Week 40: The Budapest Opera House👑

Guess what?? I went to a Ballet at the Budapest Opera House. It was incredible!! We went with two of our friends!  

Here is the miracle line of of the week.

-We met with our friend V. We went to the park with her and talked about her life. We also taught her about where the Book of Mormon came from. We taught her about Joseph Smith and emphasized how God listens to our prayers. Well the next night, she called us and said that she had prayed. She had a very personal story about how her prayer was answered. She was so overwhelmed that she had to call us and tell us about this miracle!! It is so so cool to start seeing your friends come to trust God more in their lives. She has made so much progress.

- We met with a family who lives here and Budapest and they had us over for dinner. We ate a large dish of Rakott Krumpli. Delicious!! My companion had also known this family from her previous city and had given the mom a Book of Mormon. We read out of it with her in Jacob 4, about how the Lord will labor with us in our vineyards. We really hope we can start teaching this family! I have been praying to find one!

- We went on our exchange to Nyiregyháza. The exchange was wonderful. We did studies and talked about how we can better trust in God. After our studies we went street contacting! We gave away a few pass along cards and talked to an American family who was sitting on a bench. They were adopting a Hungarian boy. They had been living in Nyiregyháza for the last couple months with their young family to welcome this boy into their home. It was super cool to meet them and talk with them. We also talked to a young woman with a baby and invited her to church.

After street contacting we met up with Sister Bird and Robinson. We went up to a beautiful temple in the main square and talked to a woman and her grandkids there. It was just a day of spreading light and love for the gospel. Everywhere we went we seemed to attract miracles. At lunch after that, the woman gave us free cookies because she had seen missionaries before and always loved seeing them.

After lunch we went to the library and looked at the covers of old movies in Hungarian. We read books in Hungarian as our language study and learned tons of new words.

That night, we met with a member named Orly from Columbia! Shoutout to Jake Pingree who she literally knew from living in Australia! She went on and on about how much she loves the missionaries and what an impact they have made on her life. She brought us a plate of yummy columbian food (plantains and cheese) and we just talked about her baptism and conversion story. It was an awesome experience!

-On the way back from Nyiregyháza we talked to 4 new people. We struck up a conversation with the woman siting across from us and by the end we were showing each other pictures of our families and my little nephew Hank. We definitely bonded and we even got her facebook! The other people we talked to taught me a humbling lesson. When we initially sat down by them, they were extremely loud and looked intimidating and uninterested. The daughter had accidentally connected to my hotspot and it was a funny conversation starter. They were beyond impressed with our language learning abilities and were very kind. We also got both of their facebook profiles.

Here is the best part of my week.....

- We attended the Ballet and the Nemzeti Opera House with two of our friends!! One of them was Viktoria who we met a a service activity, and the other was our friend Vivian. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my mission and of my life. The orchestra, the dancers, and beautiful architecture. AH! We also go macarons with everyone after. :)

- We planned mission conference with the APs!

Our Mission President: Pres & Sister Rucker 💗

- We had a lesson with B, but he has stopped coming to church. It makes me really sad. :((

Here is what I learned this week.

I had been super stressed about being able to complete all the tasks that I needed to. When I was doing the exchange, the sister missionary had some inspired thoughts about time. She shared with me that God will not just love us once we have completed all the tasks on our to-do list. We are not good missionaries once we have figured out how to perfectly work out our lives. She also posed the question: Do we trust God more than we fear time? That really made me think. I want to trust God more. I want to be in the moment when I talk with people. I want to listen and not worry about our next appointment or advertisement that needs to be posted. TRUST IN THE LORD! :)