It's not really over

Wow--- it's over!  I'm home now!  I want to apologize for how there weren't any posts on this blog for the last half of my mission.   I tried to get my little sister to update it for me, but she was already heavily involved with her own things here at home.   It's understandable :)  (That is a picture of my stake president and I the day I got released).

 Even though I am home from my mission, I still want to do some posts on this blog about the things I experienced and the miracles that happened during my mission.  I haven't been home long (just over a week), and I have so much to say about my mission!  Luckily my family is patient with me, and they like to listen to my stories (or they do really good job at pretending they're interested ;)  (This is a picture of us flying out of Hungary.)

So yes, I am happy to be home and with my family again, but there is a piece of my heart that I left in Hungary.  I don't know how many people even looked at this blog when it was being up dated, let alone when I wasn't even posting anything!  But at least it will be good for me to record my memories and share my love for my mission with those that are interested :)

I hope that everyone has a great day!  And as I usually say:  Go make someone smile :)

Sok szeretettel,

Rachel Marie :)

Keep Your Head Up

A lovely cathedral near our home

Our lovely paintings from the last YSA program. We did finger painting :)

Dearest Everyone,

It's was actually a pretty good week this last week. We unfortunately didn't find any new investigators, but we have seen progress with some of our current ones. Andréa is doing really well compared to last Sunday. She still doesn't have work, but she is able to eat and so on. I've been very impressed with how much she has come to love the Book of Mormon. While she says she hasn't felt anything special while reading it, she likes to talk about what she read, and she has been using the index too to do some extra research and such. We were also able to meet with Zsuzsa and her mother last night for the first time in a couple weeks (they were out of town). And now I'd like to comment on another investigator that I don't think I've mentioned before--- Roland.

We have been meeting with Roland for a few weeks now. We met him through the English classes, but is meeting with us just to discuss religion. Our first meeting with him almost made us go crazy because of all his crazy ideas (God is in the table and in the tree, Christ couldn't have done what the scriptures say he did, why didn't Jesus ever write down on his own, a little bit of reincarnation ideas, and so on). We thought that it would be better to pass him over to the elders. However, that didn't happen. We tried inviting a church member to attend with us for the next couple meetings, but that didn't help as much as we hoped it would. We then resorted back to meeting just with him alone. A miracle happened. We don't know if we needed to try all of these different things to try to understand Roland, or if we just needed to patient with him, but we have finally reached a point where we feel like we understand him as he has come to admit that he is personally confused with all of his own theories, and he has committed to try praying the way that we taught him to. After admitting that he is confused and that he feels like he's not on the right path, we were able to testify of our purpose of being here in Hungary, and that we are here to help him find the right path. His view of who our Heavenly Father is may not be correct, but he is now at a point where is willing to try and accept God as an actually being with a body and a gender. It may seem like a little thing, but him starting to pray and imagine God in this way is a huge step for him! Skipping a lot of details to make this short, I am so grateful that we stuck it out and didn't give up on him at the first signs of difficulty. It is so important that we really try to get an understanding of our investigators so that we can understand what their needs are. After our first meeting, I felt as though it might be hopeless to keep meeting with him. After our most recent meeting, I have high hopes for him. God knows each of us perfectly, and he knows our needs. I pray that my companion and I can continue to live worthy to have the Spirit with us in all areas of the work (let alone in all areas of our lives). I love the work, and I am so grateful to be serving here.

President and Sister Smith are now here! We haven't met him yet, but they sent out a wonderful email with all sorts of wonderful quote from their training at the MTC and so on. It's pretty crazy to think that President and Sister Baughman are gone--- I loved working with them. But I am also excited to work with President Smith and his wife. I'm sure that there will be things that they change here in the mission, but whatever happens, I know that it will be for the benefit of the work :) Change can be good.

Hmmm.... anything else note worthy..... We're going to buy a fan today for our apartment! It is sooooo hot that it can be hard to fall asleep sometimes--- and it's just going to get hotter (more hot? what's correct?) Anyway, that's exciting. Oh, another thing--- one of the Less-Actives that we've been meeting with that is now coming back to the church brought her cousin with her to church yesterday! His name is Joszi. We met him once before, but now we are actually going to start meeting with him, and I really look forward to that :)

Well, we're going to try see Parlament today! hopefully that works out. I hope you all have a wonderful day/week. Go make someone smile :)

Sok szeretettel,

Kimball nővér

Stories :)

Dearest Everyone,

It has been a good week! First off, there was a great rainstorm with thunder and lightening that woke me up in the middle of the night (I think it was Thursday night). I put my glasses on, and since my bed is right next to our bedroom window, I conveniently parted the curtains a little bit and just watched the lightening in the sky for about 10 minutes. It was beautiful! I loved it! And the sound of the falling rain outside was almost like music. Luckily, I was able to fall back asleep quickly :)

