Tuesday, August 30, 2016

August 29, 2016



Hey!

This week was a good one. We spent a good part of the first bit of the week working on getting things ready for our zone training, which we gave on Wednesday in Budapest.

We were given "finding" as the basis for the training, so we decided to make a little obstacle course out of the material and have practice scenarios that everyone could use to improve how they approach people to talk to them. We got the idea to do these little obstacles from Elder Lymer, who visited the mission back in April or May, and introduced to us the concept of an "elevator approach," in which you only have a few precious seconds to get out your once-in-a-lifetime, important message to people you meet. To capture that idea, we had everyone actually use the elevator in the mission home in Budapest and practice talking to people and using power-statements to introduce important, meaningful messages to people. We also devised some roles for each of the people participating to play, so that no one approach would be the same. The office secretaries, the Simkins (senior couple) and the Szabadkai's all helped in making the project a success. In the end, hopefully it was a good training and something that the missionaries can use!

The rest of the week consisted of normal missionary work here in Szombathely with Elder Fitzgerald, with the exception of Friday andSaturday. The Pápa elders came into town for splits, so I had a chance to work with Elder Smith for a day. He is incredibly intelligent and very knowledgable when it comes to just about anything. Needless to say, it was a great split and I learned a lot from being around him! His companion is a new missionary named Elder Biesinger who is just as great as Elder Smith is.

Szombathely also put on its annaul Savaria Carnival this past weekend. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were packed, and people came to the city from all over Europe to see the festival. The whole city dresses up and has something similar to a Roman renessaince festival. (Did I spell that right?) The large crowds and many shopkeepers who set up booths around the city made circumstances good for missionary work, and we tried to talk to lots of people as we were in the area.

I think that's most of the news for the week! Love you lots and we'll talk more in 7 days.








Elder Fitzgerald and I spent some time this week riding our bikes out to a little village outside of Szombathely up on the hill. We saw lots of really old, run-down farming houses, but only a few people, and none of them really wanted to talk... it was worth a shot, though!







Wednesday, August 24, 2016

August 22, 2016



Hey!

This week was another blur. Gotta sum everything up quickly, because the libraries here in Hungary once again have strange open hours during the summertime.

The biggest news of the week was transfers! Elder Heaps left to go to Buda, and Elder Fitzgerald came here to Szombathely to take his place. Although I really miss Elder Heaps because he was a great companion, I've been enjoying getting to work with Fitzgerald Elder since day one! He's already up there among my favorite companions, just because he works hard and is enjoyable to be around. Szombathely also was given another companionship of missionaries, because the work has been going pretty well here in the past couple of months. We have two new sisters here, Vasica and McGregor. They've been troopers as they're trying to get used to the city and their new house and starting their work from the ground up.

We also went back to Budapest on Friday for an MLC, and we'll be heading back on Wednesday of this week to give the first zone training of the next 9 weeks to the missionaries in our zone. We're pretty excited for that!

I'd love to write more, but there's just not enough time. Love you lots and hope the week is a good one!


Thursday, August 18, 2016

August 16, 2016


Hey!

Quick email for today, and the pictures will just have to make up for the lack of length here. Transfers are tomorrow, and we just got the phone call for who's going where and what's going on--Elder Heaps is heading to Buda to serve as one of President Szabadkai's assistants, and I'll be staying in Szombathely for another nine weeks with another missionary named Elder Fitzgerald! I don't know him too well yet since we've always served in different zones up until now, but I've only heard good things about him so far and I'm very excited to get to work with him!

That's most of the main news for this week. The rest of the week consisted of regular missionary work, going to Kőszeg (a nearby village) last Monday, being in Budapest for part of Wednesday, and having the zone gather for a special "zone day" to finish off the transfer in Szombathely.

Everything else is going well, and hopefully I'll be able to tell you more next time. Love you lots and see ya soon!




Beautiful Catholic chapel in a village called Kőszeg
where we were working last week on Monday











Stained-glass windows inside the chapel

















Candles by the altar

















Outside the chapel


















Castle fort in Kőszeg

















Missionaries at the castle!















Always need a running picture, right? ;)
















We went to Budapest as a district from Szombathely this week 
because President invited us up for a day to see some of the 
sights before Elder Anderson finishes his mission this week. 
We got some of the famous flower ice cream that 
they shape onto a cone in Pest!















While in Budapest, we ran into two of my favorite friends
from Hungary on the streets! Attila is one of the
fantastic members in Érd, and Tibor is from Pest!















Some of the members that I knew from Budapest were
in town in Szombathely for church on Sunday









August 16, 2016


Hey!

Quick email for today, and the pictures will just have to make up for the lack of length here. Transfers are tomorrow, and we just got the phone call for who's going where and what's going on--Elder Heaps is heading to Buda to serve as one of President Szabadkai's assistants, and I'll be staying in Szombathely for another nine weeks with another missionary named Elder Fitzgerald! I don't know him too well yet since we've always served in different zones up until now, but I've only heard good things about him so far and I'm very excited to get to work with him!

