This transfer went way to fast!!!

Well like the title of the email says, this transfer is slowly coming to a close and it literally feels like it just began!  Buda life is great and the weather is getting hotter and hotter!  It is pretty humid but I am surviving (just constantly sweating, like literally like a constant flow, haha)!  I am excited to see what next transfer brings and the miracles we will see.

We are trying to make a push of firing up the ward members to be good missionaries and our ward mission leader is doing a really great job of trying to spread the fire of missionary work among all of the members. I think so much of it comes down to personal example and how much we as missionaries are striving to be the message. If the general ward members see that we (the missionaries) and the members that usually help the most with missionary work are happy and find so much joy and excitement in this work then they too will want to participate in this wonderful work of salvation. I have also seen that so much of it also comes down to personal conversion and how much we cherish this gospel. If we can constantly bear testimony to these members and emphasize the importance of it then they will come to feel the importance to make these things know to their friends and family.

It was a really good week for us. We were able to go on two great exchanges this past week. The first exchange was with Elder Robinson from Miskolc. We were able to work here in Buda and were able to focus on diligence (one of my favorite topics)! It went amazing and we were able to talk to almost every single person that God placed in our path. There was this one time where we got on a bus, quickly started talking to this lady who had met with the missionaries before, invited her to meet with us again, and got her number (all in one stop). Then we got off the bus and felt like we should talk to this lady standing right there. The bus was literally coming right behind us but she agreed to meet with us and gave us her number (in about 30 seconds). We were able to discuss how missionary work is like fishing and the longer you have your line in the water (outside talking to people) the more miracles you will see. God honored us so much! Then a couple days later we were able to go on exchanges with the Elders from Dunaújváros. I was able to work with Elder Terry on teaching for understanding and asking direct questions. We were able to do our best to associate the gospel to meet individual needs with people and were able to find many potential investigators. We also were able to have a really great teaching where we were able to resolve our investigator's concern with prayer through asking questions (I had her teach me how to pray and it worked well). 

We were able to have quite a few teachings this past week. One of the coolest parts of the week was when we were able to have two families come to church. The ironic part is that these families are not even investigators yet, but people we have been trying to set up with. One of the families was someone that we tracted into (a Dad, Mom, and son, and daughter). We did not even go inside to teach them, however, we invited them to church (after following up) and they came!  We have set up to meet with them this upcoming Tuesday. Then the other family was a former investigator along with his Mom and little brother. We have been trying so hard to set up a meeting with the son and it looks as if in the coming weeks he is going to be free. We are hoping to be able to also meet with his Mom and little brother.  And get this, the son had lived in Hershey Pennsylvania (Dad’s old mission) for a year with an LDS family which is how he 1st came into contact with the church!

We were able to meet with another of our investigator’s this past week. He is doing well, however, this week he is going into the hospital and it looks as if he is going to be there for the entire summer. We are going to do our best to drop in when we can. Another of our investigators is having a really hard time accepting the Book of Mormon. He came to church but we are going to have less frequent meetings with him. We gave him the Book, "Our Search for Happiness" and he read the first chapter and said he really liked it. We had a really amazing experience this past week when we were able to go and follow up on an extremely Protestant family. They invited us in and we were able to testify of how we came to know of these things for ourselves, the power of the atonement, the Restoration, and the Priesthood (they were especially interested in that). We set up to come back in a couple weeks and are very excited to see them keep progressing. 

We also had a zone day this week which was super awesome!  I was able to play some good basketball in the stake center and was impressed with by balling skills and my jumping abilities despite me being out for like a year now…haha (we do play like 3 times a week with the secretaries in the local park so that also helps to maintain the skills).

This week we have Zone Conferences for every Zone!  Elder Fitzgerald and I are giving a training in every exchange about the importance of attacking our day (especially the morning hours) and also how to set meaningful goals to end a daily exchange!  We had about 15 minutes to plan for it, but it actually turned out well.  I was uncontrollably sweating but it went well, haha!

Overall the work is great! We are doing are best to talk to as many people as the Lord puts into our path and our doing our best to retain those investigators that we already have and get them progressing toward baptism. I am so grateful for the mission experience and for the chance that I have to always invite others to come unto Christ (while learning and progressing and growing personally as well). I am so grateful that I get to serve here in this amazing country.  I am going to close with the last line that I sent to the missionaries in the weekly email (I think mom will like it): 

Our Spiritual thought today comes from the last lines of Rudyard Kipling's famous poem If.  It goes as follows, "If you can fill the unforgiving minute; With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run; Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it; And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!"  Elders and Sisters let us fill every single minute of our missions to the best of our abilities!  This is truly a marvelous work and a wonder and we have the chance to be full-time servants/participants in it!   There is no better work to be actively engaged in than the work of the Lord so let us not be wearing in well doing, press forward with all our heart, might, mind, and strength, and endure to the end!  

Love you all so much!! 

Gentry Elder