December 15th, 2014

We got a Christmas tree!!! :)

We were invited to Sindy’s school program, so we wanted to buy her flowers. We went into the 

flower shop and bought one white rose, when an older man behind us says in English,

“No, no Happy Christmas for you! One plus one plus!' Grabs another rose for Sister Whittaker 

and bought them for us! Wow, so so sweet of him! 

Made our whole day! I don’t know why people are so nice to us!

Our turn for Sunday dinner, we made tacos and taco salad! :)

We handed out ten Book of Mormons this week! :)
After writing inside, we wrapped them up and put a ribbon on them.

Sziasztok!

How was your week?! Awe, that Christmas party with the family sounds so fun!! I loved seeing the pic of everyone together with the happy pop! I miss you guys so much! haha Don’t worry, I’ll make up for all of the “happy pop” next year!

My week was so good! We had 26 lessons, so it flew by! I wish you could meet all of our investigators, we are teaching so many different kinds of people!

Klára. Welllll she was telling us how her life was hard, and that she got a disease that made her brain come out of her head. haha I thought for sure that I just understood her wrong, so I asked her again and yep, that’s exactly what she said happened, came right out of her ear! Said its a problem now, cuz now she can’t remember where she put her whiskey... haha!

Matjás, he is fluent in English. He meets with us “just to practice English” but we talk about the Gospel the entire time. He is super super athiest, but asks us sooo many questions about God and our beliefs. He said that he had one big question for us, that he has never understood. He said, “Why did God send Jesus Christ to earth just to prove that He loves us. That doesn’t make sense, that is so stupid! Why did he have to send him and then kill him just to say that He loves us??

Wow, I was blown away. I have taken it so for granted what I know. He had no idea why Jesus Christ volunteered to come to earth, suffer and die for us. It was not “to prove that God loved us” but sooo much more. We explained the Atonement to him, what that means to us and how it has to the power to change our lives. We told him how we can use the Atonement to receive the power and strength to overcome our weaknesses and trials in this life and allows us to return to our Father in Heaven once more after this life.

Lara, cutest little 9 year old blonde, blue eyed girl ever. Her Mom has us come over to teach her English and is pretty closed off to the Gospel. We shared the “He is The Gift” video with them and she really liked it. Lara looked so curious and turned to her Mom and asked her who Jesus Christ is? Her Mom was pretty panicky and said they will talk later. She was staring at my name tag so intently, and asked her again, Mom, who is Jesus Christ?! Her Mom said that she will talk with her Dad later and see if we should teach her about Him or not. Lara is so so cute!! Ugh, I just wanted to tell her everything right then and there, just about our loving Heavenly Father, His son, prayer, everything! I can’t wait to go back!

I loooove the “He is the Gift” video!!! We just read it in Hungarian while we watch it and have shared it so many times this week! I am so so sooo excited to Skype and to see all of you, but I also don’t want it to come, because I don’t want Christmas to be over! I’ve loved sharing the “real” or “true” meaning of Christmas this year and am so lucky to be a missionary this Christmas time!

Oh, aaaand I’m going to be serving a 19 month mission!!! lol Don’t remember if I’ve told you or not, but I am almost for sure coming home next October!

Love you all!
Sister Schnoor

                   

       

December 8th, 2014

I had an amazing birthday yesterday!!! Sister Whittaker, biggest sweetheart,
woke up early to make me breakfast in bed and I woke up buried in balloons!
Love that girl so much! 

We went ice skating and we went caroling with the whole district
and passed out a TON of pass along cards. We were all freezing,
but it was so much fun! Love our district here in Győr. 

These men with the beards? Honestly, we don’t even know for sure haha. They are some kind of religion and they had a tiny little manger scene and asking 'Jézuska' (little Jesus) for some potatoes and tea...

 then just kept walking on their way! 

Hello everyone! 

Thanks so much for all of the birthday wishes!!! I had an amazing birthday yesterday!!! Sister Whittaker, biggest sweetheart, woke up early to make me breakfast in bed and I woke up buried in balloons! Love that girl so much! I still don’t know what time she woke up, so I made her take a nap later! We went to church and everyone was hugging me and wishing me a Boldog Szuletés Napot! which was a huge surprise, because I didn’t think anyone knew! I was given suti and 4 different people gave me a milka bar. I have sooo much chocolate we had to clear out a cupboard just for all of the sweets that we have gotten lately! After church, we came home and I read all of the birthday letters! Wow, well I haven’t cried in a long time, but I couldn’t help but have a couple of tears when I was reading them. That was the best part of my birthday and meant the world to me. Thank you so much. 

We went out caroling with all of the Elders for an hour. It was so so cold, but so fun! We got new pass along cards for Christmas about our theme “He is the Gift.” I love them for intros on the street! We went ice skating and we went caroling with the whole district and passed out a TON of pass along cards. We were all freezing, but it was so much fun! We switched from English to Hungarian a lot. Love our district here in Győr. The Elders were so sweet and made us dinner so I didn’t have to cook on my birthday and the other elders brought cake! Isn’t that the sweetest? I almost felt guilty all day, just how sweet everyone was! Then after church, we set up with 6 people for dinner appointments!! That’s more than I have had my whole mission!! Crazy eh?! The ward here is so amazing and it feels like home here! I got so so spoiled and had an amazing day!

Wow, sooo much happened this week! We had some great programs and some really crazy ones too! Some of the fun of opening an area, is that when you set up with someone out of the area book, you have no idea what to expect! Just a bit about some of our programs from this week:

We went to a lady named Klára. She was one of the most loving people I’ve met in Hungary! She told us we’re like her new American and Canadian daughters and she is our Hungarian Mom. She grew up with a house with no windows and a dirt floor. She said she was so grateful when she found a towel in the dumpster to use as a blanket. It was so amazing to hear her story and see where she is at now in her life. It almost doesn’t seem real, when I hear these stories. I really can’t imagine what that was like for her. I have never felt so lucky and so incredibly blessed for all that I have at home. That lesson was so humbling and I’m so grateful for her example.

The Ibolya Elders took us to their lunch appointment. So sweet of them! She is a younger mom with 3 kids, all not members, but her oldest daughter is now and on a mission! So cool! They had almost nothing, 2 beds in a single room. We ate some soup that she was so sweet to make us. She loves her kids more than anything and they were so happy. I am learning so much from these people, what things are truly important in this life and what true happiness really means and how we can obtain it.

Lajos is amazing! We walked around the corner and the table is all set for us, and sooo much suti!! He was so incredibly sweet, laughed so hard at anything we said and was just so interested in learning about our religion. He is super busy, but hopefully we can meet with him again soon! He sent us home with bags of chocolate too for Miklous day! On the 5^th of December, Santa comes to Hungary bringing candy, fruit and nuts for all of the good kids, but another man brings sticks for all of the naughty ones! haha We have gotten so much candy and suti from everyone here. I’ll send some home this week!

Gábor, he is so cool!! Almost all of the lesson was in English! It was the best lesson of the week and the spirit was so strong there. Me and Sister Whittaker bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and how we can receive our personal answer to our prayers from God and he started crying. He wants to know so bad if it’s true, but he says he just doesnt have enough faith. He doesn’t know if God exists, we shared Alma 32 with him today and he was so excited to pray again.  He said, “I will try” So excited to see where he goes!

Love you all so much!

Sister Schnoor