Hermana Naegle: Aug 25th

So since I played in church last sunday a member of the ward got me to teach her friend violin. It was an interesting experience. her name is Olga. She's listened to the missionaries before but she wasn't really interested. Mostly she just wants to learn to play the violin, but she's a kind of spoiled older lady who doesn't have much discipline so I don't think she'll actually learn. Although I did finally manage to get her to hold the violin right... Lets just say it was an interesting experience. But it all came to naught because she doesn't live in our area so we can't teach her... so I won't be giving any more violin lessons anytime soon.

Sunday my comp was going to speak, but the bishop forgot to put it into the program so they put her off until next sunday. She was happy about that. DId you know that I haven't given a talk in my mission? and I've been out for like 10 months! crazy! 

Jaime didn't come to church. He wasn't there when we stopped by for him. We lost Susana, she just doesn't understand and told me that right now isn't her time and a bunch of other crazy things. But I FOUGHT I fought hard for her soul but she just hardened her heart and refused to understand. Super sad. There's hope for her in the future because she really does like this church, she just needs time to understand how God works. 

I cried this week. I think it was thursday.... I don't remember. My companion had a huge headache and got really really really really irritable and rude. And I couldn't stand it so I went and cried. Then she felt bad and we made up... but its getting harder and harder with her. This week she got mad at me because I was reading, because I didn't de-ice the freezer (which is not a normal thing to do.....), because of pizza that she bought, because she got bored, and others that I don't care to remember. BUT I'm GRATEFUL! because I'm learning to be happy amid hard situations, because I know that I get to choose my eternal companion, and that I have family and friends who love me.  

well I love you all that was my week in a nutshell, but it contained all the interesting bits. 

Hermana Naegle

Naegle Nover: What a Week

Sooooo first of all, I'll start with the news. We got transfer calls this morning (it's actually still the middle of the current transfer but there are some missionaries going home so they had to shuffle us all around) and I will be leaving Érd (which is pronounced like "aired" in "We aired out the room." Sorry Grandma. :) I am being transferred to a city called Debrecen. I am going to be the senior companion in a trio with a sister who came last transfer and a sister who came at the beginning of this transfer, which means I will be finishing her training. I have heard good things about them both and I am excited to meet them and work with them. Everyone says Debrecen is really pretty, so that will be a change. Two other changes are that I have never served on that side of the country before and I have never taken anyone's place with a transfer before, since I have always opened. So- a lot of new challenges and blessings! 

But anyway, this has been a rather long week here in Érd. Our solid investigator Mihály, told us that he couldn't meet at all this week, so that was already a bad start. We seemed to have no work at all and I was really discouraged. We put a lot of effort into pulling out people from our area book to look up, and spent most of the day on Thursday trying to find them. Nobody answered except for one lady who exasperatedly told us that she had already told the missionaries that she is not interested in meeting anymore. It was hard to find all of the places and I have never had such little success with area book work before. That day (Thursday) was probably in the top three worst of my mission. I just felt completely depressed. I didn't want to work, I didn't even want to go grab a treat or go home or anything. I was just feeling hopeless. So, the next day, Friday, we determined that we were going to pray about where to go and then tract until we found someone. We set pretty high goals and my companion had the idea to make a point system for us to try to earn a certain number of points by doing different missionary things like streeting, tracting, ect. We worked really hard that day and not only exceeded our points, but exceeded our goals as well. We got two new investigators, and we also ended up streeting into this guy who said we could go to the branch house right then and teach him and then later came to church on Sunday and accepted a baptismal date. That Friday we were fasting as part of a zone fast and we ended up getting home and breaking our fast almost three hours later than we'd planned. We were dead but it was worth it and it was one of the best days of my mission.

