October 17, 2016

Hi!

So this week was fast. Again. It's unbelievable how quickly the time is passing now. The week was filled with activity, as the Sopron elders, Römer and Gabel, came here to Szombathely for splits. We had a fun little three-way split where Elder Gabel and his trainer, Elder Rodgers, also got back together for a little bit of time, so it really was a good opportunity to get to see all kinds of people here in our city!

That was Tuesday and Wednesday, and Thursday was a pretty fast day because we had a few people to meet with, and we also had our English class in the evening time. 12 people ended up coming out, which was huge!

Friday and Saturday also passed quicly, because we were on splits in Tatabánya with the elders there. I had a chance to work with Elder Szuch who actually has Hungarian family and is from Idaho. He was awesome to work with, and it was a great split there!

We came back and had church yesterday in Szombathely. It was an awesome day at church, and we and the other missionaries from Szombathely had gotten together and planned to teach the class to the young men in the branch here. We talked about missionary work and what it means to be a missionary, and even shared some special experiences and stories from our own missions to the three young men who were in attendance--Barni, Marci, and Levi. At the end of the class, we all took off the ties we were wearing and gave them to each of the boys as a special gift from the missionaries. All three of the boys, who are 16, 10, and 15, respectively, were excited about serving missions, and they seemed to like the lesson that we shared. It was a neat experience!

Yesterday, we had family night with the Takács family from the branch here in Szombathely. They had also invited the family's grandparents, Magdi Mama and Peti Tata to come as well, and we had a good lesson about how sharing the gospel is one great way to be happy!

And today is our p-day. We're getting ready for the transfer tomorrow, since we just received our transfer calls this morning. We were surprised to hear that Elder Fitzgerald would leave Szombathely, since he's only been here for two months, and he's going to serve in a city called Dunaújváros. I'm really sad to see him go, because he's been such a great friend and companion, and it's been great to work hard with him and have many good times along the way. I'm also excited for these next four weeks, though, because I'm getting two new companions here in Szombathely! One's name is Elder Graham, who I've actually never met before. I think he's been here in Hungary for about 4 months now, and then a new missionary is also coming here from America this week, which should also be fun! It's always interesting learning how to work with three people on one leash, but it's going to be an adventure!

Talk to you all soon again next week! Stay tuned!

Elder Fitzgerald and I with our good
friends, Magdi Mama "Grandma Magdi" and Mariann!

We came across this little gem this week.

Our lovely English class here in Szombathely!

We made waffles this week with banana bread batter, and let
 me just tell ya that they were the best thing since Kraft Mac n' Cheese!

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!

October 3, 2016

Hey!

It's P-day again. So here's the jist of our week! (Did I spell that right?)

Monday was a good day last week! After finishing running all of our errands and emailing, we headed out with the other elders from here in Szombathely (Rodgers and Shepherd) and hopped on a little train going out of town to Kőszeg, a little village just by the Austrian border on the Hungarian side. We took our bikes with us on the train, and we biked around the city and got to see some of the cool sites of that old town. Part of that included taking our bikes up a steep hill and seeing the "Chapel of Calvary" (Kálváriai Kápolna) on the edge of Kőszeg. After that, it was starting to get dark already (fall is here already) and we needed to get back to Szombathely to finish our day with work, so we saddled up and rode our bikes back in caravan formation. That was for sure one of the highlights of the day--riding bikes all in a row looking super fly in our missionary white shirts and ties, flying down the road on our bikes with ties flowing graciously in the wind as we cruised through other smaller villages in the rolling hills between the two towns. We made pretty good time, and the 30-some-odd kilometer trip was finished in just about 45 minutes.

Tuesday was a busy day, and we spent the whole thing on trains and in Budapest for a zone training. Unfortunately, it was more of a business-related zone training dealing with things like obtaining new residency permits in Hungary (since the laws regarding foreigners has changed here) and bicycle safety (one of the missionaries was accidentally involved in a car crash, and the police came to talk to us). By the time everything else was taken care of, the training itself was only a few minutes long, and then we were back on another train to return to Szombathely.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty normal days of trying to find people to meet with in Szombathely. It was a slower week for meeting with people, because the few people that we normally teach were either busy or out of town for the week.

Friday was fun, because we met with two of the very nice people here in Szombathely, Magdi Mama and Peti Tata. After teaching them, we headed out for Pápa, another city in our zone where we had splits. We finished our splits with the elders there (Smith and Biesinger, who were both great) and came back to Szombathely just in time on Saturday night to ride to the branch house and watch the first session of General Conference.

Sunday was spent at the branch house as we watched General Conference with all the members there. It's always a fun time because everyone brings some kind of something to share with each other, so we made some really good banana bread to bring to the branch. Tell ya one thing, it was superrr good.

And that brings us back to now!

Gotta run, but love y'all and hope you have a good week!

The Szombathely missionaries and Brother Shulte, our
 American member friend who's living in Szombathely
 for work for a while! :)

Neat Catholic church in Kőszeg

The "Church of Calvary"

Riding back through the Hungarian

 countryside to Szombathely from Kőszeg

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!