Ooops! September 5: Only One Drunk This Week!

Hey Fam and Friends!! And other people!

This week has been so fun and great and weird and.... yeah... one of those weeks!!

So in my last email I told you that we had 0-ish progressing investigators? Well guess what? We still have 0!!! But we now have 3 people who we have set up return appointments, one referral, and 1 inactive member scheduled! Last Tuesday we were tracting and as we were ringing someones bell we heard someone across the street yelling at us in English! Well... she said that their bell didn't work and they where crazy and that we shouldn't talk with them... We talked with her for a while though. At first she was not interested in our message at all, but as we told her about what we did and offered our free service for anything, she started to change. She wants to get better at English (she was already incredibly good) and said that she was interested in Angol óra (English class). As we were saying by she also mentioned that she doesn't like the Catholic church that her parents belong to!!! OK... the Catholics are great! But every other person uses that as an excuse to not let us in. But she said that she wanted to come to church the next week. Well we had the temple dedication and she had a wedding the week after, so she will be coming in 3 weeks!

She came to Angol óra and had a great time, she also said that she had invited two friends to Angol óra that would be coming this week!

Next miracle. The man I told you all about last week. The one who lived in Győr that we gave a Book of Mormon to? Well... he is now moving to Pápa and so we are going to contact him this week!

We got "Náni-d" this week. A Náni is an elderly lady. We knocked on her door and she came to the window and talked for over an hour, just through the window!! I was about to die from stiffness! But, she is having us come back so the price was worth it! She is very sweet and loves to talk about things!

Scary experience... We were tracting, as always, and knocked on this mans door. He came to the door and started talking in broken English. He speaks French, German, and English. When we asked where he was from he abruptly said "I will not tell you"... It went down hill from there. He said that he watched a video about the the missionaries on Youtube and he couldn't support us. He said "I think that what you do is illegal, and that you should be thrown in prison". Well... I am glad he isn't in charge of anything that happens to us! He also kept referring to something that happened last Thursday that added to his opinion. Does anyone know what that is about?

The Freiburg (I'm not sure if that is correct spelling) Temple was rededicated this last week. It was cool, it was in German for the most part, but when English speakers would come up they would have a translator also stand up and the english person would say something and then wait for the German. The last speaker was funny! He would say these huge long phrases and have huge words, and then the poor German would have to repeat it all! At one point the speaker said 

"Hallowed...." and then some other big word, and the German turns to him and his face was like "really! Common! give me a break!" And what he was was "Hallowed? What?" All during the actual thing, it was funny!!

Well... I think that is the lényeg... I love your emails and  stories!!

Elder Biesinger

Sept 26: Hot dog diet and Bomb

Hi everyone,

So this week has been rough as far as missionary work goes, but fun in every other aspect!

This week we went on splits with the Tatabanyái Elders. I went with Elder Szuch again. Again we talked with a lot of people for longer then usual and we got a return appointment-kind-of-thing with one person who seemed interested and accepted a Book of Mormon and wants to go to English class!

Elder Szuch has had quiet the crazy life. One night he and his friends were driving and throwing water balloons at people from their car (illegal) and his friend, who plays baseball, hucked one at this girl and it hit her in the chest and made her stagger back... Well they neglected to consider her boyfriend who was a massive muscley guy. Well, they zoomed away and the angry boyfriend chased them. And then came the stop sign. They couldn't run it and the boyfriend dives through the sky roof and starts to strangle one of the boys in the car. The driver started to drive and kind of serve trying to get the guy out of the car (Only the Boyfriends upper half was through the sky roof) and was not successful. A cop drove by and pulled them over and since they both had charges for assault, the water balloon and then the strangling boyfriend, the cop canceled things out because it was just stupid teenagers!

The picture with the blue shirt over my nose is from a messy mess we had to clean up. A couple of weeks ago we did service in someones garden and they gave us a huge bag of vegetables (mostly tomatoes) and then a week later we did service in their garden again and they gave us a slightly smaller bag of produce. Both of which rotted before we could finish it. One of them was really bad and the bag had holes in it and so there was rotten tomato juice everywhere. It was incredibly stinky! But we cleaned it up!!

This week I have eaten only hot dogs for every single meal, besides while I was on splits and for breakfasts. I guess that isn't the worst diet right? It is just so freakin easy to do and then you can do something else with your lunch break!

