Called to serve Feb 2016

Tuesday 20 December 2016

Kaposvári Karácsony

Boldog Karácsonyt!

Well I'm finally out of the big city of Budapest and into the beautiful little city of Kaposvár. Basically, to quote the Fresh Prince of Bel-air, "My life got flipped, turned up-side down" this week. 

  Tuesday was my last day together with Elder Allred, so we grabbed some chinese, got our last tracting hour in together and headed up Gellért Hegy to finish off the day and to farewell my wonderful time in Budapest. 
  Wednesday was transfers and I basically forgot that I was training again until they were calling up all the trainers for the meeting, so that kind of hit me. But we had a great time in the meeting and I was able to meet my brand new companion, Elder Thomsen, from Atlanta, Georgia. So that officially brings my Utahn vs non-Utahn companion count to even at three a piece. We were actually in a trio for a few days while we waited for Elder Gonzáles to leave the office, so we jumped on the three hour long train with Elder Harris as we anticipated seeing Kaposvár for the first time. We basically just got everything ready for the rest of the night and saw a bit of the city, which is super pretty especially because it's all done up for Christmas right now.
  Thursday was our first real day together in the trio and it went great. I had to do my first District meeting, but it was pretty easy because we basically just all introduced ourselves and stuff then had like a 30 minute training. After that, we did some tracting, met with a member who fed us some delicious stew, taught English class and finished it off by meeting the branch president and his wife who are both super cool.
  Friday was basically just getting a whole bunch of stuff ready again and getting ourselves aquainted with the area. We then had to pick up Elder Gonzáles from the train station and get ourselves moved in to our new apartment. The apartment is alright, the only problem is that we don't have any heating, which is not fun when it's in the negatives outside during the day.
  Saturday we were able to meet with a few investigators, one of which we were able to extend a baptismal invitation which she accepted, so hopefully that will turn into something in the future. The other was a really cool 12 year old girl who's dad is a member but her mother doesn't want her to get baptised, they're super cool.
  Sunday was interesting. We woke up and not only had no heating in the apartment still but it turns out our hot water doesn't work either, so we're still working on that but hopefully we can get that fixed soon. After that we had church which was interesting because church is only 2 hours here and Priesthood/Relief Society is first then sacrament meeting after. It was really good though, the ward isn't too big (25ish including the missionaries) but the love the missionaries and they're really excited to have another companionship.

So yeah life is pretty crazy at the moment, even if it doesn't really sound much like it, but hopefully it'll calm down as we get into it and understand a bit more of what's going on.

Hope you all have a magical Christmas!

- McKim Elder

P.S. Sorry, I haven't actually taken any pictures of Kaposvár yet, been way too distracted

                                                           Elder Allred and my last comp pic together


Wait... again?

Hellosztok!

So the final week of another transfer is coming to an end and so today is the terrifying Transfer Call Tuesday. I'd be lying if I said that my call wasn't at least a little unexpected. I'll be spending the next 10 weeks in the wonderful city of Kaposvár with a brand new son. Yep somehow I'm training again. I'm also reopening the Kaposvár area, so I guess I didn't get either of those right the first time here in Buda, so President Szabadkai is giving me a second shot to see if I can do it. Hopefully all goes well, I really don't know much about Kaposvár other than that it was Elder Winkel's favourite city, so it should be good and hopefully we can get some work going down there pretty quick. I'm also going to be the District Leader, I don't really know what I have to do but I guess I'll work it out as I go.

The rest of our week was way good. Tuesday was the most people that we have met with in a day the whole time that I've been here. That said it was only 3 but that was pretty full for us. We met with a man who was a potential that we got from the assistants and he was super legit. We taught him the restoration and he seems like he could be a really solid investigator. After that we met with two different members, Laci Bácsi and Balázs. We were able to share the christmas initiative with both of them and so it was a pretty good day.
  Wednesday was our zone day, that we got for reaching the zone challenge this transfer. So we all headed up to Pest and we got a day full of sports and fun all together as a zone, which also included getting to watch Finding Dory and eating a whole bunch of Pizza, it was a way fun day.
  Thursday was the normal craziness of our final district meeting and then us having to teach English class in Érd. It's going to be nice not having to rush so much on Thursdays anymore.
  Friday we had splits with the Érd Elders and so I got to serve with Elder Robinson one last time before we part ways again. It was good we just did a bunch of tracting and a bit of streeting but it was still fun. We then got to attend a baptism of a woman that the sisters have been teaching here in Buda. Her husband has been a member for a while and everyone already though she was a member so it was great to see her finally take the step and be baptised.
  On Saturday Elder Allred and I did a bit of tracting together before heading to another baptism of a woman named Zsuzsa who the assistants have been teaching. She had also been waiting a while to be baptised so she was really excited to finally receive that blessing. After the baptism we got to go out caroling with the Buda district at a few popular spots around the city, which was super fun. 
  Sunday we had the Primary presentation in our ward which was super cute. It was interesting because I realised that all the Primary kids actually speak english as well as Hungarian and at this point they're probably all better than me at both of them.
  Monday was what we call Black Monday and as such we decided to treat ourselves with a special lunch at this way good burger place called Magic Burger. It was kind of expensive but it was way worth it. After that we just did a bit of tracting and preparing the area for me leaving, then we got to visit a member who fed us some delicious paprikás csirke and gave us Reese's to take home with us. Little Black Monday miracles.

So I'm in for a week full of craziness and business, but everything should hopefully go well and next week I'll be able to introduce you all to my new son!

Hope you all have a great week!

