Monday, October 25, 2010

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 (Ammon)

Hey everyone, sounds like everyone had an awesome week. I’m proud of you all doing such a great job with missionary work, keep it up!!!  That’s cool about the Halloween party. We planed one for this Saturday and it looks like we will have an ok turn out. We have about 60 active members on a good week at church and so we hope that maybe half will come to the party.

This week was great for us, we worked very hard to try and speak only Hungarian and just worked our butts off lol.  We had programs with people all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as well. I think Thursday is when we had our english class. Then Friday was good, we had a few programs and had ysa night which is every Friday. On Saturday we had a super p-day which is just when it’s a p-day all day long. That was a nice day. We went to a museum and saw some cool things. Then we had some food and then watched movies the rest of the afternoon. That night we just went home and hungout. Church was great, one of the best I have seen in this city lol. We have some great investigators right now that we are very proud of.  They are working so hard to find the truth, please pray for them.  Today we only have till 2, then we have to get to workin but other than that, that was my week. Next week is zone conference so we will be leaving Szeged. Then that night we are going to go on splits with the zls so looks like it will be another fun week.
Have a great week EVERYONE!!!!

Mon, 18 Oct (Ammon)

Another fun week in the mission. We had lots of baptismal programs this week and many wonderful people progressing towards baptism.  Me and my companion are so proud of our investigators and all they go through and do to find the truth.    I don’t have any really crazy stories that come to mind for this week but the work is going good in Szeged.  Next week is going to be a fun week.  We only can speak in Hungarian. We have to bap challenge all or our investigators and a few other things.  This will really put my language skills to the test and will be a great chance for me to improve. I hope everyone at home is doing well.  That’s so cool to hear all these wonderful stories of u all doing missionary work at home. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!!!   That’s awesome that Nathan is so willing to help out at home. I hear to many times that when a missionary goes home they become a joke and forget all they have done and learned.  That’s awesome to see Nathan applying the things he has learned to help the ward and people at home. I’m sorry this letter is so small this week but I’m out of time and have to got to work.  Have a great week!!!!!!

 smith elder

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

 Mon, 11 Oct 2010   (Ammon)

What!!!!! what!!!!!!! what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why is Nathan home?  We were going to meet at the border!!! What the heck? Why is he home? What? Why?!!!!!!! This is not fair but I’m happy for him and sorry for him as well, he has to go back to the normal life. But tell him to convert all my friends. They are ready for the gospel lol. Dang this is weird, I don’ know what to say. Do I have to write longer letters now that I’m the only missionary out?  I hope not, tell Dan to hurry and get out here. Man this is weird, I was so excited to maybe have that chance to see Nathan but it’s gone, my dreams are gone!!!!!!! Anyway this week’s letter will be a little shorter because I wrote you all a huge letter and I’m sending little fun stuff home in it.
This week was a great week, a little slow, but moving along. We have some very promising investigators that we are very proud of and excited for. Anyway this area is really helping me with my language, I’m improving a lot.
I hope you all have fun this week with Nathan being home and all.
Nathan have fun but don’t forget the things you have learned; don’t change back to who you were before your mission, bring that fire home with you and help the church! Have fun being able to date again and other things.

Love you all, Elder Smith
Mon, 4 Oct 2010 (Ammon)

MY new area is so much fun. We are slammed with work it’s great! This city is the most beautiful in Hungary.  I believe it too, everywhere I go there something so cool to see and the even cooler thing is if I yell really loud Nathan can hear me lol.  My new apartment is the best in the mission.  We live like movie stars lol.  It’s kinda weird, our apartment was this very old mansion that was turned into an apartment building.  I was about to take pictures then guess what, my camera died!!!  It always happens to me!!!!!!  So you will all have to wait till next week.  This area is really putting my language skills to the test.  I found out that I am still horrible at the language but this area is pushing me to learn the language fast and I already, so it’s good for me but hard! My new comp is great as well. He does a lot of things different, some for the worse so we have had to meet half way on a lot of things but I’m not lowering myself, that’s for sure or whatever you want to call it cause I’m not better than him or anything, but he’s great and we are working very hard. It’s nice to have a p day. That was a very long week for some reason. I hated packing lol.  I told Aunt Debbie this story today and I remembered I forgot to tell it to you all. So when I was in Szombathely and we got our transfer calls out, branch prez invited our district over for dinner, so we went over they always make lots of food and good food too.  The branch prez is young though he’s 27 and his wife too, so they are full of tricks.  A long story short Hungarians love weird food so they love to feed it to the missionaries.  They made us pig brain and didn’t tell us what it was till half way through the meal!!!!!!! It’ was horrible!!!!! Lol  I was glad to hear that u all had a fun trip.  I wish I could have come but I’m somewhere way cooler than there haha. As for all these people I love getting cancer!!!! Don’t tell me that kind of stuff!!!! please it’s to hard for me but I will keep them both in my prayers. About my box, I’ve been waiting forever for it!! Are u sending it to the mission home?  If so I think that’s a good idea. I can’t wait, make sure to put peanut butter in there they don’t have any here. That’s about it for this week.  Me and Nathan are going to try and see each other this transfer, wouldn’t that be fun.  
Mon, 27 Sep 2010  (Ammon)

