Monday, December 16, 2013

Hungary Week 72

BOLDOG KARÁCSONYT!

I love Christmas!  I have been amazed by the miracles we have been seeing and I am so excited to visit all the people we are planning for Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  To keep our investigators progressing with excitement, we have set up with many of them for the holidays to drop in and share the message of Christ's birth.  It is so wonderful seeing these people we love so much making time for us on these special days.  I am sure it will be a great opportunity to meet with their families and friends as well! 
So, as I previously mentioned, Elder Jones and I are still going strong.  We are going to have another baptism next weekend, so I can't be sad about that one!  We received a challenge from President Teixeira of the Seventy to get the work functioning so well as to have weekly baptisms.  Well, Elder Jones and I are finding more and more people just waiting for the gospel and it seems as though the fulfillment of his challenge is just around the corner.  There are so many people ready in this wonderful city and Elder Jones and I are finding them!
A good example is Wednesday, the transfer day.  We went tracting and we tracted into a woman that wasn't too interested, but then referred one of her neighbors that lived close by.  We headed straight over.  As K opened the door, her face lit up.  It was so adorable to see her eyes just beaming with excitement.  She was so excited to hear about our message that she called in her adorable 93 year old mother.  After that, she invited us to come back that night to meet her husband.  It was AMAZING.
At the end of our lesson with K and her family, I bore my testimony about these things expressing that "I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God."  She then looked back at me and said, "So do I!"  Miracles really do happen!
We were also able to take T, the guy that was baptized last week, to a program with us this week.  It was awesome to hear his testimony and just feel the depth thereof.  It was just a feeling like, "Wow, I helped this man be baptized!"
We also were able to play a part in some branch Christmas activities on Saturday and Sunday.  We helped decorate the Branch house for Christmas on Saturday night and then all of the neighborhood families came over and the kids were able to see Santa!  Here in Hungary, the children don't just sit on Santa's lap, but have to sing a Christmas song to him to get their gifts.  It was so adorable and I learned some Hungarian Christmas songs!  It was wonderful.
On Sunday, we had a lunch after church.  We watched a Christmas devotional for the third hour and then gathered for a little "family meal."  I brought a soup that I made up between 9:30- 10:15 the night before that turned out surprisingly well.  We also had some classic Hungarian dishes as well.  We were able to mix and mingle with the non members and we were able to get to know about some of the amazing part member families in the branch.  It was amazing.
In funny news, Elder Jones and I got stopped by the police this last week!  We were tracting at around 7 pm on Friday night and someone thought we were buglers (The one bad thing about wearing all black).  The most awkward part was the cops stopped us as we were exchanging information with an awesome girl we tracted into, it was an adventure though.  As one of the cops was taking down our information, we started talking with the other.  He brought up how much he loves genealogy and how he adores our website called "family search."  We told him about our resources in our branch house and gave him our information so we can meet sometime.  The Lord works in mysterious ways!

Well, I wish everyone a very merry Christmas.  Don't forget to love the holidays and keep on smiling!  Invite the missionaries and your friends over and remember, the best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!  Make some miracles and share the sweet song of the gospel!

Sok szeretettel,
Elder Jake Nelson

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