-McKim Elder

                                                                                Black Monday burgers


Random bull statue in the park we street in

Karácsonyi csodák!

Jóóóóó Napot!

Time is flying fast here in Buda as Elder Allred and I enter our last week together as a companionship (probably), it's going to be really sad to say goodbye to my son but I'm excited to see what next transfer has in store for me (maybe leaving Budapest...?).

  Our wondeful week started with interviews with President Szabadkai. Nothing really too crazy happened in my interview, no hints or anything, we really just talked about the work here in Buda and the weirdness of the situation that we're currently in. We then headed down to Érd to play some games with the Elders there before their interviews.
  Tuesday we were able to go home teaching with our ward mission leader to visit a kind of less active man in our ward. It was really good and our ward mission leader is the man, seriously like life goals right there.
  Wednesday was pretty normal until we got a call at 6:30 from the sisters in Eger asking us if we could visit a member in their ward that is in the hospital here in Buda. Usually when that kind of stuff happens it's all older people but it turned out it was an 18 year old kid and they had no idea what was wrong with him. But I had the opportunity to give him a blessing, which was really cool, I'll be honest blessings in Hungarian are hard but the words come when you're led by the spirit, so it went well.
  Thursday was the normal hecticness of a thursday, so it was fun, we had district meeting where we talked about finding and how we can become more effective finders and then that night we had english class which we taught all together (4 of us) with no preparation and it went surprisingly well. We shared the new christmas video with everyone afterwards and the spirit was super strong, definitely went well.
  Friday we were able to visit an inactive family and share the christmas initiative, then the assistants asked us to go back and visit the family in the hospital again (the hospital is in their area) but when we got there they had already gone back to Eger...
  Saturday we got to do a bit of service but not in the way that we thought we would. The secretaries called us as we were finishing lunch saying that they got food poisoning, so they needed some stuff from the store that we were able to grab for them.
  Sunday was really cool. We had planned to go visit a member family after church but they called and cancelled on us because they were sick. So instead we went out tracting, as we came to the end of a building we firstly had a woman call us from the card that we had left with her and I was able to explain a little more about us over the phone and extend the invitation to learn more and then straight after I got off the phone we were let in to an apartment (#10thFloor95thDoor) where we were able to talk with a nice older woman with whom we were able to share why we are here as missionaries and a little about the plan of salvation. We left her with a plan of salvation pamphlet and we're hoping to return to her later this week. It was super cool and Elder Allred and I had set a goal to get at least one let in this week, so goal accomplished I guess.

Today is kind of Christmas eve here because Hungary has two christmas', so Santa is coming tomorrow to bring us all our gifts (well to put lollies in our boots actually) and then the 25th is when we celebrate Christ. 
So I guess Merry Christmas eve to you all and may your boots be full of sweets in the morning!

- McKim Elder

P.S If anyone hasn't seen the new Christmas video yet, go to mormon.org and check it out #Szép
P.P.S Sorry didn't take any picture this week...

Diligence

Draga barátaim!

This has been a strange week, to be completely honest. On monday we had planned to head down to Érd to go to a mall and play games for P-day, but that changed when the Érd elders had to let President Szabadkai and the office couple inspect the other Érd apartment. So I just went and got a new side bag because mine was literally hanging by a thread and we got yelled at a whole bunch while tracting. I did get to visit a super solid guy named Laci in Érd though and his mum made us töltött paprika, it was way good, it's been so long since I've had real Hungarian food.
  Tuesday we had splits so I was in Érd with Elder Bloomer, it was nothing too crazy we just got lost at a weird train station in the middle of nowhere, had a couple people yell at us while tracting and talked to a crazy guy for a few minutes. On tuesday night all the people who said that they would meet with us this week cancelled, so Elder Allred and I went out on the hunt to find some new investigators. I prayed that we would find someone who would "become a new investigator", well our prayer was answered only the guy that we met lives in Pest, not Buda, so we had to hand him over to the Pest sisters. I gained a testimony of prayers needing to be specific that day.
  Wednesday was basically just straight out of the best two years as Elder Allred suggested that we needed to fast so that we could find a new investigator and so I happily agreed. We went super hard and our motto for the day was "#Diligence". We finally had a solid conversation with someone right before dinner allowing us to head home grab some bread from the bakery and basically just eat a bunch of nutella for dinner. Missionary life...
  Thursday was "Hála adás napja" or maybe "Pulyka nap", I don't know, Hungarian doesn't have a translation, but it was thanksgiving. So we gathered together as a district after district meeting to give many thanks over our wonderful thanksgiving lunch. We can't really get a big turkey, so instead we replaced it with a roast chicken along with some potatoes and bread. It was surprisingly legit and it looked pretty sweet. We also all wore our matching Thanksgiving socks with Turkey legs on them. Wasn't what I expected out of Thanksgiving but it was still pretty sweet.
  Friday was nothing too special, just headed out to Budaörs for some tracting.
  Saturday we decided to head out to this little area that we keep seeing on the map that no one ever goes to. Turns out it was basically all like little farm houses and it was super sketchy. We found this well, so we of course had to give it a try, and then later on we found a weird statue of a stork holding a demon child. It was just an all round pretty strange day.
  Sunday was nothing too different, teheonly strange thing that happened was that Elder Allred got a blood nose during sacrament meeting, which was exciting. We also got the zone challenge again this week so in like a week and a half we get to have a zone day together!
  Today is going to be interviews with President Szabadkai, so we hope everything goes well, but we'll see I guess.

Have fantastic weeks! Boldog Karácsonyt!

- McKim Elder

PICS!
Creepy Stork statue