Elder Bryce Oakes: Week 12-Jozsi was Baptized!

Okay...

So, awesome, super long week, but I'll address your email first. I loved the pictures you guys sent of the garage. It looked super bad and now looks super awesome! And I did really like how you guys got in the picture three times on the panoramic. I am impressed.

I am super excited for the box! I am sorry it was kinda expensive but I really appreciate it! I can't wait to get it! Thank you!

We have a regular pday today, next week on the other hand, we will not. The 20th is Hungary's biggest holiday. It would be counter productive to try and work on that day so it is becoming pday. That's a Wednesday here, but because it's a holiday, everything will be closed, meaning no computer access. So we will be given 2 hours on Monday to email and shop. So on Monday, the 18, I will probably have less than an hour to email, if we can by some miracle find a computer on the 20th we may email some more then, but probably not gonna happen... anyway...

I am glad Sunday School class seems to be going well for you, mom. It's amazing to think about what we have back home! Here it's a struggle to find anyone willing to teach, who hasn't already got 6 other callings. Thanks for sharing your lesson with me. I have been trying to keep a journal here, but I always forget and have to play catch up. I think I am like 4 days behind right now. If I didn't have my planner it would be entirely hopeless. I'm glad you got the two planners I sent home in the purple envelope. There are lots of details of my day in there. I thought you might like that. I'ill probably end up doing that from now on.

The work is going great here. We dunked Jozsi last Saturday. In the pictures he is our investigator in a wheel chair. He has Muscular Dystrophy. He will only ever continue to get weaker for the rest of his life. He is 42 right now. 20 years ago he could walk and use his hands. Now he is wheelchair bound, can only lift one arm, can barley use his hands and needs help to do something as simple as shaving. But he never complains. He has one of the strongest testimonies I have ever seen and had a super strong desire to be baptized. We were really worried about the baptism because he has a subconscious reaction to water. If he were to fall in he can't get himself back out. Because of that he was really worried about going in the water. But the baptism went really good! He went under and back up in one try, no problems. As we pulled him out of the water he kissed us all. (we had to have 3 people to baptize him.)

After the baptism we had a meal at the church building upstairs

(This is from Sis. Schnoor's blog about the baptism) This week Jozsi was baptized, he is the elders investigator. He is in a wheelchair and can barely move his limbs, it was the neatest experience. Us missionaries sang "Come Thou Fount." He was crying and couldn't even wipe his own tears. He was beaming all day. Three people helped to baptize him, it was the neatest thing to see Elder Oakes all dressed in white carrying him into the baptismal font. When Jozsi came up out of the water, he just kissed the elders over and over on the cheek! So sweet! The Spirit was there so strong and I knew how proud the Lord was of him and the covenants he was making.

Now he is doing great, on Sunday we gave him the Gift of the Holy Ghost and next Sunday he will get the Aronic Priesthood. The guy is awesome and I love him to death!

I am pretty sure that picture at the basketball hoop was when I was jumping. The senior missionary on the other end was Elder Jensen, a senior missionary for Neareghaza. Loved making a sling shot! Elder Steel fell over during that party and hurt his sholder pretty good.

We learned how to make strudel from one of the members. Not sure I could make it on my own, but Elder Whiting and I experiment with different foods. I like this granola I've found here!

We went to a soccer game to cheer on a member's son who was playing. He was on the red team #8. That was fun!

We found some graffiti art of Fred and Barney Flinstone, so I jumped in for a picture :)

I really love Debrecen! The rain we have gotten makes everything super green.

Elder Whiting and I were with the Steele's looking for some less active members when we had a torrential downpour! Got some pics and video of that!

Got a haircut! She did a great job!

There were two pics I sent, one said "don't knock, ring" on the door, and the one at the door bell said "don't ring, knock" it was funny.

We started teaching someone new named Csaba. I'll let you know in future letters how that goes.
Elder Whiting and I are doing real well together! He is a super humble, great companion!