Sziastok Aggie-aim (My Aggies)!
So much has happened this week and it was a ride, so fun! I'm already in my 4th week here at the MTC and holy moley after this week I'm on the downhill to Hungary!! That is crazy! It seems like yesterday I got my call in the mail and was reading it for the first time, and now I'm a little over a month until I enter the country. So grateful that time is nonexistent most the time here haha. I'm really gonna focus on the last 3 or 4 days because those are the ones that stand out to me in terms of experiences in the week.
First, In our last lesson teaching a friend of the church Katalin, We asked how she liked chruch since we invited her to go with her son. She said it was good and that it was a little long. Most people say that so I said "igen, harminc ora nagyan hozzu!" She looked at me ad said "HARMINC ORA?!" My sentence translated was oh yeah, 30 hours is long!"....Jaj (oh no) hahahaha. It was ciki (awkward) and Christensen Nover shot me a look and was like "HAROM ELDER!" (3) and I was laughing after that it was the first big language miscommunication I'd had and at least it was numbers and not something important like baptism or the Atonement of Jesus Christ haha!
Second, the MTC choir is so much fun! sure I can't sing, that's obvious to anyone sitting within a five seat radius, but I go for the spirit of the songs and for the director, Brother Agot. He is an institute teacher at BYU (maybe I'll get him!) and he has the face of michael from the office and a humor of John Bytheway, he's pretty epic. Anyways, the song we sang for the devotional last night (more on that later) is "More Holiness give Me." A great song, one that I never really listened to the lyrics or tried to understand them until the MTC, and all the hymns are so powerful, scriptures of their own, if you ever read the Book of Mormon and are like "Hey, I need something else to read to spiritually uplift me and bring me closer to my Savior in deed and in thought," read some of the hymns like a poem. So powerful. Anyway, Brother Agot is an institute teacher and is so knowledgeable about these hymns and where they came from. So, he treated us to the history and story behind this hymn, and I would like to now share it with you as the main part of my message this week, because it was so powerful to me. I want you all to think about how you can exhibit and exemplify Christ like love in your lives as you read this story.
Philip Bliss was a man of no small talents, as in his day in the early 1800's he was an LDS song writer, and would always follow these preachers of other churches around as they preached and write songs that he felt inspired to write from these sermons. Eventually, one day in his home ward he got up and told everyone that he was about to sing them his personal prayer, a song that he thought of everyday and continued to keep in his heart throughout his life. He found the key and starting note on the piano and sang these words:
"More Holiness give me, more strivings within, more patience in suff'ring, more sorrow for sin, more faith in my savior, more sense of his care, more joy in his service, more purpose in prayer. More gratitude give me, more trust in the Lord, more pride in his glory, more hope in his word, more tears for his sorrows, more pain at his grief, more meekness in trial, more praise for relief. More purity give me, more strength to o'ercome, more freedom from earth-stains, more longing for home, more fit for the Kingdom, more used would I be, more blessed and holy-More, Savior, like thee." The congregation was teary eyed and stunned at the poignancy of his words, and he silently walked back to his seat and the meeting went on.
Years later, Bliss and his wife were on a train to go perform songs somewhere in the states and were crossing a wooden bridge over a ravine, when the truss gave out with half the train on the bridge and half not. Because of this and the train being a coal train, the back end pulled the entire front down into the ravine, pouring the flames and coals into the connected cars. Bliss was one of the 12 that made it out of the train window when it settled at the bottom of the ravine. As he was gaining sense of the situation the cars of the train slowly started catching fire one by one. Then, doing the quick head count of the people who got out, he realized his wife was not among them, and without hesitation went back into the car they were in during the accident. He found her pinned down by the seat in front them, her legs crushed. He tried and tried and tried with all his might to free her but to no avail. The seat would not move. And, as if from a tragic movie scene, their car also caught fire from the decsending flames of the engine. His wife probably told him to go and take care of their children, and he said 4 words to her: "I'm not leaving you." now, can you imagine the conversation they were having at this moment? His wife knew she was dead, and that he was free to get out if he went then, but he said "I. WILL. not. leave you." Philip Bliss, with the choice to get out with his life and to take care of his family, out of pure love to his wife stayed with her, because he didn't want her to die alone. And so he did, and burned alive right next to her. But he didn't just write his prayer song for us, he LIVED it for himself. "More fit for the Kingdom, More Savior Like Thee." He lived his words to his dying breath. What an example to all of us. Not to jump into flames, but in our own lives to really live what we talk about and teach to others, to be more christ like, and what's more Christ like than living the line "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend." How will y'all "lay down" your life for your friends? Neighbors? People you don't know but know are children of the Living God like you and me? That's my challenge for this week.
On a little brighter note (literally), Christensen Nover and I are auditioning for the Sunday Devotional with the arrangement from last week! It's polished, locked, and loaded, so Next week you'll hear more about that! And the german elder leave in 2 weeks, and I'll be all alone with the Polish. Which since they're on a different schedule than I am will make it interesting (as in different P-day, classes, etc)! The Lord Jesus Christ directs His church though, I know without a shadow of a doubt that this is true, and I encourage each of you to find out for yourself that is true, through the Book of Mormon, whether you have read it or not it has a tangible power that cannot be denied, because it is of God. I love y'all, and I can't wait to tell about next week!
Szeretek vagytok! (I love y'all!)
Hough Elder
Baba es nagymamak! (Baby and Grandmas...its a joke in the District hahaha!)
Flame red sunset from the raging wildfires and smoke around us in the mountains!
By far the BEST BARQS product ever invented!
Petersen Elder and I
Group Pic after Tuesday Devotional with Patrick Kearon of the 70 Presidency!! (My kids know Elder Kearon best for his "Sting of the Scorpion" message https://www.lds.org/
Look who IIII FOUND!! (Elder McClaws!) (Our friend's nephew's best friend--haha!--going to Hungary/Romania arrived a couple weeks before Jake, speaking Romanian :)
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