Megan's 18 Months in Hungary : Week 48 : Day 405: Happy March!

March 3, 2014

Hellooo

Happy March! Hope it's a good month for everyone! We have reached the time for... the D&C Challenge to begin! What is this, you may ask? A challenge to read the Doctrine and Covenants before you finish your mission, one chapter a day, for your last 138 days. So, I shall begin that on Friday! Crazy. But, I wanted to extend the invitation to whoever would like to join me in this as my release date approaches. I think I counted one extra day, for travels and stuff, so you will probably finish it a day before I actually get home, unless you start Saturday. I mean, while you're on that, you can join me in reading the Bible too, but that's not an official missionary challenge, just a personal one. (:

Interesting things that have happened this week... Well, early this week while we were tracting a building, a man came out of his apartment door and started yelling at us, saying that he would call the police on us if we didn't get out. He "herded" us towards the elevator, pushed us in and got in after us. He proceeded to escort us down to the ground floor and all the way out the front door, where he slammed it behind us and watched us through the glass. It probably didn't help that we smiled at him the whole time and were trying really hard not to laugh, or that my companion turned to him right before we got into the elevator and said something along the lines of "okay, but you could have said that nicely." hahaha. Added yet another "escorted out of an entire building" to my list.

On Wednesday, I put us on another bus. But this time we actually left the main city and went to another little falu (village thing) in our area to tract. Last week, we stayed in Székes just went to the far area with family houses, and I had been there twice, months before. But I had never been to Szabadbattyán before. I'm not sure my comp really appreciated it too much, because we had no idea where we were going or what the stop or falu looked like. But that's what I loved when I opened Veszprém. You literally just go, relying completely on the Spirit to show you were to go. Plus, exploring something new is all part of the adventure and excitement. (: Anywho, we had heard the stop was "about" 15 minutes away, but we had no idea and didn't want to get off in some random tiny, one-street falu without realizing. 15 minutes passed and we weren't sure if we were at the right stop and decided to stay on the bus. We reached the next stop. Nope, wasn't feeling it. We pulled up to another one, and I just turned to Sister Kovács and said "I have no idea if this is it, but I feel like we should get off here." We got off and walked over to look at the little bus chart. Sure enough, we were led to the stop in Szabadbattyán. We walked around for a few minutes, trying to figure out the little town and found a little map, read all the streets, picked one and started tracting it. The third door we knocked on? Let us in. We're going back this week too. Turned out to be a good day and I think my comp appreciated it by the end! (: haha we got some good pictures, not ONE person was rude and we have some people we're going back to. Sometimes you just have to get out of the route that you get stuck in when you've been in a city for 4 months, tracting 10-stories all day every day.

Ohh, also, I'm enjoying finally being able to have some greenie moments with the language. haha Remember when I told you about that time one of my companions got mad at me at the end of my greenie transfer because I never had any greenie moments that they could make fun of me for? Well... they have finally come when I'm really tired. Well, only like 2, but we find lots of reasons to laugh at dumb things. Anywho, when we were in that let-in in Szabadbattyán, I was explaining to the lady about the churches official name and why we have the nickname, but it all got jumbled into one and I actually told her that our nickname is the Book of Mormon. I quickly corrected myself and laughed. I don't think the lady even noticed because it didn't even faze her and it doesn't sound too funny now, but Sister Kovács lost it once we left her house. Lately both of us have been mixing up our "s" and "sh" sounds and I'm not really sure what's happening to us. It's funny when we're tracting and people don't even understand her when she's speaking, and she's Hungarian! So it's not just us Americans! haha. But other than that, I'm super glad that I can serve with her. I don't think that I've ever gotten confused as a Hungarian or been complimented so much before this transfer.

I made this week a "Gratitude Week" and worked on that. I started saying only "gratitude prayers" again at night and not asking for anything. We set goals to work on not complaining and being grateful for what we HAVE been getting, rather than focusing on what we're missing. I also started keeping a dream journal a few weeks ago and it's so funny. I've dreamt way more than I can ever remember before and they're super weird dreams. I think that means that I'm not sleeping deeply very much anymore. It's strange, cause most of the dreams are either about people that I've met on my mission, but take place at home, or are about people that I haven't seen in ages from Russia. Super weird.

A while ago, I read a scripture in the Bible that I wanted to share with you. Matthew 5:48 reads, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." I keep referring back to and studying that verse lately and the footnotes too it. Obviously, we know that no one - The Godhead excluded - is perfect right now, but that is what we aim for. One of the footnotes to perfect says "potential;" we all have the potential to become better and to - one day - be like God. At this point and in this life, we have to realize that we are never good enough, but that's okay. Whether you're on a mission or going through normal life, we should never reach a point where we're comfortable with staying in the spot we've reached or think that we've done enough. But, that doesn't mean that we remain in the past and think about all the things we didn't do that we should have. Rather, we always look forward at the things that we have control over and that we can still change. We can ALWAYS do better. A lot of times out here, your weaknesses are magnified and right when you start to feel like you're finally mastering it and doing better... something else is pointed out; over and over and over again. It literally is a never-ending process and plan that is set up to HELP us and help us reach that "perfect" potential that we all have, one step, one attribute and one trial at a time. Just like Nefi says in that scripture we can probably all quote, "For I KNOW that the Lord giveth NO commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." Anyway, I have learned on my mission that truly "to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Just rely on the Lord through those times and know that it's for a reason and that reason will always be for your, or someone else's, benefit.

I know that any of you can do anything with the Lord on your side. I love you all and I truly hope that your week goes smoothly, despite the trials and hard times that I know you're facing. One day, it will all be worth it. But enjoy today, even if today isn't that day. (:

Love,
Sister Megan Butterfield

PS: If anyone wants to be added (rather than just reading the blog) or removed from my email list, let me know, because I can't really remember who wants to be on it anymore and I think it changes every week as I get emails from different people and new email addresses. I won't be offended. I don't want to annoy anyone. (:

PPS: One of these pictures we took while tracting to the edge of Szabadbattyán. The one in the mirror was last week while tracting the family houses in the rain in Székes. The third is just one to show you the four missionaries here and... Yeah, we were really bored one P-day, waiting for our programs to show up. haha.