Hermana Naegle: I'm still in Vallarta :)

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> Buenas Tardes!
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> Well lets see..... what happened this week.... This will be in order of what I remember first... so I'm starting with yesterday.
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> yesterday we had transfers. I'm still with la hermana Alarcòn cual is muy muy bueno! Nosotros dos estamos muy animadas! transfers were a little bitter sweet. We had an amazing district, super spiritual and we really learned so much from each other. It was sad to see two of the missionaries in our district leave but it's what is supposed to be. We had a fun little `''last supper'' yesterday when a family invited us all to come over for dinner. We watched a movie about Joseph Smith and we had a Carne Asada. Then we all said goodbye.
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> Well we have these two investigators Rodolfo and Eduardo. They've come to two baptisms and then they stay and play soccer after with the young men. But they will not come to church on Sunday! and every week they tell us that they will and then they don't answer their phones and they don't show up! We're rather bummed because if they don't come this time then we'll probably drop them. And we know that they feel the spirit because we've had some incredible lessons with them.
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> We have another investigator Se llama Daniel. He has potential. We gave him a book of mormon and a baptismal date and invited him to pray about our message. Its going to take some time with him but we did make some progress with him because he's not demanding us to show him every principle that we teach in his bible (which we of course love to do but it does take up a lot of time).
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> Those are our big three. We'll see how they progress. We have others but there isn't much to talk about with them.
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> I'mk super grateful for everyone of you and for the examples you have been for me in my life. I know that I'm supposed to be here far away from you all for this short year and a half. I can see the blessings from this service already and I've been awestruck by the incredible love our Saviour has for each one of us.
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> This past transfer was interesting. It was really good on so many levels, but it was also really bad on some others. I learned a lot. I learned that its never too late to re-start. Just make sure you re-start 1 more time than you mess-up. Those of you who are going through rough circumstances because of bad choices that you made don't give up hope. it's hard sometimes, but its possible if you rely on your Saviour and the Atonement. you probably don't feel like praying, for a million reasons, shame, guilt, fear, anger. just do it. Just pray. God already knows your faults, its not a surprise to him, all He wants is to help you but He can't do much unless you search Him out. He's the perfect psychiatrist because he already knows your problem and what you need. You just need to listen to His diagnosis and have the faith (the belief and the will to act) that its the best solution.
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> I love you all. I miss you and I pray for you!
> hasta luego!
> Hermana Naegle
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> PS I forgot we had interviews with the President. It ws really good. We talked a lot about humility.

Naegle Nover: Another week

> Well, all I can say is that what people told me about how on a mission the days are long but the weeks are short is coming true. There have been some weeks that went by really slowly but I think they are starting to speed up. This past week flew by.
> The highlight of the week was thanks to a woman named Margit. We had her name as someone who was baptized but hadn't been to church in a long time so last week we set out to find her. We found the house, and rang the doorbell and a woman came to the gate and let us in. "Wow," we thought. It is an awesome thing to be let into someone's home with zero hesitation on her part. We went in and she told us her story. She and her daughter were taught by missionaries a long time ago and her daughter eventually grew up and served a mission and just recently got married in the temple but lives in Utah with her husband who is American but served his mission in Hungary. Margit's husband never got baptized and Margit doesn't go to church because she works on Sundays a lot and she has to work because if she loses this job she feels she won't be able to get another job because she is older. We shared a message about faith and asked her to read Alma 32 in the Book of Mormon and we planned a time to come back. We've been back twice now, and the second time her husband was present and participated during the lesson. They were very nice but she didn't read and didn't really promise anything about coming to church and we were thinking that it would be a long time before we would get to see her come back to church. But then yesterday guess who showed up?? Margit!! We were sooo happy. It was like a big gift from Heavenly Father to be able to see her come to church. It was truly a miracle.
> Another cool thing that happened was that a church member who I don't know that well saw me rubbing my neck during Relief Society (I sleep on it funny so it gets all messed up) came up to me after church and asked me in English if she could give me a massage. I was stunned. Who does that?? It was basically the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I didn't even know how to react. I got to know her a little bit and I guess she served a mission in Temple Square and that's how she learned English. To be honest, I was really humbled by the whole thing. There I was, thinking that I was such a woe-beridden missionary, worrying about lessons and numbers and there was this lady who has kids and a busy life who noticed me and thought to do something nice for me just because she is a good person. I have a long way to go to become that Christ-like. I don't know if I was able to properly tell her thank you but I think it's worth mentioning whenever we notice people and do things for them, they don't forget it. You never know how your actions may affect other people. It was nice to get a quick neck massage, but it was even better to learn a lesson about being aware of the people around you. I was worried about getting lessons and meeting criteria and I forgot to remember that there were people all around me.
> I am very, very grateful for the opportunity that I have to learn these things and for the Atonement. Because of the Atonement I can change and become someone better. Because of the Atonement, it's okay that I've made mistakes because I can repent and try again. Everyone can. That is the best news I've ever heard of. People can change. People can grow. People can become completely new people because they live the gospel. And sometimes people mess up, stop living the gospel, and stay away for a really long time. But they can still come back, still change, still become clean. That's why I have hope.
> I hope you all have a wonderful week. Thank you for your prayers and support. They make a big difference.
> Sok szeretettel,
> Naegle nővér

