Adventures

Sziasztok!

Well what a crazy week this was. Firstly, something I forgot to talk about last week, I confirmed Márton in Hungarian which was insane, it went surprisingly well and I think I got across everything that I needed to in the blessing, so it was super cool. Márton got the priesthood this week and now he's heading off on a mini-mission in another city called Kecskemét for a month and a half. So it's all just a super cool thing to see happen.

Okay, so transfers. Transfers are super cool, I got to see a bunch of my MTC district as well as meeting a bunch of other people, including my new companion Elder Winkel (I realise now that I spelled his name wrong last week). But he's super awesome, he's just a loud energetic kid from Utah who loves to have adventures. He's in his second last transfer, which means that he speaks really well, which is fantastic. 

So the adventures of this week. Firstly meeting my new district, so everyone here in Pest left except for me and we also got new Sisters so, I had 5 new missionaries, including a greenie join me here. The new district is really cool though and we got a huge 60cm pizza after district meeting, so I'm excited for the things to come this transfer. 

On friday night, Elder Winkel and I literally thought we were being terrorist attacked, we heard 3 really loud booms then we looked out the window and saw a bunch of smoke over near the Duna. So we did the natural thing and called our zone leaders, who told us it was probably nothing, then they called the APs who just told us to pray about it and go to bed. Then we heard nothing more about it in the morning so I guess there was no terrorist attack, either that or our prayers worked really well.

Saturday we went to Vác for a ward activity, it was way fun, we got to see the whole city, got some lunch at this nice restaurant and then ended up getting blessed by a catholic nun on the way to the train station.

Then to finish off the week (or start, I don't really know) on Monday we had Zone conference. Zone conferences are super cool, we talked about christ-like attributes, why they're important and how we can develop them. Our zone leaders made an interesting point about how the process of repentance is how we improve pretty much any part of our lives that we want to work on. We first have to recognise the area that needs improvement, gain a desire or motivation to change or improve, seek out a way to improve, then act daily on the help that we have received to keep us continually improving and moving closer to whatever the goal is that we want to achieve.

Viszontlátásra

                                                                  The Opera House

                                                         I met my grandpa at transfers

                                                                    District pic in Vác

Week 17: One transfer down

Sziasztok!

This week was pretty crazy, but I don't have my journal with me so I'll see what I can actually remember about it.

Firstly, transfer calls. So we got transfer calls this morning and my companion is going to be the new zone leader over in Dunaujváros which means that I'll be staying here in Pest with my new companion Elder Winkell who I will meet tomorrow, but everyone says that he's awesome. So I'm super excited to see what this next transfer has in store and to meet all the new missionaries that will be here in Pest.

So a kind of annoying but also cool experience that happened this week was that I lost my wallet on the train to this city called Vác. So that really sucked, it's hard to do things without money or cards but I was really lucky because just a couple days ago I had this feeling that I should probably take out most of the money in my wallet and leave it in the apartment. So I still had most of my money for the month. But then we got a call on monday morning (I don't know how they got our number) saying that they had my wallet at the train station. So I managed to get my wallet back with mostly everything in it (10,000Ft was missing but I can deal with that), so that was a huge blessing.

The rest of the week was just weird tracting experiences that I can't really remember, oh and we also made ostor kalács, which is some crazy chocolate bread thing, with an RCLA today, so that was super delicious and we've been carrying it around like a baby all day.

But yeah not a lot of time today, you might get hear some of those stories from me another time.

Have a great week!

- McKim Elder

     We found a random helicopter sitting in front of a house in this small town, I don't even   think the                    Hungarian Air Force has a helicopter.

                            Me with one of our investigators, Nagy Mihaly (or big mike in English)

May 30: Túl sok étel- Too much food

Sziasztok,

So this week was a very interesting week.

Firstly, after weeks of searching, we finally got a new apartment so that we can bring another set of missionaries into Pest for the next transfer. So chances are I'll be moving apartments at transfers even though I'll probably stay here in Pest. But it's a pretty nice apartment, so it's not too bad.

I don't know what it was about this week, but for some reason pretty much everyone cancelled on us, we literally had like 6 appointments cancel on us in like 3 or 4 days. But that just meant that we spent a lot of time going out tracting. Unfortunately, the areas that we went to were a little more normal than usual and so we didn't really have any crazy tracting experiences.

