October 24: Archaic Models!

Hi everyone,

SO. Starting from Monday. After emailing we (I) quickly walked, The sisters ran, to catch a busz. We went to a sweet members home who looooves to have missionaries over and always feeds us waaaaay to much good food. While we were there we usually bring non pros clothes so that we can easier do sports outside. Well this time we forgot/didn't want to... we regreted that. Cause when a stubborn néni tells you to do something you have to do it. And we had to get into her sons clothes from the 70's or 80's.... (see pictures below) I was trying not to smile but the sun was in my eyes so I couldn't.

Tuesday we went to Dunaújváros for splits with the zone leaders!! One of the zone leaders was really weird and would just walk up to Asians (there was a university in Duna and a lot of Asians) and would hold up his hand and say "hello good sir!" and talk to them in English without trying in Hungarian. It was pretty great!

Wednesday we went to an investigators B-day party with some members and had a blast! We had some good cake, played some "ultimate football" (combination of football and Frisbee) which is always a blast!

Thursday we went to District meeting and things went well. We played a game called snack oil for Angol Óra which everyone enjoyed a lot!

Friday I signed onto my personal facebook for the first time in a little over a year, almost a year and a half, because we are starting to use media to spread the gospel. We all have missionary pages for the cities we are in and then we post a spiritual message and then the members like and share it! It was really weird to go through all my contacts and see so many people that I knew! 

Sunday we had church. The self-reliance missionaries were here so I had to translate for them which is always interesting... One of the speakers just read a lot out of the Bible but wouldn't give referances for anything and the Biblical Hungarian is TOTALLY different than normal Hungarian so I turned to the couple and apologized cause I didn't understand anything that this man was saying... Right after sacrament meeting we were told we were teaching the investigator/new member class... LOVE MISSIONARY LIFE!! Luckily it was on missionary work and so we were able to get lots of good convo going! Later that night we went over to a members house and played some really fun trivia games and ate dinner! Trivia is really hard in Hungarian cause it is just talking about a bunch of random things and so you really come to realize how small your vocab is when you play them:) But it was a lot of fun! We played a game that was really similar to BS the lying face card game and every time we played my hand was perfect and I never had to lie and so I won every time! We all had to wear glasses with big noses and whenever we got caught lying or wrongly accused someone we would get a colorful cap to add to our big nose. There is below. I never got a colored thing but everyone told me that I had to put some colored stuff on my nose to fit in... So I did! But I never lied and never falsly accused!

Monday. It was freezing cold and rainy today! Both my companion and I wore our winter coats and still got pretty wet... We went back to Dunaújváros to have interviews with our mission president!  Lots of fun! And then we came back and had an amazing lesson with an investigator. We talked a lot about trials and how to deal with them. We talked about Joseph Smith, Moses, Job, and Christ. It was really spiritual and one of the members very strongly testified and it helped me learn things to!! What a cool thing:)

This week was a lot of fun and transfers are next week!!!! We will see what happens!

Love you all!

Biesinger Elder!   

**********************

So one of these is when we were at the party on Sunday and the other was after a Hungarian class our teacher brought us a Hungarian dessert that involved whipped cream. My companion put some of the dessert in his mouth without whipped cream and I offered to squirt some in. I did... and all over his lower face! BWAHAHAHAHA! 

The last picture is of some random man walking down the road with a cart full of garbage..... Just a little interesting..

May 8: Csunya volt...

Hellosztok,

So story about the suject line. This last week there was a stake conference for Hungary. There are two girls in our ward (10 and 14) who love to hang out with the missionaries. So I was talking with the 10 year old and she asked if I was sad that I couldn't see my last companion. I told her "not a whole bunch" and she just blurts out "igen, csunya volt" which means, "yeah, he was ugly". I just sat there and stared and this savage little girl.

This week has been good. Nothing has really happened.

Here are some stuff from my weekly email.

