Hungary Week 56

Hey everyone!

This week was off the charts awesome.  I love life!

Monday: Crazy day!

On this day we met with a ridiculous amount of people because our P-Day was switched to Tuesday for a big Hungarian holiday.  It was so much fun!  We met with a new family, were fed by a wonderful néni, had language study with a member, helped set a baptismal date with an awesome girl, had a family night with the senior couple and young single adults, and then finished the day with another great program with a family getting baptized next transfer.  

The funny part of the day was when Elder Miller and I got pretty sick from our lunch appointment, but to my luck it passed a little faster than his.  After sweating through family night we had to go on splits with the other Elders so he could head home.  It was a pretty entertaining little experience.  Super great time though.

Tuesday: Magyarország függetlenség napja! (Hungary's Independence Day)

Today was so much fun!  I have started getting into soccer since coming to Szeged, so to start the day we played soccer for 3 hours with all of the amazing European soccer kids at a local field.  It was just hilarious because both Elder Miller and I are HUGE Americans compared to them (6-6'1 ft. 190 pounds) and the only way we would score would be from just charging down the field like gorillas.  It was so great.

After that, we went to one of the most beautiful cathedrals I have ever been in!  It has the 3rd largest organ in Europe, I think.  We went with the senior couple here in Szeged, the Hulberts.  It was so much fun to climb the tower and see the view of Szeged.  It was like a dream being up there!  

We then had a mission meeting and a bonfire with the young single adults and our investigators.  I was able to talk to one of the Sister's investigators who I have become good friends with at the bonfire and he asked if I would baptize him when he is baptized in a few months.  It was such a sweet experience.  

Good day.

Wednesday:  Glad I learned that word

Today we had some hard programs to start, one in particular.  We had to drop an amazing investigator who just wouldn’t fully commit.  It is the man I mentioned before who was homeless when we found him.  He just decided he didn't want to change or "live the Mormon life."  It was a hard morning.

After that, we had some problems with our car, so we brought it into the shop!  I was a little nervous because I have no idea what the car words are in Hungarian.  The mechanic looked at the engine and told us that the "hűtő tartó" was broken.  By a miracle I knew what he was saying because hűtő means fridge AND radiator in Hungarian.  It was super funny because I had the mechanic teach me other car words as well.  The car had to stay overnight, but we were lucky it was only that long because we have to use our car so much!

Other than that, it was a great day of let-ins while tracting.  The college students are coming back to town and I just love tracting student areas.  It was a super fun and we were able to talk to a lot of people, especially after Elder Miller locked us into an apartment complex by closing the gate behind him.

Thursday:  Chalking

Nothing too interesting happened today except for English class was really funny.  To teach possession in English, I gave everyone a piece of side walk chalk and had them draw on the streets by the branch house.  After that, they had to describe "their" drawing.  It was a really good time.  Then, to finish, English class we sang a hymn to show them the hymn books from our church.  

We then taught a great 11 year old kid.  It was great.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday:  Crazy weekend

This weekend was that of an eventful nature!  We had stacked programs with amazing people and had many people at church once again.  We were also able to help another family set a baptismal date on Sunday as well.  It was a weekend to remember!

I am just so happy right now.  Things are just going and the work is growing and growing.  I am so happy to be here.  We will see what happens with transfers next week, but it is just nice to know that I am in the right place at the right time.  It is nice to just be living life, doing missionary work and having a blast.  

Not every day is "amazing," but we are just seeing the miracles of doing what we are supposed to be doing and being in the right place at the right time.  Let’s see what next week has for us!

Sok szeretettel,
Elder Jake Nelson

P.S. I am only going to be able to email on Tuesday next week. 

Hungary Week 55

Hey everyone!

Things are pushing forward here in Szeged and in this wonderful part of the country.  Szeged especially, is expecting MANY baptisms next transfer and we are nothing but happy!  I don't know how I have gotten so blessed, but the work is the kind I dreamt of. 

This Sunday was a day of miracles.  We have been searching so hard for new investigators to inspire our zone and it came at the last minute once again.  We had 8 of our progressing investigators at church plus we had another 4 we pulled off the streets DURING the meetings.  There was a group of 3 teenagers standing outside of the building during sacrament meeting and Miller Elder headed out there with a priesthood holder and pulled them in.  If that wasn't enough, I noticed a man staring at the sign during Elder's quorum.  Miller Elder and I headed out to invite him in.  He felt like the Lord turned him to the sign.  We met with him after church and he is excited to meet again.  Yes, I am happy!

