September 14, 2015

Another week's gone, and now there's only a couple of weeks left before the next transfer... crazy. My MTC group hits it's 10-month mark this week!

Things are going good here in Kispest. We've got lots of really good friends here that we meet with all throughout the week, and it's been cool to even get to teach some piano to some of the people that we meet with. We've been trying to use some of our talents to find new people to talk to as well, so we've been whipping in the park, playing some basketball with some of the kids from the neighborhood, and teaching Enlish again as our English classes have restarted now after the August break.

For the most part, the people that we meet here are pretty normal. Sometimes, though, we meet some interesting characters who are not necessarily as normal... Sometimes that's a very funny thing, but other times it's pretty sad. The other day, we were riding home on the metro right before curfew, and a homeless man who had had a lot to drink started to serenade us on the metro. He started to sing pretty loudly and dance on the metro, kind of making most passengers give him some pretty confused looks. Then, he asked us for money, and proceeded to try to convince us to give him some Forints by doing push-ups and pull-ups on the frame of the tram. When that didn't work, he knelt down and pretended to pray to us. It was a bit discomforting, and kind of sad when we glanced into his open bag on the floor next to him (full of empty bottles, crushed cans, and a few homemade tobacco containers to hold his leaves). Moral of the story: don't do drugs, kids.

As for the refugee situation here in Budapest, it's about the same. There were a couple of marches and demonstrations in parts of town, and a few riots in isolated areas. We get first notice by text message from our zone leaders, though, and we know for the most part where and when those things are going to happen so that can avoid the conflict. There's still lots of refugees around the train stations, but I think the government here is trying to send them either forward or back to where they came from. The Parliament here is catching a lot of flack for not handling the situation any better than they are, and a lot of the people that we meet with tell us that they're frustrated with the way everything's going down.


But we're safe and doing well here in Kispest! Still doing great and trying to help people to be happier here. Hope that everything is going okay back home in AZ, as well. :) Until next week!

Went to get sushi with some of our investigators this week!
Really scared at first (because Hungary is land-locked and
so that sounds dangerous to buy fish and seafood here),
 but it turned out to be okay and none of us got sick!

Gnarly fence outside someone's house... A little bit intimidating.

Went to visit the Budapest zoo for p-day, and they have a 

truck that is part of the tiger's pen. There's the truck, a 

glass window, and the bed of the truck. A tiger 

just happened to be napping in the back.