become better. This week I read D & C 58:26-33 and it really just stuck out to me how much Power God has given us. He gives us the power, and then commands us how we best use that power. If we are obedient to those commands, we can accomplish anything and we can become the person that God needs us to become. God already knows the vision of who we can become, we just need to first find out and see that vision for ourselves. Once we see who we need to become or what needs to be done, God gives us that power to help us rise to that. I have realized that as we have decided to seek out the youth, God has blessed us with help in order to accomplish and reach that goal. God really does love giving us things and helping us to progress. It is just like when a child is learning to walk. They struggle and may fall sometimes, but when they take that first step, everyone is filled with joy for the child because they progressed. It doesnt mean the child can walk perfectly or may not fall again, but it is progress. That is how God feels with us. Each small step is a step toward progression and God is willing to do anything to help us progress. It starts with a decision first.

Also last night, I recieved some great news from Nyíregyháza! M and A called me and THEY WENT TO CHURCH!!!!! I was so beyond happy! And they have a ring and are planning and saving for their marriage! Miracles really do happen. I love them so much! And I am so glad that God knows exactly what they need.

I love being a missionary! Hope you all are doing well back home. Love you all!

Falslev Nővér

Well this week has been a little crazy. But it has been good. The ward is awesome here in Miskolc! they are SO involved in missionary work and it really does help the missionaries out a ton. missionaries cant do this work on their own. We have a lot of strong youth in the ward here (most of them just recently within the last year have been baptized) and they are so excited about missionary work. In fact, they know a lot of the investigators so well and personally, that they call the investigators for us and then tell us when we are meeting with them. So nice and helpful! We also had one of the members come and pray with us before we went finding. it was just nice to know that the members really do care about the work here and are so eager to help! it is an awesome branch!

In hungary, they are trying to find more young single adults here so all the young single adults are doing a '40' day fast. they have a sheet and people have signed up on each day to fast for a total of 40 days so that we can find more young single adults. so now that is our new transfer goal, to find a young single adult while we have people fasting for it everyday. Fasting is so powerful!

This week we had interviews with President and they went really well. President asked me how I have changed now that I have been out a full year on my mission. I contimplated over that a lot this week. I feel like i have grown and learned so much. Being on a mission is definitely like a roller coaster sometimes, but it has been quite the ride. I have learned so much this past year, especially about the Savior, Jesus Christ. It is amazing when you let go of the distractions of the world and let the Savior teach you, you learn a lot. I cant believe that I have been out for over a year!

This week we did A LOT of tracting. Miskolc is the city of tracting. there are buildings and 10 stories  everywhere. Winter also decided to come and it has been really cold. it has been a really weird winter here. They usually have already had snow but not this year.

Also this week, we went to meet with one of our most solid investigators, K. We had the best lesson planned for her and as we were walking to her house, she came and met us on the street. Come to find out, her family will no longer allow her to meet with us anymore. She was so sad!!! It was really hard on her. Hopefully something will work out though! she has read a ton out of the BOM and so we just encouraged her to keep reading.

well, I hope you all had a great week! I love you all!

falslev nővér

Crazy how fast life can change....

Wow! It feels like it has been a month since I last emailed you guys haha! But then it also seems like just yesterday. Time is weird as a missionary.

I miss Nyíregyháza. A lot. It may sound weird, but I actually feel really home sick. Anyways, last week was awesome! My last day in Nyíregyháza was just perfect. We had a farewell party that night and I was just able to spend time with all the people that I have just come to love so much!!!!! I am just so glad that I will get to see everyone again in a month for a conference here in Miskolc!

After the farewell party, we met with K again - the lady that we met on the street and had a super awesome lesson with!!!! We had another amazing lesson! She told us a lot about her life and she read a ton from the BOM. We had a great lesson with her. At the end of the lesson, when I told her that I would be leaving to Miskolc, she just looked at me and told me 'I know this is going to sound really weird and I know that it is not possible, but I know that I have met you from somewhere. I know we have never actually met, but I know that I know you from somewhere.' I was so sad to leave! I just hope everything goes well with her this next transfer. God lead us to her, and I know He still has a plan for her now. I just love Nyíregyháza. It will always have a special place in my heart.

Miskolc is a lot different than anywhere I have been so far. It is a really big city. It has the longest walking street in all of Europe and man is it long!!!! Thank goodness we can just take the villamos wherever we go! The branch house is super nice here. It is really big! The branch is pretty big and they LOVE doing missionary work. They are all so friendly. I could hardly walk through the doors because everyone was saying hi to me. It is going to get some getting used to being here but it will be good.

This week, my very first day in Miskolc, we were going to a lesson and we weren't really going to street anyone because we were in a hurry. Then I saw this lady and she was in a really big hurry, so I was just going to give her a card as she walked by but she actually stopped and talked to us. Found out she had met with the missionaries before and wanted to learn a little more. We invited her to church (we do that a lot but they usually never come) and she actually came! It is amazing what just an invitation can do! And she loved it! That was really cool.