Hey family this week has been great!!
It was the last week of the transfer so we really wanted to work hard for those better numbers.
In the end most of our numbers got better or stayed the same but more important our investigators are progressing.
At the beginning of the week our zone leader came down for a district meeting. After the meeting we went on splits till the next day. We had a lot of fun. Learned a few new ways to street teach people and some different ways to teach the second lesson. That same day for English class we had 32 people come, which is amazing!  We have never had that many in this city for a long time.  It was so cool to see that many people come and also stay for the spiritual message. We have been trying hard to get bigger numbers at english class so we put up advertisements in all the papers in town which was not cheep but I believe it is paying off.  The next few days were just filled with missionary work and programs (the word for lesson in Hungarian is program, so that’s just what everyone calls it here). On Friday we went out for a district lunch.  We do it at the end of every transfer...............OK GUESS WHAT, I JUST GOT TRANSFER CALLS!!!!!  I’m going to Szeged, which is one hour away from Nathan.  That is so cool huh, maybe we can meet somewhere on the line. Anyways, back to life, we had a cool youth activity.  We put a rope through the church house to be like the iron rod.   We did a Lehi dream thing. It was very cool. We put the rope down the middle of the hall and then in all the rooms we put things in them that would make people want to leave the rod to go in the rooms. It was fun, you should try something like it at home. On Sunday we had conference so I didn’t understand much but everyone else seemed to like it so I guess it was good lol.  There were lots of members from the west side of Hungary at conference too.  It was cool to see all the members together and feel their spirit.  The Hungarian people are pioneers for the church here.  They go through a lot being a member but they are strong. So I guess next week I will be in a different area so I’ll have to tell you how that will be next week and how my new comp is.  I guess it is my comps (elder feuz) favorite comp.  Sounds like it will be fun.  The funny thing is everyone in Szeged has an accent like some who speaks American English and British English. Wow this will be fun lol.  I love u all have a great week!!!

Monday, October 4, 2010

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 (Ammon)

hey everybody
Last week was a hard one and wet one.  It rained most of the week so we were always wet but it was lots of fun we worked very hard this week, we had 31 hours of teaching and finding, which is very good.  We got 5 new investigators this week which is also great!! We almost have one of our inactives reactivated, jenő, he has now been off smoking for ever I don't remember how many days now but its almost been a month probably. So the work is going great here in Szomabthely. I love this city so much we only have one week left in the transfer so i hope i dont get moved somewhere else. I want to stay!! Our district is really doing great work here in this town.  It has not seen numbers like this for a while so its really good for the city and the members. When i first got to hungary i loved that the members of the church were the same here as they were back at home but the more as time goes on its not the case.  There are 2 groups one the nice group and the other the rude group.  There are some very very rude members here errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrg it makes me mad. We have been working with this less active girl in our branch and last Sunday she gave a talk, which was her first one ever.  She was so excited to give one and nervous in the long run, she did a great job!  Then after the meeting a lady in the ward comes up and starts putting her down about her talk and telling her she knows barely anything about the church!!!!!! what the heck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This girl is really soft so it hurt her feelings. errrgggg!!! WHY????? but we had a great week. We had a fun dinner party with the branch president that was lots of fun, he's only like 26 so he is still young so it was lots of fun. We also gave a lesson to a young student who is from France, that was fun.  We gave him a book of mormon in french he also is a cello player and we met with him after his cello practice so he played a song for us. WOW he is so good i loved it, he is one of our new investigators. He is great, he had met with the elders before in France so he knows a little about the gospel.  He speaks good english so we teach him in that.
  Today we are going to do salona sütés.  Which is when u take a pig and cook it over a fire pit and let the fat drip onto your bread. I guess its really good idk i have not tried it yet but we will see.  I'll take pictures to show you. Then we are going to go bull whipping again, its very popular here so thats what we do.  I hope you all have a great week i love u all so much!!!



Monday, 20 Sep 2010  (Nathan)
Subject: cool story!

Hey Mom/everybody!
Something really cool happened this weekend. I don't know if you remember, but when I was with a companion of mine named Elder Ritz (the transfer right before I got called as Assistant) we were having a rough day but decided to go contacting in the park one day anyway. I sat down next to an old man on a bench while my comp went to another bench to have a lesson with someone else. As I was teaching this old man, a woman named Franciska around 30 - 35 yrs old who was working at the park as a very poor cleaner lady came up to listen in on the conversation so I told her to join us for a little. Eventually I gave her a brochure about the Restoration and she went to talk to my companion because he had just finished his lesson with the other old guy. They talked for a little and then got her phone number and set up to meet her again next weekend at the park when work would be slower. Being skeptical about poor people, (because they just come to the churches and beg or ask us for $$$ and if we don't give them $$$ then we're not from God) we went to the park anyway to have a lesson with her. We found her sweeping all the leaves and so we helped her for a bit, carrying the bucket and enduring the laughs of the teens who were watching us help this poor lady in the park in shirts and ties. We sat down on some rocks and had a lesson and found she was a 7th day adventist, has 10 kids, and is divorced but still lives with her exhusband. We had another lesson or so before I got transferred but she was always stuck on the whole sabbath day thing and the fact that her exhusband is a pedophile... (her exhusband is a missionary for the adventist church...) Anywho, my old comp got transferred too, white-washed actually (which means both elders got transferred and 2 new elders come in not knowing the area/investigators at all) BUT, the new elders looked through the area book and found her and taught her. Same story, she was stuck on the sabbath day and said that it was Saturday not Sunday. Well, after 3 transfers, (5 months) much prayer and fasting, she was baptized this Sunday with one of her cute little daughters. The elders in that zone endured and loved her. It just goes to show that everyone you find has potential. Even if they may seem like the craziest, poorest, stupidest, stubbornest, or whatever person. They're all children of God and he desires the eternal welfare of all of his children.

