Sunday, November 20, 2016

November 19, 2016

HE'S HOME!

Elder Priest has completed his mission to Budapest, Hungary and has made it home safely. We are so grateful to all those wonderful people in Hungary who took such good care of our missionary and welcomed him into their country.

We love you, Elder Priest!














Monday, November 14, 2016

November 14, 2016



Well, here it is.

One last email from here in Hungary.

I could say a lot right now about how the week went and who we met with or didn't meet with or how we knocked on lots of doors, but we'll skip all of that for today.

I know that God is real and alive, and He loves us. I've felt this many times over the past two years, both in good times and hard times. I know that He wants us to be happy and help other people to be happy as well. I am indescribably grateful for the chance to have served here in Hungary. The church members here are so humble and kind, and the people has a whole will always have a big piece of my heart.

I look forward anxiously to when I'll be able to visit again and see all of these friends who have become part of my extended family. I hope they know that I love them.

As I sit here at the computer screen typing my last email as a missionary, these are the thoughts that seem the most important to share.

Love you all lots, and I'll see you soon. God bless the Hungarians.





President Szabadkai let us go to visit an ancient Roman temple in town with our favorite American member here in Szombathely who's working here for a little while. Thanks to Bro. Shulte for the great afternoon and helping us teach in a lesson afterwords!


















Emailing one last time with these goofy elders... I'm gonna miss them!






Monday, November 7, 2016

November 7, 2016



Hey!

Another quick one. Here's the rundown, as usual!

Highlights of the week...

No more exploding castles this week, which was definitely a plus! We didn't have to worry about any crazy things like that, although we did have a few people get mad and kick us out of buildings with threats to call the cops. Can't be too upset at that, since I'm sure if they would have given us a few moments to explain why we knocked on their door at 6 p.m., they might not have been quite as worked up about it.

We had a fairly normal Thursday and Friday, and we met with our friends Magdi and Peti on Thursday morning. It was great to see them again, and we shared a message about how it's never too late to return to their faith. Although poor weather prevented them from coming out to church this week, it was very good to see that they are both doing well. We also met with our friend, Zoltán, on Saturday morning. His friend, Mária, also happened to be there with him when we came to visit, so she stayed and tuned in to what we were sharing with him on that day. She liked what she heard, and they both ended up coming out to church yesterday! We were very happy to see that they enjoyed the testimonies shared during sacrament meeting, and that they were glad to have come out!

Yesterday's highlight was getting to go back to the Szombathely hospital, the first time that any of us has been there since the salmonella poisoning incident of July. One of the kind members here, Kati, asked us to visit her mom with her in the hospital. Her mother, also named Kati, has become very old. Now in her later 80's, she always enjoyed the fact that we visited them once a week to sing hymns for her and share a simple message. Since she forgets things very easily, she didn't take too much interest in the topics that we brought to share, but she always loved to have me play the piano as different companions over the months would sing a hymn from the church's songbook to her. She had asked her daughter to have us visit her in the hospital and bring her a blessing (and her piano). We couldn't bring her the instrument that she wanted to have in her hospital room, but we did visit her with the younger Kati and gave her a blessing. That was easily the highlight of the week, since it had been a few weeks since we'd last seen her. Her physical condition isn't promising, and we're not sure how much longer she'll be here, but it was good to visit her at least once more.

Now, we're starting off another busy week! We're having splits with our zone leaders from Győr, heading up to Budapest for a training, and then traveling back to finish our week here in Szombathely. All the best to you back at home. Good luck with the elections. God bless America, our home and haven for the free. May He aid and guide those charged with the direction and governing of the nation.





Visited the Sárvár castle last week on P-day as a district!














Inside the castle was a museum based on the Hungarian
 cavalry and Hussars. Pretty cool stuff! Really old castle.


















Apparently, the Hungarian cavalry was even active as late as the 1950's.















This was a cool family tree of the Hungarian counts 
that lived in this castle, painted on the wall of one of the 
rooms. Kind of looks like Serius Black's family tree from Harry Potter.







Thursday, November 3, 2016

November 2, 2016



Hey, there, everyone!

Have to be fast. Time is, yet again, in short supply!

We had a busy week, filled with zone training in Budapest, tracting and looking for new people to meet with, getting dogged a ton, talking to more people, Elder Lowe and Elder Graham getting a little bit sick and then mostly recovering, prepping for an open house at the church with a showing of "Meet the Mormons" in Hungarian, and lots of other things!

It was a great week, and I think it's also one of the weeks that I've walked the most distance-wise. We've been trying to get out to places that we haven't been to before to look for new people, which includes the areas just outside of the city-city part of Szombathely. Lots of miles, which is always fun!

Yesterday was Day of the Dead! It was neat to stop by the cemetary along with almost everyone else in Szombathely. Almost everyone, especially Catholics, get the day off and go to the graveyards to pray and decorate graves with red and white candles. It's quite a sight in contrast to the dark, cold, starry night.

The weather's been starting to get a little bit cooler, and we're putting on coats again and trying to stay warm with gloves and all that jazz. We're working hard and having a great time doing it! More to come next week!





Yesterday was "All Saints' Day," or "Day of the Dead."
 These are the candles and flowers that they decorated all the gravestones with.













A memorial to Jesus had, by far, the most candles and gifts.












Stormy day over Szombathely

















Tracting at sunset. Crazy how it gets dark at 4:30 already!













Fall is definitely here in full color...














The lake in Szombathely is my favorite part of the town,
since it's got so many big trees and it's good for running
in the morning. It's also looking pretty fall-y.












"Sör" means "beer"....