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Hello to all my fans!!

Hope you are all well. We had a great week!

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Monday: For pday we had a fun game night and ate snacks and had a fun time. Also we got meowed at on the street by some creepy middle aged men. Just a day in the life of a sister missionary I guess…

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Tuesday: We talked to Krisztián about sincere prayer. He is still prying about a bap date but doesn’t feel like hes gotten an answer. Praying really hard with and for him! Then we got to go to the homeless shelter. They asked us to start teaching them English lessons! So that is really fun. I’m learning a lot of patience out here hahaha! Then we got to meet with Dezső again… he still thinks we’re the JWs but it’s all good in the hood. Then sportnap! But I was feeling really sick so I just sat and did language study while everyone else played basketball.

Wednesday: We had a Vác day!! It is a really cute little city about Budapest. We got a referral for someone there, and long story short someone tried to play a joke and sent us to this guy’s house and he was not very happy with us and creeped out that we knew all of his information. Awkward. Hahah he was yelling at us saying IS THIS SOME KIND OF JOKE!? and I was like “Uhhh no, this gospel is very real hahah!”

Thursday: District meeting, a lesson with Margit, and angol óra. The usual Thursday.

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Friday: Another day at the homeless shelter and then we went on splits! I got to go with McGregor Nővér again which was really fun. Love her. I had a dr appointment and then we made some dinner and tracted all night 🙂

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Saturday: McGregor and I got to go work at the homeless shelter in Kispest and it was the funniest day of my life. We made them tea and coffee and really gross looking sandwiches. They were all pretty creepy and talking about my eyes and saying they want to take me out once my shift is over and I just laughed and tried not to look at anyone in the face hahaha again, the life of sister missionaries… Then we got to go translate a youth party for the Americans! It was donut themed and SO CUTE!! and so fun. Seriously looking at the youth here is the coolest thing. It’s just like the activities in America! Then when we came in for the night I made some chocolate chip cookies, and even though I couldn’t eat them it was very fun and my companion and the elders lucked out haha!

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Sunday: Actually a very boring day… church and weekly planning and tracting. The usual.

So this week wasn’t too exciting but I am still feeling happy! And so blessed to be here. I have found so much joy in looking for a miracle in every day of my life. God is so real!! I hope you all know that and can feel His presence in your lives. If you don’t, just pray and ask if He’s there. I know He is and I know that He will answer! 🙂 Love you all lots, thinking of you and praying for you always.

xoxo,
Mason Nővér

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Heysztok!

What’s up?? Hope everyone is happy and healthy. I don’t have a lot of time this week! but…

Tuesday: We met with Krisztián and he committed to pray about a bap date!! Woohoo!!!!!! And we got to do service at the homeless shelter. We were assigned to clean the grossest clothing storage closet I have ever seen. They told us to organize it and be done in 2 hours. Ummm impossible. But we did it!!! I don’t want to talk about the amount of used underwear and other yucky things I had to touch though. Haha! Then we got to meet with HERNAN! My fave. And we met his family at the end of the lesson and it was great.

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Wednesday: We got to meet with Dezső and he still thought we were the JWs – hahaha – and we taught a lady we met with on splits too which was great! And then we had a worldwide mission broadcast!! They changed the whole daily schedule! And we don’t count like any numbers anymore. WHAT!? We don’t count lessons or investigators or tracting or anything. I feel a huge weight lifted! Everyone knows that the numbers don’t show how much work you put in, but its still really stressful when we work every second in a week and then have to turn in bad numbers and get calls about it. SO STOKED ON THIS! hahaDSCN5453

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Thursday: District meeting and a lesson with Dezső and Hajni and then Angol Ora! Typical Thursday.

Friday: We did service again and this time they set up a cute thing in the little library for us to talk to everyone about what America is like! And the conversation kind of turned into what we are doing here and what we believe! 6 people begged us to take them Book of Mormons next time we come, and one of them was a worker! And a lady came up afterwards and she told us she was baptized in 92 and became homeless and has been inactive since like 2000 and it was a miracle that we met her! We invited her back to church. So excited to go back and talk to all these amazing people again!! Then we met with Ibolyya and Hajni came with us. We talked about baptism and she didn’t really like it… so we will see what happens with that. She said she would pray about it this week though!