Attached is the picture of the Elders with Franciska and her daughter. I was able to attend the baptism and talk to Franciska after the baptism. She still remembers that one day in the park and is forever grateful that we crossed paths and will be receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost this upcoming Sunday :)

Love you all,
the church is true.

Elder Smith

SATURDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2010  (Nathan)

Hey Mom!
Glad you liked the pics! It was a pretty hectic week trying to get around and take care of all that stuff we had to do, but we were able to take care of it all! Monday and Tuesday we had to do a supply run on the eastern side of the country. It worked out okay. We didn't go to as many of the cities as we originally planned though. We just decided that the Zone Leaders could take it to their cities when they go on exchanges, cuz we've got alot of stuff to do... So, we just made a stop in Ploiesti, Brasov, and Galati, then we headed back home. I forgot to charge my razor on monday though. So when we got back to Bucuresti tuesday around noon, we made a stop at the office to grab some things and president was there....aldfja;ldsfjasdl;fkjasdlk;fj!#$%@$%^@ He didn't like how I looked like Elder Paul Bunyan... So i gave him a cool little sticky note with some bribery money attached to it so he would forgive me....haha im such a punk. I'll send you a picture of the sticky note I gave to him. Before I left the office, i went into his office and siad, hey prez, got a little something for ya... he said what's that elder? I threw the sticky note on his desk and then turned around and ran out of his room like napoleon dynamite....haha. He yelled What's this!!? But i just kept running and laughed and the other elders already had the elevator waiting for me so we could make a quick escape...hehe... I saw him yesterday and he gave me the money back and said i get a refund.......ha.
Anywho, on Wednesday we had an exchange with the Zone Leaders on the West Side of Bucuresti, it was alot of fun. I got to go on an exchange with one of the elders from my MTC group. Then on Thursday, my comp and I spent the whole day translating a 12 pg talk for prez before he heads up to Chisinau for Zone Conference. It took forever...we had some meetings and other errands to run as well, which is why it took so long, cuz we kept on getting distracted. Yesterday we went on that exchange in Craiova. It was a really cool exchange. I got to serve with Elder Bîgu, the romanian elder from Cali that i served with when I was in Deva for Christmas. We had a lot of fun and a good exchange together. We met some really cool people. I'll send you some of the pictures from Craiova as well.  Now it's Pday and we're just emailing and got done cleaning our entire apartment. The office elders are gone right now so they couldn't help with the cleaning unfortunately (all 4 of us room together) because they're out doing a supply run in the western half of the country. thanks for the Cross talks. Alina speaks pretty good english because she used to live in Kuwait. So i'll print those off and give her a copy of each one. She says she can feel the prayers of all of us. So keep praying for her to overcome this cross trial.
Like you said, now it's just the waiting game with BYU, we'll see what happens right?
To answer your questions, no i don't remember either of those things. I VAGUELY remember something about a hotel and getting stuck in an elevator but i don't remember that WWII thing AT ALL. The only thing i remember about a hotel in italy is when i told you like 3 times, "mom, i think that fan is going to fall, it's really rocking back and forth alot." "oh don't worry about it nathan, it's not going to fall." The next morning i got up and started walking out the room and then it fell right on top of me and knocked me to the floor! Whatever happened to better safe than sorry!!?!?!

Well, that's all for this week,
love ya'll to bits!
Stay safe, stay strong, follow the bishop and do more missionary work!
Give some referrals! go on member presents! sit by an investigator at church! Anything!

Love you!
Elder Smmmmmmmmith

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 (Nathan)
Subject: Plan of Salv

My companion and I went on an exchange with the Zone Leaders here in Bucuresti yesterday and had a blast.
We decided to do something I tried last summer that worked pretty well. We sidewalk-chalked the Plan of Salvation in the park
and stopped a bunch of people to see if they wanted to learn more! It was a HUGE success. Tons of people stopped and wanted to learn more.
We gave a ton of Books of Mormon out. (Last summer we had guitar too, I think it would have been an even bigger success with that but maybe Ammon and his comp can try that?)

Love y'all!

Elder Smith




Elder Nathan Smith

                        
Sat, 4 Sep 2010 (Nathan)

Hey Momma!
Wow what a fantabulous week! We started it off the right way and ended it the right way! We all got to attend the temple dedication from Kiev and watched it live here in Bucuresti. It was so cool! The members were all so excited and happy to get to see the prophet. He was quite the jokester during this last temple dedication. He stinkin loves Eastern Europeans. A group of about 30 Romanians and like 15 Moldovans went up to Kyev for the actual temple dedication and cultural event. They were a little disappointed because they were all put into this little room, segregated from the rest of the people. A lot of the members were even complaining saying that it would've been better for them to have saved the money and just watched it like this back in Romania. The district (stake) president went up there with them too and didn't know what to do because it was very disappointing. He prayed real quick asking that the Romanian members would have something happen in order to have a wonderful experience there. Not too much later, the prophet came in the temple after the cornerstone laying, and when he did, President Doru (The district president) called after Thomas S. Monson saying, "Hey! Mr Prophet! Come here! We came all the way from Romania and want to see you!" When he said that, Thomas S. Monson came over and said hi and gave every member from Romania a big hug. There were many tears shed, and they all had a wonderful experience at the temple! :)
President Doru is actually the man in the pictures from the church news article, the one with him, his wife, and his kids. He's way awesome.
Family home evening was also an interesting experience on monday night. Cristina came over as usual and so did the office elders with an investigator. This new investigator is quite the character...haha. We talked a lot about the tree of life because that is what he last read in his prior lesson. He related the fruit from the tree of life with cocaine... it was...interesting?
Then on Tuesday we were able to have an exchange out in Arad. Yeah i'm a sneaky one.. I always schedule an exchange out there because I love that city so much. I got to serve with Elder Martineau again when i was there. We are seriously like best buds. I love that kid to death. We had some crazy cool experiences though. For instance, the whole new training thing is working SO well. We went walking through the park and had an awesome bench lesson with this super successful but humble guy. His name was Mircea. Like I said, we listened, talked, and asked questions that came from heaven and it worked perfectly. We did the same thing with another cool Hungarian lady that we met in the villas. We met with some Less Actives members that I love to bits, and they promised that they would come to church :) I'm going to call them and make sure they go! hehe.
We held a Zone Leader Council yesterday too. I thought it went pretty well and that all the Zone Leaders in the mission were able to get something out of our discussions and presentations.
Right now my companion and I are fasting for the Zone Leaders to all come home tonight with a baptismal date. There's a total of 6 companionships of zone leaders. We figured if they set good examples for their zones by coming home with a baptismal date tonight, the mission will pick up and hop on the bandwagon. Sister Wang wrote me too. She thanked me for the Russian dolls and said they're way cool. She said if y'all are up in the Prescott area to come and visit her, she said she would enjoy it.
Well, as for BYU, I'm just waiting for them to get my EE now. I'm not sure if my acceptance/unacceptance letter will get sent home to you guys or not or what's up with that. I guess we'll just wait??

