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Sziasztok!

Well it's that time again where every 9 weeks or so we get the most nerve-racking phone call ever. We were very happy though to receive the call that not only am I staying here in Szeged for another transfer but Elder Hughes will be staying with me! So we get to spend another whole 10 weeks together in this wonderful city. It's not too common here for anyone to stay together for 2 transfers so it's pretty cool that I'll get to experience it at least once and if I'm lucky this might mean that I get to spend 6 months in this fantastic city.

  Our week as what seems like normal now, started with splits with the other elders here in Szeged, which would also be our last splits for the whole transfer. We had a good time although our most serious investigator texted us in the middle of it saying that he wanted to take a break, so that was really sad, but we had some great times nonetheless.

  We got to head out to a couple little cities this week to look some people up. One was out to a tiny little village thing called Szatymaz just outside of Szeged where we looked up a less active man and his wife, so we could share the easter message with them. The other was to a not so small city called Hódmezővásárhely (yeah, it's a bit of a mouthful). There we met with one of the sister's investigators while they're gone as well an inactive family who were seriously just one of the cutest families of all time, it was so wonderful.

  On friday we got permission to go attend a musical that a couple of the members of the branch here were participating in called Evita. It was actually really well done and really cool, although it was in Hungarian so we had hardly any idea what was going on, but it was a fun experience and the theatre was absolutely beautiful.

  Elder Hughes had thought he was leaving all the way up until this morning so we had to say goodbye to a lot of the members this week. One thing we did was make Chimichangas (I have no idea how to spell that) with a few of the members here. It was a super fun day and they're some of the coolest members that I've met so far here. We also had an easter picnic on monday with most of the branch, so there were a lot of sad goodbyes for the other elders but also delicious food and some fun games, so it was fun.

It's been a wonderful time this transfer and I'm looking forward to even more crazy stories to share with you all in the upcoming one.

Sok szeretettel,

- McKim Elder

                                                   Cool picture that I took of our branch house the other night.

                                    Kitti and Timi, some of our wonderful Szeged members

Came across Kenguru (Kangaroo) köz, which intersected with Hiúz (Bobcat but pronounced the same way as Hughes) utca, which intersected with Szabadkai út. This city is a goldmine.

The most normal week of the transfer...

Szervusztok!

Like the title states, this was probably the most normal week that we have had throughout this entire transfer and it was still kind of crazy, but that's just missionary life I guess.

  For P-day we felt obligated to do something cool because the sisters were only going to be in Szeged until Thursday, so we decided to go to the zoo. The only problem was that we got pretty lost after taking the wrong tram and so only had like an hour and a half at the zoo. It was really cool though, we even saw some lions eating some rabbits.

  Tuesday we had interviews with President Szabadkai. Nothing too crazy happened we just kind of talked about life and conference but it was a good experience. We also had to run across the city to meet with one of our investigators because he came 2 hours early, but it went well so it was all good.

  We then had exchanges with the other elders here in Szeged which are always fun. Some random guy gave Elder Sharp and I huge cans of shaving cream as a gift for not being able to talk to us, so you know, it was interesting.

  Thursday we had to head over to Kecskemét to have exchanges with the elders there. It's a really beautiful place and we got to take part in their district meeting, so it was a good time.

  The rest of the week was pretty normal, just meeting with our investigators, made some cookies and gave them to a bunch of people, it was good fun.

Well this is the last full week of the transfer which means that next week when I email I will already have my transfer call for next transfer. We'll see what happens but hopefully I get at least one more transfer in this wonderful city.

Sok szeretettel,

McKim Elder

                                                  We came across pretty much the cutest bear ever at the zoo

"Where is all our time?..."

Üdvözlök!

I honestly cannot believe how quickly my time is going here in Szeged, Elder Hughes and I are freaking out about the possibility of having to leave each other in another 2 weeks, but we're just living up the little time that we actually have together.

  Continuing our tradition of a ridiculous amount of exchanges, we started our week with exchanges with the assistants. We got dogged, taught a really good lesson, got a let in, did some finding, ate some indian food, it was an all round pretty good day and I learnt a lot from it.

  On wednesday we headed out to a little city just outside of Szeged to visit some members with one of the senior couples. They picked us a whole bunch of vegetables right out of their garden and told us to eat them. They were good but could use a little less dirt next time...

  Thursday we had our district meeting which was included our district leader, Elder Sharp, building a giant tent out of bed sheets in the middle of one of the classrooms in the meeting house and us all pretending to be part of Lehi's family as we reenacted parts out of 1 Nephi. It was actually super fun and really funny. We also met with the man that we tracted into last sunday and visited one of the members in the hospital.

  Friday started out a little sad because we had to say goodbye to one of our district members, Sister Beck. She had been struggling with some health problems for a while and they made the decision for her to go home this week

which was really sad. We then had exchanges with the elders from Szolnok and so we were able to teach a few lessons together to some of our more interesting investigators. I just really can't explain them here, they just need to be experienced, but they were great lessons.

