You Know You're in the South When...

Hello wonderful guys and gals!

I'd like to start with a scripture:

"For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles ; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith." -2 Nephi 27:23

So I am currently serving in the Georgia Macon Mission. And many of you may know that we are "Macon Miracles" down here in the south. Anywho, this week has been a week of miracles... with a few moments of uncontrollable laughter in between. And that is plum perfect to me.

To begin, have I mentioned that Sister Arrieta is terrified of... well pretty much everything, and her biggest fear is snakes? Well, most of the houses are decorated for Halloween of course, and we were approaching a door, when I saw that the family and strewn a rather large rubber snake across one of the bushes. Now before y'all think I'm the meanest companion on planet earth, I only saw this snake about .5 sec before she did, and therefore had no time to warn her. Anywho, she glanced over that snake and jumped & screamed and hid behind me, clutching my shirt in her hands. And I laughed my bloomin' head off. It was great. She was shaking for a while. She's fine now. I promise.

Okay, miracles!

-K: He is doing great! He is super awesome, has a ton of amazing questions, and we were able to have two lessons with him this week, both with members present. During the last lesson, he made a comment that everything that we told him so far was in line with everything that he already believed and thought, and that nothing had shocked him yet. I then made the comment: "K, can I tell you something? Everything that we are here to teach you and talk to you about? You already know. It's going to have a familiar ring to it because before you came to earth, you already knew about all of this."
And he just sat there and said very quietly, "That's scary.... I mean not really scary, but... you know what I mean..."
The gospel doesn't sound so good because it's too good to be true, it sounds so good, because it IS true! And I love truth :)

-R is doing really well and is praying about baptism! We're so excited for him!

-We had a wonderful lesson with P and he promised to be at church on Sunday, and he came! He is super cool, and full of Bible knowledge. Always has great comments!

-And the last miracle I wanted to mention was that 6 people promised to come to church on Sunday! SIX! We were pumped. Now, only 1 showed up, but we are still happy. Because that is 6 people that want to change and learn more about the gospel and come closer to Christ by following his commandments! Now Satan might have hit those other 5 hard this week, but I am still full of hope. Why? Because we are on the winning side! Onward and upward!

Also.... you know you're in the South when you knock on a door and a man answers the door, wearing a jersey, beer in hand, and before we say a word he takes one look at our nametags, looks at us with a disbelieving expression, and says, "Uhhh... we're watching football." *slam*
Jesus vs football. Sigh.

Lastly, if you remember nothing else from what you've just read, please remember this:
"If you desire to make a difference in the world, you must be different from the world."
-Elaine S. Dalton

I love you all.
Sister Szilagyi

Nephi's Challenge

And once again, Sister Szilagyi races against the clock of the library computer to try to jot down her week!

Here it goes:

1) I learned how to make lumpia! Sure did. If you are not familiar with this delicious Filipino food, Google it. Sister S taught us how to make it last P-Day and told us that she was teaching us so that we could get good husbands haha. In her words, "It worked for me!"

2) Miracles happened! R made it to church this week (he lives with the J/T girls), and so did C and the kids. I love those guys!

3) I went on an exchange with the adorable and wonderful Sister Winward and we were able to find 3 new investigators! (Including a guy who was out cleaning his car and that we attended up talking to for 45 min in his parking lot.)

4) My mom sent me a link to the "Nephi's Challenge" that my home ward is doing in Kirkland... and I could not be more proud to be a member of K1! Holy cow, that is the coolest thing on planet earth and I am so proud of y'all! Keep being amazing and helping the work hasten along! Every missionary out there (all 88,000 of us) would do anything to be able to serve in a ward like K1. Hoo-rah!

I love you all. I'm sorry this email is so lame. I promise that more things happened. Smile! The world is a beautiful place!

Until next week,
Sister Szilagyi

Caught Living the Gospel

Hello wonderful and beautiful people!

The sun is shining, the tank (or library window) is clean, and I am going to attempt to write about all of the amazing things that happened this week!

