This week I witnessed the miracle of seeking miracles. I received some advice last week me in a letter last week to try and seek more miracles this week. I genuinely tried every day to pray for a miracle. The day I prayed most was when we went door knocking FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY MISSION! We knocked about 6 doors with not much success. We rang the bell of another door and no answer. As we began to walk away a man shouted out his window. Shaggy blonde hair, big smile. He asked if we'd just rung and we said yes. He was like great I'll open the gate for you guys come around back! We were soo shocked. We go around to his gate and turns out we were not who he thought we were... at that very moment he had been waiting for a small group of Americans from Pennsylvania to stay at his rental house! What are the odds?! (I think it's called miracle seeking,) But after that I explained who we were and that we'd love to share a message with him if he ever had a couple minutes. He told us he had some time now and invited us in! We had a wonderful discussion about God and his nature and got a really good background of his beliefs. We also taught him the restoration and he seemed pretty open to it. The rain was pouring outside with flashes of lighting and huge claps of thunder. Right when my companion said the first vision the rain stopped, and then began again when she had finished. At the end of the lesson he told us he could "feel something in the air." Like a good feeling. It was so sick!! I'm am grateful that God (literally) opens doors.
Now time for your favorite part.. the crazy stories!!
- another man called to us from his window and we went to talk to him. He seemed a little off but I didn't think to much of it. He asked what we were doing, the differences between out church and others, etc. Mid explanation, we says hey do you guys want to come in for a lemonade? We asked if anyone else was home because we were starting to get weird vibes. He told us to wait there and then he opened up the door. This man was wearing a long shirt but not any pants!!!! Ahhh he was also definitely drunk. We told him that we couldn't come in unless there were other people home. He told us his dog was home and we said sir that does not count... anyway we gave him a pass along card and got out of there.
- We knocked on another door and had a pretty cool conversation with a man and his wife about families and why they were important. He said he was super busy remodeling his house but we could come back later. He couldn't find any paper so he wrote his name on a big piece of styrofoam and gave it to us
-Our new friend János had us and the elders over for dinner.. he's also a little strange and offered us wine and beer and told us he'd take us to "a szép asszony völgy" which means the valley of beautiful women. But he's a great guy and we might start teaching him!
A couple more highlights from the week were that a member family from my last area drove an hour to visit me! They coordinated with my companion adn totally surprised me. They brought me home made chocolate chip cookies. We got to spend the afternoon with them and got churros and rode the ferris wheel. It was so cool to see that I actually made an impact on their family and that I mean something to them. László and I had a good talk about the missionary work here. How hard it is to have few members and starting a new area. It felt like having a good old walk and talk with my dad and I really needed it.
On Saturday we also got to know 2 more of the members here a lot better. We cleaned the church with Anna, an 18 year old member who is preparing for a mission and Piroska, who is an officer in military. She took us all to Mc Donald's after and it was so fun to connect with them.
This week was much better than the last. It's not that we had a crazy amount of lessons or baptisms or even success. Our English class participants has gone down even more! Ha. but I really really tried to seek miracles. And we saw them! I just had so much more hope this week. We met with 3 of our super strong boss women members that are keeping this branch together. I was so inspired by their faith. We delivered a bunch of flowers to less active friends on Sunday for about 4 hours in the cold rain.
We spend lots of time studying and It's fun to try and teach the language to my companion and see how new everything is for her. I'm trying to soak up everything about mission life, all the good, the mundane, and the difficult too!
And finally a short spiritual thought:
This week my companion reminded me of my purpose as a missionary. She had looked up the word "mission" and it was described as someone who is sent with a purpose or a goal. We have been called on missions! Not forced or casually decided upon it, but called! Like when a excavation group is called to discover a site. They go with a goal in mind. They are on a mission. Jesus Christ never lost sight of his mission. We are all on missions, we have a goal and a purpose and we can't loose sight of it! It is to find those, anyone who will accept, to come closer to christ. I like this reminder because it helped me to recenter my focus.
Have a great week and seek miracles!
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