June 27, 2016

Hey, Everyone!

Another quick email with just the summaries for today, because time is incredible short and the library where we're emailing closes soon!

We spent the majority of the week doing lots of missionary work here in Szombathely--walking around and trying to meet new people on the streets and knocking on front doors of apartment buildings and little homes on the outskirts of the town. On Wednesday, however, we woke up early and headed to Budapest for our zone conference that took place at Hajnóczy. We came back later on Wednesday evening, and then had another normal day on Thursday. Friday, we had district meeting with the elders here in Szombathely, then headed out to take another train from here to Tatabánya, another town in the Hungarian countryside about two hours away from here, but closer to Budapest. We had splits with Elders Dixon and Miller there, and they were great! I had time to work with Elder Dixon, and we had a fun time knocking on more doors and trying to find people to talk to! In the morning, he even decided to go on a run up to the top of the hill next to the town with me! We took a train back on Saturday afternoon, finished off our day here in Szombathely, and then had church yesterday.

Those are the main highlights of our week! The weather's been INCREDIBLY hot here--not sure how hot, because there's no thermometers anywhere, but I'd have to guess that it's somewere around 40 degrees Celcius with huge humidity factors also playing in. We've been trying to survive by taking two cold showers a day, but the sweat literally never leaves our bodies.

Other than that we're doing good though! Love you and hope you're having a good week! :)

A few of the older, cool buildings here in Szombathely

Cropduster dropping chemicals over the city to

kill mosquitos after it rained earlier this week.

Splits with Elder Dixon! Can't really tell, but

there's a cool Hungarian statue in the back.

Sunset while on splits with the elders in Tatabánya Friday night

Went for morning runs this week with Elder Heaps
 over by the lake here in Szombathely--super pretty place!

Train station at Tatabánya--lots of long frieght trains!

Cool little Catholic church not far from where we live

This is what tracting in Hungary looks like! Little tiny gardens with 

green metal fences and doorbells on the outside in front of the streets.

A massive eagle statue overlooks the city of Tatabánya 

from the top of a nearby hill, which Elder Dixon and

I ran to the top of for our morning workout!

Selfie from the top! This mangy wolf-dog followed us the

whole way up and down but was really nice to us!

Found this English grafiti while on splits in Tatabánya...

June 20, 2016

Hey, everyone!

Quick email for today, because we don't have much time left today! We're doing good here in Szombathely,and I'm starting to get a little bit used to the new city! It's still strange for me to be somewhere other than Budapest, and I honestly went through some big city withdrawals up until now, but Szombathely is growing on me!

The members here are so nice, and the branch was really welcoming! Elder Heaps and I were even invited to go to primary so that we can help with the piano playing there, which was a blast. On Saturday evening, the branch president and a few of the other families from here in Szombathely invited us over to have a Szalonna cookout--basically where they roast pieces of fat over a fire and drip the grease onto bread with onions and peppers on top. Definitely not the healthiest of things to eat, but for the Hungarians, it's a summertime favorite.

We've got a busy week ahead of us, since we're going back up to Budapest on Wednesday for a zone conference, and then we're following that up on Friday with a trip to Tatabánya for splits with the elders there. The trains are pretty long and the travel can be exhausting, but the trips are for sure worth it!

Excited to meet more new people here and get to know the city a little better. These are some of the pictures from our adventures so far this week!

Love y'all lots and I'll talk to ya more next time! :)

Szalonna!

Taking a drink from the spring water fountain at the

Gellért baths in Budapest on Friday when we went up for MLC!

Back in the big city again!

Down at one of the metro stops in the Budapest subways

Welcome to Szombathely!

Cooking the pig fat (szalonna) over the fire Saturday night!

June 14, 2016

Hey, Everyone!

Quick email for today, because I don't have too much time! Transfer calls came in this morning, and we've been finishing packing everything up again! Looks like my time's up here in the big city--I'm going to a much smaller town near the Austrian border called "Szombathely" (English translation="Saturday-Place"). Elder Martineau's got his bags packed to go to Pécs, and he seems pretty excited about the news! He's been here in Pest for about eight months now, so a change is about due for him. I was hoping to have some more time here in this city, but I guess after a year of being in Budapest it's time to move on now! It should be a good change!

The Clark family left midweek to head back to their home in California. We haven't received too much news about how they're doing except for the fact that they arrived safely in America, which is good news! Hopefully, Brother Clark's condition continues to improve, because he and his family really are the nicest kind of people, and it was the best part of our transfer here to get to visit them in the hospital every day!

A lot of the pictures sent home this week explain the adventures that we stumbled upon while in the city. Just walking around the downtown area, we found a ton of neat people and just as many incredible sights. Now, we're just getting everything ready for the big day tomorrow!

That's all the news for today--we've gotta go soon! Love you all, have another great week! :)

Beautiful sunset here in Pest over the entrance to an 

abandoned factory as we were walking around!

Train tracks

Fast cars outside beautiful buildings--welcome to Budapest!

The following are some of the coolest buildings in Pest! (Opera House)

We went to a little shop in downtown Pest that sells

American groceries and found some Ben and Jerry's! 

Took a lunch break and ate some super good ice cream 

on the edge of the Duna River! ;)

(Parliament)

(St. Stephen's Basillica)

(and the Hunyadi Castle in Pest!)

