Hungarian Holiday Week

        So this week has definitely been an interesting week. First let me start off by telling you about my last P-day, because my mom really was excited to hear about it (and probably a little worried about it too). We went to this place called Locked, and it was actually super fun. We went into this first room, and there was like a murder or something, there is this whole big story line, but basically you just have to solve a bunch of puzzles and find keys and codes and stuff to get to different rooms. It was way fun though. We went with the sisters and some other elders in our district and we all loved it. We all were just, running around crazy trying to find all these keys and looking for numbers and stuff and it was crazy exciting when the key would work for the door and you get to go to the next room or something. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to explain, but it was super cool, and I recommend you all try one sometime. Apparently they are popular in Hungary because we hear about them all the time, so maybe sometime soon they will make their way to America. 

Holding Hands with Ronald Reagan

Anyway, the rest of the week was kind of interesting. So first off, this past week was a holiday and Hungarian people take their holidays REALLY seriously. It is the anniversary of some revolution (that they lost by the way... Not exactly sure what they’re celebrating) and so you expect that there might just be a parade, and flags or something, but no, people take this super seriously. Everyone has work off so just about everything in the city was shut down. A bunch of trains weren’t going and a bunch of our investigators thought it was ridiculous that we wanted to meet with them anywhere close to the holiday, and a bunch of them were just like, "We should just wait till November..." So the city of Budapest was pretty much not working the past couple of days and everybody left for the weekend.

So besides that, we had some really great things this week, but kind of some rougher things too. We have a lot of people that we are working with, and they really enjoy it, and things were going really well, but it can be kind of tricky serving in Buda sometimes. So the way the church works, there are boundries for the different churches, so if you live in one area, you go to a certain church building, to kind of spread it out so people don’t all just go whereever the heck they want. So this makes it really hard for us because many people come from Pest over to Buda for work or something, and we have to give those people to the missionaries who are serving in Pest so they can work with that Ward. So moral of the story is that we have 5 of our investigators who we have to give over to different areas. This was kind of disappointing for us, because they are all some of our favorites as well. There is one lady named Gál Ági who we were teaching this week, and this was our third lesson and she just got super emotional and told us that she wants to get baptized. So we were super excited and set her to be baptized on November 29th, and then she just mentions as we were leaving that she lives in Pest... So we are a little bummed we have to lose so many great people. It doesnt really matter who teaches as long as they keep progressing and moving forward, so I’m OK with them going over, it’s just kind of tough because every single one of them this week told us that they would not like to change anything. So it might be a tough week coming up trying to figure those things out...

Also, my Dad asked how things are going with the language, and let me just say that things are improving!! But it is still super super hard... I feel like I am really beginning to understand a lot of what people are saying (the gist anyway...) but it’s still hard when people ask direct questions to me, because it’s hard to figure out exactly what they are saying, but I usually just try and fake it and just guess what they said. I’m usually way off, and they can’t even understand what Im saying, but things are improving!! I actually did have a dream where I spoke Hungarian! Not exactly what you might think though... I tried to talk to someone in Hungarian, and they couldn’t understand me, so I just left. Very realistic though! But things are getting better and I’m saying a good amount of stuff in all of our lessons! It’s going to be quite a ways longer before I feel good about it, but you definitely learn a lot being thrown into it!!! Also! I did get my first number from someone on my own! Granted it was in English, because so many people speak super great English here, but I’m still counting it!!!

Parliament

Anyway, other than that things are going super well! I still really love it out here, and there was a baptism this week from the other Elders, and that was a really special thing to see. Even though people say that Europeans don’t want to hear about God or they’re too proud, there are still people you can find everywhere who have been prepared to receive the gospel. I have seen changes in peoples lives and I know that you can find happiness in yours if you just search for it. God is always there for you, you just have to put forth the effort and seek for him. Even though we are losing some people this week, we also have just started meeting with some really great people, and I just love having this opportunity to make a difference in their lives. I can’t believe I’ve already been out this long! This past week I hit my 3 month mark on my mission, so that’s pretty weird I guess... Transfers are in another 3 weeks or so, which is going to be super weird! I’m hoping to stay in Buda for another transfer, because it’s super fun here and the people are awesome, but we will see in a few weeks!  Also, I really want to spend Christmas in Budapest because I’ve heard it’s way more fun in the city then in some of the tiny cities around the country. But I dont want to get too ahead of myself. Hope you all have a great week and will talk to you next week! I would love to hear from all of you because it is great to hear about everything that’s happening while I’m gone! 

Love you all and talk to you next week!