Sister Mason in Hungary

Hello to all my fans!!!!!!!

(All the new missionaries I met this week told me that they have read my whole blog, and one of them said his grandma loves to read and I think I’ve made it big you guys. Let’s take this thing global. Just kidding, but thanks to anyone who reads my ramblings and overly emotional writings about what its like to be a missionary in Budapest. Means a lot 🙂 )

So this week!

Monday: For pday we went bowling and ate Mexican food and felt like we were in America. That is all.

Tuesday: We tracted and went to service at the homeless shelter! And then we got to meet with Dezső. Love that man hahahah he still loves to read from the Book of Mormon with us and we are still trying to convince him that we are not JWs. Slowly but surely… then we were on the bus and someone called me and I was talking on the phone in English. Then there were all these ifjuságs (youths) and then just stopped and stared at me in silence and it was just really awkward and I’m a little tired of getting stared at like I’m an American alien hahaha!

Wednesday: We had district meeting a day early which was great. We went over our training for zone training and learned about how to be better teachers together. Always fun!

Thursday: Zone training!! and Swens and I had to do a training for the zone. That was horrifying!! haha we talked about accountability and how we can change our mindset and get more excited and positive about the work. I think every missionary here would tell you that before they came on their mission, they were warned that it would be hard and that they probably wouldn’t see any baptisms or much success. And when you have that being told to you it is really really hard to stay positive about the work! And that shows through in your finding. It is so important that we stay positive and excited about it all. its better to just be happier anyways 🙂 then we got o visit our new investigator, Irén. She is so awesome!! She is the first woman in Hungary to survive child birth after this crazy heart surgery she had to have a while back, and she is an amazing woman!! Really excited to get to know her better and share our message with her! Then angol óra. Buli!

Friday: We got Sister Swenson’s hivatal work done and then headed to Buda for a doctor appointment. Then we got to go on our first splits! I got to go with sister Prasanaph. She is the cutest thing ever!!! She is from Thailand and we are actually the same person. It’s pretty funny actually! She just came to the country about a week ago and it was so fun to show her around and help her with tracting and streeting approaches. So many laughs!!

Saturday: I got to meet with József, the first man I ever taught on my mission! I remember it so vividly, the first day I was in my first area, Szolnok. We taught him in the branch house and he speaks pretty great English. I just remember looking at sister Withers afterwards and crying saying there is no way I will ever be a good enough missionary to teach a lesson to a Hungarian! And I got to meet with him again, and it just really helped me to see how far I’ve come. It’s awesome because sometimes it is really really hard to see that progress in yourself!! So that was awesome to see a glimpse of it 🙂 Then we got to meet with Angéla and Zoltán again, love them!! We taught them about charity and God’s love and how we can pray and gain that love for ourselves!! It was awesome! Zoltán is really opening up his heart and becoming more open to coming back to church 🙂 Then we streeted around Heroes square and grabbed some fro-yo for a weekly planning treat. Great day!!!

Sunday: Dezső came to church!!!!!!! woot woot!!! It was the cutest thing I have ever seen!!! His phone went off in sacrament like SUPER loudly! and he didn’t know how to turn it on silent so he was just hitting it as hard as he could and we were DYING laughing!! And instead of silencing it he answered it and accidentally put it on speaker hahaha!! And someone was up there bearing their testimony. Best fast Sunday of my life hahaha! Then it was a raining day so finding in the rain is always the best…. jk

Monday: We got our groceries and went to the basilica and climbed up to the top and took some AWESOME pics!!!!

Randoms:

My comp is AMAZING and plays guitar whenever we are in the house and I just cry of the beauty. She is so cool and it just makes us so happy when she plays all these cute songs 🙂

SPRING HAS COME!!!! I haven’t even been wearing a jacket and it is the most beautiful thing of my life. I have no idea how i made it through that horrible winter, but I did and I’m still alive!! Woohoo!!

Well, it is now March, which means… that i will see you all NEXT MONTH!!! Holy cow, I actually hate that. I mean I love you all, but I never want to leave this beautiful place I get to call my home. I am going to miss this crazy language!! And these amazing and loving people I have come to know and love so dearly! And the food and the nénis and the tacky stuff everywhere and the strange European styles and just everything about this place. My comp is awesome and helps me to try to be excited about going home instead of scared out of my mind. We are going to KILL it these last 6 weeks and i am so stinking excited about it! We have make a goal to be more courageous and talk to more people on the street and on transportation and to talk to all kinds of people! Not just the ones who look nice or nonthreatening 🙂 haha

Well, that’s about it for this week. I challenge you all to go back and read the last conference from October before the new one comes! I have really loved studying the conference talks more on my mission. I used to take them so for granted, but out here I have really learned how to study them and to take them and apply them to my life! It’s awesome to let them change you!! God loves you and so do I!!

xoxo,
Mason Nővér

Hello!