This week we met with our investigator ...... She is doing very well. At the beginning of every lesson she comes in sad and gloomy and whenever she leaves she laughes and smiles. This lesson was a testimony builder for me about the peace of the Gospel. This lesson she came in clearly disraut and sad. As we started asking her about her week she started crying. We weren't sure what to do so we told her comforting words, started with a prayer, and read 3 Nephi 11 with her. We talked about how Christ came, and that he will come again. We talked about His Atonement and about how he has "descended below them all" meaning our sins and sorrows and pains. She seemed to have a burden lifted off of her shoulders and by the end of the lesson we were all in tears because of the Holy Ghost. She left the lesson glowing and happy. We think that this upcoming week she will accept an invitation to be baptized. We are very happy for her. She also came to Stake Conference. 

We got a let-in this week. The guy was a typical Hungarian. Hungarians love to tell about how Hungary is invovled in everything in the world. So he talked to us for a while about how Hungary is the language of God because Hungarians can express themselves better than anyone else because of the language. He was super funny with everything he thought about the Hungarian people. He made us commit to learn Robás Irás, and ancient Hungarian alphabet. It was actually the language that Dwarvish was based off of in Lord of the Rings. Maybe. But besides all of that we had a really good spiritual lesson with him!

Love Hungary and the people!!

I hope all of you have an amazing week!

Biesinger Elder

Sorry about the lack of pictures. More will come next week!

May 2: Coolság

Szervusztok!

This week has been really good! Below are two paragraphs that I wrote to my Mission President. 

This week has been one of little and big miracles. Last Saturday we invited one of our investigators, Dardai Ilona, to be baptized. She has changed a lot since we last asked her and she agreed to be baptized. She says that if we feel she is ready then she thinks that that is her answer from God. She has stopped smoking and now fills the time when she would have been smoking, with reading the Book of Mormon. We set her date as June 17.

Our second miracle from this week actually happened yesterday. We were meeting with one of our invetsigators, Vadasz Olivia, and we invited her to also be baptized. Vadasz Olivia was found a couple weeks ago and last time we met with her we were scared that she wanted to stop meeting. She told us that she doesn't want to join our church for a long time. But it has been really cool. Whenever we start a lesson with her she is usually sad and has a lot of stuff on her mind, but when it is over she is radiating and laughing. This has happened every lesson. It is a powerful testimony of what the Holy Ghost can do. She has also learned to recognize the Holy Ghost and his promptings. She loves the feeling and points it out often. She loves to pray because she always feels peaceful. But anyway, we asked her to be baptized and she told us that she really wants to become clean and that she thinks that this is the only way, but she wants to pray about it and see if it really is. We were very happy for her. She will be coming to stake conference. 

This week we are going to start teaching one of our investigators how to read so that he can read our of the Book of Mormon. It is going to be cool! 

Another clippet 

Szirmai Laszlo, is slowly but surely progressing. We have been talking about how we need to rely on God through these times and do the simple things like reading the scriptures, praying everyday and coming to church. He has been having a hard time accepting that, but we talked about it more and now we send him a prayerfully chosen scripture everyday that he said that he will read. He also is starting to open up to us a lot more. We felt like we should bring our new convert Luca to the lesson and that was a really good idea. She connected really well with him because she had had lots of similar problems.

We were able to go to a members house this last week and my companion was showing them his pictures and the last picture is of him and another missionary in a previous transfer. The father looked at the picture, at my companion, back at the picture and said "Sok Tészta" (Lots of pasta). and he hands it to another member there and she said "es zsir, es cukor, es kenyér" (and grease and sugar and bread.) I was laughing my head off from the first comment, but my companion was clueless  for the longest time and I was laughing forever. These people where calling my skinny companion fat! Super funny! The family was a lot of fun and the energy levels there remind me a little bit of my families! Super crazy! 

I think that is it! Here are a couple pics from dinner last Pday! 

Sok Szeretettel,

Biesinger Elder 

Actually... Dessert.  

April 24: Hey...

This week is transfers!!! I got a new companion. Elder Martin. He was originally called to Russia but due to new laws and politics he got reassigned  to Hungary. He is in the same group as my new missionary was but he speaks really good Hungarian. We were in a lesson this week and our investigator turned to me and said "he speaks a lot better Hungarian than you do. He must be out longer than you." I told him no.  Well... I guess I got some things to work on! Love life. 