One cool thing though, was that for the first time I solo gave out a Book of Mormon, I was just talking to this lady after English class with my very limited Hungarian and decided that I should ask her if she wanted a Book of Mormon and she happily took one. It felt good to actually contribute on my own, not just relying on the Hungarian skills of Elder Jensen.

It seems like I talk about food a lot in these emails, but I'm going to do it again. We had so much food the last couple days. I kept getting told that you would never get fed out here, but we got fed 4 times in 2 days, it was crazy. First a lady fed each of me and my companion like 8 Palacsinta's, which are kind of like pancake-y crepe things filled with chocolate or jam, then after I was already super full we had lunch with a member and she fed us some other food with a whole bunch of another desert which I still have no idea what it was other than it was delicious. I was so full I could barely move. Then we cancelled a dinner appointment for that night. Then the next day we went to a less active who fed us Gulyás leves (I think that's how you spell it), which is basically just Hungarian stew and then some huge pastry thing filled with chocolate. Once again I could barely move. Then we went to another member, and I never thought I would dread seeing plates out on the table to feed us dinner but that time I did. But we pushed through and it was all super delicious.

Okay on a serious note, a couple weeks ago I talked about the Book of Mormon challenge that our mission president challenged us all to do and yesterday I finally finished it. I just wanted to bear my testimony to you all that I know without a doubt in my mind that the Book of Mormon is the word of God revealed to men and brought forth through the prophet Joseph Smith for each of us in this latter day. So many incredible blessings have come to me through the Book of Mormon in my life and I know that anyone who reads from the Book of Mormon and takes the promise given by Moroni, will come to know of it's truth if they sincerely want to know and are willing to act on the answer that they receive. This book has strengthened my testimony of Christ more than anything else ever could and it has helped me to find that true hope that can only come through the Atonement and suffering of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

Tovabbi szép napot!

McKim Elder

                                                        A very fancy McDonalds

                                                     We visited a member for his birthday

                                                                   The view from our apartment  

A Barbecue, a baptism, Book of Mormons and hiking boots.

Sziasztok!

So this week was a very interesting one, with some very interesting experiences.

So as per usual I guess I might as well start with an update on the food that I got this week. So on monday we went over to an American families house for a Memorial day barbecue, so that was pretty sweet, we had burgers and potato salad, that kind of stuff. On wednesday we made (really weird) smores for our international night thing, I never thought my first smore would be in Hungary, but I guess weirder stuff has happened. Then on thursday we had a Less active feed us paprika krumpli (or paprika potato) which as it sounds is pretty much just paprika and potato with a bit of ham, but it's good stuff. Saturday we had a whole bunch of suti, which is basically just a general word for deserts I guess, but I don't even know what any of it was it was just all delicious. Then finally we had another meal with an American family. I'm going to miss the American food when I get transferred out of Pest, but I guess it'll give me a good opportunity to try some sketchy igazi (real) Hungarian food.

This week we mainly just went out finding, we had like 2 planned programs for the entire week, it was crazy. But we had some cool experiences. We had a couple Néni's (old women) let us in for like 2 hours and they fed us ice cream and we gave them all Book of Mormons. We tracted into some Less active members who fed us, then some random guy right after gave us a bag of Haribo lollies. We tracted into this scary looking shirtless Russian guy who was actually super interested and will hopefully become an investigator. Then I tracted into a guy who was wearing nothing but a speedo and hiking boots, when it was raining and like 17 degrees outside. So we had some interesting tracting experiences.

Our investigator Márton got baptised on saturday, which was super cool. He's been investigating the church for a really really long time, he found the church a while ago when he was doing a school project and researching about Mitt Romney, so Mitt Romney pretty much converted my first baptism, but he had to wait until he was 18 to get baptised because his parents didn't agree with the church. But the baptism went really well, besides Elder Jensen nearly dropping him in the font. I'm grateful for having the opportunity to teach Márton, it's helped to show me how we don't earn our baptisms, or even convert people, we just tell them about the Gospel and they convert themselves.

Lastly, this week was Elder Jensen's one year mark, so because he didn't want to burn any of his shirts, he burnt a pair of socks. So I'll put some pictures of that in.

Tóvabbi szép napot!

McKim Elder