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Saturday: I died of sickness. I don’t know what happened but I kinda wanted to die. But I didn’t die and now here I am. So that’s good news 🙂 We had a super cute talent show for the branch and they were all so awesome! We heard the flute, the piano, some poems and other cool stuff! And our district did a midget dance and it was the funniest thing ever. 🙂

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Sunday: After church we got to meet with Sára. I LOVE THIS GIRL!! Super sad that she is moving to Germany in a few weeks… 🙁 then we got to see Penn Testvér which was AWESOME!!! MY FAVORITE PERSON!! He is so lonely but still stays so happy and positive. Inspiration.

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So great week! I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to use the atonement in our lives. Especially with my sickness, I have been thinking about what it means to turn to him and to leave my trials at his feet. I don’t really have a good answer as to how that should be done, so if anyone has any cool insight let me know. I have just found a lot of comfort through the scriptures and prayer and reading conference talks and listening to hymns. Even if I can’t make myself feel healthy through those things I can help myself to be filled with the spirit so I can feel closer to Heavenly Father. And that is something that helps me get through the day to day life as a missionary. I am trying to accept that we might not know the reasons for things, but that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t have a perfect reason for everything. It is sometimes hard to have faith in that, especially when you think about your trial and cannot see any way that it could make you stronger. BUT I know that as we try to exercise our faith, especially when we don’t want to, or it seems too hard, we will be blessed. We will see the hand of God in our lives and feel His love more abundantly.

“Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier.”  – President Monson. I have a strong testimony of this!

I love you all a lot!! I hope you can find a way to exercise your faith because I know you will be blessed. Have the happiest of weeks!!

xoxo

Mason Nővér

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Hey hey hey!

Hope you’re all doing well. Is it just me or is every week getting better and better and faster and faster???

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Monday: After emailing we took a district walk down the Duna and we went to the AMERICAN STORE!! Ya that’s right… they have Reeses and Betty Crocker frosting and Lucky Charms and marshmallows and PEANUT BUTTER!!!!! and everything else good in this world. Too bad I can’t eat any of that 🙁 but it was fun to feel at home for a sec 🙂

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Tuesday: We got to meet with Krisztián! He was in a car accident. He is okay though. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and why it is important that we are familiar with it. It was so awesome! He is really progressing a lot. Then we went to tech the last lesson to Hajni. It went super well too! LOVE that girl!! Then we taught Dezső 🙂 He is the coolest haha well were pretty sure he’s not all there but he is so fun to teach!! and he is progressing too! Then we had sportnap which was super fun. I honestly don’t really like basketball, but its fun for my companion so I am happy to go.

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Wednesday: We went to the homeless shelter to pick out our regular service hours and then District meeting! Love this district. Then we taught Hajni’s friend, Dezső. It was an interesting lesson… I guess we will just have to see what happens with that. Then we went tracting and got locked in the weirdest building ever! Everyone was yelling at us and staring at us out their windows, and somehow we were locked inside the gate!! I had to be super brave and knock on this guys door who had just slammed it in our face to ask if he could help us get out. It was super awkward and he was really annoyed but he let us out haha!

Thursday: Zone conference! It was about teaching repentance and giving solid commitments. So grateful for such cool zone leaders, APs, STLs and Mission President. We just feel their love so much and its really awesome! we had a separate sister’s meeting where we talked a little bit about mental health and it was super awesome. So good to see that I’m not alone in feeling discouraged sometimes. I feel so supported by all of them! Love it 🙂 Then we had English class and we took the metro home with a member, but the doors closed right in front of him as we got on the metro and it was so sad to just drive away and see his sad face haha! We waited at the next stop though.DSCN5326