This week we haven't done a lot. We have had several inappropriate lessons when talking about the Law of Chastity but those are not allowed to be shared over general emailing. Kind of interesting week. Besides those stuff nothing huge has happened this week. We had the 30 year év furdló for the dedicatory prayer in Hungary. We had a long celebration for it. Two men seriously shared a total of 20 pictures and spent 4 hours talking about it. It was long and boring. But socializing with the members at the end was really good! 

I think that is all that happened.... My companion and I are going to do some pretty fun things today and he likes pictures so he will probably be taking a lot so I will also show a lot in the email.

Sorry that it is short and kind of scatterbrained.... Love life!

Biesinger Elder 

This burger I ate was like HUGE!!!!!! I could barely hold it in my hand. Had 4 patties and 2 fried chicked slices. Wasn't like big patties, but it was still massive. Had a lot of fun trying to eat it. And yes, I finished it all! I couldn't stop my streak of not finishing big burgers!!  

Attachments area

April 18: Interesting...

Szervusztok!! 

This week there is a transfer! I am staying here and getting a missionary from my new missionaries group (when I trained) My new missionary loved him and told me a lot about my new companion so it should be fun! 

 Easter was fun. We did a lot of tracting and people all hated us because we were "ruining" their holiday... Well... Oh well...

Last week we went to the Buda side of Budapest and looked at castle hill. It was a lot of fun and we had a party. We had some good food (burgers) and just had fun in general walking around and doing cool things. 

I'm sorry this email is sickeningly short. We didn't do a lot of crazy things this week.

Actually... We helped a man from England move from one place to another. We would load up with bags and ride public transit to his new place. It was interesting. When I told him my name was German he said "that must be a corrupt version of German"... I didn't know how to take that so I didn't say anything. He was an interesting guy. 

I hope all of your weeks are great! I will try and to crazy things or take a lot of pictures next week to make up for this sorry excuse for an email! 

Sok Szeretettel,

Biesinger Elder

My camera got stolen....

Our trip... Lots of pics!!  

April 10: Reliving...Some time in the past

Szervusztok! 

This week was pretty uneventful! 

I found out that there is a mini person coming along in my family... Last week I "learned" but I wasn't sure whether or not it was true or a joke. Super confused all week! But... Sweet! 

This week we were at 21 Fonal st Budapest (look it up on google maps so you can better imagine this). So imagine what you see (it is the 3 story building and there are 2 big ones.) but like 5 times worse. There are bricks missing and shattered windows everywhere. Well... my companion and I were looking up a former investigator. We found his building, after we asked around because it wasn't marked. The front door to the building was smashed in and there was debris in the hallway. None of the doors were marked in the hallway so we climbed around peoples things and asked for the man at a door. They pointed us down this long dark hallway that, if we went down, well... lets not go into that for  the sake of mothers everywhere :) Just kidding, I wouldn't go places that crazy. But it was pretty bad and creepy. We found him and things went well... But both of us had adrenaline pumping through our weakened bodies (we were fasting). Fun experience!

This week was our investigators confirmation and was amazing. We met with her family the day before because we hadn't met with them yet because her family situation is pretty crazy. Her siblings loved me, especially a 2 year old. He was almost as crazy as maiapapaya (my little sister). I let some of them use my camera to take pictures and they loved it. I would hold the camera and the 2 year old would turn it on and off and scream in excitement when the lens would open and close. Super cute! Her mom (the reason we were there) was super late but when she did come at first she was closed off to us, but then as she saw how happy her kids were she opened up and started smiling and laughing with us! It all turned out really well! One of the boys loved to dress my companion up. I loved it! 

On Saturday we were coming back from an Easter conference that the stake put on. We got off our bus and I saw a group of people standing at the cross walk that we were going to. One of the guys turned and saw us and had this creepy grin come over his face. He kept turning as we walked by and to the other side of them. I was pretty creeped out. As we were standing there he said "hey elders!" in perfect english. Well he ended up to be a YSA who was attending a huge conference in Budapest for the young single adults. We ended up talking for like 30 minutes. He decided to leave home at 18 and has been traveling around Europe for 10 years. He tries out different schools and decides he doesn't like it, lives in the place for a while and works, and then moves on. He grew up learning 4 languages and learned 3 more while he traveled and wants to learn like 5 more. Crazy people out there! 

