Sziasztok!
Happy Thanksgiving!! Boldog Hálaadást! (yes, that is two a's in a row). This past week was WEIRD. Super. But super fun and rewarding spiritually.
Last Monday we went to the Kecskemét zoo (it was amazing). We saw tigers, lions, (no bears), wolves, and goats up close. In Hungarian zoos you can get right up to the cages and if you stick your hand in, it will get eaten. haha they don't have a lot of regulations here. That night we went tracting and met some cool people, one of which said that we can come back. We also tracted this guy that we streeted 3 days before on the other side of the city! He still wasn't interested (really nice though), but we left a little note at his door saying something along the lines of "there are no coincidences" or something cheesy like that haha. But seriously, when these things happen, you have to watch out to see if God is trying to tell you something.
We brought a DVD to this man we streeted, who ended up being our investigator's brother! That was a bit strange. Our investigator János is a little strange, but he's NOTHING compared to his family. He has two brothers, one of which can't talk but is super nice, the other of which can talk, but is kind of rude and when we looked in his room, his computer was running miles of code across the screen. Also this 80's disco was permeating the walls. Then his dad came in, and he looked like a nice older man, so i introduced myself, but apparently he doesn't talk either, so he just back out the door through which he came in, smiling the whole while and making this weird wind sound. After that, we tracted and streeted, and tracted this cool girl who was really interested in our message and why we are here.
On Wednesday we thought to bring a less-active who works at a service place her peach jar (she gave us peaches recently) and we filled it with hearts and nice notes (it was her birthday). We went to the service place (a sort of catholic homeless shelter) to drop it off at her desk, and then we ran into the assistant to the boss of the place, who wanted to talk with us about why we wanted to work there. Then commenced the most rigourous interview of my entire life! Seriously, it was like a catholic inquisition. She essentially interogated us for about 35 minutes, and told us that she might get back to us. She also put us on BLAST and asked us why we don't speak hungarian. so freaking SHOOT!
For the rest of the week we had english class, introduced indexing to a few of our investigators and recent converts. So indexing is when you look at old birth, death, marraige, etc. records and then you put the information into the familysearch system so that people can more easily find their ancestors. Doing Hungarian indexing is freaking INTENSE. We do a lot of death records, and then we got to a few pages of grandparents, the children, and the grandchildren whose place of death was Auschwits and who's cause of death was "political assassination". There were other's who died in Budapest, but also because of Political Assassination. It was really sad, and also eyeopening to be living on the ground that was bombed like a billion times during WWII. Hungary has a sad history, and it's kind of a miracle that they're still their own country, but I'm glad to be here to share light with them.
Speaking of, on Friday we went up to Budapest for zone conference, and we received a lot of training on how to use the church's Light the World campaign in missionary work. Morgan elder and I did some white boarding, and we wrote the question, "What would you say to someone, if you wanted to bring a little light into their lives?" We then had them write their responses on the christmas cards, and then when we stopped the next person, we asked them the same question, and then after they wrote their response, we gave them the card on which the previous person wrote, and then we started sharing these little messages with people like this. And of course we invited everyone to hear the message of the Restoration. It was really fun. In Kecskemét, the christmas market is already up. Just look up hungarian christmas markets and you'll see what they're like, essentially a bunch of wooden stalls in the city center that sell local christmas goods and food. They're super fun. We even had the chance to go to the Budapest one in Vörösmarty Tér after Zone Conference while we waited for our train.
On Sunday we had a thanksgiving lunch after church! The ward prepared it, it was AWESOME. We made pumpkin pie one night (yes, from scratch because they don't sell pumpkin puree or crust in hungary) and everyone LOVED it. They had turkey, potatoes, hungarian syrups to put in the drinks, and one of my new favorite food, pickled watermelon rinds (it sounds disgusting, but actually they taste like candy).
Well I love you all and am really greateful for your prayers and support. I'm also super grateful to MADELINE, my awesome older sister who's birthday it is ma. BOLDOG SZÜLI NAPOT!! She has set such a wonderful example to me of dedicated missionary work and of happiness and kindness to strangers that I try to use every day. She is committed to truth, and is vigorous in her persuit of righteousness. She has really helped me grow and progress, both before her mission and after, and I am so grateful for her.
LOVE YOU ALL, SOK SZERETETTEL!!!
Martin elder
us and enikő in front of tigers
I almost died when I saw this little guy
my new best friend
Kiss the bunny
he wanted to keep warm
the street in Budapest going to the Christmas Market
our whiteboard
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