March 23, 2015

We went out to Gábor's parent's garden this past week :)
It was fun thinking that we we're doing the same things Mom, just
across the world. Sounds weird, but it was SO good to get out of a
skirt and work in the dirt again!

Hello! 

This week, we had 29 lessons and had zone conference, so we stayed super busy!!! It was such a great week, but just flew by!

When we were streeting, we walked past this man and I felt like I should talk to him. I did a super awkward stop midwalk and did a 180 to talk to him. Seriously, no pride on missions! haha He was a really sweet old man and we explained the Book of Mormon and set up to meet with him. Later that week, we met with him and turns out he is pretty crazy!! haha Super nice though, told us that he has been to almost every church in Győr and met with so many missionaries, but hasn’t found the true church yet. I asked him what he is looking for in the “true church”. He said karate, yoga and dance and proceeded to show me some karate moves (which were actually pretty great considering his age! haha) After teaching him the Restoration, he said that we needed to meet with everyone and tell them this message! So that part was really cool, but then he went right in and said that we can meet with everyone but the gypsies.. they will give us poison chocolate candy and then said “oh ya! that reminds me, I have some candy!” He then gives us some candy out of his pocket! haha Thanks sweet old bácsi! Have no idea where things are going to go with him, still not sure why I had that prompting either, but we’re going to see where it goes! 

Erika is still doing amazing! We’re only able to meet with her once a week, but this last week when we met with her, we started teaching her the Gospel of Christ. We talked about our faith in Jesus Christ and how that leads to repentance. Before we started, she jumped right in and said “I’m sorry, but I just can’t do confessions. I can’t go into a little box with a stranger and confess my sins. He tells me a certain amount of prayers that I have to say and then I am forgiven? I just can’t do that, I don’t feel like I have repented and I still have the guilt. Why would I tell a stranger and not God? When I repent, I pray and tell God everything, why I did it, how I am feeling about it, ask Him to forgive me and tell Him that I won’t ever do it again! Then I try my hardest not to! How do you repent in your church?” Wow!!! Well she basically taught us the lesson, she is so incredibly prepared to meet with us, it’s amazing how many things that she doesn’t feel right with in other religions and that she feels right with ours. Like last week, we were finishing the Gospel of Christ and were starting to explain how repentance leads to baptism and we discussed how we are 8 years old when we’re baptized and why. She said just last week she was asking her Mom why she was baptized as a baby. Why wasn’t it her decision to follow Christ and what religion to join? We bore testimony about the priesthood power being restored and how important it is, that it is our decision to follow Jesus Christ and be baptized. 

We went out to Gábor's parent's garden this past week :) haha it was fun thinking that we were doing the same things Mom, just across the world. Sounds weird, but it was SO good to get out of a skirt and work in the dirt again!

Gábor is doing well, his baptismal date is coming so quick and he is so incredibly ready! He still is afraid, but we’re so grateful that his brother can be here for him and help him through it! 

Oh and we met with Attily finally! He has had to work like crazy and we haven’t been able to meet for almost a month now! His baptism date is for April 4, so I was pretty skeptical and thought we would have to move it. We taught him the Gospel of Christ again and told him how we still have a lot to teach him and a lot to do before he is baptized and asked if he felt he would be ready by April 4? He looked at the drawing we did on the board and said, “I need to! We still have two weeks right? That’s enough time?? Of course it is!! Ah! We are going to try to meet with him as often as we can before then, but it will be a lot to cover in just a few lessons, so excited for him though!! The transfer is on April 1, so I sadly won’t be here for any of the baptisms. All that matters though, is that they are baptized. I would love to be here with them more than anything, but I know Heavenly Father has another plan and I’ll just have to trust in Him!

I wish I could write everyone back every week! The biggest problem is that the computers are so so slow here! Most of the emails that I send to people are just a few sentences! I always feel so so bad for not writing everyone back! There’s just not enough time! I am so sorry. Emailing shouldn’t be, but is seriously one of the most stressful! I absolutely love getting your emails though and being able to talk to you. I also have a HUGE stack of written letters to write back to people too! 

Have a great week, I love you all!! 

Xoxoxo

Schnoor Nover 

March 9th, 2015

We had another really good week here in Győr! 

