Elder Jake Hough, 1.21.19--week 26

"New starts, New Beginnings, and Thugs"

SZIAAAAAAAAAAASZTOK AGGGGGGIIIIEEEEEEEES AND OTHER FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT MAY NOT ACTUALLY LIVE IN COLLEGE STATION!

Wow, can I just say that this week may have been the best week of my life. It was hard, tiring, early (more later on that) and everything in between. It was a ride and isnt over but it was unbelievably amazing. Lets start with the big story!

Our Investigator that I have been meeting with since I got to Tatabánya, He had the roughest week of his life leading up to his baptism. He was doubting, had thoughts of unworthiness, and to make matters worse he had some stuff to sort through at home, and it was like Satan hitting him from all and every side that he could possibly get hit from, and just 5 days from his planned baptism. So we call him, meet with him monday with a member and read about 6 scriptures we studied as a companionship that detaiol the qualifications for baptism and then we read them with him, and asked him in every verse if he was this or that and if he was doing that or striving to do this, and every single question he personally answered yes, so we basically were like bro you ready!! Just jump in now haha! We really got his spirit up, he was laugheing by the end of the lesson, and then we met with him saturday night at the town pool, and my first comp and trainer Peery Elder came to baptize him from the other side of the country. It was the sweetest reunion of the mission, because we had suffered and sweat tears for this guy together, and we got to come back together and feel the joy that comes from bringing a child of God into the covenant path of the Gospel. 

It was an overwhelming two hours, I cried as our man came out of the water, and the look on his face was pure peace and calm, and he smiled bigger than I had ever seen him. It was awesome I went straight to him as he cliombed out and gave him the biggest wet hug ever, and peery as well! In church on sunday I was priveliged to confirm him a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and give to him the Holy Ghost to be a constant companion for the rest of his life, and that was a wild ride as well, cause HUNGARIAN haha! But it went great. I realized in that momnet that this is my lifes purpose, and that if I go the rest of my mission wihtout a baptism I would forever rejoice in the baptism I witnessed this last week. But, I know that there are more people wiating to receive the gospel so there will be more coming! We have another baptismal date set for May the 4th, a 17 year old teenager and he is GOLDEN, wants to be clean, asked us to baptize him, and now also siad he wants to do what we do as missionaries!! Such a dope dude I love him already haha! Ill keep yall posted on him.

Outside of that, last monday after we emailed we took a trip to Budapest and just sight saw, and went to the teerrace level of houses that we were at on our first day in Hungary, the Buda Vár or castle. We started at the beginning with the archive building, the military museum (which had the original tank that the hungarians acquired from the russians in the revolution of 1956 which I am SOOO interested in it was an awesome tank haha!), the saint matyás spire which allows you to see the parlianment and then Buda Castle which is suuuuuper pretty, I have some pics but wow it was worth the trip for sure. The Hungarian architecture just always blows me away. The temple here is gonna be the prettiest from sure once they announce it! 

The last part of the subject line, yes says thugs at the end. that is because last night we went to look up a referral that we had recieved, and this referral happened to live in the most "ghetto" place in all of hungary which happened to be in Tatabánya. So we take a bus there, its dark, unbelievably cold, and we dont have any maps or devices that can show us which street we need or where to go. Alright, I can work with this. I was a scout, I got some survival skills. These two dudes (srácok in hungarian for those who understand ;)) come up on the road and so I go up to them with my comp behind me and I ask them where we can find the street. They look at us a bit funnily, and then point down the road just to the left of us and were like "thats it." I said thanks and then they started asking a ton of questions, like where we are from, where we live now, what we do, the normal questions except this dudes bud was super sketchy and moving around to where my comp was, like he was closer every time I looked. WEEEEEELLLLLL, I basically just told them and said we gotta look these people up, and they said were going the same direction!....Lovely. So we start walking with these gangsters in the middle of no where, and I ask them where they were headed and they said oh there is this kid were visiting that needs topay us back...Great! And then he asked if we had money and immediately I laughed and said "Thats funny! Im actually super broke, like the most broke person you will find because I am a misisonary haha! I have no money ever for groceries and none on me sorry!" he took it luckily and we parted ways. Gave them some of our pass along cards. (Hahaha!!) So we got in with the system in Tatabánya. "No one messes with mr. Big, except for mr. Big". ("Zootopia" reference).

Zone Conference was also this week, and it was amazing as usual, I got to perform savior redeemer of my soul in Zone Conference with a missionary and and the sister training leader shepherd nover, it was gonna be christensen nover oon the violin but there was a thing and they moved her to a different zone RIGHT before zone conference. It was really good though. I liked it! we taught an investigator the restoration, and we talked a lot about our reasons from being out on a mission, and about christlike attributes. My favorite thing from that was this simple equation:

                          MEEKness =/(does not equal) WEAKness

I love that because its true, and it helps me to try to be meek and follow the spirit and the Saviors example every day. That was this week! It was awesome, scary, and just full of miracles, they never end. Even in the hard days there are always miracles to find. I know that God loves everyone individually, and that because of that he is always blessing us in our lives whether we see it or not. And that the Book of Mormon and Modern day Prophets are 2 of the biggest blessings and miracles we have. I am so grateful for them. Love yall, and cant wait to see what happens this week!

Sziasztok!

Hough Elder