So this was the first week of the transfer, and it was perfect!!! I seriously love my new companion, Swenson Nővér, so stinking much. We haven’t stopped laughing yet and I am just happy happy happy.

So this week:

Wednesday: Transfer day!! Woohoo! It was so great. I got to see all my cute missionary friends and had the best first day with Swens. We just grocery shopped and got settled in and I showed her around our cute city. Also I got a package from my family and they just nailed it. I love you guys!!

Thursday: District meeting with the new district. I love them!!!! We are seriously going to have a perfect transfer. Couldn’t have thought of a better way to end my mission than with these fabulous people! Then we had angol óra and a lot of finding time. Woohoo!

Friday: MLC! (mission leadership council) that took up our whole day and my brain was FRIED by the end. Too much Hungarian, haha 🙂 but it was really good and I love all the people I get to serve with. They all just inspire me! I also got to see my MTC comp, Roche Nővér for the first time in over a year. She finally made it out into the field and there were so many happy tears when we saw each other and hugged!! It was a little taste of what it will be like to see my family again and it was so exciting. Love that girl.

Saturday: We got to meet with Magdi again. She took us to Starbucks and bought us some treats and we talked about her son and how happy she is that he found the church. It was so precious and we really see this going somewhere with her! So that is really exciting. Then we cleaned the branch house with a member, Gábor. He is so cool and bought us REAL AMERICAN DR PEPPER!!!!!! What the heck!! He is seriously so cool. And he took us out to Ikea for dinner after and I felt so close to Berlyn. Shout out to you!! Love you girl!!

Sunday: A great day at church! Swens loved the Americans and all the other members. I still feel so weird that church is translated into English here. I have never understood so much church for like a really stinking long time. So that was awesome! And then we just streeted around Heroes square and tracted and found a new investigator, Irén! she was so cute and we set up a time for next week. Excited to meet with her 🙂

So it was a really really great first week. We are going to just work so hard this transfer and I know it will be perfect in every way!!! Love you all and thinking of you often.

xoxo
Mason Nővér

Sziasztok!

So… this morning we got our transfer calls! This was my last transfer call, and to be honest I cried a little bit. I just can’t believe that tomorrow will be the first day of my last transfer as a missionary in Hungary!! How did the last year and a half go so fast? I don’t know. I really don’t understand how time moved so quickly and how soon this all will come to an end. So…for my last transfer I will be staying in Pest!! Woohoo!! and my new companion will be Swenson Nővér. She is the cutest thing and we have been dying to serve together ever since we met on instagram when we had our mission calls! She is only one group below be which is awesome. And also I was called to be a Sister Training Leader. Honestly that was super unexpected and I’m trying to get excited about it. I just feel really inadequate but I do have a testimony that God qualifies the called and doesn’t call the qualified. I think this will be a really awesome last transfer and I will for sure go out with a bang. Pest won’t even know what hit it when Swens and I tear it up!!

So for the rest of this week…

Tuesday: Valentines day. Which is a very special exciting day when you are a missionary. Haha just kidding. But it was a great day! We got to meet with Krisztián and we talked about the sacrament and being able to utilize the atonement weekly through that. It was super good! Then we had sportnap which is always fun. I love those people there!! They make me so happy. 🙂

Wednesday: Soooo we had to clean for cleaning checks and we decided it was the day to destroy the black mold that is ALL OVER our house. It is so gross and I really don’t like talking about it. But it had to go and so we bleached out the place (this really wasn’t a very healthy ordeal) and killed it all and we called it the Black Mold Massacre. And we got to meet with Dezső again which is always just a treat. Never know what’s going to come out of that crazy mans mouth hahah!!

Thursday: Last district meeting 🙁 and cleaning checks and angol óra and it was just an all around good normal day.

Friday: We went to the homeless shelter and this crazy lady like attacked us hahaha she was telling my companion that she doesn’t have her mind in the right place and that she is too worldly and I was just like, “WOAH LADY!!! get off her back!!!!!!” and that was that hahhaa! Then we grabbed some good old KFC for dinner, (it’s actually way better here) and then we had MCM and called it a night.

Saturday: A really good Saturday actually!! We got to meet with a less active we have been trying to contact the whole transfer!! That was really great. And then we got to meet with a new investigator, Edit. She was so cute and legit. I love nénis. Gonna miss those guys. then we got invited to one of the Americans for dinner! We had igazi breakfast burritos!!!!!!!! with BACON! and SALSA!!!!!!!! and smoothies and everything felt so right and we felt really at home for a sec. It was beautiful. Then we got to do some crafting with Sister Snyder. She helped us make some cute little cards and little gift pouch things and I felt like I was back at home crafting with my mom!!! So it was a great night with them. Love that family and the support we get from them!!!

