October 10, 2016

Hey!

Another week's lowdown's coming right up.

Monday was a good p-day last week. Kinda quiet, but we ended up going to the branch house with the other elders from here in Szombathely and our mission correlator here in the city, Zoli, and we threw a football and frisbee and played some basketball in the afternoon. We had a fun time, and somehow we managed to get the frisbee stuck on the branch house roof in the process. The good news is that Elder Shepherd is exceptionally tall, and with the help of his height and our throwing skills, we used the other balls to get down the frisbee to a point where he could grab it from off the shingles. It was a good day!

Tuesday was a fairly normal day, and we just did our normal work of looking for people to meet with. We did actually end up getting let in by a lady in her 80's named Zsuzsanna, who told us that she would talk to us for about ten minutes, and that then she would be done. In the end, we spent almost a full hour in her apartment, sharing a message about the Restoration of the original gospel with her. We then asked if she would be interested in learning more, and she replied that maybe she would call us back when she decided.

Wednesday was busy mostly with going to the "hivatal," the Hungarian governmental offices that take care of all kinds of official things. We were given a packet of paperwork by President Szabadkai to fill out, and were told to update our residency information with the Hungarian government. It took about 5 hours of waiting in lines, talking to immigrations officers, asking for validation of our documents, and making photo copies of everything on the other side of town, but we are now officially legal residents of Szombathely.

We left early on Thursday morning to go to Győr, where President Szabadkai held interviews with our zone. We were there to check up with the missionaries while they were arriving and make sure that they were also doing alright. After interviews were finished up, we started splits with the elders who were there, Ure and Gentry. They're both awesome missionaries who are working as hard as they can and doing great things there in the city, so it was a good experience to be there with them! I got to serve with Elder Gentry, who happens to be a young 18 year-old who's signed to play football for BYU when he goes home. He's HUGE. It was quite a fun time to be around such a big guy and serve with him for a day.

Friday and Saturday were spent back in Szombathely, and we also had splits on these days. This time, it was with the assistants, Elders Evans and Heaps. I had a chance to be with Elder Heaps again, which was really fun because he was my companion right before Elder Fitzgerald came here to Szombathely at the beginning of August. He's doing really well and loving life in Buda, so that was good, too!

And then Sunday was spent at church, where we finished watching the Sunday afternoon session of conference. (We get the conference a little bit later here because of the time difference.)

The weather's been REALLY cold for the past week. I think it dropped about 25 degrees Celcius, and we're all freezing and breaking out our coats already. No snow yet, but it's definitely cold outside.

Hope you all have a good day! Love ya!

Splits in Győr with Elders Gentry and
Ure--they're awesome missionaries!

Elder Heaps and Elder Evans came to visit us in
 Szombathely for splits, and we met up with our
landlord, Éva, who took a picture with us all!