Well I love you all to bits. Have an awesome week. The gospel is true and Romania is cool.
Keep cheering us on! We need lots and lots of help!

Love you,
Elder Smith
                        Elder Ammon Smith

September 5, 2010   (Ammon)

Hey everybody,

So it’s true the conference was fun, it was long but worth it. We have been applying what we learned there here in Szombathely. I haven’t noticed anything huge happen yet but we will see with time.

As for Jenő, he is doing great. He is 11 days free so he passed and this is good because this last week was his daughter’s wedding and I guess those can be pretty crazy getting together so if he got through that he can get through a lot. We have so many wonderful investigators right now, it’s amazing. We are so blessed to be teaching them and be a part of helping them in their conversion process.

As for my bike, that was just a joke. I know you would never send me that lol. As for riding though, I’m not doing anything crazy, just fun silly stuff. I’m not leaving the ground (too high). My back, yeah I think that has been hurting me since I’ve been here in Hungary, there is no such thing as a nice bed here lol. I just try and stay busy and not think about my back and that seems to work just fine. I just have to be careful about bringing it up or they may send me home for misunderstanding what’s wrong with my back.

I’m so mad I didn’t get the box u said I would, that’s what missionaries look forward to and u only get one 2 times a year! Plus u said u were sending me one so u can’t take it back. I want a box!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  please :)

I thought I told u but I’m not with elder Smith anymore. I have had a new comp for a while now, elder Feuz. I’m telling u this cause in the letter u said, u and elder Smith. I would also love some stuff for kids to color that would be a big help! Back to the bikes, my comp was trying to be cool and ride his bike on this fun ramp but ended up doing a front flip over his bars opps! I’m not a bad influence am I? lol

That really is it for this week. I guess I have time for one more story. We have been teaching this guy in Zanat, he is really nice and very quiet and has something wrong with his neck. Lets just say it’s really really big, we don’t know what it is. We taught him the first lesson, then met with him again this week and taught him the second…but there was something wrong. He said he read the scriptures we gave him. He also said he believes in the book and Joseph, so we ask him to be baptized and he said yes but all this conversation was weird. Then we asked him to read a scripture. We don’t know what he was reading or what he was seeing. We gave him the right book but he was just reading the beginning of the words and making up the endings. He was not joking with us or any thing but there was just something wrong so at this point we knew he didn’t read what we told him to read before we met with him that day and that he was not all there. We figured, ok he just doesn’t know how to read so we asked him if we could meet again. He told us a good time, he also said he would come to church, but when we were leaving we said ok see u Sunday and he said what time does church start ? where is it at? We already told him this just 10 min before lol and then he said he can’t come he has to work?????? We said ok, then we will see u on Tuesday ok? Then he said what time? (We already told him this too!!) He said, oh that’s not a good day. So we just said we would call him. We don’t know what was going on there but it was weird. Anyway have a great week send me pictures of the new house!!

Sunday, October 3, 2010

                         Elder Ammon Smith





Mon, 30 Aug 2010   (Ammon)

Hey family!!!


This week was fun. My companion and I are working so hard, set some impossible goals that we will accomplish. In fact we are so focused on the work that I forgot it was my birthday and didn’t remember till sister Baughmen called to wish me one lol. My birthday was just a normal day of missionary work. We stared by doing our morning studies till around 10:30 then had a program with a family that lived in the states for a little while so they speak good English and are a fun little family of 4. After that we went out to Zanat. Found 1 new investigator we tracted into his house. He let us come in and teach a first. We’re going to meet with him again next week. Then we met with a man and his son that my comp and I found last time we were out there. They’re doing great and are progressing. After that we went back to Szombathely. We stopped by our house to get some things and some youth were waiting at the door to surprise me with a cake and song. It was funny and I was surprised. They then took us to get some ice cream then we got right back to work and did some look-ups and tracting the rest of the day. So that was my bday.