Funny story, the guy we streeted that came to church is a little...eccentric and he told us a lot of stories about strange things that have happened to him that lead him to believe that Christ is with him. For example, seeing a figure 8 in the bottom of his pan when he was done cooking. When he came to church, he walked in a little late so I didn't notice until after Sacrament meeting what he was wearing. He had on jeans, a jean jacket, and underneath a t-shirt with a super awkward close-up shot of a hispanic boy on the left side of the front, and then a super catholic picture of Jesus on the right side. Underneath was a bunch of writing in Spanish. It is probably the ugliest t-shirt in the universe. I almost died because here we are in the middle of Hungary and this crazy guy shows up to a Mormon branch in a t-shirt designed by some very Catholic family in either Spain or central or south America as a memorial to this very weird looking kid who died (it's actually really sad) that he found in a second-hand shop after he met with us so he thinks it is this huge sign because it has Jesus on it and he doesn't seem to realize that it is a memorial shirt and he is telling all the branch members about it and none of them know what to say AND one of the elders here happens to be Mexican-American so he can read the Spanish and the whole thing was just hilarious.

In other news, my entire memory card got erased somehow when I was trying to print off some pictures. Luckily I have emailed home a lot, but it's still a little sad. Things are going well with my companion. I feel like during this transfer we became real friends so I am bummed we don't get longer together but I am excited to see what the future holds. The weather has changed and it has felt like fall the past few days, which means winter is coming up. So weird!! I am really grateful for my mission and that I got to have this experience in Érd, I have grown a lot and I know that Érd will be in good hands after I leave. Thanks for all your support and prayers.

Much Love,

Naegle nővér

Hermana Naegle: week 5 starts! today! (Aug. 18th)

Today is week five of this transfer. It has gone by so fast!

Well we put seven baptismal dates in one day. One was a family. the other was Jaime. he's pretty cool but we haven't been able to meet with him since our first lesson on friday so I'm hoping we get to see him soon because he didn't come to church and we need to get him a a book of mormon! 

We also had our zone conference. It was soooo good! I love listening to our president teach he does it so well. we also practiced how to ''planch'' people. Which is basically confounding them to where they can't give any more excuses for not being obedient to the commandments. He told us that we can't be lenient. Its either do it or not do it and we have to be super clear. we have to help them feel bad about sinning because if they don't feel bad if they don't feel the guilt or Godly sorrow they'll never make these necessary changes in their lives. like Ammon did with the Lamanites in the book of mormon. We have to help them realize that their salvation is literally on the line. 

we also talked about the Atonement. We started with the premortal life how all of us had some incredible faith before we came here. We talked about the GReat Council in Heaven. how lucifer presented his plan and tried to get us to follow him instead. How we knew that if Christ made one mistake we would all be lost and we would all become angels to a devil. How we knew that The devil would do ALL he could to get Christ to think one bad thought, to say one bad word, to commit one small transgression. That Christ would come to this earth with a veil as a baby and not remember anything from his premortal life or glory, how easy could it be for the devil to tempt him? 

how every bad thing we were going to do or that we had done he would have to suffer it. how every time we sin we make the atonement even harder. With all this we must of had great faith to come to this earth, to take upon us bodies to leave the presence of God and all our hope would be centered in the perfect life of One man. and if He failed we would all be lost. But He didn't fail. He was perfect. and we trusted and we had faith and we took the great leap which is to be born and we CAN be saved!

I can't quite express how powerful it was, but the Spirit was super strong.

Anyways I just want everyone to think about the incredible faith they had in the premortal life, because it must have taken some great faith to come to this earth. You are all stronger than you think. You all can do great things! don't give up seek His help.

If there's something I learned this week is that we have to rely day by day on Him. We must ask him to give us our ''daily bread'' everything is from Him. Everything. 

With much love!

Hermana Naegle

Naegle Nover: A Good Week (Aug. 18th)

Hello everyone,

This week was good. We met with a member family. We were kind of sad because we missed the right stop, so the wife had to come and pick us up and we felt really stupid. But they were nice about it and they fed us dinner and the lesson we prepared turned out well. We even made the kids little missionary name tags....because sisters do that kind of thing. I was really relieved when it was over though. I don't think I've ever prepared or worried that much about a lesson before. 