Hermana Naegle

We didn't really celebrate Easter here I even kind of forgot about it until l looked at the calendar. We had a normal Sacrament meeting except that they had a bunch of the young men share their testimonies. It was really good.

Our convert Manuel received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday. They were all beaming afterwards. 

We have transfers coming up this next Sunday so we'll see what happens. Everyone thinks that I'll be training. that thought kind of scares me. But we'll see.

We have a few new investigators. Amalia, Daniel, Rodolfo, Rodrigo, and Josúe. they're all new of this week and they've all only had one lesson (although we're teaching Rodolfo today a little later, adn he came to the baptism on saturday! but he didn't come to church because he ''had plans'' which means that he went to the beach instead! arg the beach! ) 

I'll let you know how they progress next Monday when we've taught them all again. 

Well that's about all that happened this week, a lot of new investigators. 

Love you all! take care and READ YOUR SCRIPTURES! and if you're having a rough time pray for help. ESPECIALLY if you don't feel worthy to pray, that's when you need to pray the most. He's here and He loves you and wants to help you, but he can't if you don't open your heart to him. We all have our agency, He won't force you to be happy but He can help you.  

Hna. Naegle

Naegle Nover: Easter

I have learned a lot this past week. I am now with my third companion in the same area and I am realizing all the things I will need to be able to do in the near future. Something I didn't think about before I came on a mission was how many things a missionary has to be able to do besides just teach. We have to understand the transportation systems, how to find addresses, the culture and how to act in certain situations such as when there is a large sporting or political event going on, how to know if you are following all the right guidelines when it comes to working with members and less-active members. You have to balance your needs and wants with your companion's needs and wants and obviously the needs and wants of the people you work with as well. You have to keep track of time and stay on top of all your records and phone calls and groceries and things that go wrong with your apartment and laundry and so many things!! It's a whole life within a life!

My companion has been really great about challenging me to take a bigger part in all aspects of missionary work. Before, because I was in training, I sort of followed around a lot and tried to do my little part. But now I have to make phone calls all the time and make sure I know where we are, what we are doing, what we will do if our first plan doesn't work out, and I have to do my very best to know what is happening in programs so that I can write a record later. It's been harder, but also more rewarding. I am feeling more confident about my ability to get around, even though I am still not that great at the language, I can do a lot of things that I didn't think I could. I have had to make some changes, but I am excited about the future, and I am starting to be more comfortable with participating in lessons and leading out at times.

Easter was pretty much just another normal day for us. We went to church and then had some lessons and some finding. We celebrated by making pancakes and bacon and hashbrowns and eggs for our Easter dinner, but then we had to scarf it down to make it to a lesson in time. :) It was still really fun though. Sister Maxfield braided my hair really fancily with flowers and all the old ladies loved it.

Right now in the scriptures I am reading about Alma and Amulek and sometimes when I am feeling down, I think to myself that, wow, at least I don't have to watch the people I teach get burned alive. This tiny little mission I am serving is nothing compared to what the prophets in the Book of Mormon did. I am gaining an incredible appreciation for the scriptures and the words of living prophets. I know that they speak the truth and we can all be happier if we just follow their counsel, no matter how simple it may seem.

Take care and have an amazing week! Eat waffles and watch conference again just because you CAN!

Much Love,

Naegle nővér

P.S. Funny Hungarian thing. There are little bakeries everywhere, and I think they adapted the American hotdog into a pastry. I bought one once out of curiosity and it was pretty good. It was a hot dog baked into a pastry and it even had ketchup and mustard in it. So funny!

Hermana Naegle: photo of our baptism Saturday.

 I was having a rough time getting the photos to load so I'm only sending this one. Sorry I'll figure this camera thing out some day. 

Hermana Naegle: We had a baptism :)

Ok our family of Gold finally got baptised Saturday and Confirmed on Sunday! it was awesome! They were both crying and the Spirit was so strong! All three companerismos in our district baptised on Saturday there were 6 I think. Ours went first and then we were in the bathroom with Luz (our investigator) and mopping up all the water so I didn't get to see all of them. When they came to church they looked so good! Manuel bought a white shirt and the Elders donated a ton of ties to him. They looked like such a happy mormon family and you could almost see the Spirit!