This next week we are going to be in Budapest for a new, 3 day training. I guess they are changing some things on how they want missionaries to teach so we have to be there for three days!!!!! This is not good because we are helping an inactive right now who is on the non-smoking program and he is doing great but we’re going to have to leave him by himself for a few days so I hope he gets through it. Pray for him pleaseeeeeeeeee, his name is Jenő. Today we’re going to some castle so I hope its cool. I have lots of pictures to show you from the past few weeks but I forgot my cord lol so you’re going to have to wait another week lol. Oh one more thing, I need u to send me my bike, k thanks bye, I love u all




                           Elder Ammon Smith



Sat, 28 Aug 2010 (Nathan)

Hellllllllllllllllllllllo everybody!
What a busy week here on the other side of the world! With all of these new training modules we find ourselves quite packed in the office. We've got to plan lunches, do travel schedules, look up train times, book the chapel, plan exchanges, spend $$$, drive peeps around, and all that good stuff... But all in all it turned out to be very useful and effective. We basically had 3 days of training from 9AM to 5PM. And coming up this next week on Friday we will be holding Zone Leader Council... aggghh i can't believe how much training there has been lately... Well, basically the new training is the icing on the cake for Preach My Gospel. We've got everything that we need to know with PMG, but this new training teaches us HOW to use everything that we've got. Elder Holland said, Think of PMG as Santa's present, and the new training as the reindeer who help get the present where it needs to..." And that's exactly what it was. The eight new lessons that we learned were:
1) The Doctrine of Christ
2) Role of the Holy Ghost
3) Revelation through Prayer
4) Revelation through Book of Mormon
5) Revelation through attending Church
6) Teach People, Not Lessons
7) We Invite, They Commit, We follow-up
8) How to begin teaching

So we had about 3 lessons per day, except 2 on one day. The process of learning for each lesson was this:
1) Doctrinal based learning
2) Watch clip from the new PMG District #2 Movie
3) Role-play
4) Evaluation
5) Re-role-play

It worked out VERY well, I was very impressed. Because the first PMG movie was pretty much a joke I thought. My companion and I were able to try it out in the park yesterday. We were actually shocked how well some of the new stuff works. We stopped our car, grabbed our books of mormon and went straight into the park entrance where we saw these two middle-aged guys sitting on a park bench. So we went up to them and I started to talk to them. they were not impressed at all. They started swearing and saying all of this crazy stuff but we decided to stick it out anyway. One of the new learning techniques we learned was to just stop and listen, not to bud in and think of what your response will be while they are thinking. And then based on what the person says, be still and listen to the spirit to form an open ended question. So, one of the guys was asking why there is so much corruption, dirt, and crime there is in this country, and a bunch of other questions along those lines. Instead of responding quickly by saying that he could find happiness or a way to escape from it all, I stopped and waited about 5 seconds and my mouth just opened and I said to him, "You've got alot of questions for us don't you? But what if you could ask God? If you could ask God any question, what question would that be?" He said he would ask God why he was born in this crappy country.  I told him that he was born here because God puts us exactly where we can progress and learn the most, or where we need to be. They both agreed with that. We then went on to say that God put you both in our path so that you can continue to grow and progress through reading a special book. The BOOK OF MORMON! WOO! After talking for a little bit more, we gave them both a copy of the book of mormon, got their phone numbers, and set up to have a lesson with them at the chapel on Monday! YES! Later that evening, we had a recent convert lesson with Cristina. As usual, she's doing SUPER awesome. I've never met someone with a greater desire to learn more and apply the doctrines of christ in their life than her. She's so cool. But anyway, we had our lesson with her, and as we were talking she said she was able to get her mom to read the first 66 pages of the book of mormon. and her brother and sister are coming to the English classes we hold at the church today. And hopefully come to church in 2 weeks with her. Right now she's trying to convince her mom to take the lessons with us. how cool would that be?? a family! WOO!
The only thing that i'm waiting for right now with my BYU application is my Ecclesiastical endorsement. I payed the $35 application fee which was the 2nd to last thing. And my last companion said his Dad (who's an italian professor at BYU) would take my endorsement to the application office and put in a good word for me. He's got a buddy at the app office. so it shouldn't be a problem :) Hopefully I'll get accepted! Pray for me!
Last night my companion and one of the office Elders did the candle wax thing in their ears. They have never done it before so we did it for them and it was way fun to see their reactions. We're having a good time and trying to work hard so we can still get this miracle of 200 baptisms going :)

I'm sorry that you have to dress an old lady up into her burial clothing. But that'll be a nice service though. You'll be blessed. And that's way crazy that frontage road is done now. Sounds like there's a lot of changes going on around there.
I'm super pumped for the Kiev dedication tomorrow! I really like your rubber band card idea thing. That's a way good idea for people who aren't at home when you visit them. I told the Elders here in the office about it and they said that's a way good idea.

Well, love you all! Have a super sweet sick. Help the missionaries, give them referrals!
"Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings" - Victor Hugo