Alrighty.... here it goes:

GENERAL CONFERENCE! So. Good. Oh wow, I love it so much. I am still trying to figure out how it felt like an eternity as a child and how it feels like about a half a second now. Attitude perhaps? So great.

We were able to experience many miracles this week leading up to and surrounding conference!

To give a few examples:

-We found manyyy more people that are searching for the gospel than we have found in recent weeks, which allowed us to spread the message that there is a prophet and are apostles on the earth today more than usual!

-We contacted a man outside a member's house and taught him a short lesson. He expressed some interest, and we texted him about conference to remind him of the times. We didn't receive a response, but decided to text him again Sunday evening to see if he was able to watch it. To our delight, and surprise, he responded and said: "Yes I was and found it to be very enlightening for trials that I am going through in my own life. Especially the Portuguese speaker. I do have questions though." What a miracle! We have an appointment set up with him to answer those questions. A funny side note? We originally contacted him by asking his young daughter if she wanted to smell the delicious-smelling flower we had picked. The Lord really does work miracles when we open our mouths!

-We had a wonderful lesson with a young couple who had been invited over to dinner with a family (the J family) in our ward. We were able to share parts of the restoration and missionary work, and the husband ended up attending the Priesthood session with Bro. J at the church building and loved it!

-A young mother who has been struggling with her testimony and her many doubts went visiting teaching with her new visiting teaching companion, and best of all, she now has a strong friend in the gospel!

-We had a lesson with the J/T sisters (the youngest being our recent convert), and it was beautiful. We decided to watch President Uchtdorf's talk from the Women's General Meeting with these four sisters. As we gathered around an iPad, we had each of them write down one or two questions that they had about anything onto a small note card. We promised them that their questions would be answered during the video, and pressed play. As the video went on, we saw little heads bowed over each note card, hurriedly scribbling answers onto those note cards. At the end of the video, each girl had received an answer. My favorite comment came from the oldest sister, L: "The question I wrote down wasn't really answered, but a question that I have been thinking about for a really long time was. And I realized that THAT question was so much more important than this one I wrote on my note card."

-Saturday night the H sisters broke their key in half in their door so they had to sleep over at our place. We went over to drop off some blankets and pillows that a less-active family had brought over for the H sisters and we caught them watching the last session of conference. It made my heart so happy. It reminded me of a talk by Elder Holland when he says, "When He comes, I SO want to be caught living the gospel."

As you can see, there have been many reasons to rejoice this week. I love this work. And I love this mission.

Some notes from General Conference that I can barely read because my handwriting has gotten progressively worse:

-"Someone must pay for this terrible wrong!"
"Someone already has paid..."
-Which way do you face? Do not fear man more than God
-"Courage is the form of all virtues at their testing point." -C.S. Lewis
-If we walk farther and farther from the light, things will always become dimmer and more difficult to see
-What are your thoughts if you knew you had a personal interview with Jesus Christ one minute from now?
-Decisions determine destiny
-Things not easily measured are usually of greatest importance
-Absolute truth exists, even in a world that disdains absolutes
-To obey is better than to sacrifice
-Spiritual questions require spiritual answers

There are so many more but I'm running out of time! I love you all!
Have a wonderful week!

Sister Szilagyi

Name Tags and Terrifying Sharks

"​Hey look guys! I'm from the Philippines! P.S. Please ignore the iron."

"This is K and the adorable/terrifying 'shark' she made in art class."

Real Life and Insane Hair

"​This is real life."

"We were just driving along when all of a sudden I spotted someone who was far away from his marshland home."

"None of us had any idea that Elder Burgess was so talented until this showed up at our District Meeting. Yes, clearly my hair is as insane as ever..."

A Box Full of Blessings

Hello hello hello!

