Monday, September 23, 2013

Sopron- Week 4

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a good week. Time is really just cruising by out here, and this past week really went by super fast!

Last week we did lots and lots of finding and teaching new investigators. We met with one man who is originally from Peru, and he speaks both Hungarian and Spanish. He is super humble, and he has a family here in Sopron. We met with him last week and got to know him. When he asked him if he was religious or anything, suddenly he just exploded! He knew everything about Joseph Smith, he knew everything about the Book of Mormon. Literally, we just sat there stunned as he said that it made sense that the Book of Mormon was from God, and that Joseph Smith had to be a prophet. Super crazy! So, Elder Becker went ahead and asked him if he had heard about the ordinance of baptism. He said he hadn't. He told him about it, and then he asked if he would be baptized on October 26th. He said of course. It was such a great program and we were so grateful for the Lord blessing us with finding him!

We also keep finding success with tabling. Last week, I tabled a nice looking lady walking by and started to talk about the Book of Mormon with her. I realized, too late, that she was a Jehovah Witness as she smirked and slowly withdrew her "little blue Bible" from her purse. We proceeded to "lightly" Bible bash. When I realized we weren't really going anywhere, I asked her about her family and what she thought about them. She said that she actually had a health condition with her heart, but because of it she was able to spend more time with her family. We talked about that, and it was great how the Spirit came back. Her countenance changed as I talked about familys and about Heavenly Father. She gave me her number and said she'd like to talk about "the Bible and the family, nothing else". Sooooo, I guess we'll see how it goes. :)

The weather has been continually cooling down and the fall foliage is beginning to come into the city and the "mountains" surrounding it (I say "mountains", because they are really just large hills). We also had the opportunity to go to the city of Szombathely on Sunday for district conference, which was about 45 minutes to the south of Sopron by train. The city is gorgeous and we were able to hear from the District presidency and from President and Sister Smith. The talks were great! They brought a great spiritual boost to me. 

Spiritual moment of the week: Missionaries aren't perfect. 
We had a day where literally we had six hours straight of finding. We decided to just do some streeting and tabling to balance it out. I let thoughts that maybe weren't the happiest come into my mind, amid a continuous string of rejections on the street and by the table. With all of this (for lack of better words) crap building up on my heart, I felt very discouraged. My mother had instilled in my heart a love of prayer since I was young, and I sent a small, simple prayer towards heaven asking for help. There was no angel that appeared to me buoying me up or anything like that. But as we kept walking, I saw a kid walking home from school. His body shape, his stride, the way he held his head and stuck out his chest, the way he was making explosions to himself as he imagined some war scene going on in his head, the way he had a little jump in his stride. I saw all of this. In that instant that I saw him, he reminded me of my brother Vincent, whom I haven't seen for several months. I didn't feel homesick though, I felt happy. I was so proud to be setting an example for my brothers, and the day got a little bit lighter as I thought that. Literally just around the corner, a lady ran across the street towards us and asked for a pamphlet to read. These things don't just happen. God is in every aspect of our lives, I can so testify of that. Because He is in every aspect, He knows what we love, what we cherish, what we fear. He won't overwhelm us, and sometimes we just need that boy, who doesn't even know his impact he left on me, to walk past on the street. 

"Hope on. Journey on....because all things are possible to those that believe."
-Jeffrey R. Holland

Have a fanastic week everyone! Pray for the Hungarians! 
Sok Szeretettel,
Giacalone elder

1 comment:

  1. My favorite letter of all! What an awesome boy you raised!!! And yes I cried reading it!

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