Week 5: Preaching in the Nagyerdő

Mi zu!

This week was pretty good! We got to go Go-Carting on Monday which was a blast! On Tuesday we had a lesson with Laszló who is a teacher at the university and a pro ping-pong player (he has like 10 golden trophies). He had a lot of questions and doubts so we just searched in the scriptures a lot about what his purpose is on this earth and why the Lord wants us to face trials with faith and hope!

We got to go chalking at the nagyerő (the big forest) which was super fun (that's where the title comes from) XD! We drew the Szabadulás Terve (Plan of Salvation) and other encouraging notes and stuff! Then we met with a less active member named András and tried to commit him going back to church. He said he might but we are meeting with him again this week.

Hungarian food is super good if I haven't mentioned that yet! On Thursday we got to go to a buffet near the Nagytemplom and it almost looked like a castle inside (pictures below)! They serve a fruit soup that is super good! It has like raspberries, strawberries, etc. Also the ice cream here is THE BEST! We go almost every day, because ice cream shops are everywhere, and it only costs like 1 American dollar for a scoop!

This week we weren't able to give out a lot of Book of Mormons but we did gain 4 new investigators most if not all from the area book! We plan on meeting with them this week to help them progress!

The members here are awesome! Debrecen has a branch and the branch president is awesome! His name is Joci and he is only in his 20's if you can imagine! They are so humble as well! Most of them just live in 3 room apartments which is super sad but they come to church sometimes when they live 20 kilometers from Debrecen! Sometimes I wish I could do more to help them! Seeing the living conditions here in Hungary is so different than America. America is so blessed!

I hope you all have a marvelous week and to always remember to be grateful for what you have!

Szeretettel,

Elder Ballard

The Debrecen sign in the day

The Debrecen sign at night

With my boi Jozsi!! Jozsi is a less active member who we visit on Saturdays and Sundays!

 

Go Carting

Our masterpiece of chalking the Plan of Salvation

Pondering life in the Nagyerdő

Preaching

Sweet buffet castle room

Week 4: A Day in the Life

Sziasztok!

The work in Debrecen is hastening we just need to continue finding those elect people from God! The past two weeks I have been so focused on our investigators that I haven't talked about Debrecen! So Debrecen is the second largest city in Hungary! For transportation we don't have bikes but we do take the villamos which is this TRAM like the one Salt Lake City has. FYI the McDonald's restaurants are like hardcore like mansion restaurants! I'll send a pic next week! I'm like shocked the first time I saw it. The McDonald's are soooooo nice haha.

Debrecen is also a college town so there are a lot of college girls around which is always tough but I always just gotta focus on the task at hand haha. I think I sent a pic the first week of the main college building in Debrecen. I'll go inside it sometime next week and I'll send more pics! Also basically everyone here is either Reformatus or Catholic so me and Elder Haroldsen are devising ways to talk about our church and how to apply our principles to their beliefs haha.

Also there are remants of Communism so a lot of the time me and Elder Haroldsen tract in these 10 story brick wall buildings. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of success tacting there because the J-Dubs (Jehovah's witnesses) tract there like all the time so the people sometimes think we are J-Dubs. Also because Debrecen is a college town practically every night there is like a concert or a party we could here from our apartment. It brings me back to the good ol' BYU days lol.

This past Monday was cool because we were just finished tracting outside the Communist apartments and we ran into this insanely drunk guy. He was pretty mad about his life and we started talking about Christ. Unfortunatly, he started arguing a little bit but I just kept testifying that these things which we said were true and he eventually accepted a Book of Mormon!

Cool thing that happened this week was that we found this woman in our Area Book and we met with her today and it turns out that her husband is one of the main Catholic officials in Hungary! All the Catholics know her husband so we may meet him next week!

A lot better week because we met with a lot of our investigators! I love Debrecen and the people! I hope you all have a fantasztikus week!

Viszlát,

Elder Ballard

Got soaked from tracting. Out of nowhere a storm came!

Not everyday you see a dead squirrel on the side of the road!

A Roman Catholic Temple

Week 3: Good News and Bad News

Szervusztok!

So I got good news and bad news this week. Good news is that we got a new investigator this week whose name is Dani! Bad news was that a lot of our appointments were canceled but fear not, we rescheduled them! 

Dani is a 15 year old who we found tracting near our apartment! He mostly believed that God is pretty much energy surrounding the earth which I thought was interesting. We taught about the Restoration and that by reading and praying to know if these things are true that the Holy Ghost will make manifest of it unto us. He told us that he would do it and he told us this week that he felt something! We hope to work off of that feeling and he committed to read and pray everyday!

