Naegle Nover: Debrah Red Cents

Debrecen is pronounced Deb (as in Debrah) -re (as in red) -cen as in (cents). There you go Grandma. :) Not too hard to pronounce, I think.

This week was good. We met with Ben at the branch house which was good because his mom wasn't there. I really like his mom but she is already set in her religion and we can focus more on Ben's needs without her taking over when she's not there. He also came to a branch activity and loved it.
Konrad is doing okay but he started telling us that when he was younger he was sent to a hospital for mentally ill people and they performed electric shock therapy on him. It's hard with him because even though on the one hand it's amazing that he has quit smoking and has been clean for a couple weeks now on the other hand we're just not certain how much he is really all there. So he needs a lot of prayers and the Atonement to help him.

Our other investigator with a baptismal date dogged his lesson because he went out drinking with his friends or something. We are sad because he wants to be baptized but he doesn't want to give up some things like drinking. He did come to church the next day though so that's good.
We started teaching a really cool Nigerian guy who has a problem with the Christian world because he believes that there should only be one Christian church and that the Bible has some translation errors. We taught him the Restoration and he said he would read out of the Book of Mormon so we are really looking forward to teaching him again this week. We taught him at a park in a light rain because he says he won't go into a church. It was a fun. It is different teaching in English. I have never taught in English so much before. We teach a lot of Nigerians and Asians who come here for school so we teach in English a lot. Not to mention the Hungarian people the we help teach English. It's been a different experience. There are pros and cons. When you teach in Hungarian you have to keep it all very simple and pure and rely on the spirit to help. When you teach in English you have the ability to explain more clearly and say exactly what you want but you still have to rely on the spirit to help you pick what to say. I am grateful for the experience of both.
We went to look up an old investigator this week but when we got there no one answered so we rang the doorbell of the neighbor who said that they had moved. The neighbor at first wasn't interested but we just kept chatting and he softened up and eventually accepted the offer of us bringing back a Living Christ movie. When we brought it back another day he was more open and we were able to teach him about Moroni's promise in the Book of Mormon and he said that we could come back and teach. It is the coolest thing to see peoples' hearts soften as they feel the spirit we have with us and they change from crusty and closed to warm and animated. Hopefully we are able to have a successful lesson with him this week.
We had zone conference this week and it was all about commitments. It was fun to do role-pay and not be completely scared like I used to be. Giving commitments is fun because it gives people and opportunity to repent and become better. God does this with us. He gives us commandments, callings, etc.- opportunities to make commitments and be better. When we keep them, we get blessings. It's so amazing.
On a more superficial note, went to the zoo this morning and had a fun time looking at the animals. I will try to send pictures. We had a lot of great experiences this week and I am so grateful for my mission. I got a bad cold this week so my voice has been bad. My companion had the great idea of teaching our English class the idiom "frog in your throat" in honor of my scratchy voice. It was perfect.

Hope everything is going well at home. I love you all a lot and keep you in my prayers. Take care!

Naegle nővér