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

Kelder's Area: Papa!

Q-dawg found this on facebook: "Biesinger elder Pápán szolgál"

Love it!  The tall gentleman married a sweet sister from our branch when we lived there and we went to their wedding.  So cool!!!

MTC 10: Last Day in MTC

Hi Y'all!

SO today I leave for Hungary! I am so excited!

This past week has flown by! We haven't done anything super awesome or out of the norm because most days are packed with departure meetings or class or packing! But volleyball was a lot of fun (as usual). I had a particularly good serve that was at the perfect angle and super hard! A sister tried to return the serve with her knee.... She still has a bruise on her knee... Teehee, opps. I kind of calmed down after that with my serves! But it was still way fun! 

My district had an amazing spiritual experience.  The Elders all gave the sisters a blessing of comfort. It was so powerful! One of the sisters said she could see the Elders glowing with the spirit. I don't think I have ever been somewhere where the spirit was that strong for that period of time. It was amazing. It is such a privilege to give a blessing. You get to see and feel a little bit of Gods love for ther person you are blessing! It is truly and amazing blessing!

Well... Wish me luck! I am leaving for the airport in like an hour and a half!

Elder Biesinger

"Pictures: So one of them is the results of my push-up error. The pills one is how many supplements one of my companions take morning and night. The one with the elder is just him quoting an apostle to a sister "Lock your heart sister" in a high pitch voice. He is pretty funny!"

MTC 9: Bishop Passed Out Sunday....

Hi everyone!

So this is my last update email before I hit the field! We got our flight plans on Saturday and are super super excited! Our first flight is from SLC to the Netherlands, and then we go from there to Hungary!! Super excited!!

This week has been a lot of fun! Everyone in my zone has gotten sick, except for me! I haven't been sick my whole MTC, so hopefully it will continue that way! One of my companions got really sick. Last night he asked me to give him a blessing! The spirit was so strong there. And it was right after we watched "Ephraim's Rescue", so it made it that much cooler! He is still sick today though, so we went to the doctors today and it ends up his mucus and stuff from a sinus infection traveled down to his throat. The doctor says he just has to drink a lot of liquid and then it will clear out in a couple of days. But it is kind of funny, the companion that got sick is the one who always tells me that the stuff I am eating is super unhealthy and stuff. One time when I was eating some ice cream he told me that I was going to get a disease in my liver because of the sugar.... Well.... I'm alright taking the chance. He also takes a million supplements every morning and night, and he giets more sick then me and my other companion.... Coincidence, I think NOT!!

Jefferey R Holland's son ,President Holland, came to speak at the  Sunday Devotional. He is almost as awesomely cool as his father! He talks very similar to his father. He told us a story about how when he was a bishop he went to a pool for a primary activity. Some of the kids would climb on him and try to dunk him, but he would throw them away into the pool and said that he had "Bishop Power". After a while he had the whole primary climbing on him trying to dunk him. One of the visiting children, that he knew who was the son of another bishop, climbed around his neck and started to squeeze as hard as he could. As President/Bishop Holland turned purple and passed out, his last memory was of the kid in his face saying "my dad is also a bishop, but he uses his power to do good things", and then the bishop passed out... That would be a very exciting primary pool party!! 

This week an Elder in the other Hungarian district decided to do 30 pushups during each 5 minute break we had. SO I decided later that night to see how many pushups I could do without stopping... The number was pretty good! After I did those I remembered that I wanted to try the ones where you clap behind your head between each one.... Well.... I was exhausted... I got my first one. But it wasn't very loud, so my second one... Well, I wasn't quick enough. I landed on my nose and just sat there with my face one the group for a minute or two trying to comprehend what had just happened. My companion that was in the room thought that it was pretty funny. I have this big carpet burn on my nose (I'll try and send pictures later today). 

This week in a lesson I was talking about how we could live together as families forever in the Celestial kingdom if we are righteous. Well... I told the investigator that we could live forever with her family in the Celestial. It wasn't supposed to be very funny, but we all laughed a lot and we were barely able to finish the lesson because we would be keep laughing and stuff!

Well this time in the MTC has been great!! And I am sooo excited to go into the field!

Love you all!!

Elder Biesinger!

MTC 8: Blocked Volleyballs and Bucket Lists

Hi Everyone!

This week has been uneventful but fun! As I spoke of earlier, we play A LOT of volleyball here. I made a big step in the ranks of good volleyball players this week! There is a girl that played volleyball for 12 years including in college. She went up for a spike and I BLOCKED it!! I am still as humble as ever, but I am kind of happy! It was a really good block that smashed back on their side of the court! 

So... something exciting! I am getting my travel plans this week!! I am soooo excited! I have loved the MTC, and still love it. But I am super ready to share my love of the gospel with the Hungarian people! 

I watched "Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration" last night. As I saw the love that the Smith family had for their brother and son Alvin. They were heartbroken to think that Alvin wasn't going to be in heaven because he wasn't baptized before he died. But then the scene in the movie where Joseph and Hyrum come running into their home after they received the revelation about those who have died without the knowledge of the gospel, and that would have accepted it, that they would be able to accept it in Heaven and live in Heaven again. And then the scene where Josephs father is dying, and one of the last things he asks is if he will be able to see his son again. And when Joseph says yes, you can see the joy that that word means everything in the world to Josephs father. Out there in the world there are millions of people who have loved ones who have died, and they have no hope to be united again with their loved ones. The strongest bonds of love can almost always be found in the family. The hope that the gospel brings to those with deceased loved ones is incredible! To think that I can help people find that joy and love makes me so happy! To see one peoples faces the love and peace they feel from the message of the gospel will be amazing! 

I love the gospel. I love the Hungarian people, and I love my family!

I hope that you all kind find peace in this crazy world! 

Sincerely

Elder Biesinger

I forgot. We have a thing called TRC here at the MTC. It is where we prepare a 20 minute lesson in our language and then teach two different members, one right after the other, in Hungarian! Well... This week that changed! We skyped with actual Hungarians this week!! It was super awesome and crazy! They already speak a million miles and hour, and then the connection makes it hard to hear the words! All in all it was very interesting! I loved it! The spirit was strong there and it was great!

The Eagle had Landed!

I know I have forgotten to put a couple of emails in here, but I had to post this one!!!!

"   I am pleased to report that Elder Biesinger  has arrived safely in Hungary!  Sister Szabadkai and I welcomed his group at the airport and found all the new missionaries excited and eager to begin their service in the Hungary Budapest Mission. We look forward to getting to know each of them personally and know we will love Elder  Biesinger as deeply as we love all the missionaries in our care.

     Within the next 24 hours Elder Biesinger will be assigned to a proselyting area with a dedicated Senior Companion and Trainer that has been prayerfully selected to serve in this vital roll. Together they will participate in a brief training meeting at the mission office and then depart immediately to their designated area.

     Over the past several months, there has been much in the news about trouble and turmoil in many parts of the world. Terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels have put all of Europe on heightened alert. Immigration issues continue to cause controversy. Under the direction of Church Headquarters and the European Area Presidency, we have taken and will continue to take measures to ensure that all of our missionaries are safe and kept from harm's way. At the present time, I can assure you that Hungary is secure and that our missionaries can safely perform the work they've been called to do.  

     Thank you for your sacrifice and support of these wonderful young people as they share the light of the Gospel and testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ, with the people of Hungary.

 

     Szeretettel,

     Szabadkai elnök

     Hungary Budapest Mission"