Friday: The most miraculous day ever probably. I wish I had more time to write this all out! A little summary will have to do for now. We were on the way to the hivatal for Hughes, and this man is staring at our name tags. He finally asked if we were from America, and then asked if we knew who the sender of a text message on his phone was. It was from our AP Elder Heaps!! iIt was an invitation to church, but the man didn’t know Hungarian. He got off the villamos, and we didn’t have time to get his name or number but we told him to call Heaps back!! Later that day we were in the metro and we saw him!! Or at least we thought it was him. We were like hey did we talk with you earlier?? and he was like umm… no? And it was super awkward because it totally wasn’t him. Then he was like wait are you Mormons? I talked with a few of you a couple days ago and I want to meet!! What the heck??? So we got his name and number and it was kind of a miracle!! Then we had splits and Sister Cribbs and I went tracting in a new area. Long story short we met this man named Hernan who was taught by the missionaries 14 years ago in Paraguay, moved to Hungary and BROUGHT HIS TWO TRIPLES WITH HIM!! And had them front and center on his bookshelf and he said he had been wanting to find us and he watches Mormon messages all the time on youtube and even watched President Hinckley on Larry King live!! ahahah!!! But literally that was probably the biggest miracle find of my entire mission!!!!!! We cannot wait to meet with him again TOMORROW!!! ahhhhhhh

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Saturday: Finished splits and did some weekly planning!

Sunday: Church was so good. There was an amazing talk about the little things and how so many people make excuses about not having time for them. He said that is so stupid and that if you want to make time to keep the commandments and pray and read from the scriptures as a family that God will make time for you. So true! And so awesome! We also got to translate Young Womens… it was so stinking cute. We stood up and said the purpose in Hungarian and in English and I was tearing up so bad because I just think it is so cool that the Young Women all over the world are so united in purpose! How amazing is that! and God loves each of them individually. I hope they can all feel that.DSCN5312

So basically this week was so amazing and so busy. So busy that we didn’t even have time to eat dinner this week! But I’m not complaining. I love this work! The church is so true. If I need to skip some dinners to help people come closer to Christ I will do that. I was thinking about it this week, wondering how much I would be willing to sacrifice for my Savior. I hope that if I was presented with an opportunity to sacrifice something large for him I would be able to do it with faith. Working on getting there, and truly feeling the love of my Heavenly Father while doing it. Also, focus on the little things this week! Pray sincerely, read from the Book of Mormon, be a little kinder, give a little more, love a little better. You will see people through the Savior’s eyes if you would just do these little things. How stinking cool is that? To be able to see people for who they are, sons and daughters of God! How much potential do they have??

Have the best week! Thinking of you and loving you and praying for you always. <3

sok szeretettel,
Mason Nővér

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Sziasztok!

Hope everyone had as good of a week as I did!

Monday: We got dinner at Ikea and played basketball and volleyball for our Pday fun!

Tuesday: We got to meet with Hajni again. She is so great. She has been coming to church again!! And reading and praying every day. It makes me so happy to see her in church and progressing and renewing her covenants. This is what its all about 🙂 Then I made a big pot of my favorite white chicken chili for dinner and it felt just like I was at home 🙂

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Wednesday: Me and Hughes Nővér were both really sick all day… so that wasn’t too fun. We got to go visit a less active family, the Takácsék. There is so much less active work here which is my favorite!! Its super fun:) We just shared a quick spiritual thought and invited them to church. They said they are too lazy on Sunday morning to get up and go into the cold in skirts and make the hour long journey to church. We promised them so many blessings, so we will see if they come this week 🙂 They made us a delicious meal, zöldség leves (begetable soup) and töltött káposzta (MY FAVORITE HUNGARIAN MEAL!! its stuffed cabbage. SO stinking good.) There was definitely something in there my tummy didn’t like though because I was really sick all day after that. It was definitely worth it though 🙂 We also got to teach Ibolya again which was great. We talked about the restoration with her which was good. We are just concerned that she doesn’t have a lot of questions… but at least she listens and does what we ask her to do! she just needs to start coming to church.

Thursday: We got dogged sadly. I hate it when that happens, but we just make the best of it. It had snowed a bunch this week, so we just took some snow selfies to spice up the extra tracting time haha! Then the elders decided it was Mason appreciation day so they brought me some presents to district meeting. A bag of rice, a drawing and name poem, and an onion plant because I love succulents and that was the closest thing they could find haha!! District meeting was about staying positive while finding which was much needed. Then angol óra ( the most interesting people come to that so its super fun), and then when we got home I turned on the faucet and it totally fell out of the wall!! Why do I break every sink that ever existed in Hungary!?!? We got it fixed though so don’t worry haha!