We are also teaching a lot of families here. A lot of families! It has been a while since I have been around kids. It has been good being around kids again!

We taught one family who live in very humbling circumstances. There are a lot of people here who are very well off and also some people are in the most humbling circumstances I have ever seen. WE taught one family, who live in the tiniest house, on this long dirt road. Dont have any running water or a bathroom in their house, hardly have any food, and just all these worldly things they dont have, but they were so happy! They had their family! And they also came to church yesterday. Being a missionary is a very humbling experience.

This week I have been studying about giving our will up to God. I will be honest, I have not really wanted to be 'sent' to this city. It has been hard, but it is not what I want. It is what the Lord wants. I have also learned, that we need to unconditionally surrender our will to the Lord. We will be judged according to our works and our desires. If we dont desire to surrender our complete will to the Lord, we will never be able to become who we need to become. If any of you would like something really good to read, read the talk entitiled the 4th missionary .... it could also be entitled the 4th disciple of Christ. It is one of the best talks I have read.

Anyways, I love you all! I hope you all are doing great! I know this church is true and that God really is the one who leads this Church!

Falslev Nővér

this was right in the middle of the city. I just love hungary!

so we are on a hill here (the hill is where the richer people live) and this is down looking where the poor people live, in the valley and then the other side of the hill in where the poor people live. When we tract, the rich people tell us to go visit the poor cause they need us, and the poor tell us that they are not smart enough and to go visit the rich people. haha! Miskolc!

this is the 'richer' part of miskolc

TRANSFER DAY!!!!!

Well the day came. I am leaving Nyíregyháza. I am really bummed to leave but change will be good. This has been the longest area I have been in and I have loved it! It will be hard to say goodbye. it also is.

But on the brightside...I am going to MISKOLC!!!!!! It is fairly close to Nyíregyháza and there will be a district conference there next month so I will still get to see the members from Nyíregyháza again! My new companion is Sister Petersen. I know nothing about her. I am really excited to go to Miskolc. It is a pretty big city and it is very old. They have a lot of castles there and a beautiful downtown area! The buildings are beautiful and they have lots of ten stories. I have been there a few times. I am excited to go there!

Our investigators are doing so well! I am really sad to be leaving them all!

P: So we have taught pretty much everything to P and we were talking to him about baptism. And teaching him this week, just made me so grateful that we can recieve answers from the BOM and from the spirit and not from other people. We had a program and I was trying to explain to him some things in Hungarian, and I just for some reason could not speak at all. It was so frustrating! So we just told him to go home and pray about a date. On Sunday, he came to church and felt like he should be baptized in April. Then we met with him right after church and he decided he wants to be baptized on Feb. 22nd! It was awesome! The spirit really has been guiding him. It is amazing to teach these people and have these experiences!

Also we taught Z and A the word of Wisdom. They have been reading a ton out of the BOM and they had a lot of good questions. But I will admit that I was very hesitant to teach them the Word of Wisdom. I didnt think it was going to go very well. Right before I was going to tell them we would be talking about the Word of Wisdom, Z said that she had already tried quiting a few things and it was the worst feeling. She was adament that she would never try quiting again. So I looked at Sister Messinger and we decided to teach it anyways. It was such a good lesson! We talked about the blessings of the Word of Wisdom and we let her just think about what it really meant for her. She then just looked at us and said she couldnt believe she was going to do it, but she was going to try quiting! Such a great lesson! I am so sad to be leaving them!

I am also really sad to be leaving A and M. And of course, H. They have been like my own little family here. We went over and said goodbye on Sunday night and it was really hard. Missions are really the greatest blessing but they are also some kind of torture. You come to love these people in such a short amount of time and then you are sent away.

Our biggest miracle this week was K though. So this week, we had been doing LOTS of streeting. And we had been recieving LOTS of rejection. We were both super tired and I remember trying to talk to this one person and they got so mad at me because I couldnt speak Hungarian. Anyways, I was super frustrated and just did not want to be streeting. I was really tired of being rejected. But we kept going. Then I specifically remember seeing this lady walking towards us (there were quite a few people walking towards us, but for some reason she just stood out). I decided then, that I was not going to street her. I was tired of being rejected and I just thought it was my companions turn and I would just wait for her. Then just as we were about to pass her, then next thing I know I just stopped to talk to her without even planning on it. I had no idea what to say. And it ended up being awesome. We talked to her for almost and hour. She didnt tell us a lot, but we could tell that she was going through a really hard time. She didnt really want to meet or talk with us at first, but then I just kept talking to her and by the end of our conversation, we walked away like we were best friends.