On Saturday, our ward had an activity--- it was Italian Night :) A ward member taught us some cool things about Italy, and then we ate a variety of pasta's. (I don't think they were very Italian though, haha). Sister Gallion and I had just planned to be there for a little bit since we had a program with Péter right before it (the Péter that is getting baptized in 3 weeks!!! :) However, to our surprise, one of our new investigators, Judit, showed up with her two daughters and her mother! Judits daughters names are Merci (13 years old) and Alexa (7 years old), and her mothers name is also Judit, ha. Don't get confused now ;) We met with Judit and her daughters earlier in the week, where we practiced speaking English (that's the initial reason they wanted to meet with us) and we introduced them to the Book of Mormon. So it was a wonderful surprise that they showed up to Itialian Night! Merci and Alexa enjoyed playing some games with Sister Gallion and me, and Judit and her mother we able to visit with a few members and talk to us more about our church. The evening ended great with them agreeing to come to church the next day :) Well.... they didn't come to church. BUT, we will be meeting with them tomorrow (Tuesday), so all should be well :)

Andréa (an investigator that I've talked about before), came to church yesterday :) This was a miracle to us! She wasn't at English Class on Thursday, and we tried calling her Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before church with no success-- the phone wasn't working. Yet 10 minutes before Sacrament Meeting was to start, she showed up! AND, she stayed for all 3 meetings :) It was great to see how she participated in the lessons willingly, and asked a lot of good questions. One of the talks in Sacrament Meeting was about forgiveness, which really touched Andréa. She told me about how her younger brother (who is 40 years old--- Andréa is 44 years old. They both live with their mom currently) was given 500 forint (a little more than 2 american dollars) and sent to get bread for the family but ended up stealing the money instead and didn't return home. Andréa is out of work and has no money, and says that if something doesn't happen soon (her finding work or something) they will be out on the street. After hearing the talk on forgiveness, she asked me how she can forgive her brother. After Sacrament Meeting, a church member, named Éva, came over to visit with us. I felt prompted to have Andréa ask Éva her question. It was really powerful. After some tears and meaningful conversation, Éva gave Andréa 500 forint so she could get some bread to eat. As I am typing this story now, I feel as though I can't portray how powerful this really was. Here we have a woman with serious health problems, who can't find work, and doesn't have money to simply buy bread--- no means to eat. Yet, she was able to make her way to church. There, she was fed by the Spirit, surrounded by friends, and recieved a gift of 500 forint so she could get bread to feed herself and her mother. I am grateful for Andréa's example of faith. She may not know a lot right now, but she believes in God and made the effort to come to church--- a place where she knows she can feel Gods love and be spiritually uplifted. I don't know what the future hold for this sweet woman, yet I feel humbled that God has placed her in my life so that I can serve her and help lift her as she goes through these trials. God loves us, and he places people in our lives that he knows needs our help---- as well and people that need to help us! We will be meeting with Andréa tonight. I want to thank all of you for praying for me, my companions, our investigators, and the Hungarian people. They need our prayers.

Another story: Sister Gallion and I were out tracting yesterday in the late afternoon. We had plans to travel to a certain neighborhood, however the villamos that we were traveling on was unable to make it to our stop. We were forced to get off a few stops early. Our plans were thwarted, so we made a back-up plan. We walked around a park near a cathedral, fliering for English Class. After talking to a number of teenages, we decided to go tracting down a nearby street. We tracted down the street for about an hour with no success (a few random conversations here and there), and then we thought it would be best to tract back up the street on the other side of the road and then call it a night. However, something inside of me wanted to keep tracting down the street, at least for another block--- so at the last moment, I told Sister Gallion that we should keep going down a little further. It was on that block that we found two people. At one home, we visited with a women named Kati perhaps in her late 50's. At another home, we spoke with a girl named Krisztina, in her early 20's. While neither of these women let us into their homes, they were genuinely interested in our message as we spoke at their gates. Krisztina didn't used to be religious at all, until her grandfather recently passed away. We told her about how Christs church has been restored to the earth, and we testified about how we can live with our families forever if we live according to Christs gospel. Both Kati and Krisztina accepted copies of the Book of Mormon and look forward to meeting with us again soon.

It was really powerful to me to see how the Spirit was able to guide us a little further down the street through a simple 'gut feeling' I had. If the villamos we had been taking didn't stop working, we probably would have never met these 2 women. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and the Spirit is here to guide us and help us do the work. A lot of the time, we may not realize that it's the Spirit guiding us, but He is here, and He is helping us day by day as we live worthy and listen closely.

