Back to Budapest!

Hey there!

 

Sorry that I didn't get to write last week. Kind of got cheated out of a p-day last week. 

 

Yeah, so I will update you a little bit on the past week, starting off with my last week in Pápa. Nothing too exciting really, just a lot of goodbyes. But we were actually in Győr for splits (yes, that was lots of fun, getting to see a lot of people before I left for good) and got to go to a baptism for a girl that I knew when I was there! She's a young girl and super sweet and I was really glad to see her get baptized!  

We were at a game night at the branch house in Győr, when I got a call from President Szabadkai, and he said that I was going to be the new mission secretary and that I'm leaving on Sunday! I was pretty surprised and didn't see that one coming whatsoever, but excited too! I did have to leave out a few goodbyes planned for the next week, but we basically went back, met with a few people, I bore my testimony in church and then packed up and left! 

 

So then the beginning of this week, I was getting trained by the secretary I'm replacing (one of my good friends on the mission), trying to learn all the stuff that I need to before he leaves. So we were pretty busy just figuring stuff out, but I think I got the hang of it! I'm really not super overloaded with work, but have enough to keep me busy. Basically, I am in charge of sending out letters and organizing everything for incoming and departing missionaries, managing apartment rentals, and inputting baptismal records. There are a few other things along with day to day tasks, but those are the big ones. But I  actually like it a lot so far! Kind of nice getting a little change of pace! And I'm super pumped to meet with a lot of the people that I used to meet with when I was a greenie! It's gonna be awesome! And I'm actually in a trio (for the time being) with Elders Craig and Krueger. They are both cool guys and I like them a lot, but Craig is just staying a little bit to train Krueger more (he's also new) and then will probably leave at some point. So we will see what happens with that. 

 

I'm also excited for church tomorrow because then I'll get to see a lot of members and people that I knew! Should be a really great time! I am pretty excited about it and hope it will be a good experience!

 

Oh, and winter is pretty much over. It has been a little colder recently and rained, but I still feel like winter is ending, which I am not mad about, because I am pretty ready for spring!!! And we don't really know what we're going to do with our pday today, since it's still raining, but we will try and find something fun in the big city! Maybe see some old friends as well! Oh and my p-days will now be on Saturdays. So look forward to that!  Anyway, love you all lots and hope you have a great week!!!!

 

Andrew

18 Months

Hey there!!! 

Yes, I hit the 18 month mark! Pretty weird huh? Just 6 more months! I go back and forth though. Sometimes it seems like such a short time, and other times it seems quite long,

Our week was good! Pretty uneventful as well, but I guess we got to do some fun stuff! We played some ping pong with one of our investigators and we went for a hike in a nearby village, so I guess it was a pretty fun week! Other than that, things are pretty standard though! I had to teach in priesthood, but it was simple, but still I always worry about having to teach in Hungarian! It's a lot easier to wing it in English, that's for sure!  

The weather has been super nice over here! Like summer! We didn't need jackets or anything and we went the other day to play basketball with the kids that we visit sometimes, but it was just kind of playing around and having fun. I mean, I really haven't played serious basketball since I was back home! So I will be excited to hit up the Y when I get back!!! Some noon time or something! As for activities, not too much. If we want to do something fun, we usually invite some young people to a cafe or something and have hot chocolates and just hang out and talk. 

Transfers are next week so we'll see where I go next. I wish I could stay longer, but changing is always good I suppose. I am ready and not ready. Weird, I know. This could be my last transfer.  There are definitely places that I would like to go and places that I would not like to go, but I thought about it, and since I have kind of been in the same area my whole mission, I think I would like to stay in a ctiy close by, to make it a little easier for when we come back to travel around! But other than that, I'm not too picky. I would go anywhere!!! 

 Hope you all have a great week and love you lots!!!

Elder Dalton

Happy 2016!

Hey everyone!!! Happy 2016!!! Hope that you all had an awesome New Years and that this year will be a great one! Who would have thought that 2016 was actually gonna get here! I know I didn't.   Mission New Years are definitely not the craziest, but relaxing nights are good too! 

 I think my time in Hungary has made me pretty wimpy, because it feels WAY cold out here!!! Seriously though! I am ready for spring already! I need to spend some more time back in Maine to get that warm Mainer blood back in me! Yeah, the weather has been pretty weird recently! So we got snow this week and it pretty much came out of nowhere but it was fun! Lots of snow quick and some mini snow ball fights. The snow really makes me feel like I'm at home, its weird! 