Well.... I think that that is mostly all that happened this week!! 

Have an amazing week!! 

Elder Biesinger 

April 3: Great Week!

Hi Y'all!!

This week has been uneventful besides a baptism and awesome P-day.

Last Monday we did a last minute escape room! Super fun. Evidentally they were invented in Budapest. I am not sure though because Hungarians really like to claim everything. A lot of them say the George Wasington was of Hungarian decent and that he used Hungarian tactics in the war... But anyways. The room was really fun. It was really tricky and we ended with 18 seconds out of 1 hour. As we were using our calculator in the phone the sisters called us and almost killed us. My companion quickly hung up on them and we finished in the nic of time. We are part of the 20 percent that have every finished it! We are so cool :D 

The baptism was amazing. The young woman started officially meeting with the missionaries 2 weeks ago and we have met with her every day. She is now excited to start preparing for a mission. She is so cool! The Bishop baptized her and we will be confirming her next week. 

General Conference was  super awesome! We were allowed to watch it in English in another room and so we did. Except for the priesthood session and the last session. I loved it and was very spiritually edified by it. 

I hope this pictures satisfy expectations! Have a great Week everyone!!

Elder Biesinger 

On splits with  our investigator the day before her baptism! Those are her sunglasses and my name tag. 

March 27: Passin the Tacs

Hi Everyone.

This last week I haven't done very much. 

Visegrad was great! We had to take a boat across the danube before we could get there and then we found out that the bus was closed for the week and so had to hick up this muddy hicking trail in our church clothes to get to the castle on top of the hill. We were quiet the weird sight. Several people will probably never forget that day in their lives. 

Explanation for the subject. I was sitting next to a Néni at church and she got out this box of tic tacs and took one, and handed it to me and I took one. And over the course of the meeting she got one to almost everyone within 3 rows of use. To everyone else it seemed like a common occurence. Well... I am down for free tic tacs every week. I have now found the person I will be sitting to every week! 

Well... I think that was all the big things. The last couple days have been crazy so I didn't think a lot about what I was going to write. I will write a better email next week! 

Oh.. There was a hip hop night where missionaries could go if they brought an investigator. Well.. We brought two and had a great time. One of the missionaries was super good at hip hop and he taught a lot. It was also fun to listen to some "worldly" music. It was a lot of fun. I also got to meet with some good friends that I knew from before the mission when I lived here before! Super fun! Loved it!

Have a great week!! I will get better pictures next week because I need to use someone elses camera and they are not with me right now. 

Elder Biesinger

Nevermind. The pictures aren't working so... sorry, but I will not be able to send any pictures...

Have an amazing week without them!!!!! 

March 20: PICTURES!!!

Hi Everyone!

This week has been crazy! We have had 2342516.4256 million lessons. Not really, but we have been crazy busy. Last Sunday we taught Luca the Restoration (First lesson) and she asked us if she could be baptized. On Saturday we had her baptismal interview and she passed. She has her date as April 1st at 4. Right before General conference. She is crazy. She has read all of the pamphlets we use to teach, like, 4 times and has read the "For the Strength of youth" Pamphlet like 3 times. She is super ready.

Well... Nothing has really happened besides that this week. We are having a great time here in Kispest. Right now we are about to run to a place called Visegrad and so I don't have a lot of time this week.

We met with a néni who told us that she thinks baldness is so sad. She said that God gave people hair for a reason and that baldness is such a tragic thing. Super funny! Made me think of my dad. He often has said that God made a few perfect heads and the rest he put hair on. Well,... He and this lady can talk it over! 

The Jehova Witness church has a big program coming up and so they tracted EVERYWHERE before us. We went for 90 minutes never finishing our approach before they closed the door. Crazy People.

I would like to apologize for not spelling something right last email. I wrote "Csokolomstok" and it would be "Csokolomsztok" but that technically isn't right anyway... Well... It is Hungarian so I guess it is okay because... yeah... I don't know why.

God loves all of us and always is watching over us. That is something that I have personally experienced on my mission. Life is wonderful!!

I hope all of you have a great week! 

Elder Biesinger

Pictures. One is of an amazing burger that I got. Super yummy and tall. 

