February 6, 2016

Hi!

To summarize this week, we were really busy again!

Monday started off like any other normal week, but then we started to have tons of stuff going on right away. Missionaries from Dunaújváros and Szombathely came up on Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning, respectively, which means that we had nonstop splits for 48 hours straight, and at one point six people in our apartment! Splits were really fun both days. With Elder Paul, we did lots of lookups in some of the villages that are far away from Buda and hard to get to without a car. Everything turned out pretty well, and then we came back just in time to get some sleep at home before the next split started the next day with Elder Krueger. He's probably one of the smartest people I've ever met. I think the whole time we were travelling somewhere during our splits, he was just describing to me how electricity works, what makes computers run, different things about radiowaves and physics, and a ton of other stuff I'm not even sure if I totally understood. We got stuck in the rain and ended up being soaking wet, but that didn't stop Elder Krueger from being happy and continuing to explain to me how different everyday appliances work and how to make them better.

Thursday was the only day that was relatively normal! We did some work in the office, went out and did some more work in the city, then came back and filled out our car report for the month of January. We had to clean every part of the car, inside and out, since a new senior missionary couple is going to inherit the car from us when they come into the country next week on Wednesday. We went to the car wash at a Shell station nearby, but the carwash's doors were broken--the entrance door was stuck open, and the exit door was stuck shut. In the end, we ended up getting a car wash just fine, and then had to drive like Mater from "Cars" in reverse through the obstacle course of the parking lot in order to make it back to the place where we could use the vacuums to clean out the interior. I was pretty proud of myself for that, because there's no way I could have done that before in America.

Friday morning, we had our landlord stop by to visit us from Germany. Our apartment's heaters and oven was broken, so he had to take a look at those and figure out a way for them to be fixed. Sometime next week, someone should be by to service them. We had district meeting, did other work, and that was it!

We just had a super good Saturday with the Szabadkai's. We were really in need of some fresh air up in the mountains, so we all headed up to Visegrád in the Szabadkai's car. Had a fun hike that turned into a bit of a mud-fest, since the mountain was finally starting to thaw and unfreeze. After a few detours, we made it to the top and back again, and now we're just back emailing for today!

All in all, had a pretty good week. Next week's gonna be even more crazy. Here we go! Hope you all have a good one. :) Love you!

Heading with the Szabadkai family to Visegrád to

go hiking on p-day! We needed some fresh air,

and the Szabadkais did too, so we all jumped

in their car and drove up to the mountains north of Budapest. 

Szabadkai Elnök driving

Lea Szabadkai came up with us, too.

Running up the mountain!

Ended up getting lost and following the trail of 

an abandoned ski lift to get up to the top of the mountain

It was really steep...

But the view was worth it! You know those commercials
 for the Viking river cruises that we see ads for sometimes
back in America? Those float right down that river to Budapest!

I learned how to fly.

Castle at the top of the mountain

Trail to the top

Sun's poking through some of the mossy trees!

Really pretty forest! Felt so good to be out of the city for a little bit!

While on splits and doing some lookups in some villages
away from town, we took a quick stop to look at the
 famous Basillica of Esztergom. It was HUGE.
(Look at the building's left-most tower, and at the
 person in the reddish shirt at the base of it for scale.)

Just thought you all might be curious what our

house looks like. It's very old! This is our bedroom.