Love,
Vârstnicul Smith


21 Aug 2010 (Nathan)

Hey mom! Happy P-Day all the way over here in Bucuresti! We're actually not going to be able to go. We just get to attend the satellite transmission here in one of the chapels in Bucuresti. For some reason I can't remember the dedication of the Nauvoo temple at all... I don't know why but It's not stored there in my brain at all. There ARE going to be some members from Romania and Moldova who will be participating live at the dedication though. Right now we're looking at about 30 people from both countries to go up for the dedication, which is pretty good considering how poor these people are. It's going to take them about 17 hours in a bus to get up to Kyev. Yeah, I realized that the dedication is gonna take place on Aaron's birthday, that stuck out to me. That's crazy that the temple had to be approved again and again and again. Satan really doesn't want temple work to move forward in our area I guess... Wow, that's crazy that there is going to be a chapel in Anthem as well. Sounds like a lot of things are growing back home. I noticed in last week's email that you said that you thought Dan might have gone up frontage road??? What the heck!? That thing is finished now???
So nana and papa DID end up going to Montana even though they were sick? What troopers. Hopefully everything goes well with their travels. That's cool that Richard's daughter wanted a patriarchal blessing and that all is going well with them. Is Richard still active in the church? That stinks that everyone is getting sick at Dad's work. What do you mean "crud" sickness? Is it some sort of flu or something??
As far as I heard, I heard that Georgeta hadn't been coming to church because of her feet, (and the fact that she's like 85) but she came to church last weekend and I was super glad to hear it :) The missionaries up there in Bacau told me that all the other old ladies in the Branch fellowshipped her. Traian and Cristina and Ivan are still doing well. She went to go see her boyfriend Ivan go pass the sacrament for the first time up there in Brasov. But she'll be gone again to see him this weekend too. Bummer! I still haven't been able to see her AT CHURCH since her confirmation! Cuz we're always at different branches. But that makes me glad that we HAVE multiple branches to attend and that the church is growing here :) The transfer took place on Wednesday. So I've got a new companion now and I'm still in the office. But the next transfer will be September 29th. Once that day comes around I will be a free man to go out and do missionary work to my heart's desire! WOO! No, I don't know where I will be going yet. I won't find out for another  5 1/2 weeks or so. But i WOULD like to go back to Arad if that's possible. I love/miss that place so much... Chisinau would be another cool place to go to again as well!
Well let me think here about what happened this week. Like I said, we had transfers, so that took up a BIG part of our week. Mainly because we have to do all the planning and stuff like that for it... We're getting ready for another training meeting tomorrow as well. It's going to last 4 days. The brethren put together this new training program and it's going into effect in all the missions now. It includes interviews only half as often as we've been doing them. We will have quarterly interviews (which are only aloud to be 10 min long now opposed to 30 min - 1 hr as it was before), quarterly zone conferences, 4 day long leadership training meetings every transfer, and zone leader council every month. So there's alot of new changes. We'll see what happens. Hopefully we can learn to be even BETTER missionaries from all this. Today we went to the park for our P-Day and had alot of fun. We ate some Domino's Pizza again, tossed around the pigskin, and I taught my companion and one of the office elders how to drive a stick today. It was funny seeing them stall the car so many times. hehehe. Well, not too much goin on over here! Oh yeah! BYU finally received my PVCC transcripts! So I'm super pumped about that. Now all they need is a $35 application fee and my Ecclesiastical endorsement which Pres Lundberg already signed! Woohoo!

Love you guys tonnnnns!
Have an awesome rest of the weekend and go kick some booty! Give the names of your friends to the missionaries as referrals!
And then go help them teach some lessons! They need the help!

Love,
Elder Smith

14 Aug 2010   (Nathan)
Subject: cool week!

Hey mom!
So let's see what happened this week... We started off by going to church last Sunday at the Mihai Bravu branch here in Bucuresti which was pretty cool. (Since that's my old area.) But we've been doing alot of errands and office stuff lately while we get ready for the transfer that's coming up. The transfer is coming up on this Tuesday. So there's alot to do with getting everybody's travel plans ready and stuff. Like I said, President told me that I would be AP for another transfer, and then my last transfer I'll be back in the field! Ready to thrust my sickle with my might! Woo! Monday night was really cool though. We went and had family home evening at the senior couple's house that works in the office with us. What we did was we took 2 of the recent converts from Mihai Bravu branch, Traian and Cristina (Traian is a recent convert for about 11 months and Cristina is the one that Elder Boynton and I baptized last transfer) and had a lesson with them about temple work and the Plan of salvation. We read D&C 137 -138 together during the FHE and discussed and answered lots of questions. It was so cool. Just seeing how much Cristina has progressed in the gospel makes you just wanna run up and hug her, but you can't cuz you're a missionary...DANGET! We talked about the temple because we're getting ready for the big temple dedication in Kiev on August 29th. I'm way excited because I'll be in a city where there will be a satellite broadcast! YES! And I'll be able to sit in the chapel (which becomes a branch of the temple during the ceremony) with my recent convert! Everything we do aims towards the temple, and being able to see her progress from being super skeptical about being baptized to not being able to wait to go to the temple is the most rewarding experience ever. SO AWESOME! Her boyfriend will be passing the sacrament for the first time cuz he just got the Priesthood a week or so ago. So she's gonna go up to Brasov for the weekend where he attends church :) After that, on Tuesday we went and head up to Bacău (Another one of my old cities!) for an exchange with the Elders up there! It was alot of fun. It's sad to see how much that city is struggling. In 2003 there used to be 80 active members, and now there's only about 5 or 6... Ever since Romania joined the EU in 2003 everybody left. Branches with 150 people shrank down to 40 - 50 people, and the pay is HORRIBLE here... So EVERYONE HAS to go work out of the country if they want to even THINK of surviving... Everyone here has half families. Half families in the sense of half the family being gone in a different country trying to earn enough money for them to live. But I had fun in Bacău. It was nice getting to visit Georgeta, the old lady we baptized when we were there last summer :) After we came back to Bucuresti, and there was alot of work for us to do here... We had to meet with President and talk about where all the missionaries will be transferred and all that good stuff. Then, on Friday we had Mission Council with all the Zone Leaders, President and his wife, and the assistants. It was way good. We discussed alot of things. It was nice getting to have an open discussion on what we can do to try and improve and not get complacent with our work. Sora Lundberg made some Lasagna and it was wayyyy good. It's always nice getting to eat over at their place because she always makes American food and it makes you feel like you're back home. Well, other than that we went to a park this morning to do some workouts for about and hour or so and it was a lot of fun. We jogged around the whole lake, threw some pigskin around, took a cold shower, at some tomatoes, salami, mozzarella balls, and eggs for breakfast and then head on over to the office for email! Can you try and remember to send me Nana and Papa and Grandma and Grandpa's mailing addresses? I've asked for them a few times and you keep forgetting to give them to me! I want to send them something!
BTW, what temple did you and dad get married in? I need to know for something! hehe.
Love you all so much!
Keep kicking life in the pants and havin a good time!
Choose the Right!

