Sooo we definitely had a Christmas miracle. The last couple of weeks our work just took an upturn and we've been really blessed. I haven't really had a chance to email much so I should probably catch you up. On the 17th we went to Budapest for the Christmas zone conference. We had the actual conference, during which I had to accompany for the hymns, and then afterwards a celebration. They put in a lot of effort to make it fun for us with games, a Christmas turkey dinner and they gave us all a nice little gift. We played white elephant. I brought a hot pink wig and Sister Steel (one of the senior sisters) got it. Haha! It was so fun. Later that week we went to a member named Judit's house and helped her a little and then shared a spiritual message with her. Heni was there and they gave us a referral from a Hungarian member who lives in Hawaii. (Later went to the address and the husband came out and was really grumpy with us at first but we held our ground a little bit and he said we could come back the next day. When we did, he was clearly surprised. Both times we tried to explain who we were and why we were there but he just didn't really understand. He talked to his wife and she said she didn't want to talk with us, but he tried to give us money, thinking we were going around collecting donations. We politely refused, and I think he felt the spirit because he got a lot nicer by the end and apologized for being kind of mean the day before.) It was really cool to get to know Judit. She joined the church and then served a mission. So cool. We also went to have dinner with the Elders at a less active's house. I am so excited to report that she is now active again. She's been coming to church and came to the Christmas party and read a poem and then gave a talk in church the next day. I am so happy because when I first came I thought she would never be active. The Christmas party was a success, and the next day at church was so great because a lot of people's inactive or non-member children showed up and a family that used to live here came to visit and everyone was just warm and happy. And Péter showed up (he's a recent convert that didn't come to church for a few weeks for some reason) so it was like everyone really let some hard feelings go to get to church for Christmas. That evening we looked up an old investigator and I had to sit and listen to her go off about how she was disappointed in the church members and she felt like they didn't want to be her friends, etc. etc. She admitted that she had never read the Book of Mormon really diligently, although she had investigated the church for several months. She wanted up back so we set up a time and when we went back so showed us the rest of her apartment and she is a big-time hoarder. It's pretty much ruining her life and the life of her only daughter that will keep in touch with her, since she's 14 and doesn't really have a choice. The mom herself admitted that her habit of buying things and never getting rid of them is a prison. Their apartment is chuck full. I feel so bad for them because she is just mentally ill. She has all these great ideas and so she keeps stuff to re-vamp it or re-use it. She is actually pretty talented but she is so overwhelmed by how much stuff there is that she can't bring herself to start. We told her we could help and she promptly sat down and got about 5 little projects (mending clothes) finished in fifteen minutes or so and she was really excited and asked if we could stop by for ten minutes every day to check up on her to see what she had accomplished. However, ever since then she hasn't really done anything. We give her little scriptures to read and she has a hard time doing that too. It's just a really sad situation. They are from Romania and they might lose their apartment. We just keep trying to work with them. The worst for me is seeing the daughter because she looks exactly like Mariah combined with Lizzy Elmer and I wish I could just take her away and give her a better life. Her mom loves her but she also says "we" a lot when she is talking about her own problems, and I have seen her wave her hand at the daughter as if she's not important at all. On a lighter note, we went a few days ago and the mom wasn't there so we figured we would take the opportunity to get to know the daughter (Johanna) and teach her. While we were talking, the mom came in with this guy who started speaking at us in really funny English saying "Where are you from? No, let me guess..New Jersey!" "No." "New York?!" "No." "New Orleans?!" "No." "Salt Lake City?!" "Yes!" His name is Steve (István) and I'm pretty sure he is crazy. He came in and started writing down all his contact information for us. He met with missionaries back in the day and Johanna and her mom had his old Book of Mormon because he is their landlord and he has a storage unit downstairs that they "organized" and they found his book and took it back up to the hoard. Then later when the missionaries came by they recognized it. So during all the mayhem of him showing up and us not really going on, his old book which they had been using was returned to him. We gave him a pass-along-card and he gave us his passport. So now I have Steve's passport in my possession. Don't worry, it's expired. But the next time someone checks my passport, I am going to be very tempted to give them Steves'. Unfortunately he has consistenly tried to contact us with interesting text messages (including this one: "Hey. Im sorry no text messages 3 hour. Oh please a momment.IM BELIEVE A JESUS.OKAYS IM A SAD MY DAD AND MY MAM DIED. MA HEART A BIG SAD. SORRY. HAPPY NEW YEAR SISTER <3 FROM STEVE") and phone calls so we will place him in the care of the elders.
Now I must tell the tale of three suicidal people. One texted us to cancel our program saying that his wife took their two daughters and left and he thought he was going to commit suicide. We didn't know where he lived so we did everything we could to find him but without success and he wouldn't answer his phone calls. It was kind of dramatic and really sad but long story short we just try to pray for him and gave his number to the elders on the chance that he would pick up a different number. Another guy we streeted and set up with for the next day, to which he showed up drunk but told us that he was going to commit suicide the night before if we hadn't stopped him and talked to him. Unfortunately he later dogged and wouldn't answer his phone. Another lady we streeted was drunk and the side of her head was bleeding because someone hit her. We talked with her and she asked us how we knew that she wanted to kill herself. She kept kneeling down and crossing herself and asking us to bless her. She talked about how the devils were coming and she pointed at some people working in their yard and was really angray at them for working while we were talking about God. She said she was living in sin and that the guy hit her and we asked if we should call the police and she said no and that she was going to her daughters. We gave her a Book of Mormon and talked with her but she was kind of far gone. Before we figured out what to do, her bus came and she ran over and told us to come with her but we declined and went on to our appointment in the area.
I am running out of time because we have to run to an appointment with Gabriella, who is the Christmas miracle that I was talking about at the beginning. There are so many stories and people I want to write about but I will just quickly write about her before I go. One day we were on our way to an appointment with László the drunk suicidal guy. On the way we ran into Gabi, who is a woman that the sisters have run into a lot just on the street. We even set up with her one time but she didn't come. This time she walked with us all the way to the branch house and we asked her if she could come back in an hour to meet. She said she could. So then she left and even though László never showed up a girl named Julia that we love from English class showed up with her Book of Mormon, even though we cancelled English class. Péter was there to help us with our program and so he just stayed and we had a little angolóra/gospel discussion with her. They hit it off pretty well (I secretly hope she converts and they get married some day) and she opened up to us a lot. We have been trying to get her to meet with us for EVER and it was just a huge miracle. So then Gabi came and Péter stayed for that too and the lesson went really well. We invited her to church the next day and at first she said she probably wouldn't be able to and then Péter threw down and told her that if she wanted to come she could make it happen. Lo and behold after I came out of the bathroom the next morning at church (I had to run into the bathroom after this family from Debrecen showed up here to visit since they used to live here and I saw them and pretty much burst into tears) Péter came up all beaming to tell me that Gabi had come. So we've been meeting with her every day and she has prayed about the Book of Mormon and feels it is true. Now she is praying about a baptismal date.
I have to run to go teach her now but I hope you all had a wonderful New Year and I will give you more updates next time. Love you all!
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