Anyways thats my big news. We have a few new investigators. One is named Daniel. We taught him a spur of the moment lesson in the street (yes with a prayer and everything! I love praying in the street with people its really fun because of their reactions ) and we was super interested. We had an appointment with him but we didn't make for some reason - there's always random emergencies that come up. we stopped by his house yesterday and he's still super interested and we have another appointment with him on wednesday. 

We have a good ward but its not super strong. and we don't get lots of references. My goal is to get to know the members better because I feel pretty strongly that I'm going to be in charge here pretty soon and I still don't know alot of members. which is bad because this work DOES NOT function with out them. 

We get a lot of tourists in sacrament meeting and yesterday a family came in and the daughter got up and bore her testimony. It was her first sunday not being a missionary. She was super super nice. And wants to help us out while she's here on vacation with her family. They bought 8 copies of the Book of Mormon and wrote their testimonies in them and gave them to us to deliver to people who need them. She speaks really good spanish, apparently my face was in awe because Elder Gil kept making fun of me. 

anyways earlier this week not on saturday there was a baptism I think it was wednesday..... and an hour before the baptism the Elders asked if I could give the intermission talk. It freaked me out a little because I didn't have much time to plan anything and you know me I need to have everything in plans!  It turned out really good except... I said Juan el Bautismo which is to say John the baptism and not John the baptist. And then I couldn't remember the names of Peter James and John in spanish. It went something like this ''y Santiago....y....y.. Santiago....y....'' ''Pedro, Santiago y Juan.'' ''cómo?'' ''Pedro Santiago y Juan.'' '' Oh gracias... Pedro Santiago y Juan visitaron a José Smith......''   But I'm glad I did it because the next time will be less scary :) 

Our cracked tile got fixed on tuesday. the new tile is a different color than the old tile but now we aren't in danger of cutting our feet. And we had divisions or splits with our capacitadora on friday and we're having them again on tuesday. It was really good but the next one is going to be me and another American sister who has less time in the mission than I do and I'm in charge and its not even my area...... We'll see how that goes. :) 

Well love you all tons!

Hna. Naegle 

Naegle Növer: A Short One

Sorry that this one will be kind of short. My companion is hopping to leave so I need to be fast. And honestly this week hasn't been super eventful in the sense that anything really awesome happened. Lots of little good things happened, the kind of things that make it so you can get through the day.

When I first got to the country, my biggest hope was that even if my mission didn't get easier, I would at least have different trials and it's funny to think about the things that are hard right now and realize that they really are different from what they were at the beginning. So that's really cool. And Edit came to church which is so awesome. My new companion has lots of great ideas and we are starting to get to know the members and they are responding really well so I hope that we will be able to start working with them to get referrals and start teaching some people that already have friends in the church. 

One fun story is that yesterday we went to find the home of this family who we had streeted a few days ago. We finally found them and they let us in and listened to our message and fed us delicious fish soup. It was really good flavor-wise, but I am pretty sure I ate a fish brain and some other un-American-diet parts of fish. And a few fish bones. But I feel fine. It was a really cool lesson and they accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon and we are going back this week. 

Another cool thing is that my companion was making me do phone calls which is the worst because of Hungarian but then I got brave and tried to call two people all on my own out of my old planner that we had tried to contact a while ago with no success. No one picked up at first but then later they BOTH called back and were willing to meet. It was great. 

I want to thank everyone for how much support you give me, especially through prayer and email. I know there are missionaries who don't have that and it's really sad. I am so, so blessed to have so many great people in my life. I pray for you all the time. Take care and God bless!

Naegle nővér

Naegle Nover: I get to stay.

After several days of worry I finally found out this morning that I get to stay here in Kispest for this transfer. I am very relieved because there aren't enough sisters in Hungary to maintain all of the cities that are open to sisters and so if I were to leave that would mean that Kispest was being closed and we would have to hope that our investigators would be able to make it through the transition. I am so excited to continue to work with these people. They are amazing.

Yesterday I got to have a really cool experience. L... invited us to eat lunch at his apartment and it was the first time I had been back since we had tracted into him during one of my first weeks here back in January. To be honest, as we walked into the building it brought back a lot of unpleasant memories. Those first weeks of tracting big scary apartment buildings in winter and when I didn't understand a thing anyone was saying were terrifying. But it was really awesome to think that I was back there just a few months later eating lunch and happily chatting with someone who has now read half of the Book of Mormon, prays daily, and attends church weekly. We talked about General Conference, which he attended all sessions of. It was a tender mercy for me to realize that even though those first weeks were so hard, it was all worth it because the Lord lead us to someone to teach. 