Other ones are of me after a long tiring day and my companion was having a fun time with taking pictures. I guess someone has to help hold the crowds of picture-wanters away :)

Love Y'all!!! 

March 13: So much for being a "seed-planting mission"

csokolomstok!

This week has been super great! On Monday after I emailed and after P-day we were tracting and we were looking up a less active member. It was like 8:30, which if you know Hungarians you will know that everyone goes to bed at 7 and wakes up at 10 during winter/spring and if you tract then then the people will want to swear you to death. Anyway, we were tracting and this lady leans out this window on the second floor and yells out asking who we are. We tell her that we are missionaries and that we are looking for this man. She told us to wait while she comes down. She came down to her gate and said "who are you and how do you know him" in a stern way. We told her that he was a member and that we just wanted to see how he was doing. She told us he was dead but that we could come in if we had time. "Sweet! I love to talk to people!" Well, she was really nice as we walked to the house and she was asking why we were here and how she was looking for something else in her life. We talked about the Book of Mormon and she told us that that would make sense because there had to be more than the Bible. We walked up to her 2 story house and walked into her living room and LO AND FREAKING BEHOLD there was an active family sitting around the kitchen table. I took a double take, looked at the lady, and realized she was the mother of the family with 3 less layers of makeup. She was pulling our leg the whole time. The old man on the record was their father and he was inactive because he was dead. They fed us dinner and we shared with them a spiritual message. It was pretty great!

We were finally able to officially meet with Luca, the golden investigator, and we taught her about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She excepted everything and then at the end she shared an experience about a youth activity, that the churched organized, that she had been to the day before. Things had happened in a certain way there and so she asked people there how she could be baptized. They told her to talk with the missionaries and so she did. She asked us when she could be baptized. We seriously were speachless. This girl went to every single activity the church provided, she indexed, and when mission prep was announced and they said that it was for members preparing to serve a mission she almost cried because she was planning on going to it. She was found 3 weeks ago and has come to church every week without any reminders and goes to activities that the missionaries don't even know about. 

This week in addition to her 4 of our investigators have accepted to be baptized, this ain't no "seed planting" mission, we are going to rival those South American missions!!! Of course that is not the reason why we do things, but it was a annoying thing that was told to most of the missionaries that were coming here and we are all working hard to prove it wrong, and God is blessing us with his Elect children!

Well... This week we only got lost at night running around in the slums of Budapest twice this week, pretty awesome!! If you are ever planning on visiting Budapest this advice will help you. Budapest is split up into Buda and Pest. Each of those are split into districts. And the Hungarians are so happy about keeping their culture that they can't create new street names and so there are multiple streets with the same name all over Budapest. Well, we knew that, but we still stumbled into this trap. We went to "Árpad Utca" because it was a stop right next to our house. Well.... This "Árpad utca", that this bus took us to, was about 20 minutes outside of Budapest and a 50 minute bus ride from the other "Árpad utca" stop. It was pretty great, we ran around trying to get on the right bus, and since it was so late at night we would have to wait for a long time for another bus to come because they were more spaced out than normal.

Oh... I almost forgot. There is an interesting néni (elderly lady) here in our ward. Her name is Kati. She is very hard to deal with. Well.... on Sunday, in our investigator class (for some reason she is always there) and out of no where came out and started talking about how the Bible isn't true and that it isn't from God. Well... that was shot down really quick and then we told our investigators that we believed in the Bible. Well... After our lesson with Luca, which was right after church, Kati was still there and she saw Lucas Bible and went up to her and told her that the Bible was wrong and that we can't trust it. She then went on to say that you can't find answers to our questions in the Bible or the Book of Mormon! A bunch of members shut her down and very quickly told Luca that we did. Luca has had some interesting experiences with Kati already and so she understood and wasn't bothered by the experience. Good thing!! 

Well... My companion took a lot of pictures and I will send those next week!!

I hope you all have an amazing week!!

Elder Biesinger

February 13: Hmmmm

Hi everyone,

Good thing I had an extra long email last week, cause this weeks will be pretty short.