I am just so excited for the branch here!  People seemed so excited about the work and I get to be in the middle of it.  My only concern is my waist line!  The work is exploding and with all good work comes feeding appointments!  I dropped about 10 pounds since being here, but I don't think it is going to stay off if things keep going this way!

We had a great zone training this last week!  We did our best to make it fun and motivating for the missionaries.  We talked about the purpose of missionaries and the role of "love" in the work.  We also received permission to play the beginning of the song "What is Love?" to ask our starting question. We talked about the importance of love in our lives and in the work and finished with our 4 steps to "Be MORE."

Life is just great on this end and I am happy to be here.  I would love to say more, but we have places to go and people to meet with!  It is a great problem to have, so I can't even complain!

Smile this week!

Elder Jake Nelson

Hungary Week 54

No blog post from Nelson Elder this week. He dedicated his mass email time to write mom today.

Just know he's still doing great! Feel free to email him or write him a letter, he would love hearing from all his friends and family.

Have a great week!

-Laura (Jake's sister)

Hungary Week 53

Hey everyone!

Life is good, life is good.  I am already loving this new transfer!  I met my companion in the MTC, so I already knew we would get along great!  The work is going great and I am happy as can be! 

To start the week!

Monday- The would be P-day, turned into a work day

Mondays are usually P-day, but for transfer week, it is just a regular work day.  This day is always crazy!  We aren't sure if we are leaving and we want to visit all those people we met with just in case of transfers and there is the BIG obstacle, packing. 

Our Monday turned out well though!  We were able to meet with some of the greatest families.  We are working with this really cool 11 year old kid on being baptized right now and it is going great.  Miracles miracles.

Tuesday- The big call

We were so excited for this day!  The plan was to get our transfer call from 7-10am, but things didn't go as planned.  To keep ourselves busy, we started off the day with a good game of basketball.  It was really fun.  After that, we headed home for some studies and waiting.

9am rolled by and we began wondering where the call was because we had a program at 10.  At 9:55am, we decided to take off anyways.  It wasn't until 11:30 that we heard the news, not from the assistants, but the Sisters in our city!  Elder Bracken received the news that he was heading to Dunaújváros and getting a new zone leader and I got the news that Elder Miller, a new zone leader, was coming to the paradise of Szeged with me.  That was some important news, so we had to call the assistants and give them a hard time.

We had a great lunch with an awesome member named Géza and a great program with our investigator in a nearby village.  Elder Bracken got packed and we got our rest for the new transfer!

Wednesday- To Budapest we went!

We had to play some tetris getting all of the luggage in the car, but with the sisters we arrived in Budapest in safety.  I met up with Elder Miller and he took his little driving test around Budapest with the office couple.  It was so adorable; it was like me 6 weeks ago being scared to death to drive for the first time in a year, in one of the busiest cities in the world.  The best part of the story, we survived.

 

We headed home and got to work!  We had a meeting that night and were able to get some tracting in.  Someone let us in and started us off on the right foot.  I have some good feelings about this transfer!

Thursday- Finding

Well, today was our one free day, so we hit the pavement.  We went tracting in a small suburban neighborhood and the people were so nice!  People were letting us in their homes left and right.  Although all of them weren't interested, we had some good experiences and some interesting ones.  You have to love the mission.

We had English class that night and the new missionary, Elder Waldvogel, was awesome and gave a great spiritual message in Hungarian!  He did great.

That night we went on priesthood splits with some of the priesthood holders in the branch due to the amount of our programs.  I was able to go with the Sr. missionary, Elder Hulbert.  We taught a family and we had the most amazing experience.  This man who has only read out of the Bible to worship god drew the plan of salvation FOR US!  It was so amazing.  I just sat there in "Aw" as I saw this amazingly prepared man.  Really amazing experience.
We also had another really cool experience.  We are currently meeting with a man who is having a hard time.  From your first glance, you would guess that he is homeless, but if you take the time to hear his story, there is so much more to it.  From the first week we met him, it has been a miracle story, until he disappeared a few weeks ago.  We were lucky enough to meet with him a couple weeks ago, but it seemed like his hardships overwhelmed him and he disappeared once again.
He didn't show up to church and we weren't sure what to do.  Transfer day rolled around and Elder Bracken and I were disappointed that we didn't get the opportunity to meet one last time.
The miracle came on Thursday morning.  Elder Miller and I decided to go running.  After running for 45 minutes, we started heading home when we "coincidentally" ran into our friend!  The man needed our help at that time and we were able to stop and teach him then and there at 6:45 in the morning.