This week we ran into a lot of youth who you greet us and say high! During one such interaction they were on the other side of the street going the opposite way and they yelled out and asked if we spoke English. We said yes, they said "hi" and laughed. As we were getting away one turned around and yelled the "B" word. I guess they learned what is important to learn when learning a different language right? 

I think that that is everything from this week.... oh... I forgot! The sock is my relaxing time apparel. There are four keys in our apartment that go to the doors. So my companion and I are in a war with locking each other in or out of places! They are the old-fashioned keys that have the big key holes, and if you look the door you can turn the key sideways and then the other side cannot stick their key into the hole and unlock it. Well... Some of my shorts don't have pockets, so now I just wear one sock and always have the key with me wherever I go and I never forget because everytime I switch socks I have to also switch the key! Perfect system!ű

Well... I have to go now! Good luck everyone with your weeks!!

Elder Biesinger

P.S. No missionaries were hurt from the bomb in Budapest!

Sept. 19: Chanting and special Néni powers...

Hi everyone!

So this week had some fun things happen! My companion has not been struck with the wrath of God yet so I can't complain. 

So this week we had to go to a government office in Győr (about an hour away) to get a residency permit for me so I wouldn't get kicked out of country... Well... We went there and we waited for about an hour in line, and we got in and the lady was starting to stamp papers and she stopped and was like "which county is Pápa in" and her partner was like "I think it is in Veszrém"... Well, it is! and since, evidently, not all government offices in Hungary are the same, now we have to go to Veszprém which is about two hours away and we have to go into Győr to get onto a train going to Vesyprém! So HUGE waste of a day :S

We found a lady who let us come back this week and is now a new investigator! The first time we talked to her through her gate she told us that she prayed a lot to the heavens and she said a prayer for us. It went something like this "tettetettetettetetetteamatetetememmamtetet" I swear she only used t's, m's, a's and e's. As far as I am aware there aren't those kinds of words in Hungarian, but I could be wrong! We went to her house several days later and a little into our conversation she informed us that she is a spiritual healer and she has powers to heal people physically. She told us how there was a man that was injured and he didn't believe that she could heal him, but she did her chant and "healed" him. Interesting.... And the she made us, like, hold out our hands, kind of like holding a big invisible bowl in front of you, and then she started chanting/praying and asked if we could feel her power that she was sending us... We weren't sure what we were supposed to feel, she told us  that it was a warm feeling. I guess our next lesson is on the Holy Ghost and how it manifests itself!

On Saturday we served a member of our branch. We picked up firewood for a couple hours and then had lunch, which I guess is a big meal here. We had soup, stuffed cabbage, and then some chicken and mashed potatoes. I almost died on the spot from overdose in food! After we left her house we went to teach a youngman some english then went to another members house to do service (about an hour after our lunch hour). When we got to his house he informed us that we were switching up the schedule and eating before we worked. We had lunch again and I was praying very, very, fervently that I would have room in my stomach to eat so that I didn't offend anyone. I was able to eat a decent amount and not die!! God works miracles! And luckily we were just picking up potatoes. The week before this we had helped him and he had given us like 20 pounds of potatoes. At first we weren't sure what to do iwth them. But all that changed yesterday when I made a trial batch of french fries. We are now going to experiment wit those potatoes and make them all into different kinds of fries to see what is the best! This will be a very unhealthy week!

So one video is an object lesson that I kind of came up with. I am sure someone has done it before but I have never seen it and so I will stake my claim! Both of the elders have their eyes closed and one of them is feeding the other one. The graphics weren't that great so I din't get very much of it. But it represents missionary work without the Holy Ghost!

The other video is of the rain storm that happened while we were picking potatoes. It was super crazy and the power went out several times during the storm. It was insane!

Picture are of places we have tracted and of our long walk from last week, since I didn't have my camera when I was emailing. 

Well... I think that that is all for this week!! I hope everyone's week goes well!

Elder Biesinger

Not for the faint at heart

Classic Hungarian shot

(Sigh...I miss this place)

There is a song that goes with this..."soka golum, soka sar" (lots of pigeons, lots of poo)

This reminds of the street our family lived on in Hungary

September 12: Death of a Friend

Hi everyone!

So this week one of my beast friends died.... My dear fan couldn't withstand the difference in volts from the USA to Hungary and shorted out never to come back again :( I guess life is full of trial and sorrow, I just wish I didn't need to experience some of it on my mission! Oh well.... I guess life can't always be a walk in the park.