Alright, off to some more P-day stuff! I wish you all a wonderful day :) Go make someone smile :)

Sok szeretettel,

Kimball nővér

It's Been A While....

A Baptism in Miskolc--- Nisrin :)

A cute wall in Miskolc :) ("This is my city")

A beautiful view at Eszter Gom

Balancing on a wall with Sister Gallion (Slovakia is on the other side of the river!)

Visting János Hegy with some other missionaries :)

Dearest Everyone,

It has been very long time since I have lasted posted! I apologize! But I must tell you, it has been incredible transfer with Sister Gallion in Kispest. We will be staying together for another transfer too :) Just to touch on a few things that happened this transfer:

1. I got to Skype with my family on Mother Day :)

2. We put one of our investigators, Péter, on bap. date! He will be getting baptized next month!

3. We met a lot of our neighbors that live in our building and developed some good friendships :)

4. Sister Gallion and I found a total of 11 new investigators in a 3 week time period (that's really good for here!)

5. We visited a lot of cool sights in Budapest

6. We attended a wedding of two church members :) (They were then sealed in a temple later that week--- I think the London temple)

7. We went to Miskolc for a baptism of a girl I know--- Nisrin. It was the first convert baptism I have seen in Hungary!

Many more things have happened during the last transfer, and it has truly been incredible. I have learned a lot, we've worked hard, and I have had a great time! I will do my best post at least a few times this next transfer :)

The gospel is true! God loves you :) Go make someone smile :)

Sok szeretettel,

Kimball nővér

Changed For Good

Playing on the Castle ruins

















Lillafüred
















In the Anna Barlang (cave)



















In a castle window/wall thing :)















The Palace












Dearest Everyone,

I am going to Kispest! My time here in Miskolc is up! It is sad to say goodbye to so many wonderful friends, but I do look forward to serving in my new area with my new companion :) Her name is Sister Gallion. I have met her a number of times, and she is a really sweet, cute girl. When my Mission President called and told me of my new assignment, he told me to go find a lot of people and baptize them! He probably tells everyone that (that's what we're here to do! haha), but I do plan to go do just that. I believe Sister Gallion is a hard worker too, so I believe we will set some good goals together that help bring about miracles. It really has been great serving with Sister Orme. I have already learned so much on my mission. I look foward to continuing to learn and applying old lessons.

This last week, I learned more about how the Lord doesn't need much time at all to perform a miracle--- or more! Sister Orme and I had blocked out some time to go contact some finds who we didn't have phone number for, so we would have to go to their actual homes. While we were on our way to contact one find, another family that we had found came walking down the street! We enjoyed a brief visit with them, and then set up a time to go visit them at their home. So what could have turned into an hour of contacting time became only 15 minutes (or less!) We were then left with more time on our hands to do more finding-- which included a wonderful woman at a bus stop that was more than willing to give us her information and invite us to come to her home to teach her more. We would not have met her if we hadn't met that family on the street. It was incredible. The Lord works miracles, and we are so blessed to see his works every day as we serve here in one small portion of his vinyard.

So we had a Super P-day this last week. We went to Lillafüred, in the mountains. I went there when I was here with Sister Barnhart back in January, but it is so different now! The world is green! It is so beautiful. I will be attaching some pictures. We played around in the castile ruins, took a tour of a cave, walked part way around the lake, and also drove further up the canyon to a place called Szentlélek (that means Holy Ghost in Hungarian), and we took some pictures by the sign, ha. The place used to be a Nunery (however that is spelt). So it was fun to go there too :) I also had my very first Hungarian Ice Cream Cone :) It was really good! I enjoyed it. They have so many unique flavors here! Every day, I see so many people on the street just eating ice cream cones, so basically I crave one every day, haha

Well, I wish everyone a fantastic week! Go make someone smile :)