Another day we went to visit another family, this time one where the dad is not a member. We thought for sure nothing could go wrong. We gave ourselves plenty of time to check the bus and get there but when we went to wait for the bus we realized that it was Saturday and the bus schedule is different then. Then we also realized that our appointment was actually an hour earlier than we thought, so we were already late. I don't know what happened, I looked at my planner a million times that day. We were pretty upset about it. We had to call and tell them and then explain to them that no, the husband couldn't come pick us up in the car because there has to be another woman there, etc. etc. To make matters worse, the elders showed up to wait for a bus at the same stop so they saw us in all our embarrassing glory. But long story short, after a rather difficult hour of bus checking and map-looking (oh my comp. forgot her planner with the house number in it too), we found the house and they were also really nice and we had a great lesson with them. We were sad though because the dad didn't really seem that open and so we don't know what to do now. 

Earlier in the week we were waiting outside a store to meet up with an investigator (it never actually worked out) when a random guy came up to us and asked us who we were and what we did and we had a conversation with him abou t Jesus and when I asked him if he would like to meet he said yes. So we planned to meet at the same place the next day and he was there. We didn't have a place to meet so we ended up teaching out on the grass outside a rec center place nearby. It was a really good Restoration lesson and he seemed really open and said he would read and everything. We were so excited. We planned to meet with him today but when we showed up he wasn't there. So we went over to where we first met him and there he was. He was not doing so great I think and he had forgotten about our meeting. He said he couldn't leave so we told him we could teach him right there and he agreed. We taught him the Plan of Salvation but I am not sure how much got through. I'm not sure but I imagine the Plan of Salvation is even more exciting to learn about when you are high. So there went our miracle investigator. We planned to meet him on Saturday so we'll see. On the train home today I was just sitting there kind of feeling really discouraged and wondering why I was even here. My companion had fallen asleep and I was about to too when a man came up to us. I thought that maybe he wanted to sit down because there was room next to us but when I looked up at him to ask him if he needed a seat I realized that it was the dad from the part-member family we taught a few day ago!! He was actually happy to see us and chatted with us for a bit after we woke up enough to remember how to speak Hungarian. It was pretty awkward because we didn't have much to talk about but I am still really glad we ran into him. If nothing else it was a reminder that there are people here to work with and missionaries do find people like his wife who has been a member for nine years and reads the scriptures and says prayers with her kids every day. So I feel a little better now.

In other news, our other investigator moved back to Romania, the less-active lady I talked about last time called to cancel our appointment this week, we had some success with tracting but it was all old ladies who are sad that their families are dead but they don't really want to change so they don't let us come back, even though they thought it was really great talking with us. 

Mihály came to church. Yay!! But he can't meet this week. Nooo! So pretty much we're back to the drawing board. 

Things are good, this past week was our half-way mark so we celebrated a little bit. Can't believe there are just nine months to go!  Hope everything is going well for all of you. Take care and have a great week!

Naegle nővér

Hermana Naegle: hello (Aug. 11th)

The great news of the week is that we have a new investigator named Lola. she accepted a baptismal date and we hadn't even taught her anything. We were starting of with some points from ''how to begin teaching'' and I just asked her if she would follow the example of Christ and be baptised when she knew our message was true. her response was ''creo que si'' which means '' I think so.'' My comp and I were a little shocked and so my companion asked her again to make sure, and again she accepted. I think we asked her like five times because we were so stunned by how easily she accepted. then she asked us what she had to do to prepare so we explained all that. We decided to put a date on it for the 20th of september and she accepted. the only tough part was that she told us she would accompany us to church but she wasn't at home when we came by to pick her up.... so we'll work on that. 

the bad news is that my companion was accused of having a crush on our district leader so we ended up having a rather awkward district meeting about it..... 

this was a week of hamburgers and pig skin. I really don't like pig skin. Hamburgers are good though :) we ate hamburgers twice and pig skin thrice

I don't have much to say. on wednesday we have our zone conference. we're starting week four of this transfer. 