We called her up and asked to meet with her on Sunday. We planned for 3 and she didnt show up. We thought we were gonna get dogged! I called her up and she said she could be there in a half hour We waited til 4 and she still didnt come. So we were going to leave, but we waited a little longer and she came. When we were planning, we were going to do a restoration, but right before, I felt like we needed to watch a certain mormon Message. We decided to watch it with her. When we finished watching it, I looked over and she was sobbing!!! And then she just started to spill out everything that had been going on in her life. To two 20 year old girls who dont really even speak Hungarian. She felt so hopeless. After she was done, telling us everything, she looked at me and asked 'why me? Why of all the peopole on the street did you stop and talk to me? Why was I so special to you?' I have never felt God's love so powerfully for someone. I knew that God knew exactly who this woman was and exactly what she needed. I told her that and I know that she felt it. It was probably the most powerful lesson that I have ever been in. I am so sad that I wont be able to continue to teach her! We are meeting with her again tonight though. God really does know each and every one of us personally.

Something that I have been thinking of a lot about this week is how incredibly blessed I am. I see the challenges that so many other people have to face in their lives and sometimes it makes me wonder 'where are mine?' I feel like I have not had to go through near the hardships as a lot of the people we teach. I realized that God loves to be merciful and loves to gives blessings. He really does bless those who keep the commandments in everything. And He tests us to see if we will still be faithful and obedient even when we dont face big trials in our lives. Sometimes, when things start to go so good, we forget the Lord and have to be humbled again to be brough back to rememberance. I have been so blessed in my life....our whole family has. I just got to remember to still remain faithful and obedient even when life is going great!

I love you all! Thanks for all the letters and support! Love you all!!

Sok Szeretettel!

Falslev Nővér

These are the people who made my suit. They are awesome! They pretty much made our whole suit right in front of us. it was so quick! super cool people!

This is my boot. I have been walking on the outside of my shoe and now walk with a limp. My companion got sick of walking with a gimp so she decided to try and cut my shoes to fix them. It didnt really work haha. I just gotta get some new shoes. 

this is us in our suits

Our new suits with the hungarian flag on the inside. with one of the members. he is super cool!

I love all of these girls so much! I am going to miss them a lot!!!

Happy New YEAR!!!!

Wow! I cannot believe how fast 2013 went by! I feel like I am in a time warp zone as a missionary. It is so weird!

This week has been good. We got a full day and a half for p-day to celebrate the new year. We went over on New Year's Eve to M and A's house with H. It was so much fun! They are an awesome family! They made us stuffed cabbage and we ate SO MUCH FOOD! I was so sick! But it was delicious! We had a really good discussion with them and we found out that M and A want to get MARRIED! We are so excited! They are planning in April or May when they can save up enough money. We were really excited!

Walking back home on New Year Eve was the craziest night. In Hungary, for New Years, pretty much EVERYONE gets drunk and then they light off fireworks. It was a little scary walking home. It was really foggy that night also. We almost got hit by fireworks haha! It was quite the adventure getting home. We have heard it gets a little crazier on new years day so we decided to just stay inside on new years day and catch up on stuff. It was really fun! It was a good day to relax and we experimented with Hungarian food. So yummy!

Then on Thursday I went to Debrecen on splits. I was pretty nervous to go on this split. The sister that I was going with, her mother just passed away unexpectedly in her sleep the Friday right before Christmas. Needless to say, I was a little nervous to go. But it turned out to be the best split  ever! She is just an amazing sister and I learned so much from her! We had probably the best discussion about the plan of Salvation that I have ever had. The plan of Salvation has really been real to her the past few weeks. It just made me realize how short life really is and sometimes, even as missionaries, we get caught up in the things that really dont even matter. (We have been asked to pray for her and her family at this time and if you all would like to too, I am sure it would be appreciated.) When everything else around you fails, the hope of the Gospel is really all we need. The gospel is so simple. The Gospel gives us everything that we really need in life. It was a good reminder for me. I am so blessed!

Our investigators are doing good! C and E and also P are all praying about being baptized. And the good thing is that they are reading out of the BOM and praying and keeping their commitments! Things go so smoothly when people act!

Friday night, we were about to go back to A and M house when we found out that A fell and broke his leg and was in the hospital again :( It was so sad! We ended up meeting with them on Saturday and bringing him 'medicine' (aka American chocolate chip cookies - his favorite) because right now he cant have any pain medicine. They were really positive about things and we had a really good program with them. It is just really hard to see how hard satan works on our investigators. This family has been through a lot, especially over the past couple of months. I love being a missionary, but man, it sure is really hard sometimes to have to see all the hardships our investigators go through. These people are so strong! I just love them so much!

This week I have just realized how really grateful I am for the hope of the gospel in my life. As we walk the streets and talk to people, you can see in peoples eyes just something missing. We talk to them and they seem just hopeless. The Gospel is what brings that hope and happiness! Being a missionary is the greatest and hardest opportunity because you get to share the hope of the gospel with people, but then you also have a lot of people reject that hope.

I am so excited for all the new things that I will be able to learn this year! It has been a great start to the year! I  hope you all had a great start of the year! Love you all!

Falslev Nővér

Here are some pictures with members at Christmastime.