(Random little Catholic church)

(Cathedral)

Only in Europe do you walk around the city 

and run into crazy hotels that are palaces!

(Gellért Hegy)

(the Buda Palace)

(the Buda Castle)

(Another Catholic church on the river)

June 6, 2016

Hey!

This week was a lot like the last one! We were a little more mobile than we were in the past little bit, because we went to the doctor and they gave Elder Martineau the "OK" to put a little bit of pressure on his ankle again. He was pretty happy about that, especially because the doctors said that the MRI shows that surgery and a cast is unneccessary, although the recovery process is probably going to be a long one. We visited our friends, the Clarks, in the hospital again as much as we could, and we're excited for them to be able to go home soon!

They've got it worked out so that Brother Clark can fly back to California via air-ambulance this week, so that he'll be able to go back home and continue getting better at a hospital in America. We've loved getting to visit them and try to help them a little bit while they've been here in Hungary, and we're going to miss them once they leave!

We hosted a "Sport Nap" on Tuesday, where we had an American basketball game with some Hungarians who like to play. The church building here in Pest is really nice and even has a cultural hall with a basketball court, and we had a blast watching the Hungarians play and getting to play with them as well! I think Elder Martineau would have also loved to play, but we're hoping that maybe by the next time we're in charge of Sport Nap, his leg will be much better.

Sunday was another stake conference, because the churches in the Europe area had an additional broadcast with leaders from Salt Lake and Germany, which was cool to attend! It was also really nice to see my friends from Érd and Buda again! Laci, Attila, Klára, János, Béla, Andi, Sándor, Anikó, and a whole lot of other people also came out for the broadcast, and we had a fun time visiting for the few minutes that we had after the conference!

We had apartment cleaning checks earlier this morning, and we passed! The Peterson senior couple came over from Eger to bring us some really good, American-style cookies and check up on us, and we passed! Now, we're just emailing before heading over to Buda to have interviews with President Szabadkai, and that'll be most of our day!

The highlight of the week was Saturday, because the other elders here in Pest had a good friend who decided to be baptised this week! Márton's a really nice young man, and he was so excited to be a member of the church. He's even going to serve a mini.mission this summer! We're all excited to see him grow!

I think that's all for now! Talk more next time! Love you and hope the week's good! :)

We went by the Hungarian State Opera House in Pest, 

and ran into Attila from Érd just right after taking this picture!

Back courtyard of a building in Pest

Inside a small little synagogue in downtown Pest

May 30, 2016

Hey, everyone!

Monday again! Here's the usual quick summary of the week!

On Wednesdsay, we had a good time hosting our International Night that we hold every other Wednesday here in the Pest ward. We bring a snack and something cultural to share about America, so we made some peanut-butter sandwiches with Hungarian peanut-butter (not quite the same, but they didn't know the difference) and Elder Martineau and I talked about the desert. One of the members here named Margit brought a lesson about how Christ is always with us in our lives, and she shared a poem about "footsteps in the sand" with everyone. After that, we played a card game with them and taught them how to play chair soccer, which then broke into an impromtu game of 21 on the basketball court. The whole evening turned out pretty well, and we had a good turnout!

Wednesday night after Nemzetközi Est, we had splits with the AP's, Elder Paul and Elder Parkinson. Because Buda is so close to Pest, I went to Buda for the day to work with Elder Paul, and Elder Parkinson stayed in Pest with Elder Martineau. The splits were really nice, because it's always good to get to know someone else a little better and help them with the work in their own area--Elder Paul was a really good guy, and we had a good time looking up people, trying to find new people to teach, and then holding English class later on in the evening! Thursday night, we un-split and were back at home in Pest.

Friday was a fairly quiet day, consisting mostly of meeting with the other elders in Pest for district meeting, and then visiting one of the hospitals here in pest. We've been going there as much as possible to help a member from California who came to Budapest to go on a river cruise with his wife. While here in the city, he got pretty sick, and he's been in the hospital ever since, so we enjoy getting to sit with him and try to cheer him and his wife up while they're still here in the hospital. He and his wife are both such nice people, and we hope they can both fly home to California soon, happy and healthy!

Saturday, we had a trip to another doctor's clinic to have an MRI scan of Elder Martineau's leg, since it's still been bothering him a lot. The doctors didn't provide a conclusive statement because only radiologists were in the office at the time, but it sounds like his ankle may have been broken for the past five weeks or so now. We'll find out soon when he heads back to a physician who's going to take a look at the scans.

Sunday, we went to church and then spent the rest of the day visiting Brother and Sister Clark in the hospital again and resting Elder Martineau's leg. And that's about it!

Love you all lots, and hope you have a good Memorial Day today! :)

Went on splits with Elder Paul this week, and took a picture of

a picture that he took with his Polaroid camera. Picception!

The top of the bell tower of one of the

Catholic churches here in Budapest

Just a cool flower picture that I thought Chelsea would like

Another random cool building by the Erzsébet bridge

Another church in a different part of the city with 

a pretty different architectural design

The front of Keleti, the biggest train station in Hungary

In the waiting area of another hospital here in Budapest. 

This one had a vending machine, but we're not really sure 

why they decided to put it right in front of a row of chairs...

Tried to take a selfie and missed, but it was funny anyways

because Martineau decided to poke me right at the same time.