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Friday: We tracted for like 4 straight hours so some more snow selfies were taken. We went tracting right by the Duna which was so cool because it’s been so cold that there are huge chunks of ice floating down it. So beautiful! While we were tracting a néni came out and totally yelled at me because I didn’t ring her csengő the right way. Weird haha then we got to meet with our recent convert, Viola. She is so cute and always gives us so much food to take home. She even made me my own little bag of fruit to take home! SO sweet. We are almost done teaching all of the lessons to her again which is really sad because that means that soon we will have to hand her over to the elders 🙁

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Saturday: We got to go meet with Angéla and Zoltán, another less active family. They are so cool. She is really sick with some disease I don’t know what its called, but she still loves the church and reads and prays every day and holds family night every week, but she is just too sick to come to church. He is kind of angry with God right now because he doesn’t feel like his prayers are being answered with his wife’s sickness. It is really sad actually. So we talked about hope and tried to help him understand what it means to have hope in Jesus Christ. Then we went tracting and we decided to get off the metro at a random stop we had never been to and tract a random building there. Someone accidentally let us into the building but they weren’t actually interested. So we decided that since we were already in the building we would just tract the rest from the inside. Then a man came out and told us to go away. I tried to talk to him a little and he was just like I don’t want to talk to you, I cant understand your Hungarian. I cant help you. Why do you speak so badly? And I just told him we aren’t looking for any help, that we were just there to talk to people about Jesus Christ. And I asked if we could come in and share a message and he was like uhhh I guess that’s fine. And now he is a new investigator! Haha funniest let in but I think it was really a miracle find 🙂

Sunday: It was yellow day! haha my comp and her family made up this holiday a few years ago and we celebrate by eating yellow food and wearing yellow clothes! It’s super cute. Also the elders surprised us with presents at church. Hughes got a giant stuffed toothbrush because she is OBSESSED with teeth, and I got a stuffed pig because I am weirdly obsessed with tiny pigs lately!! hahaha weirdest and funniest day ever. Then after church we got to go visit another new investigator, Szabolcs. He is so rendes! and Hajni even came to be our member present!! It was the coolest thing! He had done a ton of research on the Mormons and had a bunch of hard questions but was very respectful and kind with the answers we gave! hoping we get to go visit him again soon. 🙂

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Randoms:

Just a warning… ice is slippery to walk on. Don’t fall. And no I’m not speaking from experience…

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I had a little freak out because I have been HORRIBLE at journaling on my mission, so this week I decided to change. I caught up from January 1st and decided to not miss a day for the rest of the year! I’m really excited about it. Pretty upset I don’t have more from my mission, but its never too late to start 🙂

Well that’s about it for this week. I hope you are all feeling God’s love and seeing his hand in your life. I have felt so close to my Heavenly Father lately and that is the best feeling ever!! That’s why I am here, to help other people feel this closeness with heaven. It makes the hard times easier and the good times sweeter. I love being a missionary. I have never done something more rewarding in my entire life, and I don’t know that I will ever do something that brings me so much happiness again! I am so grateful for this opportunity and for my many answered prayers. I am so grateful God has kept me just healthy enough to be able to stay here on my mission. It hasn’t been easy but it has been the best experience of my life, easily!!

Have the best week!!

xoxo,
Mason Nővér

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Hello!!! Feeling so stinking blessed this week. I am so so happy and loving every minute of being a missionary. Today is my 13 month mark and that just makes me so emotional. Honestly this is the best decision I have ever made and I wouldn’t change it for anything!!

We had the best week ever basically 🙂

Monday: We got to go ice skating!!!! At night in front of a lit up castle. Dang I love this city you guys!! We had so much fun and were laughing the whole time and I never even fell 🙂 Also miracle because our water heater and heater got fixed so we weren’t freezing inside all week and that made for a very happy and warm Sister Mason.

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Tuesday: I got the airport call. It was a dreaded day haha. It’s just when the office calls and asks what airport you would like to fly into when you go home and I just started to cry thinking about getting flight plans and leaving my perfect country and so I decided to just not think about that and it was better after that. We went to see if we could get service opportunities at a homeless shelter and we got to go to sport nap and play basketball with investigators all night. Buli!!

