March 5, 2016

Hey!

Here's the quick rundown for how things are going here:

Monday, we just had regular meetings with President like usual, and then we went out and did normal missionary work. Good day, and we went with Roli to visit Klára in Békásmegyer!

Tuesday, we were on splits with the zone leaders from Szeged. Elder Bagley was on splits with myself, and Elder Parkinson was with Elder Martindale. Elder Bagley is fantastic! It's a shame he's finishing up his mission pretty soon in just a couple of weeks, because he's one of the many people I'd liked to have serve around if I had had the chance to. He's a really good storyteller, and he's talented at making people feel important and cared about when he's with them. We took care of a lot of stuff in the office, preparing for the New Missionary Training that we held the next day on Wednesday. We were also working on mapping out Buda and making sure that all of our work was up to date and documented. We went tracting and to talk to people on the streets, and Roli came with us to help out. Another good day!

Wednesday morning, the Szeged zone leaders went back and we headed to the office to set up for our New Missionary Training. It went really well, but it also went way over time. Originally, we had allotted about an hour and a half (two hours at most) for the meeting, but it ended up running almost a full five hours. Needless to say, it was good, but we were all excited to get up and do something else when we finished.

Thursday was a fairly normal day, and there wasn't anything really too exciting going on. Just normal missionary work!

Friday, we had district meeting here in Buda in the morning. The zone leaders from Kispest also came across the river to be part of that as well, and it was good! Afterwards, we went out to a restaurant called "Trofea's" here in downtown Budapest. It was a little bit pricy by Hungarian standards, but it's a serve-yourself, all-you-can-eat-and-drink restaurant with really high quality, fancy foods and we went there for Elder Oakes' last lunch in Hungary, so it was definitely worth a shot to try it once. The food was all really delicious, but we left feeling way too stuffed. After lunch, we did some more missionary work and then ran some errands for President Szabadkai towards nighttime, followed by some weekly planning and making some homemade banana bread! Elder Peregoy was with us at our apartment on Friday night, and it was fun to have him be here with us, since I hadn't seen or talked to him much since we went on splits back in December.

Saturday so far has been relatively quiet. We've just been at home taking care of some cleaning and housework. Our apartment's looking pretty good right now! I need to get a haircut today, since a Seventy is going to come in to visit the mission this next week and gotta be lookin' fresh for that. ;) We're planning on going up to János Hegy tonight with the secretaries, the Buda sisters, and some of our friends and members from here in Buda to have a campfire and roast some hot dogs and stuff. Should be fun! I really like getting out on p-days and doing some kind of fun adventure, because it's good to be out of the Budapest air for a while, and I feel like it helps recharge me for the coming week.

One of my good friends from here in the mission, Elder Kellogg, left to go back to Arizona today. We're all really proud of him, and he's one of the most trustworthy and sincere people out here. Most people from the mission are from Utah, but there are a few who are from Arizona or around the area, and I'm excited to get to hang out with them again back in America in a few months!

Anyways, I think that's most of the news for today! Hope everything's going well for everyone at home. Love you all lots! Have good adventures and we'll talk more next time. :)

The church on top of a hill overlooking Budaörs! We went for 

a hike for p-day last week right after emailing, and it was beautiful!

Fun rocks to climb on top of, and the view was spectacular.

The houses in Budaörs, just on the outskirts of Budapest

Elder Parkinson, Roli, and Elder Dalton climbed to the base of the cross!

This is a picture of a cliff. It looks a lot less scary than it is,
but the sign says "Prohibited to pass--Danger of Death" due to
 crumbly rock faces and sleep slopes. Unfortunately, there's no sign
 at the top of the cliff, and we tried to come down this way from
the top (since this is right behind the cross picture I just sent). We
made it down the cliff safely, but it took some time and some
very careful foot placement. Only casualty was a few scrapes
from sharp rock edges, and a lost name tag.

Adventure is out there!