Sunday: The last Sunday of the transfer. It’s always a rough one… saying goodbye is so hard! Especially when you don’t know if you are staying or going. We got to meet with Sára one last time before she moves to Germany which was great. And then we got to go visit Penn Testvér which is always a treat. And then we weekly planned and ate too many left over cookies from the Snyders. Good night 🙂

Monday: Black Monday. Always a pretty long day to be honest. Sister Hughes and I both had a stomach bug which made it ever more fun 🙂 We got to meet with Dezső again though and start preparing for transfers which was great!

So yesterday as we were teaching Dezső, I had the opportunity to share my testimony of the Book or Mormon. I have been taking my study of it a lot more seriously recently. I have always had a strong testimony of this church, and I have always believed that the Book of Mormon was true. But as I study it deeper and deeper, I can say that that belief is turning into a sure knowledge. I love that book! I know that every person that truly reads it and sincerely asks Heavenly Father if it is true will receive their answer. As I bore a simple testimony of that to Dezső, I realized just how cool this knowledge is. I looked at him, holding the book and with tears in my eyes, I promised him that it was the Word of God. That Jesus Christ lives, and that he visited the Americas. And that our church is truly his restored church on the earth today. I know that this is true!! And I am grateful for the opportunity that I have been blessed with to share my testimony of these things every single day.

I am really excited for this next transfer. Really sad how quickly it is coming to an end, but determined to make the best of every second! And praying so hard that God will help me fulfill my new calling as an STL diligently. And to live in each moment! I know this church is true and that God loves us. He is so good!

xoxo,
Mason Nővér

Hey there friends!

I feel like I don’t really have a ton to write this week, but I promise it was a really good one!

 

Tuesday: We got to meet with Krisztián and we talked about the Word of Wisdom. We were super nervous to see how he would take it, and we were so surprised when he had NO problem with it. He basically already lives it! He’s basically already a Mormon and he doesn’t even know it yet hehe 🙂 Then we went to meet with someone from the area book, and we got dogged. She wasn’t home and we were upset, so we went into the nearest grocery store to get a treat. And then we saw TIBOR!! He is my comp’s favorite investigator that stopped answering our calls and just kind of fell off the face of the earth. She froze and was like Mase… thats Tibor… and I was like GO TALK TO HIM!! We had been really praying to just run into him somewhere or see him one last time and we did! He said he was sorry about not answering the phone and that he is too busy with his new job. (He has the craziest story, no time to type it out but basically his wife died and his daughter kicked him out to live on the streets with only a backpack and a tiny bit of food. He lives at a homeless shelter now and works a ton of jobs for money to survive.) He said he would start paying better attention to our calls now though, which was so cool. We felt so blessed after that! We were so upset that our lesson fell through, but little did we know that if we had had that lesson we never would have seen Tibor. The Lord works in amazing ways! There are really no coincidences.

Wednesday: Um so we had a lesson with Dezső again and he pronounced his love for me. He kept saying how I am so beautiful and how he wished he was younger and Márta was laughing her head off and I couldn’t even look at Hughes Nővér because I knew we would both loose it. He turns to Hughes and says well you’re pretty too, but Mason Nővér just SHINES!!! and we lost it. So that was the funniest lesson ever. Grateful for Márta helping us pull the lesson back on track hahaha!

Thursday: District meeting! And angol óra! And thats all.

Friday: We went to do service at the homeless shelter but no one was there… so we tracted instead and headed to church for a missionary meeting. Then we got there and heard the meeting was cancelled. Sooooo we got dinner and tracted some more.

Saturday: I was super sick so we cleaned the house and did face masks and painted nails and read the scriptures and studied a lot of Hungarian and did weekly planning. Buli.

 

Sunday: A good day at church! We learned about Gordon B Hinckley’s positive outlook and learned how we can achieve the same thing. It was super good!! Then we went streeting at Heroes square (one of my very most favorite places ever) and tracted and all that fun stuff.

So this week was slow but good. I got a lot of awesome emails from you all this week! Thank you for all the love and support. I feel so close to you and that is really awesome for me. This week I was thinking a lot about how we can recognize answers to our prayers. I know that as we pray for more specific things, and as we intend more sincerely to act upon the answers we receive we will better be able to recognize the answers we are receiving. I think the key part is the intended action. Trust God! He is so good and He loves you a lot. 🙂

Have the best week!!

sok szeretettel,
Mason Nővér