Transfer 13, Week 2

Üdvözöllek benneteket!

Gondoltam, hogy mindent írok magyarul........kellene nekem a gyakorlás, mivel oly kevés lehetőségem van itt....csak viccelek, mostantól angolul írok, hogy megértsétek.

Hi everyone

Just so you know, this is not a translation of the above message..........i just got finished writing an email to someone else in Hungarian, so i thought i'd throw some in for you all. :) Maybe i'll throw in the translation next week...if i remember :)

alright......we had a pretty normal week........not too much out of the ordinary........still got renovations going on, so we're working around that..........we did have a lot of lessons this week though, it was pretty cool. It felt good to be teaching so much. On Tuesday evening (or wednesday, i can't remember....the days all got super scrambled this week for me) we went streeting for 30 minutes, seriously just around the block, and we recieved phone numbers from about 5 people. It was quite a miraculous experience. On Friday, we went to the stake center for a fireside that the BYU dance team...that was really cool, they sang a few songs, had some of the group bear their testimonies on various topics, played some music......it was a really neat program. Let's see....on Saturday.........not really anything....we met with one of our investigators and he brought two of his friends - which is super awesome, that he wants to share this with them, but they all were asking questions the whole time and the program was all over the place, and i don't know how seriously they were taking it. Kind of a disaster....we'll see how things turn out next week, they'll be on vacation until Saturday, so hopefully we'll be able to catch them then.

Other than that, not much going on over here. We're finally getting some clouds, it's been completely overcast today (hallelujah!) and even rained one day sometime last week or the week before.

I hope you're all doing great!

Elder Murray

Transfer 13, Week 1 (June 12, 2011)

hi all!

ok, so, we'll start with the big question....transfers was this last wednesday, and both Miller and I stayed here. That's the big news. :) We're both excited to get to serve together again, and there's even more - the new AP is Elder Lundeen, so it's our whole MTC group back together in the office (well, not counting sister Steck, but her mission ended on wednesday, so she doesn't count anymore.....that was super weird, going to her farewell dinner/testimony meeting. so yeah, that's the biggest news for this week. Not too much else happening, pretty much same old stuff. We have met with Dávid a few times, and he came to church today. He really liked it, and he's actually coming back at around 4 this afternoon so we can meet/teach his friend. I'm super excited, it would be super awesome for him if his friends also started getting interested in this.

Ok, so, i can't believe i almost forgot this.....so, Saturdays are usually our pdays, but tomorrow is a super pday, so we wouldn't have had yesterday as a pday anyway, but what we ended up doing was helping with something all day. The BYU folk dancing team was invited by the Hungarian state to come and participate in a festival going on this next week. They arrived Friday, and then they came to the Stake Center to perform after the seminary/institute graduation. We had to meet them at their hotel at 9:00, get all their equipment and take it to the stake center (the APs took them on a little tour through the city center). They arrived at the stake center around 12:00 and started setting up and playing some music to get warmed up. It was super fun. Then, we waited for the graduation to get over (i saw Bakos by the way! (from miskolc) I was so happy, it seems like forever since i've seen her. so yeah, that was exciting. I also saw István and his mom and Brigi from Székesfehérvár. It was a pretty super awesome and amazing time. Then we had pizza for lunch, and then the dance team performed for us. pretty much super awesome. that's really all i can say about it. they did all american dances (when they're abroad they do american, and when they're in the states they do european and other). super cool. i'll have to send my memory card home soon so you can all see some of them. super cool. then after they had done each dance, they each got a partner from the crowd and taught them some of the steps. It was so much fun. we didn't get to dance, but it was so fun to see the hungarians all mixed in there with them and trying to learn these dances. after that, they had everyone split up into about 10 groups and played some games. after that was dinner, and then we took all their stuff back to the hotel, took them around castle hill, then came home. kind of an exhausting day, but so super awesome! i had such a great time. I was talking to Csaba today, and he said it was the best day of his life. pretty cool.

so, that's about it for this week.....i hope you all have a great week, and i'll catch you next week!

Elder Murray

Transfer 12, Week 6

Hi everyone!

So, this week........kind of crazy....the biggest news is that Elder Miller and I switched desks (i feel like such a nerd, that sounded so much more epic in my mind.... :). It's something that Elder Bagozzi has been wanting us to do for a while now, so we can learn each others' jobs, so when a new person comes in, the person at the other desk can still help him after his trainer is gone (i don't think i could have made that sentence any more unclear.....let's say sec1 gets transferred.....he has about 2 days to train his replacement....then, after he's gone, sec2 will still be able to help the new sec1 because sec2 worked at sec1's desk for a week). So, we'll see how much that helps......although, we won't be able to see for a while now because.....we're both staying. President told us that if one of us was going, we would know by Friday, and Friday has come and gone with no word, so we will both be staying another 6 weeks. i think we're both excited to see how this upcoming transfer is.

So, let's see....in other business, we had one of the most amazing programs ever on Friday. well, it kind of starts on Tuesday. We set up a program with Dávid, our one progressing investigator. We also had Viktor, a member, sit in to help and such. That went pretty good, and then at the end, Viktor asked when we could meet again, so he and Dávid talked it over and picked out a time on Friday (we have time all the time, so it was basically up to them. :). Friday came, and the plan was to talk about the five steps in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We had the first 3 written up, but before we could even get there, he asked the question "what exactly does it mean to have faith in Jesus Christ?" so we had a little discussion on the importance of having faith specifically in Jesus Christ and what that entails...then, we got to the second step and what precisely is needed to repent.....after that, we got talking about free agency, and where it all started. we talked about what happened before we came to the earth, and after explaining all that, you could almost see the lightbulb above his head as he said ".....this makes so much sense now. everything just fits." Ah, it was such an amazing program, i felt so good afterwards.

So yeah, that was pretty much the highlight of my week. on Friday, we had Gofri Est at the stake center, because of the renovation going on in the mission home. we actually had zsíros kenyér, which is like bread and butter with onions on top, except instead of butter you use......fat. yeah. kind of disgusting of you think about it too much while you're eating it, but not too bad if you just eat it. after that lovely experience, some people played basketball inside while others went outside for soccer, then basketball shifted to volleyball. it was pretty fun.

Yesterday we went to Esztergom, which is a giant catholic cathedral thingy right on the border of Slovakia....i went there last year, so i guess you'll have to refer to those pictures until i can send the memory card home. it was pretty fun, just super hot!

So, that was about it for the week.....this coming Saturday is seminary/institute graduation, so that should be fun. OH! i almost forgot! there's this big festival type thing going on sometime, and Hungary has invited the BYU folk dance team to come and participate, and they have some extra time, so they're going to be at the graduation thing! ah! i'm super excited! they're going to see if they can put on some firesides as well. they're here for two weeks, so it's going to be really exciting to see them all.

Alright, i think that's it....I hope you all have a great week, and i'll talk to you next week!

Elder Murray