Monday, October 6, 2014

Week Two in Hungary



     Week two in Hungary is already done!!! My first two weeks here have been really amazing.  First let me start off with last Monday as we had a relatively interesting experience. So after emails we went to go on this public boat tour that is free with our bus passes. We figured it would be just a quick little 20 minute ride up the river so we could see some cool buildings.  As it turned out it was an hour and it took us all the way up the river, and dropped us off on the other side in Pest. They made us get off the boat (even though they told us they would come back...) and we had to walk across this giant bridge, stumble around for a while until we found a train stop and somehow make our way back to our area. So that was definitely an adventure and actually took up most of our P day, but was still pretty fun! At least it was exciting! 

   Alright, so for the next couple days we really just taught lessons. It's amazing how many people we work with! We have probably 8 people right now who are seriously investigating our church, and probably 5 others that we meet with. It's just this English class we have over here. We literally walk around town, hand out fliers for English class, a bunch of people come, and then we just pass around a paper asking if they want to meet with us. I didn't know that missionary work could be that easy! We have 10 new people from English class that wanted to meet with us this upcoming week so it is going to be busy! 

The Hungarian is definitely tough... I feel like my speaking is improving, but I still can't understand a dang thing! Its pretty ridiculous. I dont know how anybody can understand anything. But there are actually a good amount of people who speak English. For the number that know English, probably only half of them actually speak it to me though... But it's still nice to actually sometimes understand what people are saying. I'm just hoping that by the end of this transfer (transfers are 9 weeks by the way) that I can understand maybe 20%. Thats realistic, right? But speaking has gotten better. Because we are teaching so many lessons we've actually become pretty good at it. We trade off a lot now so its not just all Elder Robinson talking. But then as soon as someone tries to have a conversation other than about our church, it's all gone and I am totally lost! And this is not mean't to sound discouraging, because its not. I actually feel really great about the language and I am confident that with time (probably a lot of it) I will be able to know what's happening. At least most of the Hungarians are impressed that I can talk when I tell them I've only been in the country for 2 weeks! I mean, I do kind of brush over the part where I studied this dang language 24/7 for the past 2 months, but still all of the néni's (old ladys) are very impressed!

Some thing else that I think is interesting is the fast food over here. We go to Burger King and McDonalds a lot, and they are like, legitimate sit down restaurants. People go there for dinner on a Friday night. They think it's this, super hip, trendy, American place, and I'm like, NO! It's garbage! But actually it's delicious. It's way better than back home, because apparently we just don't really have standards for the quality of our food. Also it is really confusing to order. Because all of the things still have American names, but they don't say Mc anything, like McNuggets. You have to say "Mek" because thats how you're supposed to pronounce it. Then you have to pronounce a word like nugget or chicken in a way that you think a Hungarian would try and pronounce it, because otherwise they will not understand what you are saying. Its honestly pretty interesting and they all judge me super hard because they can tell I'm struggling with it, but it's their own fault! Them and their crazy fast food!!!

 We had sport nap the other day where all the missionaries and some investigators got together and we all played street soccer in one of those pavement soccer things if you know what I'm talking about.  Just think of an outdoor basketball court and then put two soccer goals instead of hoops. It was actually way fun. The missionaries are super awesome over here, and there's a ton of them in our area, so we get to see eachother and hang out a lot. Other than that it has seriously been teaching lessons all the time! Its really great and especially even better to practice Hungarian. If there are anymore questions, feel free to email me personally, and no guarentees I will be able to answer that week, but I will definitely get back to you as soon as I can. I really love this work and I love my mission so far. I have already seen miracles and how this gospel can change peoples lives. I am so excited to be out here and am looking forward to the next 22 months or however more I have. Love you all lots and look forward to hearing from you next week!

Love,

Elder Dalton

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