Hey Everybody!Last week was pretty good. We went to see a giant mansion called Eszterházy kastély that was originally built a few hundred years ago. It was really neat. I’ll send some pictures.
Earlier last week it was way cold. The wind was really strong and that made it a lot worse.
Marika is doing really well. She is awesome! We decided to talk to her about smoking and to help her quit, but she told us that she had already quit! We were a little taken back. She said that she had already thrown all of the cigarettes out of her house and that she had told her co-workers not to ask her for cigarettes because she doesn’t have any anymore! She is a very determined person. She is progressing well and it’s awesome!
So about the Lutheran missionary girl we’ve been talking to—we had a good discussion last night. We had planned on talking to her about original sin and about what happens to those who don’t learn of Christ during mortality and to answer her questions about becoming like our Father in Heaven. We had a ton of sweet scriptures from the Bible to prove our points. Well, as is usually the case, our discussion didn’t go as planned. Our scriptures were awesome, but she had a different interpretation for all of them so they had no effect on her at all. Our discussion became a “now you know why we believe what we believe and that we have scriptures to back up our beliefs and our disagreements are a matter of different interpretations of those scriptures” meeting. But it was so sad to hear her talk about how babies and others who don’t hear about Christ in this life will go to hell and suffer eternally. She admitted that it’s a hard thing for her to accept.
Truly, NOTHING can convert people to the gospel except the Spirit of God and only then when those who hear the gospel are open to the Spirit’s guidance and are willing to follow it. Talking to this Lutheran missionary has made me think a lot about psychology and about just how ineffective and destructive it is to try to disprove someone else’s beliefs. In our discussion last night, we just talked about our different beliefs in a courteous manner. We didn’t convince her of anything, so some might say that nothing much was accomplished. On the other hand, when a discussion degenerates into contention only bad stuff can come from it. Talking to her has given me a lot of experience discussing beliefs without being contentious. I really like it when neither party in a discussion like this tries to prove the other wrong, instead focusing on exchanging beliefs and trying to understand one another. So it was cool.
I made an interesting language mistake this week. While talking to one of the members, Ádám, I just couldn’t think of what I wanted to say in correct Hungarian. I told him that what I was about to say wasn’t going to be correct. But when I said that I made a mistake! OK, that was confusing. I meant to say „nem lesz helyes,” which means “it won’t be correct,” but instead I said „nem helyes lesz.” OK, so it wasn’t a funny mistake, but it was kind of ironic.
Well I didn’t get a good night’s sleep last night and my brain just isn’t working so I’ll end now. I am very grateful that I have the opportunity to be here and to help others become happier through the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Thanks for everything, I love you all!
~Anderson elder
