Sister Hannah Schoendorfer in Hungary: My life in Budapest

This week went by so quick! We were really busy pretty much every day which is great! We are meeting with József again and had a great night at a member's house and an amazing lesson. The kids were so excited to have so much company over and were really fun to have around. We had a great split with the Pécs Sisters and did some singing finding! We went close to one of the metro stations and sang and played the ukulele and were able to talk to some really cool people about the gospel.

We also had the most amazing lesson with Csilla this week. I absolutely love her and I learn so much from her. I read Moroni 7 earlier in the week which we felt like was perfect to share with her and it was! That is an amazing chapter and it is really jam packed full of wonderful teachings. I love in verses 16-17 how it talks about the spirit of Christ. I thought it was interesting reading that and then thinking about our conscientiousness as human beings because that is truly what it is. Another point that I thought was amazing as I studied this chapter was the fact that so much of the Book of Mormon takes place before Christ came. Prophets and angels were sent to make the coming of Christ manifest to the people, which we also read about in Mosiah 3:13, during King Benjamin's speech, "and the Lord God hath sent his holy prophets among all the children of men, to declare these things to every kindred, nation, and tongue, that thereby whosoever should believe that Christ should come, the same might receive remission of their sins, and rejoice with exceedingly great joy, even as though he had already come among them." Christ came in the meridian of time. We are able to read in the Book of Mormon about a time that took place hundreds of years before Christ all the way through his coming and to hundreds of years after He came. I think it is such a testimony that the prophets, since the beginning of time, testified of Christ. From the time of Adam and Eve, a savior was needed and it was all a part of God's plan for us, His children.

Lately, we have been finding so many foreign people. Or should I saw, they have been finding us! We met with another guy this week who was from Africa. We got in contact with him the same week that his mother had just died and we were able to go over and talk about the plan of salvation with him and he said he felt so comforted. He is a very humble man with a lot of questions and we are excited to go see him again. We visited our new Nigerian friends again, Taylor and Ken, and they are doing great. They still have lots of questions and slowly, but surely, we are able to do our best in answering them, they said to come over whenever haha. They are both such positive people and love to learn about what we have to say. Also, I don't know if I mentioned her before, but there is a woman from Győr who I absolutely adore and her name is Johanna. I met her one day in Budapest when she was here taking a test and went out to lunch with Willets Nővér and myself (Willets found her when she was serving in Győr). Then, we were already planning on going on splits to Győr that day and so she drove us there! She is such a sweetheart and when we went to teach her the next day on splits, she made us burgers and had a cake for Willets Nővér's birthday! She is amazing. Anyway, the reason I'm talking about her is because she just decided to get baptized!! She asked me to play the organ for her and I am going to accompany her and Willets Nővér singing together. We are going to go on splits on the weekend of her baptism and I am so excited, she is such an amazing lady and I'm so grateful for splits to be able to meet such great people all over the country.

We ran into Melinda on the street the other night which is amazing! She is a less active who has been so busy lately and we haven't been able to get a hold of her. She has been having some hard times and she said that the day before she ran into us, she had prayed for the first time in a long time and that it was no coincidence that we ran into her. We had a great talk with her and are going to go on a walk with her tonight.

I had a rough experience tracting the other day with a really grumpy man who was being really quite rude to us about our beliefs, and criticizing the way we spoke Hungarian. This happens more than I wish it did, but for some reason I felt really hurt more than usual. We learn how to brush things off quick as missionaries because of these experiences but it still hurts, especially as you do get better at the language which means you can understand every rude thing they say to you. I thought to myself that it was easier as a new missionary, it hurts more when you can actually understand them! Anyway, my point of sharing this is that, after experiencing this for almost a year as a missionary, I have truly felt why missionary work is so hard to do a lot of the time. It goes back to what I learned from a talk by Elder Holland in the MTC. Missionary work isn't an easy experince because salvation is not a "cheap" experience. We need to expect to take a few steps towards calvary, and spend a few minutes in gethsemene because we are representing Jesus Christ, who suffered so much for us. We can't do what He did, we cannot. But, we are His missionaries, His disciples. Elder Holland said, "what type of disciples would we be if we didn't know some of the suffering Christ experienced?" I know that as we teach the gospel to others, we need to be strong for Christ who went through so much more for our happiness. We were at a member's house yesterday (Kriszti) who I am so grateful for because her words touched my heart and I know it was exactly what I needed to hear after having this experience. She talked about how we should always resemble Christ. We should be kind to everyone around us and love them because we never really know other's situations and what they have or are going through. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to bring this amazing message of the restored gospel to people here, even with the rough patches along the way.

We were able to see the Freiberg temple re-dedication yesterday and it was amazing!!! It was wonderful because Elder Bednar spoke in German (he served a mission there 40 years ago) and then Elder Uchtdorf also spoke (in his native tongue - German) and talked about how it is out of love that we learn languages. I love that! It was a really spiritual time and I was even able to sing in German which was really fun for me! It was really cool that it was a re-dedication because they talked about how we can personally "re-dedicate" ourselves. I know that is true and I am so grateful for this gospel and how we are able to consistently progress with Christ's help.

Have the best week!

Sok szeretettel, Schoendorfer Nővér