Vârstnicul Smith

                          Elder Ammon Smith




01 August 2010 (Ammon)

Hey family and friends
so this week has been lots of fun hard work and stress. The week started out slow and started to pick up near the end. idk if i told u but we were able to go back to that town outside of szombathely its called szanat. we are still having great success out there i love that town everyone is so nice to us besides the dogs that want to kill us. did i tell u that i got bite by a dog the first time i went there it was more like a bear but it was so big it pushed me off the porch lol.i went on splits with elder smith which is the zl in pápa lol so there are 3 elder smiths in out zone lol.i lots of new pictures to send to ill just put them on facebook it seems easier to do it that way. that way i don't have to send them to everyone.so yeah i went to pápa it was so much fun we celebrated elders smith the zls 2 year mark we made him a cake and put 2 candles on it it was fun. pápa was beautiful and the have such strong youth.
  so i call my trainer last night, elder egan, and a lot of the people we found last transfer are on baptism date right now, its so cool. i guess tomás dropped of the face of the earth again it stinks he was my favorite my first broken heart on my mission. but its great news about everything else. the work in szombathely is a different kind of hard work than the hard work in pest. its so easy to be lazy here we have to be so careful but we just try and always stay busy we are working very hard for out concert we found a piano player!!!!! i thought i told u last transfer but i got the guitar from one of my investigators they gave it to me because i'm cool. My mission president is very, hmmm, idk, how to put it but open to try things but he knows that i'm not going to abuse the fact that he is letting me have a guitar he said he wont just let anyone have a guitar there is i think one other elder that has one here. Remember my mission president worked for fisher price he was a part of the tickle me elmo project lol so that kind of tells u about him and how he is lol. We have one conference tomorrow so we are leaving for budapest today i guess we are going on a field trip to some old town for zone conference so i'll make sure to take pictures.

sok seretettel(with much love)
smith elder

Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2010 (Nathan)

Hey Mom!
Sorry it's been so long since i've really been able to write back. We've been having Zone Conference for all the zones for the past few days. And so my companion and I have to give a presentation at each conference. We talked about how we can apply christlike attributes into our missionary work. It was alot of fun. But at the conferences, you also get to see all the greenie's and missionaries who are going home bear their testimonies. And I was just thinking, wow...it's comin up soon. All the MIRACULOUS experiences I've been having throughout the course of my mission have been amazing and it will be weird for it to come to an end. As you probably guessed, when our 2 companions passed away in February, it was super super hard. We were super down to lose our best friends and so were the members here... it was a really hard part of my mission. But ever since then, we've been seeing so many miracles! It's so awesome! It makes me so happy! I hear about it everywhere! Aunt Debbie's ex-boyfriend, Logan (Jenn's ex-boyfriend) wants to get baptized too! Miracles even back home! But I want to tell you about one that happened yesterday right after Zone Conference. So I was talking to one of my old companions from back when I served in Moldova, when Sister Lundberg (mission president's wife) comes to the front door of the church building and brings this man with her who was looking at our church from the sidewalk. She said she had no idea what he was saying, just that he was looking at the church, so she motioned for him to follow her. My old companion and I introduced ourselves to him and asked if we could give him a quick tour of the church. He said his name was Nicolai and that he would love to. We showed him the chapel and some other rooms and sat down with him to have a lesson with him. We started talking, and testified alot about the book of Mormon, the power of prayer, and how we can come to a knowledge of the truth. He then told us that he had been praying to God to find the church of God, and he was riding the trolley through the city when he saw a building with a sign that said, "Biserica lui Isus Hristos a sfinţilor din zilele din urmă" So he quickly hopped off and came to the door where he was met by a smiling American woman who didn't speak Romanian and then he met us. We told him that God has sent him here, and that he exercised his faith by coming in, and again by talking with us. We committed him to read and pray, and then we actually committed him to be baptized on the 21st of August. He agreed! What a miracle! He's meeting with my old companion and his comp tomorrow at 4 and he'll be at church on Sunday @ 10. I love this gospel! WOO!
Last Sunday at the end of Sacrament meeting we were in a beautiful city called Sibiu, the branch president stood up and indicated that he had forgotten one announcement. He then announced that he felt inspired to announce to the branch that there would be a baptism ceremony next Saturday at 5:00 p.m. He invited everyone to plan to attend. Now, you should know that, at the time, the missionaries in that branch had no one with a baptismal date set for next Saturday. The branch president knew that. However, the faith of that branch president and of the missionaries serving there was demonstrated when, by this evening, we received a phone call from the missionaries serving there indicating that one of their investigators - one of those there today to hear the branch president's invitation - had accepted an invitation to be baptized next Saturday at 5:00 p.m. Moreover, the missionaries indicate that they plan to have others baptized that same date and time - even though they currently have no other dates established. So all in all they were able to get a total of 3 I think. It's 5 o'clock right now as I'm writing this :) So hopefully they were able to get those 3 baptisms in! The power of faith is real!
I tried doing everything on that PVCC site to get my password and username. It requires my SSN though. And everytime i punch it in it says there's an account that already exists and the only way to fix it is to call PVCC myself... Kinda lame..we'll see what happens I guess...
Love you tons! Tell everyone I say hi and that I miss them!
The church is true!
Love,
Elder N.Smith