  Saturday was a very busy day full of teaching many of our investigators before getting to kick off our wonderful conference weekend. I really enjoyed this general conference, it touched a lot of topics that we have been focusing on a lot with our investigators recently and so it should be a great help to them to be able to share the words of the leaders of the church with them. It was also a great testimony builder for me and I'm glad that we could participate in it.

Well that was my week. The church also just started it's new #PrinceOfPeace campaign, so if you haven't seen it yet, go watch the video, it's great.

Jó hetet!

- McKim Elder

PICS!

                                                                 Birthday donut from Elder Hughes

                                                             District meeting tent (with birthday balloons).

                                                                            Split pic with Szolnok

Splits with my own companion.

Sok szeretettel köszöntelek benneteket!

Well first of all, as of today I am no longer a teenager and that's about the weirdest thing ever, but I'm so glad that I got to spend a wonderful birthday here in this great place. It's been great so far and I'm so the rest of it will be too.

  On tuesday I was able to actually spend a whole day with my own companion which is what seems like a rare luxury these days. It started with us meeting with a guy that we called from our area book and he definitely wasn't what we expected when he rollerbladed up to the branch house door but he's really cool and he has a lot of potential, so we're excited. We were also able to meet with our super legit investigator, Márk, and had a super good lesson with him, it was a good day.

  We then spent the next day up in Budapest (again) because once again we had a wonderful zone training. Luckily we weren't late to our own meeting this time and everything was able to go as planned, so it was a fairly good meeting, nothing too special.

  I got to spend Thursday on an exchange with the other Elders here in Szeged. We taught a very catholic man, did some tracting, taught some english, at a really good burger, it was an all round pretty good day.

  Friday we had another set of exchanges, this time with the Békéscsaba elders. Split miracles are definitely a thing because we tracted for like 20 minutes and someone let us in which basically never happens. We then met with one of our less actives and did some streeting, so it was also pretty good.

  Saturday we finished our splits and met with a few more people. We were able to meet with Márk again and then we met with branch presidents family where we asked them to pray with us and then select a street for us to go tract where we can find a new investigator. We didn't have time to go do that right after though, because we headed to our game night that we hosted for the YSAs. In the middle of it they surprised me by bringing out a cake and singing happy birthday for me, it was super cool, the members here are so great!

  Sunday we had church like normal and then we went out tracing. We decided to go to the street that the branch presidents family gave us the night before and that was where we met our brand new investigator, Péter. Miracles are real people, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. He's a really great older man who was wanting to know whether his relationship with his deceased wife still continues and so we're going back there this week to teach him more about it. 

  That brings us to today! We volunteered ourselves to work at a place that cares for people with mental disabilities and they told us to come back on monday for their "Classical music morning". It was actually really cool they had some members from the Szegedi Symphonic orchestra and they played songs for the people in the home. We then got to spend some time talking with them all and playing games, it was a lot of fun and it was a great experience! I'm super excited to go back there.

Well that's another long update on my somewhat interesting week!

Vigyázzatok magatokra!

-McKim Elder

PICS!

                                                                 Our Branch President and two of his sons.

                                                                          My surprise birthday cake

Another week flies by

Hellosztok!

Well the weeks are flying by these days and somehow we're already at another P-day and that means another update on all the weird craziness that is my mission.

  On monday we got invited to attend a line dancing class that one of the YSA here teaches every week and so we decided to go along. The only thing that she didn't tell us was that it's all old women! So it literally just ended up as my companion and I line dancing in a room of probably 15 or so old women. It was surprisingly super fun, but also really hard.

  Tuesday we had the Elders come down from Kecskemét for exchanges with us. President told us to have as many teachings planned as we possibly could and so that's what we did. We somehow planned 6 teachings for that night, which is literally more than I have ever had in any other day of my mission. We were super busy but it went well.

  Wednesday was a national holiday here in Hungary. March 15th commemorates the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1848 revolution against the Austrian Empire, so it's kind of a sad holiday but it's really cool because there are red, white and green things everywhere. We met with a super legit woman who was a former investigator, she's probably going to get baptised soon, but unfortunately she lives in the sisters area and so we have to hand her over. We also met with a less active which was fun.

  Thursday was another early rise because we had to head up to Budapest again for MLC. It was actually a really great meeting though and I learnt a lot from it. We then got to have splits with the assistants straight after. I actually got to got to my first Buda district meeting and english class whcih was super fun, especially because I got to see a bunch of the people from the ward again. We also had a funny streeting experience when we talked to this girl and our conversation went a little like this...
Us: "What is the most important thing in your life?"

Her: "Money"

Us: "Okay, well why is money important to you? Why do you need it?"

Her: "So I can live like a STAR!" *Dramatic Hair flip*

It was just one of those really strange streeting moments and it was immediately following our discussion with another woman about her seeing hallucinations and hearing voices. It's a pretty interesting life being a missionary, especially in Budapest.