Oh we painted a house the other day. and today we went to a little ''forest'' to release stress and we climbed a tree.

Naegle Nover: Igen, Igen, Igen, Igen (Aug. 11)

The title of this email has nothing to do with anything. The word for yes in Hungarian is "igen" and one of the first memories of being in the country is my trainer on the phone with Hungarians saying "IgenIgenIgenIgen" three or five times times really fast like a lot of Hungarians do and I thought she was so cool. Now I say it all the time. It's one of my favorite things to say.

Anyway, this week was good. We had interviews with the mission president and his wife and it was a really good experience. We had our first couple of "dogs" (where you plan with someone and they don't show up) which wasn't the best experience. We had our first member present with our investigator Mihály and it went well. He couldn't come to church this week so that was kind of sad. This week we are planning to meet with two different member families and we are so nervous and excited! Neither of us really knows what to do but we are planning and praying for the best. One of the dads is not a member so he is our investigator and we are really excited to teach him. He's met with the missionaries in the past so we'll see what happens...

During the week we looked up an inactive member who turned out to be this super nice 65 year old lady. She was cool but she didn't even have a Book of Mormon and had never seen a Liahona before. And she lives literally two minutes away from the branch house! She could basically roll out of bed and into the branch house...if she could roll up the stairs. But she is sick and can't walk very well and she said she doesn't feel good in the mornings and she doesn't want everyone to see that she is lame. So it's kind of sad but we are going to try to set up some ward members to come over and help her out and see if they can make friends and help her come to church. Her husband was really nice and he is not a member so maybe we can teach him. Woohoo!

Another day we looked up an old investigator only to find some workers doing construction on the house. We talked to one of them for a while and ended up teaching him a lesson. He was pretty cool but he lives in Romania and just comes here to work during the week. He also tried to tell us that the word for devil in Romanian is "mormon". Pretty funny unless it's actually true. We set up to meet him this week but I doubt he will show up because of the way he didn't really ask about place and time when we planned over the phone. We are going to have a really good back-up plan that day.

Well those are some of the highlights from the week. Every day is a new adventure and it's all very exciting. I hope you are all having a great week and enjoying the sun and any trips you may happen to be on. Thank you for your prayers. You are all in mine.

Stay strong,

Sister Naegle

Hermana Naegle: August 4th

Well every day is a new challenge. mostly its a new challenge to bite my tongue and not say anything and smile and say ''si hermana.''  But I prayed to have charity and patience so I guess I asked for it :)

Well mostly we are searching for new investigators. We find them and then we find out that they don't really want to listen or change their lives. The biggest problem here in Mexico is immorality. The people here just don't get married. 

Susan is our star investigator. She's dropped coffee and is working on quitting smoking. But the devil is making it hard for her to come to church. She wants to but things just keep coming up. right now that's our biggest trial with her, getting her to church. but I'm feeling like things will start going up hill.

Well I don't have a lot of time today, so sorry this is so short but I love you all and I want to know that even though things are hard and press our patience they turn us into stronger better persons. 

Well, love you all!

Hermana Naegle

Naegle Nover: Sziasztok (Aug. 4th)

Hello again everyone,

This week was good. The program that I talked about last week? It went through! We met with him twice last week and he came to church yesterday, which is pretty amazing. We also visited some less-active members. One was super nice and we had a great time with her. We talked with her about reading the scriptures and going to church and she said, "I know, I know. I know what the spirit feels like and all of that. It's just that every time I say I'm going to come to church something comes up." So hopefully we will be able to help her come back. Another less-active however told us all about how we were being brainwashed and blackmailed (although she doesn't want to officially leave the church for some reason). I guess I've been on my mission long enough that it didn't really phase me and she finally got around to explaining her real issues which are basically the fact that she is too scared to keep the commandments and believes a bunch of false doctrine. By the end of the program we were able to explain a lot of things that she didn't understand and her demeanor had totally changed. But I don't think she will come back any time soon.

