A Good Hard Week of Work in Buda!

This week we were able to get some good work done in Buda.  We were able to go on an exchange in the city of Miskolc which was good (I was able to work with Elder Robinson).  Other than that, we were able to stay here in Buda and were able to put our shoulder to the wheel and push along as the song says.  We were able to have a lot of teachings this past week and were able to find some good people. We were able to find two new investigators who have an absolutely amazing story. About 40 years ago they were living in Germany and the missionaries taught them. The mom/wife in the family was going to get baptized, however, they moved back to Hungary and the Mission President at the time (in Germany) told the missionaries not to baptize her because the church was not yet established in Hungary. Years passed and the main missionary that taught her stayed in contact with her through letter writing, however, they eventually lost contact. Recently, the daughter in the family was on facebook and miraculously reached out to the old missionary (his name is Rick). Rick planned a trip to come to Hungary, and introduced us to the couple at church a few Sundays ago (Rick was actually Elder Fitzgerald's bishop when he was like 5 years old, crazy right). We met with them twice this past week and discussed the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. They both were able to come to church and it seemed like they really liked it.

We were also able to have multiple investigators at church this past week.   They all seemed to enjoy it and some stayed all 3 hours. We were able to meet with one of our sister investigators this past week and it went really well. We were able to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and really focused on repentance. We talked about how the test in life is in doing those things or those commandments that are the harder ones for us to follow, even when we do not fully know the reason for them. She told us that the hardest thing for her to follow is going to be the commitment of being a full time member (especially attendance at church when she has a lot of things going on). We told her that this is the path that God wants for her and she said that she has a new motivation to be able to want to do these things. It is looking really good with her.

We were able to meet with our Ukrainian investigator a couple of times this past week and he is also doing really well. We taught him about chastity and then dropped in another night and taught about repentance and what it means to truly repent. He had a night last week where he kind of relapsed with the word of wisdom and he felt guilty and weak. We told him that God will forgive us as many times as we truly repent, however, a part of true repentance is developing the resolve within ourselves to not make the same mistake again. We talked about how here at the beginning of his process of repentance and accepting the gospel, God is going to place tests in his path to see how he responds. We discussed how when we past one test, then the other tests get easier, we just need to always keep our guard up.  He is still doing so amazing.  We have brought up baptism a few times with him now and he says that he does not want to be pushed with it but that he wants to keep learning and that it will come.  While that sounds like an excuse to not be baptized, he is truly progressing and is going to be ready to make that commitment.

We also were able to meet with another local investigator this past week. He was really happy to see us and feels the spirit when we are there with him. He is doing well and seems to be progressing. He has been reading from the Book of Mormon and has been praying. He is still struggling quite a bit with smoking and has not gained a super strong testimony about the prophets of the church yet. He feels the spirit though and he seems to be changing for the better, we just have to keep extending commitments and faithfully help him to keep those. We were also able to meet with some other people this past week and they doing well for the most part.

 We are going to keep serving as hard as we can each and every day and will keep striving to find the elect. They are out there! I am doing my best to become the best missionary I can be, I am not perfect, but with diligence and the Lords help, he will make up the difference.  Humility is such a big part in doing this work on a day to day basis. The Lord is there and is totally willing to support us, however, He asks that we have a broken heart and contrite spirit and then He will extend his arm of mercy unto us. It is sometimes a natural man tendency to say to ourselves, "I did this well, or I did that well", however, in this work all glory should go to God and I have seen that when I am humble and give it all to him, He continues to bless and honor us! 

I love you all so much!  Have a great week!!!  

Gentry elder