Well guess what folks.....? This weekend is GENERAL CONFERENCE! For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, General Conference happens twice a year in our church, held in Utah and broadcast all over the world. During this conference, we are able to hear the prophet, apostles, and other leaders in our church speak on various gospel topics. And it's pretty much the best thing on planet earth. So if you have any questions about life, anything that is on your mind, or you are simply interested in watching and listening, go to LDS.org on Saturday and Sunday and you can watch it yourself! And the best way to watch is by writing down a question or two first. I promise you that every question that you have will be answered. Because God loves you and knows you and He speaks to us through His chosen servants. It's as simple as that :)

To put things into perspective, this is the Superbowl for us missionaries. (And really it's way more important and amazing, but you get the idea).

So basically, I am one happy camper.

This week had its ups and downs, just like every other week. But I'm loving every second!
I mostly sent pictures this week, so forgive my lack of words. Library computers are rather slow. But better than no computers at all!

I love you all so much. As we are coming into fall, I think about all of the wonderful traditions of family and friends that I so took for granted. So coming from a missionary who is not with hers right now, would you do me a favor and tell your family that you love them today? Maybe even give them a hug if you can.

And last thing:
To paraphrase Elder Uchtdorf's remarks from the general women's meeting Saturday night:

Sometimes we think that God requires too much of us. He has too many commandments and too many rules. And He has a box full of blessings locked up in a cloud somewhere that He is waiting to pour down on us until we are perfect. In reality, God is ALWAYS raining blessings on us. It is our sin, our doubt, etc. that become umbrellas that we open above our heads, blocking those blessings. So let us close our umbrellas and dance in the rain.

Sister Szilagyi

The Best Feeling

"Friends don't let friends die without Jesus"

Yepp. Grovetown, GA. Where we have church signs like that and license plates that read "WISEGOD" and bumper stickers that read: "This girl loves boots, guns, and Jesus."

What's new this side of the Mississippi? Well, it's actually cooling down, which is such a blessing. Those poor elders on bikes. It's been staying in the 80's, beautiful and sunny, with a slight breeze. Pretty perfect.

Weeks are flying by. Last night I had this horrible dream where I thought that I was going to a meeting, but I was actually going to the airport to go home. And I was so upset because I kept telling people that I wasn't ready to leave and my 18 months weren't up yet. Then the missionary next to me said, "Sister Szilagyi, yes they are," and counted them with me. And I realized that they were right. And I was so sad. Hopefully that made sense.
The point is, that I am irrationally stressed about my time running out, and having to go home, even though I have months and months left.

I love my mission. Have I mentioned that lately?

Miracles continue to occur. I have felt changes in my own heart this week, that I have been so thankful for. I have felt the power of prayer and have felt moments of inspiration where I know God is listening to me and that He loves me. And that is the best feeling in the world.

- This week, we stopped my a less-active members' house who told us that every time she has a major exam or something stressful at work coming up, we always show up at her door.

- We met with K and her sister D, the adorable 11 and 15 year old Filipina girls. During one of our lessons, we gave them a pamphlet that explained the Plan of Salvation and invited them to write down any questions they had and then read the pamphlet. We came back and were able to teach K. This 11 year old girl had written down her questions, filling up two pieces of notebook paper and had carefully written her answers beneath each one. She opened her pamphlet and showed us how she had highlighted all of the things she loved and the little notes she had written. She told us that after she had read it, she had had the best day and didn't know why but she had just been smiling and smiling. She said "I know that book is true!" We then went through her questions and the lesson, and during this explained to her that before she came to this earth, she had lived with Heavenly Father and had chosen His plan to come to earth. K sat there and then leaned forward and asked, "Does that mean I said Yes??" We told her that it did and she sat there with a biggest smile on her face. This little being is one of the sweetest, brightest, children that I have ever met. And I love her with all of my heart.

Often times, as we get older, I think that we get in our own way. We have distractions and desires that are not in line with His will for us. Because of this, we can get in the way of feeling the Spirit. Children have the most beautiful and simplistic way of reminding us of what really matters.

I love you all. Take some time and go talk with a child today. They will amaze you.
Sister Szilagyi