Another day we took the wrong train a couple of times trying to get to a program with a lady the elders gave us to teach. We ended up cancelling that day but met with her later in the week only to find out that she has been meeting with missionaries off and on for seven years but doesn't believe in God and isn't really interested in ever getting baptized. She was really nice though.

Another night we got followed home by a drunk girl who called her girlfriend and wanted us to ask her girlfriend to marry her in English (as well as some other not very nice things). Very awkward situation. We ended up leading her through some random streets until she finally went a different way from us and we could go home without being followed. 

Church was good. Everyone was really nice to our investigator and we are getting to know the members a little better. Funny story: We meet in the second story of a building which is being refinished on the outside and as we were having relief society a construction worker walked by the window and gave us a little fright and then a few more came and some of them took off their shirts. It was kind of distracting but we all had a good laugh and then we opted to hold the Sunday School class in a different room. 

A really nice member had us over for lunch this week. She made us fruit soup and these stuffed paprikas and meatballs and it was all delicious!! Probably the nicest food I have ever been served by anyone in Hungary. 

This week in English class I taught them how we use "I am going to" when we speak in future tense a lot more than we use "I will". No one teaches them this in school and they all really liked it except for one lady who was completely not getting it at all and so all the other Hungarians started talking all over each other to try to explain to her what was going on. And I just thought..."I'm going to kill her."

So, the bottom line is, we have one investigator but he is progressing. We are getting better at using the public transportation system. Church is easier for us to understand and I think I can finally say that I speak Hungarian. There are things I cannot understand still and it is hard for me to say everything that I want to say. But I can survive and get around and that is a big miracle. I felt like I should bare my testimony yesterday in church and I was able to go up there and say some of the things that I felt and it was a wonderful experience. Sister E and I talk about how we used to be in the MTC and couldn't say anything and it's really amazing to us that the Lord has helped us so much.

I hope you are having a great week. Take care! 

Naegle nővér

Hermana Naegle: La humildad y la caridad (July 28)

This week I have learned a lot about humility and charity. first I have had to bite my tongue like 100 times this past week with my companion and just let things slide by.... I have been praying to have the Spirit help me be humble and I have been so grateful to feel his influence help me just say ''Ok.'' and move on. I have also found that telling my companion that I love her has really helped! and today she actually told me that she really likes being my companion. that was a great victory! hopefully our good relationship continues. We had one close call on Thursday but we said a prayer and we smoothed everything over and we're good. I have also found that chatting about unimportant lighthearted things really distracts her from being grumpy and irritable... So I'm learning how to manage a new difficult companion and learn my area. The good wonderful news is that I'm actually super happy! I have felt  the Spirit more these past week than any other week in my mission. I'm so grateful for these hard circumstances because I get to see my progress. Its really a refiners fire. I was reading the Liahona today and I just felt so much love from the Saviour. I'm so humbled and grateful to have this opportunity to be a member of this church, that I was born into Zion, that I have an incredible family, and that I have a testimony of this gospel and latter day work.

Well I don't have much to report on with investigators. I still have to get to know them.. we had a rough time trying to find a house for the other sisters that we hardly had time top do any work... rather frustrating but its all over now and I can focus on our work. 

Thank you all for your prayers and your goodness. keep serving others and praying, and most importantly ATTENDING CHURCH! this week I also learned the great importance of attending church by studying the consequences of not attending church

 which all happen to be negative consequences like NOT having the Spirit to be with you, not having His protection, etc. I encourage you all to study the importance of the Sacrament and why the Lord has given us this commandment to ALWAYS remember Him. 

3 Nephi 18:11-13

11 And this shall ye always do to those who repent and are baptized in my name; and ye shall do it in remembrance of my blood, which I have shed for you, that ye may witness unto the Father that ye do always remember me. And if ye do always remember me ye shall have my Spirit to be with you.