Sok szeretettel,
Kimball nővér

Music For The Soul

Dearest Everyone,

Sister Orme and I had a really neat experience yesterday. We went with an investigator to go visit her mother in the hospital (who is suffering from a stroke that happened a few months ago) (this is the same investigator I mentioned in last weeks email). There were 5 other patients in the same room as the mother, so we ended up sharing our spiritual message with everyone. We shared Matthew 11:28-30 (I believe it was), and then we sang a few hymns from the new hymnbook (Where Can I Turn For Peace, Be Still My Soul, and There Is Sunshine In My Soul Today). The patients loved it. There was one old woman in the far corner that sat up in her bed, and her face was just beaming with a smile as we sang the last song. Before leaving, I felt prompted to give a pass-along card to each of the women--- the card with Christ on it (the portrait type picture). I didn't pass it around with the idea that these women should call us, but more that they could have a nice picture to look at while they were in the hosipal--- to remind them of Christs love for them. They were each so grateful to recieve the cards, and the same woman that was smiling in the corner kissed Christs picture when I gave it to her--- she was full of the Spirit. This was a very neat experience for me. We are here to share the gospel, and there are so many ways to do it! We couldn't approach people in the hosipal the same way we do with people on the street, but we were able to share a powerful message about Gods love with those women in the hospital through music. It was amazing to see the way the messages in the songs touched the hearts of these women. All of these women were quite old, and some of them may never leave the hospital, but I believe our visit yesterday was something very special for them because of the way they felt the Spirit--- and they will never forget it.

Go make someone smile!

Sok szeretettel,
Kimball nővér

Charity Never Faileth

A funny little random door at a pizza restaurant--- just my size :)
















Cooking with Sister Orme--- I made tortillas :)
















Elder Gallands birthday party :) We decorated paper Easter eggs and ate brownies.













Flowers from an investigators garden (their little children picked almost all of the flowers to give to us! Oops!)
















Someone was tuning the piano at the branch house so we secretly took some pictures :)








Dearest Everyone,

Greetings from Hungary! It has been another great week. I keep a little record of tender mercies/blessings/miracles in a little notebook, and I always love recording those special events and things at the end of every day. So even though some days may seem rough, there are always blessings to keep record of. I am amazed by how many tender mercies the Lord gives us every day. All we need to do is look for them, and then we see that they are everywhere! Here's a miracle story from last week:

A miracle:
Sister Orme and I had an appointement to go with one of our investigators, Margo, to the hospital to visit her mother who has suffered from a stroke. When we got to Margo's home, we learned from the children (Balazs and Dia) that their mom and dad (Zsolt) had already gone to the hospital but should be home soon. We decided to wait around so we could share a spiritual message with the whole family. When the parents arrived home, there was another woman with them--- the mothers sister (Juli). While at first we didn't think too much of it, we got the whole story from Margo.
The story: Margo had been struggling with some bitter feelings towards Juli because she wouldn't come to Miskolc to visit their mother in the hospital. Juli is from a village an hour outside of Miskolc (Encs). The last time we had visited Margo's family, we taught a lesson about charity, and shared the scriptures from Moroni 7 about charity. This lesson stuck with Margo and she re-read the scriptures we shared over and over again. One day she decided she needed to clear things up with Juli, so she traveled to Encs to fix things. This act of charity and love changed everything, so the day that Orme and I were at their home last week was the day that Juli decided to surprise Margo and visit her and their mother!
In the end, Margo requested to get a Book of Mormon from us (good thing we always carry extra's in our backpacks!) so she could personally present it to Juli, and we had the opportunity to pray with the whole family, including Juli. Juli really looks forward to us visiting her in Encs and teaching her about the gospel. We already teach another family in Encs, so it will work out perfectly.
(I hope this all made sense!)
Charity never faileth.

Another story about Juli (the sister) (this one is funny)--- While we were just getting introduced to Juli, she started going off about how I would be perfect for her son! I was thinking "Okay, that's totally random since you just met me and don't even really know me!" As the discussion went on, she started assuming we were about the same age. When I told her I am 21, she said, "Oh yeah, he's about your age--- he's 38!" Everyone just started laughing, haha. She tried to convince all of us that age doesn't matter (usually it doesn't--- but that big of an age gap?! haha) And Juli and Margo's family claim that he looks like George Clooney. So if I come home married to a 38 year old man that looks like George Clooney, you now know the story behind it ;)

So yesterday, I was blessed with the opportunity to the play the piano in sacrament meeting. I did prelude music and then did all of the music for the meeting. (Opening Hymn: There Is Sunshine In My Soul Today Sacrament Hymn: In Humility Our Savior Rest Hymn: Lead Kindly Light Closing Hymn: Nearer My God To Thee) It was fun to do There is Sunshine In My Soul Today because it has been so rainy and gray this last week :) (Unfortunately, the congregation had never sung that song before, nor Lead Kindly Light! Oops, haha) I have actually been scared of learning sacrament hymns all my life because they have flats and crazy stuff, but this hymn actually wasn't bad :) I picked it on Friday (when I found out I needed to play in sacrament meeting) and then practiced it a few times before Sunday. So it all went well :) And there is an investigator that the elders have, and her favorite hymn is Nearer My God To Thee, so I picked it for her :) She was a happy to sing it.

Things are going great here, and we are set to have another good week :) Take care everyone! Go make someone smile :)

Szeretettel,
Kimball nővér