Things in Pápa are pretty much the same. Nothing too exciting. We just started one of our investigators on a stop smoking program, so we will see how that goes. We are hopeful!  Trying to work with a lot of the members still and the branch, which is awesome by the way.    We also got to meet with the American family, so that is always fun to visit with them! I gave a prayer in English and totally kept stumbling over my words. It actually was hard for some reason! Hungarian does something to your mind!!!  Oh, and I gave a talk in church this week too! I was a little worried about it when I first was working on it because I was supposed to talk for 20 minutes... I mean, you know that in English that wouldn't be too much of a problem, but in Hungarian, it was a different issue. But luckily, my ability to just talk for long times payed off and I even ran a little bit long, so I think it ended up alright!  I spoke about missionary work. fitting, right? 

We haven't been to the school the past couple of weeks because of the holidays, but we are going tomorrow, which should be fun! We had English class again after a little break, so that was good.

We also might actually have an opportunity to play some basketball over here in Pápa though, so thats cool! At some school or something. Maybe this week or the week after, we will see.   I guess the snow was the big thing of the week. And it was funny, cuz the Hungarians were freaking out about it and how dangerous and slippery it was, and I'm like, please, it's just a sprinkle. We go to school in stuff like this.

Good luck to the Pats! Give me a play by play next week!

Love you all and hope you have a great week! Miss you lots!

Elder Dalton

A few pictures of the snowy days. 

 

It's going to be a Pápa Christmas!

So yes, transfers are tomorrow and the big news is..... I am staying in Pápa for Christmas!!! And I am getting a new comp! Elder Stanley! I am way pumped about it because we served around eachother in Pest! He was Wilcox's greenie! So it is going to be awesome and we are stoked! Should be a good Pápa Christmas! No need to feel sorry for us. Christmas was awesome last year and it is going to be a great one this year too! 

Things in Pápa are going really well!  I could have sworn I mentioned  the hike! It happened a couple of weeks ago. If I didn't... then we went on a hike, and it was really nice and pretty and we saw a castle!  Went with the branch, so that was cool!!! 

 We do have bikes! And I crashed on it the other day :P You know my history with bikes! I don't know why I am so bad on them! It wasn't bad at all, I didn't even get scrapped up or bleed anywhere, but I did mess the bike up a little bit. I hit the curb and it threw the tire crooked and then flipped me over it. Nothing bad, just embarassing... It was in the middle of a big intersection. But pretty comical! Other than that everything is normal. We had a pretty average week. 

Oh, I FINALLY got to watch Meet the Mormons. They put it out in Hungarian a couple weeks ago and we watched it with the branch (in Hungarian, so not quite the same, but I got most of it) and it is really good! I liked it a lot! Really cool stories about the people! And I got a little sad too when they were talking about the missionary.... I didn't cry (like some people...) but I do miss you guys a lot! 

The weather has been way nice here too! We had a day where it was like, probably 50 or so degrees out, and people were still complaining about it, and I was like, for December this is amazing! Back home we go swimming in this weather!!!! Christmas time is absolutely gorgeous here in Hungary. Pápa is pretty nice, but we went to Gyor for splits again this past week and it was amazing! They had lights all over the city and they had big stands set up every where, a skating rink in the square, and the town hall was all decked out with lights! The lights and all the stands are really awesome!!! 

Anyway, some interesting stuff for the week: First of all, we went to a members house this week, and ate what is commonly referred to as pig jello. So basically, they take all the left over parts of the pig (ears, legs, etc.) and get all the fat and juices out of them, and then turn it into a gelatine. Then they put some meat in the middle of this jello, and put it in the fridge. I normally like most things, well it wasn't quite as bad as it may sound... This past week was the Hungarian St. Nicholas day! (Mikulás Napja) I probably said this last year, but just as a reminder, here in Hungary, Santa doesn't bring the presents, but the baby Jesus does! So they celebrate Santa on the 6th! And so we were in Győr on Friday and went to a Mikulas party there and then back in Pápa on Saturday for the party there! So that was lots of fun!!! Other than that, things are pretty much normal! We got my bike fixed so everything is now going smoothly! 

We have also been using some new Christmas cards that we got and it is great now! A lot more people are open to the message of Christ in the Christmas season! The Savior is born!!! A Savior is Born   Love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! Only a couple more weeks and then it's Christmas!

Love Andrew

The English class we teach 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey there! 

Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is probably one of my favorite days of the year! Plans for us are currently none.   Sadly, it won't be like last year with the Turkey bowl, since it's just us, but we are hoping that we will get to go somewhere for dinner or something and have a good time. But it looks like we might be having a pretty  normal day for Thanksgiving out here! But hope you all have a great time!  Family, food and football? Where could you possible go wrong?

My comp and I are doing well. Same old same old. We have a lot more programs for the next week, so the work is actually going really well! This week we had a guy randomly call us and say he wants to learn more about our church which was super awesome! Believe me, that RARELY happens, so you gotta take those tender mercies where you can! And I just ended up talking to another guy here at the library for a while and we are going to meet with him sometime as well!  So we are pretty excited about stuff coming up! 