That's most of the main news for this week. The rest of the week consisted of regular missionary work, going to Kőszeg (a nearby village) last Monday, being in Budapest for part of Wednesday, and having the zone gather for a special "zone day" to finish off the transfer in Szombathely.

Everything else is going well, and hopefully I'll be able to tell you more next time. Love you lots and see ya soon!




Beautiful Catholic chapel in a village called Kőszeg
where we were working last week on Monday











Stained-glass windows inside the chapel

















Candles by the altar

















Outside the chapel


















Castle fort in Kőszeg

















Missionaries at the castle!















Always need a running picture, right? ;)
















We went to Budapest as a district from Szombathely this week 
because President invited us up for a day to see some of the 
sights before Elder Anderson finishes his mission this week. 
We got some of the famous flower ice cream that 
they shape onto a cone in Pest!















While in Budapest, we ran into two of my favorite friends
from Hungary on the streets! Attila is one of the
fantastic members in Érd, and Tibor is from Pest!















Some of the members that I knew from Budapest were
in town in Szombathely for church on Sunday









Tuesday, August 9, 2016

August 8, 2016


Hey!

Another fast week. Time really is flying. We had lots to do this past week, with moving in to our new apartment and getting everything ready to go there, and then having interviews in Győr and splits in Sopron on Friday and Saturday.

The new apartment is pretty nice--the landlord just finished renovating it, so we were pretty lucky to find a nice place like this in the budget that we were given to find a new apartment! Everything's moved in there, and we spent a good portion of the week at the other apartment getting it ready to be closed and turned back over to the landlord. After everything was finally cleaned and finished, we gave the keys backon Thursday.

While on splits in Sopron, we were surprised to see that the senior couple in that city, the Oldhams, had planned with the missionaries there to throw a little birthday party on Saturday. I had no idea that they even knew that it was my birthday, but they were so kind and even made a cake and brought lunch for everyone. That was for sure the highlight of the week, just because it was such an unexpected and generous kindness that made all the difference! The elders, sisters, and Oldhams in Sopron were awesome to be around, and the split that I had with Elder Gabel was just as good!

We've got another busy week coming up ahead of us as this transfer is winding down to a close. It's hard to believe that it's already been eight weeks since I've come here to Szombathely! I'll keep you all posted on how everything goes this week as well. For now, that's all the major news!

Love you all! Have a good week!





Sopron!















We found a cat!













"Beat it, cat!"















Elder Heaps and our mission leader here in Szombathely, Zoli!













Zoli came with us to work all day on
Wednesday, so we took a lot of selfies with him.













Here's some of the prettier pictures from when we were
on splits with the elders in Sopron this week:





















Sopron was a beautiful town!















Elders Rodgers and Gabel, who we had splits with!















Walking through the city

















The whole group!

















And then back to Szombathely...







Monday, August 1, 2016

August 1, 2016



Hey!

Lowdown for the week:

Monday was a pretty normal p-day. Nothing too exciting really happened, just emailing and getting ready for the weeek!

Tuesday was super busy! We had splits with the other elders from here in Szombathely, and I was with Elder Anderson for the day. We had a lot of things to get done, including meeting with someone named Adri and teaching her, then paying for and bringing back the bikes that we had ordered at a bike shop on the other side of town, and finally heading out to buy a microwave for the new apartment that we just moved into today! Elder Anderson was a really good sport and helped us a ton with getting ready to move into the new place!

Wednesday: Right after finishing with splits in Szombathely, elders from Tatabánya came to us for another set of splits. That was another good split, and I was with Elder Miller for the day. He's still young in the mission, but he's a fantastic missionary and it was really great getting to work with him for the day! We even met this really nice lady named Ildikó, who we found while we were walking from apartment building to apartment building, and she invited us to come back later to give her a free Book of Mormon. Good day!

Thursday, we finished splits with the Tatabánya elders and had a normal rest of the day which was topped off by English class and visiting the Boros family on the outskirts of Szombathely. By this point in the week, the bikes have already got a lot of kilometers on them and been put to good use to get around Szombathely and the areas surrounding it.

Friday was spent travelling to Győr for splits with the missionaries there. Elder Römer was my companion for the day, and he was also great to work with! He's from Switzerland, so it was really neat getting to hear about his story while we were working on Friday and Saturday.

Saturday evening, we came back here to Szombathely, and Sunday was church and getting things ready to close our apartment this week.

And now we're back to today!

Here's some pictures to go along with what we saw this week. Hope the next week's another good one--love you guys!




Sunset at the train station













On the trainride home to Szombathely
















Summer flowers are all over the country right now















The city hall in Győr













Found this kind of cool piece of grafitti on splits in Győr!












New bikes and helmets for Szombathely!