  Friday we got to continue our splits and met with a super cool couple, the catch was they both spoke english. It's super weird teaching in English now, it just doesn't feel right haha.

  The rest of our week was pretty normal, just a whole bunch of planning and stuff for our upcoming zone training and making a lot of phone calls, still good fun though.

További szép hetet kívánok!

McKim Elder

PICS!

Elder Hughes and I before line dancing with older women

            Weird native American looking statue thats on top of a hill next to a lake called Blood Lake.

Found this picture of Jesus on one of the signs near the weird statue,  looked a little familiar.

Are we even really companions?

Sziasztok!

Another week has come and gone and at this point in my life that means spending most of it away from my companion and in other parts of the country.

  On monday we got caught in a surprise rain storm while we were heading to a teaching and we had no coats or anything. We got super wet, but it was a lot of fun and our teaching ended up going pretty well.

  Tuesday we headed out to a little town called Szatymaz to look some people up but we couldn't find them. So we sadly ate the cookies that we brought them while sitting on a bus bench. We then had a really good teaching with our investigator Márk and a really awkward teaching with a less active here. All in all it was a great day.

  Wednesday we headed over to a city called Szolnok to do exchanges with the Elders there. It was a lot of fun and Elder Graham and I talked with a whole tonne of people, so it was all in all pretty successful.

  On Thursday we ended up having two district meetings because we got to go to the Szolnok one before sitting on a 2 and a half hour train ride home to get back for our own district meeting. We then immediately had english class straight after that before starting another exchange with the Elders here in Szeged. I really missed my own bed...

  Our exchange went really well on friday though and we were able to have a few teachings to go to even though a few people cancelled on us. I got to go with Elder Sharp who is just an absolute inspiration in terms of putting off awkwardness and talking with people, he's super funny and we had a great time together. 

  Pretty much the rest of the time that Elder Hughes and I got to spend together this week was spend either planning or in meetings, so we haven't had the most time to spend working together, but we still did have a cool tracting miracle on Sunday. We had been tracting a street and all of the people had been really unkind to us the whole time. Finally we were about to leave to get to our correlation meeting when we felt we should tract one more house where we found a very nice woman who was interested in our message who we were able to exchange phone numbers with and she said we could come back later in this week. We also had our investigator Márk come to church again and he told us that he thinks the book of mormon has power, so there's definitely potential there for Márk. We also got to visit a member here who fed us a very gross looking but surprisingly delicious food that I don't remember the name of.

Have a wonderful week!

Sok szeretettel!

McKim Elder

PICS!

Elder Hughes bought a thing to make a food called Kürtös Kalács and so he cooked it like this in our oven...

                                                                            Our good friend Róbi.

The weird food he fed us...

Trains, Trainings and a Trainer

Üdvözlöm!

To be honest this week was practically straight up craziness, but it was also a lot of fun and we got a surprising amount of work done for how much time we had, so all in all a successful week.

  Tuesday started in the same was as every other new transfer, sitting for ages in a government office trying to give them the 8 pieces of paper that tell them where we live. After that we were able to have a lesson with a guy named Márk that stopped us on the street on Monday and then had 2 lessons fall through in a row before meeting with one of the families here.

  Wednesday was an early rise so we could head up to Budapest for what would be the first Zone training that I would have to give. The train ride was great but we faced a problem when the tram to the mission home shut down and we ended up being 10 minutes late to our own training (along with half the zone who were coming with us). We all had a laugh about it though and zone training went pretty well after it, so it all ended well.

  Thursday we only had time to have our district meeting before we had to jump on another train to Kecskemét to do a baptismal interview there for a kid that is being baptised next weekend. We then got a recommendation for a restaurant there from one of the members in Szeged and while we were there we ended up talking to a random older man who it turns out is an olympic gold medallist and has coached a whole bunch of really good water polo teams and is now the trainer for one of Hungary's swimmers that competed in Rio. He also escaped Hungary during the communist days and live overseas for 50 years, he was a super interesting man.

  Friday took us to another new city, Békéscsaba (litterally translates to peaceful Jack...). I'd always heard that Békéscsaba wasn't very pretty but it was a great little city. We got to do exchanges there with the Elders and we also bought some fox tails for 600ft (like maybe $2.50). I don't know what I'm going to do with it but it has a keychain on it, so there's possibilities.

  Saturday after coming back from Békéscsaba we got to go to a members house and she taught us how to make a thing called Hortobágyi Palacsinták (basically crepes stuffed with meat and covered in sour cream). They were super good and it was super fun.

  Sunday we had a little miracle when our new investigator Márk came to church which was a big surprise but it was really cool. Other than that it was a pretty normal day.

That's all for this week! Jó hetet kívánok!

- McKim Elder

PIC!

Sorry the only picture I took this week was of this place that we ate dinner on monday. I'll try to be better this week.