Gábor's baptismal date is March 20!!! We are so excited for him! He is a little nervous, but very excited! His brother Balázs lives in Germany and has been an amazing support to him! We’re hopeful that he can come back to Hungary to baptize his brother. Wouldn’t that be such a wonderful experience?? Balázs was baptized years ago and before his baptism, Gábor actually told him that if he “joined the Mormons” that he would never speak to him again. That was years ago and now he is asking his brother to baptize him! I am so incredibly blessed to be with him now as he has been being prepared by the Lord for so many years. Gábor was a little nervous to tell his brother, but as we promised him, his brother was so incredibly supportive and caring about it all. Everyone was completely against Balázs in his family including all of his friends. He was all alone. Gábor said that at the time, he didn’t understand why he still went ahead with it, but now he does. He said that he is so lucky to have Balázs here with him. 

It is so different here in Hungary, because almost everyone we meet is Catholic. It is more than just what their beliefs are, it’s a family tradition that has been passed down for generations. So, when our investigator's families hear that they are meeting with us, they don't just see it as them trying to find the true church, but see it as turning against their family. It is so hard when they tell us that by them coming to our church and reading from the Book of Mormon that it's ruining their family relationships. The Gospel brings families together! Living the gospel of Christ will support and protect the family unit and allow us to live with them for eternity with our Heavenly Father. Gábor told us how afraid he was, he said that he wants to be baptized so bad, but he is just so afraid. He said that he has been affected by fear his whole life and wanted to wait a few more months to be baptized. I had a prayer in my heart that I could say the things that Heavenly Father needed me to. I tried my best to translate and the Spirit was so strong there helping us. He had some great questions and brought up some concerns that he was afraid to mention before. We were able to address them and in the end he said that he wanted to be baptized on March 20. He would just have to close his eyes stepping into the water. Wow, it sort of just melted my heart! Now whenever he mentions baptism and gets afraid he just says “I will just close my eyes.” 

Erika is still doing great too! She really is one of the biggest sweet hearts that I know and has such a strong belief in God and prayer. She loooves the Book of Mormon! Its adorable, she is always so excited to show us her favorite verse that she read and said that the book somehow always talks about her life, exactly what she is struggling with. We asked if she has prayed and she said that she prays every night and thanks God for giving her this amazing book. Isn’t that so sweet?  

Oh and Happy Women's day!! Haha they have a Women's Day here in Hungary and we were streeting and these random guys came up and gave us flowers! Isn’t that so sweet! I love Women's Day! We got chocolate and flowers!!

I have to go for this week!

Love you all so much!

Sister Schnoor

xoxoxo 

March 2nd, 2015

On the way to emailing today, we streeted a néni. She tried to knock the Book of Mormon right onto the ground and said that if we keep doing what we are doing, that we are going to hell and we’re worshiping the devil. We tried to explain to her our purpose and that we’re here to help strengthen people’s faith and testimony in Jesus Christ and to have a better relationship with God. She invited us to her church to be baptized and told us again that we’re going to hell if we don’t stop. Well, at least she was looking out for us right? haha We wished her a nice day and we shared a little message about God to her. She loved it and came right around! Typical streeting here in Hungary! 

We had a great program with Gábor, we taught about repentance and the atonement of Christ. The spirit was there so strong, we bore testimony on how much easier it will be for him to keep the commandments after he is baptized and the blessings of the Holy Ghost. He told us that he wants to be baptized and wants all of those things for himself and that he wants to be baptized to follow Christ... he was really serious and thinking for a while after. I love moments like that after we bear testimony. I never realized how important silence can be, but after we bear testimony or ask a question, it gives the Spirit an opportunity to testify to them. He’s so great!

Miracle!! So we were out streeting in the Bel Város and talking to people about the Book of Mormon. We were not having a ton of success. We were going on an hour with every single person rejecting us. We still had 20 minutes, so we decided to push it out to the end and we knew that some miracle would happen because of it. Literally just a few seconds after we talked about it, this super cute girl came right up to us and asked if we were the Mormon missionary girls in almost perfect English. She was with three guys all with a beautiful husky dog. We told her who we were and she said “I’m Ili, I just moved from England and I would love to meet with you.”... Wait, what??! That has never happened, ever, on my mission! I was blown away! We told her of course and exchanged numbers, they were all so nice and spoke English! Cannot wait to set up with them! It was so instant and such an answer to prayer!

I’m out of time for this week!

Love you all so much! xoxoxoxoxo

Schnoor Nover