Speaking of walking... My companion and I were going to "falu blast" a small falu (village) outside of Pápa where an inactive member lived. That means that we were going to finish our studies, pack a lunch, and go spend the day tracting and trying to find people in the falu. Well... We looked up our inactive and then received a phone call from a member asking if we could do some service for him. Of course we agreed. Then he told us he was going to pick us up at three at our apartment. Thinking it wasn't a problem we went to the train station and had a very nice talk with the conductor about life and religion, and then she left. We were just sitting there, wondering why our train was late, adn she comes out and asks if she knows what time our train leaves. We told her no. She said that it left at 3:45.... Well that doesn't work, and we where on the opposite side of our area from where the member we were serving lived. We did the math and found that it was a 6.5 mile walk to get back to our apartment and we had about an hour and forty-five minutes to get back to our apartment before three. Well... We started walking... and walking... and walking. We got picked up by the scariest car I have seen in my life. It is about half the size of a normal car in the US and was about a million years old  driven my some pretty scary looking people. Being tired, exhausted, and dehydrated (we didn't bring water because we were just going to pick some up in the falu we were tracting) we accepted and got in, I was pretty much kneeing myself in the face, but it was nicer then walking in the blazing. Once we picked up our bikes from the station in Pápa(that is where we were dropped off) we were driving back and my comp had the brilliant idea to call while riding his bike to tell another missionary friend what had happened. First of all.... Talking on your phone while on a bike is dumb. Second... We are only allowed to call for missionary purposes, not to tell stories. Well... God must have been tired of him breaking that rule. While we were going back there is a hill that has some loose gravel on the bottom and we have to make a sharp turn while on the gravel to get onto the trail. Well, with a phone in one hand and God's anger over him my comp went down the hill and BAM... bike slide out he slide on elbows and hands/face to a stop while our phone skidded away in several pieces. God works in mysterious ways!! Our phone was fine, and my comp is still alive, but he still won't tell people that he was on the phone when it happened :D 

We went on splits this week and my comp wanted to go with the senior comp and go to the American families house with him. So it was me and the other Junior and we totally wasted Pápa! Both of us where ok with doing everything and didn't have any fears because of our ignorance. We talked to so many people and had some cool experiences! So many people say that missions are never like the best two years... Well I have an experience to prove them wrong! So that part in the best two years when the newbie is in the park and he goes up to the american. Well... This is my experience. On splits (so I was with mister newbie right?) we stopped someone on the street and my comp said one of our tracting approaches. The lady said, in english, "sorry, I don't speak dutch" and elder szuch (my comp) was like "neither do I! I speak English". Now, for almost two sentences it was almost word for word what happened in the best two years! If you want your mission to be fun like the best two years all you need to do is change your attitude and make it like the best two years! It can be filled with fun and amazing experiences! 

Well... I think that that was what fun happened this week! Love you all! God bless you!

Elder Biesinger

P.S. Thank you for the updates from home and things I have been receiving, they have been awesome!

Making Plans to Visit Hungary

Quinn and I already have our dates set for our "anniversary" in two years:

Dear Elder Biesinger,

As you are aware, your mission call stated when you would begin your mission by reporting to the MTC, but did not specifically list your release date. Release dates in our mission are determined by the set 9 week transfer schedule which is based on MTC arrival and departure dates.

Working with Elder Hacking, our in-field representative from the Area Office in Germany, I have implemented a process to determine and notify missionaries of their release date as soon as possible after receiving their calls. As this process was not in place when you were called, the purpose of this letter is to notify you of your scheduled release date.

Accordingly, your release date will be July 12, 2018

Please remember that this date will only be changed if there is a significant or unpredicatable reason for the adjustment or if some serious event takes place that affects the whole family.

Thank you for your faithful service.

Szeretettel,

Szabadkai elnök

Working on my Hungarian on Duolingo so I don't order beer and in case I get lost.  Or should I say, When?
 

Pictures Sept 5

 So Pápa may be small, and the picture may be bad, but I was walking and wanted to hurry and catch the scene.

Our Recent convert's son got my camera and these are some of the pics, the crazy looking person is our recent convert öcsi. And keep in mind that this was after a long hot sweaty day!

August 29, 2016: "Warning!! Spiritual email about families!! No funny stories!"

SO I have been reading a whole bunch of Liahonas and the standard works lately. I just finished "our heritage" last week and this thought comes from page 123 paragraph two (I think).