 We were pretty busy (relative to Pápa) with a lot of stuff going on. Also, my bike tire blew up at a rather inconvenient time, so we were walking around a little bit more than usual. But everything was good through out the week. We had a zone conference in Győr which was cool. Got to see some mission friends and a few more people from Győr (including Janka, which was great!) Other than that it was just kind of the normal stuff! I know that's probably not what you like to hear, but sometimes (most of the time) there just isn't that much interesting stuff that is going on! 

K, gotta run now,  hope that everyone has a great week! Go Pats!

Love,

Drew

Some pictures from our hike.

Working in Pápa

We're already almost half way through November and then it will be Christmas time!  Exciting!  The sun has been out the past couple of days and you wouldn't even need a coat or anything. Pretty weird in the middle of November!  I'm sure the cold and the snow will be coming soon.  This week we had a baptism which was super awesome!  The woman's name is Kriszta and she is the wife of one of the members here in Pápa and has been waiting a long time to get baptized and has finally been able to. There was only a few of us there, because we have to go down to Győr for it, but afterwards we went back to Pápa for a little branch party! The members had decorations and a bunch of snacks and treats and it was a lot of fun! The branch is awesome and they were super welcoming-it was great to see them being so loving. 

We also may have a stalker.....  trying to avoid that situation. More updates later. Other than that things are going well here! It is a lot of fun going to visit  the kids over at the school and I think we are going to be doing something with them for Christmas, so more updates on that later. As for the orphans, we weren't able to go over there this past week, but we are hoping to next week! I think they enjoy it! It's pretty hard for them and they are pretty troubled. Some kids 12 years old and already smoking. Pretty sad, but they don't have a strong family, which makes it harder! Really grateful for having such an awesome family. This week my Dad asked me  what I typically eat so in case anyone else is interested...as far as what we eat at the apartment it's mostly pretty basic stuff. You will have to wait till I get back to EXPERIENCE Hungarian food, but it's actually really good!!! We usually don't do anything special just sandwiches, pasta, meat, throw stuff together and see what comes up. But some of my favorite Hungarian foods are fruit soup (basically like a smoothie you eat out of a bowl with whole chunks of fruit in it), rakott krumpli (stacked potatoes. it's like, layers of potatoe, kolbász, hard boiled eggs, cheese and tejföl (kind of like a sour cream thing, but not that sour), and paprikás csirke (chicken in a peppered tomato sauce). There's a lot more good stuff, but those are my personal favorites! 

 I'm grateful to be out here in Hungary serving a people that I have really grown to love! It's a real blessing for me to be out here and I know that the Lord watches over us and loves us. I have definitely come to love the Book of Mormon and the Bible a lot more on my mission and really enjoy the opportunities that I have to study and think about the people, the stories, and what it all means!  I am also thankful for all of the thoughts and prayers from back home and all the support. I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Elder Dalton

Reunion in Győr!

Wassup!

Pápa life is going well, despite not having the most successful week of all time. We went out tracting a lot, which is always kind of a bummer, but there was some cool stuff that happened! 

We got to go to Győr this week for a Zone Conference, so not only was I able to meet with some of my friends from around the mission, but I also got to visit with a lot of my friends from Győr! After the conference, we went on splits with the Zone Leaders for the day, so we met up with Janka, and a couple of the other people from the English class here, and had a good time with them! Kellogg (my old companion from Győr) was also at the conference and he stayed after as well to meet with them so it was really just like old times!!! Then we spent some time with Erik, one of the kids, and in the evening went over to Éva's. I was super excited to see all those people and we had a really good time meeting with them and seeing old friends!

There is some cool stuff going on here in Pápa though! We actually go to this school for mentally disabled kids every week and teach them English.  They all are super enthusiastic and really fun and they love having us over! Really great to do stuff like that! And then this week we also found this house for orphan teenage kids and talked with them, and planned to go visit them too and teach some English and play some games or soccer with them. I always love doing things like this to help people who have so little in their lives. It is always an amazing feeling to be a part of something bigger than yourself and help make other people happier! 

Other than that, things are pretty normal. We had Branch conference on Sunday, leaders from the district presidency came, and even the mission president and his wife came to the little branch here in Pápa!  We had some really great meetings with them! Also, there is a NATO base close to Pápa (dont know if I mentioned that or not) so we actually run into quite a few people who speak English. An American Mormon family just got to Pápa and were at church on Sunday, and will be living here for the next two years, which will definitely be cool having them around! 

Anyway, things are good here in Magyarország and I hope everything is going well with all of you back home! Love you all and wish you the best! Oh and happy Halloween! They dont have that here... kind of sad, so enjoy it for me! Love you all and have a great week!

Love,

Elder Andrew Dalton

#mustache