We watched General Conference in the ward building in Hungarian. I tried to go into it with a good attitude but as the broadcast went on, I just felt frustrated because I didn't feel like I was getting any answers to the questions I brought because I couldn't understand anything. But the next day I shared with my companion some of the things I had just written down as personal thoughts that had come to me while I was just writing down what I thought were random things I was thinking about during conference and a couple of them were things that they had said in conference and I had no idea. So in the end it turned out to be a really cool experience. 

I am really grateful to be on a mission. I am grateful to all of you for your prayers and support. There are some days where I wake up and I don't want to be here and then I feel like the prayers of my family and friends are carrying me through and by the end of the day I feel so happy to be on a mission. 

Take care and appreciate Conference in your own language. It is a miracle that so many people can hear it in their own language, but if you know English you are very blessed because you can hear their actual voices. 

I love you all and miss you. 

Naegle nővér

Hermana Naegle: hello!

Well we got to watch conference in english which was awesome! because I got to understand everything. I did get to watch the session for the women in spanish which was cool, but I didn't understand anything hahaha the translators were from Spain I think and their accent is a lot different and they talk in vosotros which we don't use here in Mexico. well..... my brain is drawing a blank. I know that we did a lot of stuff this week nothing super interesting. except we were in hna. Orta's store and a regular customer came in and we talked to her but she didn't seem super interested, really nice but not interested and then hna. Orta bore her testimony about the book of mormon and the church and the importance of God in our lives and this women just changed and was super interested and asked us when we could come and visit her. It was really cool. and I learned some great lessons. 1. always testify 2. always testify of the book of mormon. 3. members are powerful! this work is impossible without them.

anyways I can't find my cord to my camera so it might be a while until send some pictures. I love u all and I pray for you and think about you, but i don't miss you :) 

Hey next month we get to call home if Josh gets his call before mothers day he should wait to open so Katelyn and I can listen too :) 

Les quiero!

Ash

Naegle Nover: E...'s story

So I didn't want to put this in the long email because I was afraid I was running out of time, but here is a really cool story that is happening right now. We teach an English class each week as a way to give service and try to find people to teach. One week a new girl showed up. She was totally glowing, and I could just tell by the way she smiled back at me when I smiled at her that we would teach her someday. Anyway, she has become a regular at English class, and she is actually pretty good at English, but she's not quite at the point where she could use it professionally.

We often offer to meet with people individually to teach 1/2 hr English and 1/2 hr gospel. A few weeks ago, Sister Curtin had the idea to go around during class and ask people individually if they would like to meet. It was a little different because usually we just send around a sign up sheet. When I got to E..., she was a little hesitant, but she said we could call her.  After class, I saw her talking to another girl that we already met with named Kriszti, and I'm pretty sure I overheard E... asking her about how it is to meet with us. I got really excited because we really wanted to teach her.

Later that week, when I called her, I asked her again if she would like to meet, and she said, with a big sigh as if she had been thinking about it and had finally made up her mind, "Sure. That would be great." So we set up to meet with her. 

In our very first lesson, she asked us tons of questions about Mormons and said that she had felt like she should come to English class but that she was nervous because she had heard all these bad things about Mormons. But then, she finally came, and when Sister Curtin said the opening prayer that day, she thanked Heavenly Father for helping everyone come and E... felt something during that prayer and felt like it was referring to her. Then she found out that this family whose blog she follows is a Mormon family and she couldn't believe it because they are so normal!! She commented on how happy we seemed all the time, etc. etc. and it was just really awesome in general. We gave her a Book of Mormon during that lesson and she was not only willing to say the closing prayer, but she specifically prayed that she would not be lazy in reading the Book of Mormon, which we hadn't even asked her to do yet!

The next lesson she told us about a lot of concerns that she has. Her coworkers and mother and friends persecute her for meeting with us. It's really sad. But she is so nice, and thanks us, and brings us treats! What?!! Anyway, we taught her the Restoration that time, but we told her we would teach her the Plan of Salvation the next time because it answers some of the questions and concerns she has about life. 

The next lesson we brought Kriszti, who we knew would be perfect for her because they are both completely glowing and kind and gorgeous! It was everything we had hoped and dreamed. The first thing E... did was ask us to see the baptismal font, and Kriszti was able to tell her about her baptism and answer a lot of her little concerns about it. We never even got to the Plan of Salvation because E... had sooo many questions that we could tell had just been building up. Kriszti was able to answer a lot of them and it was really cool to watch because Kriszti is a new convert herself. E... told us that she had decided to come to church that week, and she had looked in the Liahona to see how long of a skirt she needed to wear and went and bought a skirt to wear but she got sick and couldn't come. We were floored because we had challenged her to come to church before and she had said she wasn't ready for that. She didn't come yesterday because she was out of town at her parents', but we are praying really hard that she will come this weekend to conference. We think she will and we are soooo excited. Stay tuned for what happens. We are meeting with her on Tuesday.