The Lord must REALLY love this man.

Friday- Hódmezővásárhely day

This was the village day!  We headed out to a city that was opened to missionaries before now and met with some of the members and investigators out there.  There is such a special feeling out there.  The people just accept you and love you TO DEATH.

That night, we brought a really awesome girl to institute.  She has never been too religious, but it was great to see her interact with the youth.  The teacher talked about many deep things causing many questions to surface.  

After institute, we sat down and talked with her.  She opened up about all she had on her mind.  We were able to set a baptismal date with her for October 26.  I am so excited for her!

Saturday- Planning and Sport day

This day was super simple.  We planned for the transfer, hit the street for some finding, went and played soccer with some of the European soccer players in the hot city of Hungary (Szeged) and had two great programs at night.  Things are rolling here in Szeged and we have a lot of baptisms coming up, especially in the middle of next transfer.  

I feel super blessed to be here!

Sunday- What did you say?

We had a lot of people at church!  It was so sweet to see 6 of our amazing investigators at church.  Church went great and the Lord really had his hand in our work.  

After church, we set up all of our programs and went tracting again before our programs at night.  For some reason, it was going a little slower than usual, but then I turned to Elder Miller and promised him that someone will let us in before heading out.  Immediately after, an older woman opened to door and called us right in.

(Warning, you may not want to include this in the weekly email) We were excited until I noticed how strangely this 51 year old woman was staring at me after the prayer.  As Elder Miller was talking, she winked at me and asked, "Do you understand?"  Elder Miller didn't hear her whisper and kept going.  Then, she did it again.  At that moment, I knew we had to get out, especially when she all of the sudden blurted out, "You know what that means!  Can you handle this?"

We got out of there so fast!  That was the weirdest moment of my life!  I can't help but laugh though.

Either way, there is miracles coming our way!  I am so excited for the transfer. 

Until next week!

Elder Jake Nelson

Hungary Week 52

Hey everyone!

So I don't have much time today, but I have some good news!  It is transfers tomorrow and I am staying in Szeged!  The only sad thing is that Elder Bracken is leaving.

My new companion's name is Elder Miller.  He is one group below me and he seems very excited to come here and to be a zone leader with me.  It is going to be such a great time.  We are going to have nothing but fun! 

We had a wonderful experience!  I will have to tell you next week, but needless to say, there is more of our investigators on baptismal date!  I love life!

Smile this week!

Love, 

Elder Jake Nelson

 

Hungary Week 51

Hey everyone!

I hope you like my picture bombing!  I wasn't able to send any for the past couple weeks because things are so crazy here!  We are working super hard and things are just going through!  Day after day, things are just full with programs.  This is most definitely a special time of my mission, things are going fantastically and the ball is only going to start rolling faster!  We are having fun, doing what we need to do and seeing miracles.  

 

We will start with two weeks ago today, it was Elder Bracken's birthday!  He is now an old man and we celebrated!  We played basketball with the sisters in the morning along with a great breakfast.  Then, it was only more fun from there!  We were able to go to a museum in Szeged and look at some of the AMAZING art pieces.  We also found some interesting things, but it was most definitely fun.  We had an amazing lunch with the senior couple here as well, the Hulberts.  We had some Hungarian fish soup on the Tisza river.  It was just fun to be goofy for a bit and celebrate the kid's birthday!  

 

Then the week just rolled on!  Things went and we were able to invite the members in so much more than we have been able to before.  It was like everything seemed to fall right into place.  People were progressing and it just seemed like we saw miracles on top of miracles.  Whether it was from a little obedience thing, to just working ourselves to death, the Lord seemed to bless us!

