SZZZZZZIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAASZOTK AAAAAAAAAAGIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEESSS
So, I hope you all don't hate me or anything about the last email. It was too good an opportunity to ever do, a once in a lifetime opportunity one may say. If you want to blame or be mad at anyone, be mad at my father. It was instilled in me by him to take advantage of such opportunities and to throw him under the bus whenever I can.
But moving on, this last week was actually crazy, a ton did actually happen believe it or not.
For starters, this last preparation day we set out to explore an ancient castle that was still standing from the dark ages of the world, called the Diósgyőri Vár.
It is super old, has 4 spires that remind you of rooks in chess, and overall is as castle as a castle can get. It has a big bridge that connects the mainland to it because there was a moat there at one point, and it had full suits or armour, an armoury where you can try stuff on and hold old swords and spears and helmets it was super suer awesome. well worth the 5 dollars (1500 Ft) and 3 hours.
(This elder is from Porto Alegre, Brazil...the same stake as our exchange student son, Luke! They know each other!)
After that we started our week out by having no one to teach, and no appointments to go to, so you know what that means!....
Time to hit the FIND GRIND!
For those of you unfamiliar to this way of missionary life, it involves one requirement: Find all day until you have the pool of people that you can teach. Simple enough, but we are talking 4-6 hours of straight searching and finding and looking for the elect, for 2 days in a row. It was a crazy two days. Mainly because we were just dead inside physically while carrying this out, so it made it that much harder. And I will say, that I was not in a 100% go go go mindset that I am usually in, and it was harder for me to stop people to teach and talk to them because of our fatigue. We both felt it. And I will say that there are times on missions where it just has to be like that, there is just a dragging sensation because whether or not our spirits are high energy, our bodies get dragged and pounded by Satan because he doesnot want this to succeed. And it is the same in life. Missionary work is not always miracle miracle miracle in a row. Sometimes there are monotonous days of finding or meetings or travel, just like in any other job or life that we would live outside of missionary work. The grind of going to work everyday. Dealing with co workers. Having to take care of the family. Shopping. Doing laundry (I hate laundry). But amidst these hard monotonous ruts on the pathway of life, there are definitely moments that make all that tedious monotony worth every second of it. Let me share an experience that will enlighten this idea.
We were in this rut of work on Wednesday, when we found ourselves not in a specific spot of finding, we were just knocking doors, really hitting them hard. We found no one home and not much success for about two hours. At that point we saw a cool looking building that was abandoned and had been burning the previous day, so we decided to find our way over there and see what was up. It turned out to be nothing, so on a whim of not knowing what we needed to do, we took a really poor looking path towards some other houses we hadnt been to quite yet. We had no idea where we were though, and appropriately named the area Narnia.
We start our tracting in Narnia, see some potential in some individuals, but no appointments. We come to this house, an ordinary looking house, and a young man walks up and we go "We are messengers of Jesus Christ, and are in Hungary because we know that we have a heavenly Father who loves us and cares for us in every moment of our lives, and because of the knowledge we have gained we can build or develop a greater and stronger relationship with Him in our personal lives. Would this interest you?" He looked at us cautiously but after talking a little bit more he says openly "Sure, I am down to read this book of y'all's (The Book of Mormon)."
"Great! When can we come back?" I started flipping to another day when he said
"Later today, in a couple hours you guys good to come back and give me a book?"
My companion and I looked at him each other, and said "YES!"
So we proceeded to find, did our language study, planned for the lesson, and went back. We find that it was not just this man we were teaching, but his two sisters, and his mother. A family of families just out in the middle of Narnia...We go in not sure what to think, taught one of the most compelling and confounding lessons of the Restoration in my life; super pure and simple, strong testimony all around. It was impressive. But it wasnt us. That whole meeting took place because of the Spirit leading us to them. We were in a monotonous grind, but Heavenly Father knew that. And He used us to fulfill and forward His work, in spite of the hardness that was before us.
So, when life seems monotonous, and nothing is happening, sometimes we just need to look for the path we should take that will lead us to someone we can help, a hand we can lift up, and when we ask for these opportunities press forward through seemingly dark night of monotony, the dawn of miracles will come to us as we press through and dont lose hope.
Hope yall had an uplifting and fantastic General Conference! God's Work goes forth before our eyes at an increasingly accelerated rate.
Sziasztok!
Hough Elder
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