"It talks about families. He (one of the prophets) says that they are 'the surest defense against evil'. Those are some pretty powerful words. SO often in our days we are shown that friends are everything. We confide in friends, we rant with friends, when we fight with our parents then we turn to our friends and rant again trying to gain sympathy and support. Friends are amazing, I wouldn't be where I am at without friends, but we need families more! The truth is, friends can come and go. I have had friends with whom I thought that we would be friends forever! But it didn't happen, we chose different paths and went different ways. That doesn't make them bad people, it is that diversity in the human race that can make life so wonderful. So, friends may come and go, but where can we turn to for the most sure place to find love. Families. Families are always there for us, ALWAYS!  we may want to move on and forget our life, but we will come to find that, unlike friends, families are so hard to forget and leave. There is always some tie to them for the rest of our lives. 

Like I said before, I love friends. People should seek for friends to have fun with and do appropriate things with. But for people I have met it has turned into a craz and they have slowly put family on the back burner and given them their bad side after talking and being with friends. In a world that is under appreciating families and over appreciating friends it is so important to heed to the prophets voice. I am willing to bet that God spent a lot more time trying to figure out who he would put in your family, then he did deciding all of the people he could surround you with as peers.

My challenge to all of you is this. Next time you have a friends outing (hanging out, movie, texting them, calling them) stay home and put the phone away. Spend that time truly being with your family and trying to build your relationship with them. You are with them forever make them your friends. It may be super hard. It definitely was when I was trying to get along better with my family. But it is completely worth it. I love all of my siblings so much and they have become my best friends! "One of the greatest blessings that God has given us is the family" (Preach my Gospel). I have read all of Preach my Gospel (with the exception of a couple pages) and not once have I seen "One of the greatest blessings God has given us is friends". Please look at yourself, then look at your family. Are you at a place where you are willing to live that way forever with them? If not, I encourage you to get to that point ASAP!!

Love you all! I hope you all have a fabulous week! 

Elder Biesinger    

August 29, 2016: "hit by a car-o, a korhazba jarok!! (If you say it right then there is a little rhythm)"

Hi everyone!!!

This week has been great! 

We went to Budapest for a zone conference and did cool tracting practice! My companion and I tied for the best score and got some good stuff for a reward. 

On Friday we went to Szombathely for splits with the zone leaders. They were really fun! I went with Elder Fritzgerald and had a blast talking to people!

A  cool experience. On Saturday, when we were doing splits with the zone leaders, Elder Fritzgerald and I had a spiritual planning session the night before. We both felt that we could place two copies of the Book of Mormon. Well we went throughout the day tracting and talking to people. By the time it was time for us to got back to Pápa I still had not place and copies of the Book of Mormon and was somewhat disappointed . Once we got home we were going to swing by the bank to get my money from my Missionary Funds card but instead we thought that it would be better to drop our stuff off and just walk to the bank instead of riding our bikes. On the way there a homeless man, that we had met before (the  one who just walked into the church and wasn't to nice smelling), came up to us and started talking to us. To be honest, Smith Elder and I aren't very fond of this man and usually try to avoid him. But he brought us over to sit down next to some men who he said that he knew, but from their looks you could totally tell that they had no idea who he was. The homeless man turned to us and asked for a Book of Mormon. We gave him one and he turned and gave it to one of the men sitting by us. We saw that his other friend was looking over and so we offered him a Book of Mormon also. We talked with the first man that had received a Book of Mormon for a while. We were able to set up an appointment for a return visit and he seemed honestly interested in hearing our message. We placed those two copies of the Book of Mormon that the spirit told me we could place! But guess what? As we were asking for his address we heard the words we never want to hear..."I'm from Győr". Győr is a bigger city that is in a different Elders area. While it is amazing that we where able to be led to him by God, it was a little sad, because we have, like, zero investigators right now...

So... now for the story about the subject line. I'll be honest, I lied, a little. I was actually the one that ran into the car. I was coming home from the store with my companion and we were going down a hill. I had a big heavy bag on my handlebars so I was going pretty slow while my companion zoomed down the street. Well... apparently I wasn't going slow enough and when the car pulled out in front of me  I couldn't stop on time. I hit his hood and landed on top!! It was pretty great! As you can see in the pictures below, there is a little dent in the car. He was pretty upset, and I didn't speak Hungarian. So I told him our phone number, cause my comp had kept going and had still not come back (even though our house was just around the corner like a hundred yards from where I was at), and my comp didn't answer. So we sat there for like 5 minutes waiting for him to come back. Evidently he doesn't love me very much. He never came. So I asked the man if we could go to my apartment and find my companion. He agreed and we got the whole situation resolved. Actually, we called the mission president and he got it resolved. I am all well and fine, no bruises or anything! And I have a really cool story to tell people now!!

