The weeks are still going...

Üdvözlök!

Well, here we are again at the end of another week of adventures. I don't really have a lot of time to email today, so this probably won't be too long.

  On monday we went exploring the christmas markets that they have set up all over the city here. They're all just these wooden huts full of random items, so it's a fun time to go exploring.

  Tuesday we visited a man named Imre, who lives in an old people's home, because the topic for the day in the Hungarian Light the World campaign was "Jesus healed the sick and so can you", he's a cool dude. We also met with our three young investigators and taught them about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

  Wednesday we had interviews with President Szabadkai, mine was absolutely nothing special, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens to me at transfers in a couple weeks. We had splits with the other elders that night and because it was what they call "Mikulás" (Santa day, basically) here in Hungary, we decided to give out these little chocolates called "szaloncukor" along with a card to all of the kids that we saw. It was super fun and the kids loved it.

  Thursday we had district meeting, where we watched the Christmas devotional and english class along with a little bit more whiteboarding, pretty normal day.

  Friday we had splits with the assistants here in Győr, which means that I got to be back with Elder Hughes again. Our ward had a "Mikulás" party, which ended up having us walking an investigator family through the rain, to get there, and then Elder Hughes and I singing a very awkward rendition of silent night in Hungarian to all of the children so that we could get some sweets. It was a really good time though and all of the kids were super cute when they went up to santa.

  The rest of the week was pretty normal, we finished up splits, did a bunch of finding and went to church, nothing too special. But we have found more potential investigators in the last 3 days than we have in the whole rest of this transfer, so things are looking up.

This article is in Hungarian, but a photographer from the Church came a couple months ago and took a bunch of pictures to show what the Hungary, Budapest mission is like. I'm not in the article at all, but it's a pretty good look into what it's like being here, so give it a look if you're interested.

http://www.mormon-sajtoszoba.hu/cikkek/mormonizmus-keepekben--mormon-misszionaariusok-magyarorszaagon

Szeretettel,

McKim elder

                           

                                                    

                                                                                  Mikulás

                                                                      Streets of Gydr

Do I even have a real companion?

Szerbusztok!

Well to give you a little insight into how crazy the last week or so has been for us, from last saturday to this saturday Elder Robinson and I have been on some sort of split with 5 of the 6 elder companionships in our zone. So basically we only got to spend monday and sunday together. Let me explain...

  Last saturday as previously mentioned, we had splits with the Pápa elders which was fantastic and then we had a bit of time to ourselves to prepare for our next splits. We even went to an all you can eat chinese place on monday to make sure we were ready for our upcoming splits.

  On Tuesday we had splits with the elders from Szombathely, which meant that I got to spend 24 hours working with my son, Elder Thomsen. It was actually pretty weird because I trained him almost a year ago and now he's all grown up and a district leader. We basically just found for most of the split but it was still pretty fun.

  We finished our splits with Szombathely and sent them on their way only to pretty soon after receive a phone call from the other elders telling us that they need us to do a weird little 3 way split with the elders from Tatabánya. Basically the Tatabánya elders had to move apartments, only they had to be out of their apartment by 9:30am thursday and their new landlord wouldn't give them the keys to their new apartment until 9:30am thursday. One of the other elders here has had some stuff happen in Tatabánya and so he didn't feel comfortable going back, which meant that Elder Robinson got sent up there, while I stayed here in Győr. Luckily I got to stay here though, because it started snowing, so we just got to teach a sweet lesson to one of our investigators and get fed fruit salad while the other elders had to haul bags of stuff from their apartment to the branch in the snow. 

  Thursday was cool but not all that interesting, we just got to head over to Tatabánya for district meeting, spent a bunch of time in the senior couples car and taught some english.

  Friday morning we headed over to Sopron so that we could have splits with the elders there too. We did this super cool finding activity where we went out to the city centre, set up our whiteboard and had 10 missionaries going around asking people if they would write down an uplifting message and then in return they could take another message that someone else had written along with a glowstick. We also had the senior couple in Sopron bring their iPads along so that we could show people the Christmas video. It went super well, we showed at least 60 people the christmas video, got a bunch of numbers and had a lot of fun, even though it was absolutely freezing.

  Saturday we came back to Győr and tried the same thing here, but we only had 2 people and no glowsticks, so it didn't quite go as well but it was still pretty fun.

This email is way too long already haha.

Viszlát!

