September 26, 2016

Hey, family!

Really fast email for today, because we planned to go to a nearby village to see the town and work this afternoon!

The week was good and busy. We were in Budapest for another MLC meeting, where a church psychiatrist from Germany came down to train us in how to help missionaries struggling with mental difficulties or depression. Useful stuff!

We spent Friday and Saturday on splits with the elders in Sopron, which was also good! They're both impressive missionaries, and they've improved in their skills in the language since the last time that we were around them, as well!

This coming week will be another busy one, with a zone training in Budapest and splits in Pápa, as well as General Conference on Saturday and Sunday.

Gotta run, but we'll talk more next time!

Skyline and chimneys of Szombathely!

Someone's door while tracting in a ten-story here.
The window is blocked with cigarette boxes.

Made some pretty good duckbreast salad this week!

September 19, 2016

Hey!

Fast email this week. Not much time, since I swear that p-days get faster and faster (as do the weeks) the closer we get to the finish line!

The first half of the week was filled with normal missionary work--lots of doors knocked, lots of people talked to on the streets, and lots of calling people to try to set up with them. We meet with a few of our friends here in Szombathely, among which were Németh Kati and the Bartos family with Emese. In the second half of the week, we were kept busy with going up to Budapest for MLC meetings on Wednesday, then another normal day on Thursday. Friday and Saturday we had splits again with the elders in our city here in Szombathely, both of which are awesome missionaries! And then on Saturday, the branch put together a little activity where everyone got together and went to a little village outside of Szombathely called Velem. We actually ended up biking the whole way there (we were told it was about 26 km) with a few of the cool members here in the branch, Barni and Dani. In our little bike caravan of 6 riders, we cruised through the little Hungarian villages on our way to catch up to the group in cars at the rendezvous point. They had a little fire there, went on a little walk in the forest, saw a cool little chapel that overlooked the mountainside, and then packed up to head back to Szombathely after a fun morning of getting to know everyone better. The bikeride back into town was much faster, because the whole thing was downhill, and we ended up making it back in almost half the time.

Then we finished off our Saturday with some more finding and meeting with our friend Zoltán, and church yesterday!

We'll have another busy week filled with traveling back to Budapest for more meetings and then splits with the missionaries in Sopron. Gotta bounce now because the time is almost gone, but I'll send more updates next week! Love y'all!

The group outing to Velem this week with our branch.
This is the group of cyclers who made it out on bikes!

September 12, 2016

Hey!

It seems like every time I start to write another email, I start with, "It's been another fast week!" or something of the sort. The same is true of this week! The low-down goes like this:

Monday was another pretty normal p-day for us here in Szombathely--we had lots to get done, so that day flew by pretty fast.

Tuesday was also fast! We had splits with the two other elders here in Szombathely, Elders Rodgers and Shepherd. They're probably two of my favorite missionaries who are here in the mission right now, because they're both hilarious and so much fun to be around, but they also balance that with a good work ethic and they know how to get things done. I was with Elder Rodgers for this split, and we ended up spending our whole time finding and walking around the city looking for people who might want to talk to us. We found one! Granted, he was probably the most alcohol-saturated man I've ever met, but he was at least kind and spirited, and he wanted to talk. We ended up talking to him for about half an hour or so on the street. The conversation for sure had its ups and downs (simply because he could talk in a straight line about as well as he could walk in one), but he ended up sobering up a little bit towards the end and actually shared some good personal insight.

Wednesday and Thursday were, again, normal days for us after we finished our spits with the Szombathely elders.

Friday afternoon, after meeting with our friends Emese and Zoltán, we hopped on a train to go up to Budapest for splits with the assistants, Elder Heaps and Elder Evans. That was a cool time as well, because I got to go tracting and meet with people in the same area that I served in just a few months ago.

We came back to Szombathely later on Saturday evening, and we had church yesterday! This week should be just as busy, since we have more splits and a little branch hike activity on Saturday, as well as another trip to Buda for a missionary meeting on Wednesday.

Hope y'all have a good week again. Love y'all and talk to you again soon!

Riding bikes this week, and Elder Fitzgerald and I caught a frog!

September 5, 2016

Hi!

The weeks are going by so fast. Each week seems to be a little bit quicker than the one before, and it's a little bit scary that there's only ten more of these left! Anywho, it was another good week filled with business and adventures.

Monday was a fairly uneventful, normal p-day. We shopped and cleaned our house, and got everything ready for the week.

Tuesday and Wednesday, the elders from Tatabánya came over to Szombathely for splits. They seem to be doing well, and we had a chance to do some good finding work with them!

Thursday was a fast day, because we had a district meeting and a few appointments of people to meet with. We finished off the day by teaching English class in the evening and then doing some more finding.

Friday and Saturday were also a blast because the elders from Győr came to Szombathely for their first splits this transfer. Elder Ure is currently training Elder Gentry there, and they're both some of the best missionaries I've met out here! Elder Ure is simply very solid and is a really good example for Elder Gentry, and Elder Gentry is a younger missionary who's been in Hungary for about three weeks now and is just a very hard worker! It was great to work with them, and they went back to Győr after helping us to move a new member family into their new apartment here in Szombathely. Saturday was topped off by an awesome Cultural Celebration broadcast from Germany, since the Freiberg Germany temple has just finished its remodeling. Youth from Germany, Austria, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland participated in a musical, dance, and video production presentation that ended up being really good! It was neat to see some of the kids from Hungary that we've met throughout our missions in Germany as they traveled there and were part of the broadcast.

Then, Sunday morning was the rededication of the Freiberg Temple! All the members here were really stoked and excited about that, since the next-closest temple that's currently open is either Kiev or Switzerland.

And now it's Monday again! The next few weeks shouldn't be any less crazy or busy--they should also probably be full of lots of stuff to do, and we'll be kept on our toes!

Love y'all and talk to ya soon!

Photos for this week--splits with the elders from
 Tatabánya and suiting up with Elder Fitzgerald on our bikes!