 12 And I give unto you a commandment that ye shall do these things. And if ye shall always do these things blessed are ye, for ye are built upon my rock.

 13 But whoso among you shall do more or less than these are not built upon my rock, but are built upon a sandy foundation; and when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow,and beat upon them, they shall fall, and the gates of hell are readyopen to receive them.

The commandment is to ALWAYS participate of the sacrament. Not every other week or once a month, EVERY single Sunday. And the times when we don't participate in the Sacrament we SHALL (meaning its sure to happen without doubt) FALL and the GATES OF HELL are open to receive us. Thats rather frightening. So always always always attend church. there's never a good reason not to. If you are on vacation there are chapels in ALL parts of the world its really not that hard. and remember its for your own good and protection. 

I love you all!

Hermana Naegle

Naegle Nover: So it begins... (July 28)

Well the past few days have been probably the most stressful and intense of my life!! I am sure glad it is p-day!

On transfer day a senior couple drove us from the mission home with all our bags to Érd and showed us all around. They used to serve in Érd and we live in the house they used to live in while they were here. It was really nice to be with them for a few hours and I was really grateful for their help. I even asked for a priesthood blessing before they left and it was a big comfort to me.

The landlord is really nice and his mother, who lives behind us is super nice. (She also has two adorable puppies that we can play with whenever we want.) We went over to borrow eggs from her and she invited us right on in, had her son who speaks English talk with us and gave us some tök főzelék which was delicious! The people who live above us are also really nice, and even introduced themselves to us when we ran into them on the pathway. And the elders here are really nice and extremely helpful and considerate. We were also able to get a few telephone numbers in our first few hours of streeting so our first impression of Érd was pretty fantastic. 

It is really challenging because we are literally starting from scratch. We didn't even have a phone or an area book or anything. We had no supplies and the apartment didn't have everything that we needed. The people are different than in Pápa, so that's taking some getting used to. The area is HUGE. Just figuring out where we are or where to go and what train or what bus and what times we need is a battle all of itself. We both speak well enough, but it is different to be on our own. I am used to having someone next to me all the time who can understand so there's a lot of pressure to pay attention becuase if I miss something I can't be sure she understood. Between the two of us we can always work it out though. I think I will improve a lot this transfer by necessity. I have already had to make tons of phone calls and everything and it is getting a little easier (I always hated making phone calls, even in English.) Yesterday was church and I was soooo nervous but it ended up okay. At first the church members were really hard to understand and I just wanted to cry because I felt so inadequate but by the end I had gotten used to their voices and I could communicate with them just fine. They also probably figured out to talk a little slower and more simply. 

Tracting here isn't nearly as successful as in Pápa. Some people were mean, a few were nice, and one happened to be a nun. We rang the doorbell and she came out in full-out nun garb and I was like, "Oh, boy, this is awkward!" So I just brightly told her all about free English class. I guess if I had had more faith I could have gone for it and testified about the Restoration (I mean, the baptismal interview questions don't include "Have you ever been a nun?") but I was tired and just wanted to move on. For the record, she was really nice. 

Tomorrow we have our first real teaching program set up with an older man from the street. I approached him and started talking with him and asked him if he believed in God, to which he said no. We kept talking and then he started complaining about something and I didn't the brain power to keep trying to understand so I just waited for him to pause and asked, "Do you think that if there was a god, He could help?". I expected him to just keep rambling, but he stopped, sighed, and then answered "yes." I then asked him if he would like to meet and he said he would and gave us his number!! I thought for sure it wouldn't pan out and I was worried about understanding him on the phone but when I called I could understand really clearly and he still wanted to meet! So our first number and our first program. I am praying that it goes through. 

So that's about it. It's been super intense trying to work really hard to make up for the time we lost due to transfers and trying to figure everything out. I hope it will get easier as we start to get used to things and get all the details of everything worked out. 

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer and enjoying the break. 

Lots of love,

Naegle nővér