                                         Elder Ammon Smith


Mon, 26 Jul 2010  (Ammon)

hey family
to start, no, they don't have pickles with every meal. i think i've only had them once since i've been here. there is a funny story behind pickles. so there were to missionaries who went to an investigators house to help fertilize his pickles. they didn't know what to expect but i know they didn't expect this. the farmer goes over to his out house moves it out of the way and said i've been saving this all year so they got the wheel barrels and got to work putting the farmers poop all over the pickles. when they were finished he offered them inside to clean up and have lunch guess what hey had some pickles from last year yummmmy poop pickles. so i try and stay away from pickles out here.lol. so this week was fun and sort of slow but the work is picking up here. i started a guitar class every tuesday at 4. We have been practicing a for are concert we cant find a piano player thought so were in trouble there. we had a fun ysa activity this saturday it was like a mini pioneer trek it was lot of fun there was a great turn out. yesterday we had 7 investigators at church that was amazing. we got a inactive lady to come who hasn't been in 8 years. that was great to see her there and all the member welcome her in as they did. we haven't been able to go back out to the town yet we just need to find a big chunk of time to go back out there again.its hard to remember all the amazing things that happen in a week i probably should start bringing my journal. please tell sister tryon i got her letter thanks her and also please let her know that i do have a blog i just don't have anyone taking care of it also ask her if monson ever got my letter i sent him it was a while ago. maybe a month and a half. please tell josh i got his letter it was awesome tell him i will write him today. please also call tj and let him know that i got his letter and maybe share your testimony with him about our purpose in life he is worried about that it seems like in his letter tell him i sent him a letter right before i got his so he should get that soon. sorry my letters are not long enough i would love to site and write all day but we are busy missionaries in hungary we are working hard to get a stake going on this side of hungary. we are so close. yeah other than that stuff yes my bike is very messed up its funny lol and sad at the same time. the language is come slowly but i still notice improvement everyday. i love and miss u all have a great week
 sok seretettel smith elder




Mon, Jul 19, 2010  (Ammon)

ok, so this week was fun, long, hard, very hot and funny. so last pday when we were going to budapest on the train i saw this town and i asked my companion if that area is part of szombathely and he said he thinks that it is. i asked if he had ever been knocking on doors there.. he said no. i said we need to go there. then a little while later i told him i'm being serious we need to go there. he said, ok, so we planned a big day to go out there for 4 hours to knock on doors. the sisters joined us.  we started on one side; the sisters on the other. so the day came; we got there it was very hot, but we worked hard for four hours and by the time the 4 hours were up we only finished 1 street but we taught 2 lessons, found 2 families that were interested and found 2 other people and placed 2 copies of the Book of Mormon (b.o.m.)too.  1 of the families is golden and one of the other guys we talked to is great as well. we taught a lesson to both of them. its crazy that was only one street and there was that much success. i wonder how the rest of the town is. my companion told the branch president that we went out there, he laughed and said , you went out there? i don't think any missionaries have ever been out there.     
well we could tell from the success we had. i have another story. so i broke my bike because i was doing tricks on a bike that is not made for that. so i had to get it fixed. once i got it fixed i couldn't help but do something dumb again, and yes, its broke again and that was ten min after i got it fixed lol!
Elder Smith

Mon, 21 Jun 2010  (Ammon)

Hey, family how is everyone doing? I wrote Dan a big letter, you should read it so I don't have to write everything over again; there are some cool stories in there. Hey, can you send me my Priesthood Line of Authority please? thank you.
This week has been crazy and hard; people have cancelled on us and I've been working hard on the language.  I'm picking it up better which is cool, cause I'm able to understand it more.  I'm still getting fat, so no worries there! 
Me and Nathan have been writing each other, that’s been fun to do.  Did you all get the pictures I sent you last week?  Cause I took lots of time to send the pics but no one said anything about them?????
idk, soooooooo hmmm, there is only 2 weeks left this transfer,  its going by so fast!  We had mission conference this week, Elder Gerald Causse came.  He is in the 70's so he's cool! Me and my companion were invited to have dinner with him, the mission president and his wife.  That was cool, but weird at the same time just eating dinner with somebody that’s at the top. Then we were also invited to a meeting with all the branch presidency leaders and Elder Causse talking about the church in Hungary.  It was cool being the only missionaries there!  We had to present a perfect baptismal record. It was cool.  Well I sent some pics again, I hope you get them??? The first pic is my zone going to see a play; the 2nd pic is some weird actor; the 3rd is of a rainy day in Pest, LOL!; the 4th is me pouring water out of my shoe; the 5th is a picture of the man I had to give the priesthood too (read about it in Dan's letter); the 6th is a picture of a path we take to get to a home where we are teaching the father and his son (they are not members yet), but they will be soon. That's all the pictures.
hmm, what else?  We have a baptism this coming weekend, then another one the next weekend with our investigator tomás he's awesome.
idk, what else to say?  Make sure you forward this to friends and family.  Tell everyone I miss them and that I haven't forgot about any of them, I'm just really busy out here.  Oh, and I haven’t got one letter since I've been here kinda lame. I can only read emails once a week so idk maybe a letter sometime would be nice.
yup, that's all. k, love u, b-bye


Elder Ammon Smith