Our new council decided that our YSA needed some goals for 2014. One of those goals was to try to re-activate some YSA members who have not been attending Church for a while. On Friday, Jan 3, 2014 Gabor had our members write letters to some of these…
Another one of our council’s goals was to have 50 new Young Single Adults join the Church in the year 2014. They advertised this on our Facebook Budapest YSA page and with the leaders of the YSA in other cities. Soon they had 40 YSA (and a few other members, like the Smiths, the Felsteds, etc) who agreed to fast and pray on 40 different days, with the purpose of pleading with the Lord for our Hungarian Missionaries to find and baptize 50 new YSA! Our YSA council realized that if the Church is to grow in Hungary, they need to marry other LDS members.
Viki introduced the details and led the discussion about this fast and helping more with missionary work with a power point presentation. on Friday, January 10th. The YSA were very attentive and supportive. (Another aside: Mormons fast regularly for 24 hours once a month and give the money we would spend on food for the poor and needy. We also fast whenever we desire special blessings – like when a family member is sick or when parents are worried about a child, etc.)
Another goal was to have our YSA more actively involved with the missionaries. Some are just naturally inclined to do this and others are more shy. Many participate with the missionaries by attending discussions (called programs here) with investigators. This is very helpful.. One, it introduces the investigator to a person in the Church who is about the same age. It also lets the investigator see that our members are just normal people. (There are a lot of misconceptions out there!)
Here is an example of a member befriending an investigator (Marietta) … Unfortunately, Anna (on right) left soon after this picture to the USA to marry a missionary who served in Hungary. Not to worry – Marietta has other LDS friends..
However, there are other ways that the YSA can be helpful to the missionary effort besides attending discussions. The council decided that we should invite the missionaries to some of our meetings to teach the YSA how to accomplish this goal.
The APs, Assistants to President Smith, leading the discussion on Jan 10th.
BTW, the APs counsel with President Smith about the everyday running of the missionary effort in Hungary. APs are chosen by the Mission President and are usually called to this position because of their excellent and exemplary missionary service. And ours are excellent teachers, too. In this lesson, they asked the YSA what did they talk about when they talk to others not of our faith… A list was made on the board. Then they used that list to see how discussions could be inserted about faith, God, values, etc. to see if their non-member friends had any questions about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Then they divided up into role-playing groups… (very common missionary training practice)
Our Church is at the forefront of using technology and I am on several LDS lists that keep me informed about the latest things. I found two posters the week we were going to have this lesson that helped explain members usefulness in the missionary program. (See them on the board in the first picture.) Here is one. Could not find the other one – I deleted the file after I printed it off as a poster… and could not find it anywhere online. Where do things go???
We have continued to have the missionaries come once a month and review good missionary practices and help our YSA be better “member missionaries.”
We have started keeping track of all the YSA throughout Hungary who join the Church. I invite them to join the Budapest YSA Facebook group so they can see what kind of activities we do here. They can attend any that they wish and some of our activities are geared especially for all the YSA in Hungary! It is very special for me to “meet” (some only through the internet) these wonderful new converts and touch base with them. I was one of them! I joined the Church at age 18!!! At this moment in time (Mar 14, 2014), we have 9 baptisms in 10 weeks and many more to come!
Here is our first YSA baptism in Hungary in the year 2014!
Marietta and her mother and sister
This will be an exciting year for the YSA! Let’s hope they can achieve their goals!