- McKim elder

                                                                         Sopron (ft. Elder Suggs)

Elder Knight, we have served in the same zone for all except 3 months of my mission, he goes home in 2 weeks and this was the last of our 5 splits that we have had together                                                                      

Too much food

Sziasztok!

  Well here we are at the start of another week, somehow these mondays just come so fast. But basically our week just ended up being us eating a lot of food, which sounds great, but can sometimes be a struggle.

  Tuesday was pretty boring for the most part because we had to spend a whole bunch of time planning for our zone training. At night though we got to go to a YSA activity that the senior couple here was putting on. It was super fun, we basically just got to play games and chat with them and in the end we got a referral and potential investigator out of it, so not bad at all.

  Wednesday we had zone conference in Budapest. It went pretty good, we were takling about giving commitments and then we also got a training from President Szabadkai about the new Christmas initiative. It was a pretty good conference and basically everyone in this zone has to take the same train home, so we got to hang out with everyone on the train too. After we got home we started splits and Elder Surdu and I headed over to Erzsi, where she told us that she is completely done with smoking now!

  Thursday was thanksgiving and so we had a giant lunch at district meeting and did all of the american traditions, it was pretty fun, but we were all way too ridiculously full because we had like 4.5kg of turkey for 8 people plus all the other food. It was super delicious though. We also met with the relief society president's husband that night and they gave us even more food, it was crazy. The lesson went well though and he seems like he's fairly interested, so we'll see what happens there.

  Friday we headed over to a city called Pápa for splits, which is actually the smallest of all the missionary cities. I was with Elder Millett and we had a super fun split together. We took Elder Bradshaw with us and he drove us around to a couple little villages so that we could visit some people that they wouldn't normall be able to get to. We also went to institute there and then Elder Millett made us all burgers, he's such a stud.

  Saturday we finished up our splits in Pápa and then after coming back to Győr we had yet another Thanksgiving dinner, this time put on by the ward here. It was super fun, we had a tonne of people turn up and there was so much food. Also one of the members from Szeged, Peti, came after being in Ireland for the last 4 months or so, so it was pretty cool to get to see him again too.

  Sunday we had church, then we headed straight over to a members house for lunch and from there had to go straight to a service opportunity that we had. Turns out that we were helping people collect food for a food bank, but that was also pretty fun because we got to put on these white bibs and walk around passing out flyers and then collect food at the end. Doesn't sound too interesting but it was a good time.

Well there's this week. Hope you all had a great one too!

Szeretettel,

McKim elder

                                                                                Food collection

Thanksgiving lunch at district meeting

Everyone taking pictures of thanksgiving lunch

Miracles are real...

Szervusztok!

So as a little introduction to what may end up being a bunch of miracle talk, Elder Robinson and I have introduced something into our zone that we call the "Csere Csoda Challenge" (Transfer miracle challenge), where we make everyone write down a miracle that they see every day and then send in their favourite miracle for the week to us and then we pick one and send it out to the entire zone. It's going pretty well and it's getting us pumped for miracles, so now basically everything that happens is a miracle.

  On tuesday we were out tracting and looking people up and we decided to drop in on the relief society president because the senior couple here gave her husband, who is a nonmember, a blessing the other day. She didn't come out when we rung her doorbell but she did later when we were tracting the other side of her street. She said that her husband has been praying ever since he got the blessing and is kind of interested in meeting with us now, so that was a pretty cool miracle.

  Wednesday we spent a lot of the day giving out the over 100 little muffins that we made. It went alright, but the biggest miracle came when we brought them to our investigator Erzsi, she started telling us about how she was so tense and stuff and when we asked why, she said it was because she hasn't smoked in 2 days, which is a crazy huge miracle.

  Thursday we had to head up to Budapest for MLC and then afterward we had splits with the assistants. They also threw their english class on us, so Elder Robinson and I got to teach english to a bunch of random strangers for an hour, which was fun.

  Friday, I was on splits with Elder Gentry, who is basically just a beast of a missionary. At one point we had 2 hours to tract and Elder Gentry and I set a goal to get 2 let-ins in that time. Well, when Elder Gentry sets a goal, he reaches it, so lo and behold we had 2 let-ins within 2 hours, it was crazy. We also went to a really good mexican place for lunch and a member is the owner, so he gave it to us for free. Hard to pick the bigger miracle, haha.

  The rest of the week included a lot of planning, visiting a super cool member family here and having dinner with the senior couple and the bishopric. So I think it went pretty well all-round.

Well that's about it from me this week, have a good one!

Szeretettel,

McKim elder