This week we had interviews with our mission president. It was super good! We got to Győr at 10:40 and didn't have anything to do until our interview times (2:30). We were there so early because that was the only train that would get us there on time. So while we were waiting we went to the mall in Győr and got a basketball! We went to the branch house (where the interviews were being held) and played basketball in suits for a while. Pretty fun!

This week we are trying something as a district. We heard that if you drink a lot of apple juice before bed you have super weird dreams. Well... for some people it is true. It is not true for me though. One of the Elders did it and in his dream I was the head of a Jehovah's Witness university in Hungary, and that I would order people to be killed if they didn't accept my religion. It was kind of weird.... 

Nothing else really happened this week. I also didn't take any pictures... So, sorry! 

Transfers are next week and so I will be emailing on Tuesday! 

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Biesinger

Actually... Looking through my camera I found two.

So the first one is of my shoe. This shoe lasted 6 months. I still wear them, but the bottom has rubbed of enough that I now have to take rocks out of my shoe every night. I don't feel them at all when I walk, they just get stuck in that lovely hole that you see!

The second is of a little package I got from my last companion. He found my favorite Milka bar (chocolate brand) that they don't sell very much any more. When he found it he lovingly thought of me and sent me it! He has a stamp and seal kit that he uses whenever he sends stuff! He is a goofy elder!

KK I think that is everything!!

March 6: Long Ride and 2000 Dollars from Make-Up

Szervustok,

This week has been pretty full. We had a zone training which is a blast. One of my zone leaders has been my zone leader for my whole mission. He has been following me around. He is super cool so I can't complain.

So on Saturday, bcause I am district leader, I was on splits with one of the missionaries in my district. We were going down to a place called "Sziget Halom" where one of their investigators lived. It takes about an hour and a half to get down there. So we set up an appointment with their investigator and with another potential investigator. We also had a referral from Salt Lake that we needed to look up. So we had 3 programs that we were going to. Well.... We got down there and one by one all of our programs fell through. We picked up some lunch and went back home. 3 hours of traveling for some interesting food. And blessings of course! But it was a lot of fun. Elder Harris (the missionary) and I were able to talk a lot and get to know each other. 

This week we were at a members house, and since she was a single woman we brought a male. During the course of our meal the topic came up of "seasoning". Our male told a story about when he was in America a person gave him some cornbread. When he took a bit out of the cornbread he said to the person who gave it to him "this doesn't taste like anything" the man responded "it isn't the really thing, sorry". Man 2 left the room and came back with a jar, he proceeded to dump a whole bunch of sugar on the cornbread and said "now try it" our male then tried it and said it tasted great. So now our member says that when Americans don't think something has taste, they just get a whole bunch of sugar an dump it on top and then eat it. It was pretty funny. 

This is a clip from my email to my mission president about on of our, almost, investigators.

There is a golden investigator in our area. Her name is Luca and she is 17. She is currently not an investigator right now because we have not been able to meet with her with her parents permission yet. She finally got her parents to sign her paper that says we have their permission to teach her. She has come to church for three weeks without being invited, she has taken the indexing challenge and wants to come to the mission prep class. She has also invited random people to come to church. She fits in really well with the ward and went around getting the other youths numbers so she could ask them questions if she needs help with indexing and other things. We are so excited to start teaching her this week. God has truly prepared her for this.

This girl is super cool. She started coming to English class and then got invited to come to church once. She came the next week and has come ever since. I am super excited. She loves the youth and has met with the bishop a couple of times already, everyone has accepted her as part of the ward (I am actually in  ward now, not a branch).

So explanation for the second part of my subject line. A new sister in my district has a makeup tutorial channel on youtube. She has 25000 subscribers and makes a steady income of 2000 pounds each month even when she is on her mission. That was the explanation. Might spark some interesting ideas. I know my younger brother Drew has had a dream about doing a makeup tutorial channel! 

Sory fr alll of teh mistkaes in spleling. My Compture dosen't sohw when it is wrng adn I dnot wnat to go bck adn raed evertythngi agian.

​​​​

I hope all of you have a great week!!

There will be email with more pictures!!

Love you all!

Elder Biesinger

We ate at an Mexican restaurant which was pretty good!

So the picture of the other elder is awesome because of his choice of shoes.