After that, we had our zone training when we were able to meet with our amazing zone and give them some help.  It was so much fun and our missionaries in this area are just so great.  It went great and we introduced our amazing goal for our zone....RAMBO WEEK.

The goal was to push ourselves that much further, meaning to set our own companion goals to ridiculous lengths and go for it!  We got some special permission to give the missionaries some new opportunities to find through "area book time" as well.  It was awesome to see them pushing themselves and things just shot up in our zone!  People were working hard, having fun and seeing miracles, the best part of the mission!

 

This week was the craziest of my mission!  We also went Rambo and worked ourselves to death, but I can honestly say that I have never taught more in one week!  We were also able to go to the city of Szolnok for a multi-branch activity.  It was like a mini road trip, we even stopped and walked through a sun flower field!  It was awesome to see all those members and investigators together.  It was an experience to remember.

Miracles are happening and I am smiling.  It wasn't easy all the time, I had my hard times in these past two weeks, but that is part of the ride.  Just keep living and loving!

Sok szeretettel,

Elder Jake Nelson

Hungary Week 49

HEY!

Things are going in Hungaria land!  I am enjoying my time here in Szeged, it is really a place to remember.  These members are amazing and I am just smiling with each step we take forward.

Monday

We had some great programs with some amazing families.  It is so nice to sit down with a family having all attention turned to your message.  It truly is a treat and such a special experience.  We also were able to play some basketball, write some friends and unwind a bit.  It was so wonderful to spend some time with our great sisters here in Szeged.
We also got a super standard lunch for having a super standard city last week!  It was a good time.

Tuesday

The tracting miracles came once again.  To our surprise and fortune, we were able to meet with 4 new people on this day including some people just waiting for our message.  It is also amazing to meet with some youth, which we did.

We also had district meeting on this day which was a lot of help for all of us.  It cleared up a lot of questions that I had in regards to helping investigators really make the changes they want.  We have a senior couple here in Szeged and they always have such a loving input on the work.  Our district is great.

Wednesday

I had my first "leadership council meeting" in Budapest as a zone leader.  It was so great to see all of my friends I have made throughout the mission in one place and to be able to see that they were so strong.  It is just nice to know that I can really help the other missionaries in the position I am now!

After that, we were able to have another family night with another great family we are teaching.  It was a great day and one to remember.

Thursday (4th of July!)

It was a great day to celebrate America!  I was in America this time last year, which is a weird thought!  After a certain amount of time, you kind of forget what is normal or what everyday life is like because living here and being a missionary becomes YOU.  

Anyways, we celebrated the freedom of America by eating Indian food with the other missionaries and talked about why we were grateful for America.  We were going to get hamburgers, but Hungarian hamburgers are NOTHING like American.  It was a good celebration of America!

Other than that, we worked hard!  We had some programs fall through, but so is life.  It was a great day.

Friday

Today I was in the small town of Békéscsaba on splits with Elder Peterson, a solid Elder from my MTC group.  It was so much fun as we were doing all we could to kick up the struggling work in this small town.  We were able to see some miracles as we tracted and met with investigators.

The highlights were putting a wonderful woman on a baptismal date, having a great dinner with the other missionaries there and finishing the day by really helping a confused investigator.  Elder Peterson is such a great missionary and we just had a blast.

Saturday

This day was a little rough.  We usually travel to a nearby village once a week to meet with some members and great investigators, but things weren't going our way this day!  Things kept falling through after getting out there, but at the same time we had some great experiences.  

We had some great teaching experiences with a member family and another member.  Things just went and we were smiling despite some rough turn of events. 

We then finished the day with some weekly planning and pizza, always the best of combinations.

Sunday

I always love "Fast Sundays."  I had some cool experiences this week in regards to fasting!  I was fasting for some new investigators and of course, the Lord blessed us with the first door we knocked.  We were able to meet with a considerable amount of people and I was just smiling with the answers to my prayers.

There were investigators at church and the work isn't only going forward in Szeged, but in our zone as well.  

Things are crazy!!!!!!!!!

Today we had some adventures for Elder Bracken's birthday, but I will update you all next week on the adventures we had. Oh the suspense!

I am happy and things are going, I love you all!

Elder Jake Nelson

This is a cute man from the ward in Newberg who happens to be Hungarian, and who visited the area and while there met Jake!