Happy Birthday Elder Arnoczky!

Ever since I can remember, Mom and Dad have been playing a "birthday song" for Derek and I each year on our birthdays (usually to wake us up.) It's a cute little song that our Grandma found and that we've waited for each birthday morning. Anyway, we were able to send that song to one of the families that is in one of Derek's wards to play for him on his birthday and they got it on video!

No longer a greenie!

Elder Arnoczky has been out for 4 months and has been busy at work in Boise! A week ago Mom sent him some questions about mission life so far, and here are a few of them:

What are your companions’ names & where do they come from?
Answer: Elder Sanders from Alberta. and Elder Tukuafu from Tonga

Do you get to see your mission president very much? How often?
Answer: Nope only at Zone Conference and at Interviews

Is the basement you live in part of someone’s home or is it an apartment?
Answer: its a house and the Zone Leaders live upstairs. so 5 missionaries in total live at that house

Have you had to give any talks yet? Tell me about them.
Answer: no but i got up and bore my testimony about 5 times in 5 different wards

Do you have any baptisms coming up soon? Tell me about them.
Answer: no baptisms soon. BUT we have a ton of new investigators and we will have some baptisms in the future

He also shared a dog story...

"we almost got attacked by a dog the other day! we were checking out a potential investigator and there was a vicious dog outside growling at us and lunging with its teeth out and so we were wondering what to do. Elder Tukuafu and elder sanders were just afraid so i had to pick up its ball and throw it into its cage and it went in and so i ran to close the gate and accidentally ran through into the cage with it and backed off and i was able to close the gate. and then the person we were trying to contact wasn't home...."

Loving the field...

Elder Arnoczky has been loving the Boise area! Here are some excerpts from Derek’s June 29th email:

I prayed a lot to help me be a better missionary and to know how to bring His children back to him. And so I made sure that I was living worthily to do that, getting up on time and doing my studies every morning, and my prayer was really answered yesterday, we had just a really successful day!

We actually went tracting in this area and we were able to make appointments with three people!

One of the people was a ‘golden investigator’ who has already read the Book of Mormon and pretty much knows it’s true and wants to be baptized. I got to teach her a lot of the lesson and share my testimony with her and I could tell that she already had a testimony and I told her that, and she really felt the spirit. So she'll be baptized really soon then. That is super exciting!

I’m glad that I prayed, and was able to live worthy to have such an uplifting day. I would just like to encourage both Mom and Dad, and Megan and Vince to continue to read together every night, and to pray together to build your faith stronger, and if you’re striving to be obedient, Heavenly Father will bless you always.

For the 4th, the town he is in had a 4th of July parade and of course him and his companion got fed a lot. Also he has a new mission president, President Cannon. They were kind enough to email all of the missionaries' parents to introduce themselves and send a photo they took while meeting them. Here is Elder Arnoczky with President and Sister Cannon:



He's also been busy at work and has many baptisms scheduled for this month! He says there are so many referrals, they don't even go tracting! Which is probably a good thing since the weather there has been in the 90's!

Photo Update

These first two Elder Arnoczky calls the "Matrix" photos...




Here are some photos of Elder Arnoczky's district at the MTC




Beautiful scenery in Idaho!


Elder Arnoczky's district in Star

It's already been a month and a half!

Here is the latest email from Derek:

as i told mom, we got a free membership to a gym next to our house, that and the family we're teaching is getting baptized this Saturday at 1 are the highlights of my week.

sweet story was when we had an investigator who didnt read her assignment for the week because she was distracted by a 500 piece puzzle and when we went over there and she told us that we started working on the puzzle with her and finished it in like a half an hour lol. and since she didnt have any excuses she read and went to chruch this sunday haha. sunday is a crazy day. we start at 7 and go until 3. we go to 4 different wards and i got up and bore my testimony 4 times haha.

food here is really weird sometimes. we get fed sushi alot and also chinese, which neither ive tried before. surprising the sushi was pretty good, even the eel one haha.

i need to send my matrix picture to you so you can put it as my facebook picture. or my whistle pig hunting picture. XD i dont have my cord here tho, and i'm really not good at taking pictures at all.

some kid in the library just said i like you're sunglasses and i was like "thanks there not mine tho" and he was like "are they your girlfriends" and i was like "no, they're are my companions" and i just realized how gay that sounds because im in my p-day clothes and i don't have a tag on.XDDD

fathers day is coming up and i'll be sending a picture of me and Elder Meredith to dad in a card so at least you'll have that.

well im gunna go now. love you have a good week. tell vince hey

elder Arnoczky

also i asked if he went tracting a lot and what kind of car they had:

Do you go tracting a lot? no we dont go tracting at all because there are so many member referels

Do you and your companion have a car? yes we have a car. a 07 toyota corrola. it sucks haha

and here is the email to mom from him:

another sweet week! and this saturday a whole family we taught is getting baptized so thats also sweet. We get fed just fine and even when a person canceled on us i had the subway card you gave me and got subway that day.

remember when i said i was gunna get a weight because my bands broke? well instead of that i decided to do a lot of pushups and i fixed the bands good enough to do pull-up type moves. well anyway we've been eating good still and now we're running 3 miles a day. and after driving by a couple times, we decided to go in a local fitness gym and see the rates, the lady said it was a dollar a day and some other fees, so we were thinking "forget this" but then she said that the LDS missionaries had an account there and all we really needed was a key, which cost 20 dollars, and a lady in one of our wards gave us 20 bucks earlier in the day. so we got a free membership to a gym thats a tenth of a mile away from our place ,and its open 24/7 so if thats not cool idk what is.

so yup im still getting better at the lessons. and something else that cool is, everyone has trouble saying our last name so we've been getting everyone to call me Elder A, or Elder Awesome. and its catching on quite well cause im pretty awesome haha.

well if i think of anything else i'll put it in my email to megan. love you both. cya next week

2nd full week in Idaho!

June 1, 2010 Email:
Last month is referred to as ‘Miracle May’ by Elder Arnoczky. He says he committed 20-year-old ‘Becky’ to baptism 2 weeks ago and even though it was his first time doing that, he wasn’t a bit nervous. Last week he & his companion committed a family of 5 to baptism and to demonstrate their sincerity, the parents agreed to live separately until they are married. Then they received a call from a member yesterday who told them of her friend who is totally ‘golden’ and wants to be baptized. They are scheduled to begin teaching her over the next couple of weeks.

Every day begins with Elder Arnoczky & his companion running a mile and every evening is ended by running 2 miles. Last night, another set of missionaries spent the night @ their apartment. Today, they are all going to play kickball, capture the flag and then he is going to try sushi for the first time. I’m glad to see that he isn’t all work and no play!

Elder Arnoczky lost his camera cord so I had to send him a new one. He finally received it & has committed to taking a lot of pictures. If any of you have received photos from him and would be willing to share them on this blog, please send them to his email via Facebook and Megan will post them for all of us to view.