Wednesday: We got to go out to visit a member, Zsuzsi. She is basically my favorite person ever and I wish I had more emailing time so that I could tell you all her story, but sadly I don’t. Just know she is the strongest coolest member and she makes delicious taco salad!

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Thursday: We had a great district meeting about prayer and how we can be more sincere, and then a great Angol Ora where we talked about New Years resolutions. It made me a little sad, because a lot of them were just talking about how they don’t have goals, things can’t change, so why even try. I was like WOAH PEOPLE!! Be happy!! Make goals!! You can change!! These people are just kind of stuck in this dark mindset and it makes me sad every day to see that they don’t want a happier life. But I love them with my whole heart anyways and try my best to brighten up their days 🙂

Friday: We got to go on splits!! This time I went with Sister McGregor. We had a blast. We got lost a few times because I have no idea how to get around this ginormous city… but we made it out alive and met a really cool lady named Kati while tracting. We get o go back and teach her this week and we are super excited about that. We had fun changing a light bulb and having a photo shoot about it that night after planning hahaha!

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Saturday: More fun with splits! We streeted around a square with lots of people and talked to a bunch of them. No one really listened but I always feel successful if I at least try and give them an opportunity to hear what we are all about. Then we got to go teach our investigator, Ibolya. I hadn’t met her yet because of the holidays, but she was super cool! She’s been investigating for 3 years… and she hadn’t even been taught the Plan of Salvation yet!! So we talked a lot about that. It’s one of my favorite lessons to teach because it just strengthens my testimony of God’s plan for his children every time. Love it.

Sunday: Best Sunday ever!! Again I wish I had more time to type… but long story short we had a new investigator, Donát, in church, and a random girl Sára walked into church and said she wanted to know what we were all about! We sat next to her through church and got to teach her a quick lesson afterwards. We are meeting again next week and we are really excited about her. Then Zsuzsi bore the sweetest testimony in sacrament and gave us a shout out 🙂 Tears of happiness haha and then we got to go visit the coolest guy ever. The elders just told us an address we needed to go to after church that was a 30 min train ride away. We were super confused about it and had no idea who in the world we were going to visit and why, but we went along with it. So we get there, and there is a néni. We talk to her for a while and ask about her and find out she is an inactive member. She took us into a room with an old bácsi sitting on the couch, and she told us to talk with him. We started to ask him about himself but then we realized he didn’t speak Hungarian, only English! He is from England and he married a Hungarian so they moved back to Hungary. He is very very old and is confined to a chair all day and cannot do anything for himself. His wife died three years ago, and he has been living with this inactive member ever since. She is now his caretaker since he can’t do anything, and we were just there to be his friend for an hour or so. He was the coolest man I have ever met. I didn’t ever want to leave! He was telling us his conversion story and how much he loved his wife and all of his callings… and how he loves missionaries and wishes he could get out of his chair. It is really hard for him because he lives in a house with people who speak no English. He is so lonely and can’t communicate with anybody!!! We are going to go back twice a month to chat with him because he really needs some love. We love Brother Pen!!

Fun fact. I don’t know if you guys know about the creepy hand thing, but basically they have the hand of Szent István like in this glass case in the huge Basilica here. I got to see it this week. And almost threw up because it was a disgusting dead person hand. But it was cool and I thought you would all like to know that.

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Also I have never been so cold in my life. I cried on Saturday because I was so cold and I didn’t like it and then the tear froze on my face and I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to cry because it just ended up making me colder hahaha!

So this week was great! Feeling to thankful for this opportunity that I have been given to be a missionary. Sometimes in my life I have worried that I am not doing my best, or that I could have worked harder or been better at something. But this week, Zsuzsi told us that she truly believes that if we are trying our best to be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing, then God will truly bless us. I know that as we strive to do the Lord’s will for us we will be blessed with immeasurable happiness and who wouldn’t want that?? Make good choices and you will be happy 🙂

Have a very happy week!!

sok szeretettel,
Mason Nővér

 

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