On Wednesday we went back up to Budapest this time for new missionary training which was pretty fun! Seeing everyone was super awesome! Once we got back we tracted in this apartment that looked like the Dauntless training place in Divergent which was super dope! 

We did have splits with the zone leaders this weekend which was awesome! My companion was Elder Fronk from a small town in Utah. This is his last transfer but he is so obedient and determined to find people! We had a mini miracle on Saturday when we were tracting. Everyone we talked to was rejecting us and all we wanted to do was give out one BOM. We eventually prayed to give out this BOM and we found this néni in her yard and she accepted it!! Faith is a wonderful thing! 

We did get to see the cultural celebration of the Germany Friedberg Temple and also the dedication! We had some members from Debrecen in the celebration which was super cool to see! The Hungarian members did a presentation at the cultural celebration and the applaud was by far the loudest! Go Magyarország!!

The dedication was all in German which was cool but they had an English translator. President Uchdorf, who presided and said the dedicatory prayer, said something that was cool. He said that "you cannot have one foot in Zion and the other in Babylon." So true!!

We hope to have more success this week in Debrecen! My thoughts are with those that start school this week.. You will do awesome! 

Szeretek titeket,

Elder Ballard

An apartment with many floors. Reminded me of the movie "Divergent"

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Week 2 - Nagytemplom and Faith

What's Up?

So this week was my first official week out in the field and it went pretty well! On P-Day we went to the Nagytemplom which is a large church in the middle of Debrecen! Nagytemplom is the Hungarian name for the Reformed Great Church of Debrecen. Nagy is Hungarian for "great" and templom means "church". It seems that a lot of things in Hungary start with Nagy.

Nagytemplom

Nagytemplom is the symbol of the Protestant Church in Hungary, and it is because of this church that Debrecen is sometimes referred to as "the Calvinist Rome." Nagytemplom is the largest Protestant church in Hungary.

The pulpit

Nagytemplom and me

Nagytemplom clock tower

The Rákóczi Bell

Nagytemplom houses the Rákóczi bell, the largest bell of all Hungarian Protestant churches. The bell was first cast in 1636 from melted artillery captured in a war. It survived a fire that burned down the church that originally stood on the ground where Nagytemplom was built.

Debrecen city center from the tower at Nagytemplom

Nagytemplom was built between 1805 and 1824 and there is an awesome view of the city center from the top of one of the towers.

Debrecen city center from the tower at Nagytemplom

Debrecen city center from the tower at Nagytemplom

From the tower at Nagytemplom

After touring Nagytemplom, we went tracting. We were let in by a 15-year-old named Dani and we plan on meeting with him again this week.

We had a lot of teaching appointments this week which was super cool. We had one on Tuesday with a neni (old woman) and I did my first invitation to be baptized in Hungarian. She replied that she was already baptized, so we will have to teach her about the priesthood authority and to help her better understand the need to be baptized.

Nyugati railway station in Budapest

On Wednesday, we traveled to Budapest for zone training. I was able to see a lot of the missionaries from my district in the MTC and it was super fun catching up with them. Then we had an appointment with a lady we met while tracting. We taught her and her two children. We showed her the restoration video in Hungarian and I feel that she is humble and ready to accept the gospel!

With Elder Haroldsen at Nyugati railway station in Budapest

We taught an English class that was awesome. In Debrecen, there are bunches of 10-story apartment buildings which are intense to climb, but they have great views from the upper floors. In one of the tall apartment buildings, we met a guy who had been drinking, but he was not too drunk, so we placed a Book of Mormon with him.

Saturday was so crazy. Me and my comp were asked to help Jozsi, who is a less active member and is in a wheel chair. It was a strange experience to help bathe someone, and we were nervous about doing it, but later we both felt like we had overcome fears of something different.

Later that day we were able to go to a baptism. There is an American family in the Debrecen branch that has an 8-year-old son that got baptized! The boy's grandparents even flew over from California to be there for the baptism. Their family was really nice and it was fun to talk with some native English speakers for a little while.

Sunday was miraculous. To meet our goal of placing 10 copies of the Book of Mormon, we had to place seven books on Sunday after having only placed three books all week. With faith in the Lord, we talked with anyone we came in contact into and we placed all 7! It was so awesome and I can truly believe that with faith, anything is possible.

The Algerian national handball team

As a fun tidbit, we met the Algerian national handball team, who were walking by on the street while we were placing copies of the Book of Mormon! They were Muslim so they couldn't accept a BOM, but they were really nice and they took pictures with us!

In all, we had a really successful week and we hope we can help all our investigators progress to baptism!

Jó Nápot Kivánok,

Elder Ballard

P.S. As requested, here are some pictures of my apartment. It's not much, but it's home.