 

At the store I bought some fruit syrup so  I could put it in my drink. That is the super cool looking bottle!!

 

The picture of the gate is a super cute dog which also had words under it that said it was a biting dog!! Well, we weren't very scared.

 

So while on the splits we ordered pizza. I ordered "The first date" which means the cook makes whatever pizza he wants and gives it to you. Mine was great (It is the light cheesebased one)! I can't say as much for Elder Fritzgerald. He got the other one with the egg cracked in it... it looked alright, except for where the egg and onion mixed. When that happened it looked all moldy and nasty!

 

Well.... I think thats all for now folks!

Sok szeretettel,

Elder Biesinger

August 22, 2016: Holy Freakin' CSODA!!

Wow....... wow... Um. Hungary is.... GREAT!

So my first serving area is Pápa! It is a small town in Western Hungary and it is so pretty!

I'm not sure what to talk about.. Oh! Saturday we had a goal to give out one Book of Mormon. It was like 8:30 at night and we were heading back to our apartment. It was a big holiday night and my companion said that we would probably see lots of drunk people. Well... I only saw one. One big burly one staggering and zigzagging up the alley towards us. Not exactly the ideal first situation to meet a drunk person in Hungary. He yelled at us and put himself in our way. Let us just say that he could kill a fish by just swimming in the water! He talked to us about a lot of stuff and intermingle English words that his  daughter had taught him. After talking about the Book of Mormon and gospel a lot we gave him the Book of Mormon and our number. We had to refuse giving him our autograph a lot. It was pretty great! We finally got away from him after teaching him how to say "bye" in English, and my comp got a hug'!! Sucker! But the man was  a lot nicer than he originally seemed. I guess God answers questions and requests in mysterious ways!

So I will go back to my first day. We had a 10 hour flight from Salt Lake to Amsterdam and then a 2 hour flight to Hungary. Once we got there we were met by the Mission President and his two assistants. When we got to the mission home we were sent to get our residency permit pictures with one of the missionaries who were at the home. As we went to get our pictures we practiced streeting. It was pretty fun! That night we slept in a super nice hotel. 

Day two. I was assigned a senior companion, Elder Smith, and we left at 1:30 for Pápa with the missionaries going to Győr. It was a 3 hour train ride to Győr where we would then take another train to Pápa. Our train broke down at a staion along the way to Gxőr. We had to wait for 30 minutes for them to get a new train, then we had to wait at the next stop for 30 minutes for no apparent reason. Once we got to Győr we got our tickets and walked up the stairs right as our train was leaving. So we had to wait for an hour until our next train... Which left an hour late. We ended up getting to Pápa at 7:30

Day three. Today was my first district meeting. My assigned topic to talk on was "How Sexual Immorality leads to not being spiritually born due to the tendancies of the the natural man". The world hates me!!! It went alright. We had a good time and ate some really good stuffed lángosok (plural lángos). On our way back to Pápa we went to the mall really quick to get my new bag. While we were there there were some workers working on 15 foot ladders on the ceiling. When they where done at one place they wouldn't get off their ladder, they would just walk around, using their feet to pick up the sides of the ladder. So they where kind of waddling around using the ladder as stilts. It was quite impressive!!

During one of our lessons this week we were teaching a 13-year old boy. We were teaching about prayer and saying that you can receive and answer to your prayers through the scriptures and Holy Ghost. Right after we told him that he told his mom to  pray for him. After she prayed he took a bible, opened up to a random page, and read what we pointed at. It was the scripture in Ezekiel talking about how the end of the world. Very important answer :S We think he is a little autistic.

Sunday was great! When I was introducing myself there were two very similar words I used. "Magyarorszag" and "Mennyeiorszag". The first one means Hungary and the second one means Heaven. Well.... I kept using Heaven instead of Hungary, which isn't bad, just embarrassing.

Well... I think taht that is about all! Below are some pictures from my apartment. In my room there are three fans!!! Kel Heaven!!

I hope life is going well for all of you!!

Elder Biesinger