hello all,
Goodness I don't even know where to start. Sorry I didn't have time to send a big email last week because we spent the day in Budapest. I guess I can go over what happened the week before this and then this week.
So, april 28th tuesday: we met with a less active Nád_ Már_, in szazhalombatta. It went well, she showed us some old hymn books and old translations of the book of mormon so that was cool. Later we met with Kat_ and her boyfriend. And after kat_ we had dinner with the Kövesyék, Attila (our ward mission leader) and his wife Zita and their kids Nimrod, Gréta, and Bogi. It was super great. We talked a lot with Zita and Attila about how we can improve the relationship between the branch members and the missionaries and basically how best to help Érd strengthen and grow. At the end we shared a spiritual thought with the family about missionary work and gave them a book of mormon to write their testimonies in and pray about who to give it to. We also made mini missionary name tags for the kids because we all are missionaries. It was super cute.
april 29th, wednesday: We met with the And_ and talked about faith. We made a jar for them to start saving up their spare change in to start saving money so they can get married. We decorated it with a picture of the temple and a paper that said families can be together forever. They super loved it and hopefully the will remember every time they look at it what their end goal is and what they are working towards. After angol óra that night we stayed after to help a young woman in the ward, Al_, correct her text book. She goes to an evangelical school and next year the bible study teacher really doesn't like "mormons" and so she talked with him and he gave her the text book for next year to go through and correct all the misrepresentations of mormons so ali asked us to help her correct it. As we were helping her Elder wilcox looked in the window and waved so I looked up and standing behind him was Ani_! Ani_ is a less active that works at the museum in town. She is super great but is not into the church at all anymore. She served a mission in hungary in the 2000s and soon after getting back from her mission she got into some anti-mormon literature and it broke her testimony. She is super incredible though and we used to visit her at the museum to just talk and be her friend. But she hasn't been into the church for years. She showed up to angol óra to ask us if we could help her with a project for her school. I guess he had a project where she was studying different accents so she asked us to come over to dinner so she could record us all speaking in hungarian. We were so excited and immediately said yes. She had to wait for her bus too so she even stayed after angol óra and helped us correct the text book too. This story will continue into friday.
april 30th, thursday: We had a program with two members orsi and gyönygi and talked about recognizing our divine nature and value. It went super well. They are just the best. I love our branch members here. Later before budatétény angol óra we went tracting a bit. We decided to go to the end of the street first and work our way back so we got to the end of the street and the first house we knocked on was this sweet néni, Ica. We started talking with her and she told us about how her mother had recently died. She started crying and we told her we knew that she would see her mother again. She then told us about an experience she had where she was going through her mothers belongings and she heard a noise and saw a picture move and her son came in asking her what the noise was and she had gotten this overwhelming feeling that her mother was watching out for her. She then went back inside and came out with two poems or prayers that she gave us. She told us she knew that we would appreciate them. They are beautiful and the spirit was super strong. We testified to her that Heavenly Father loved her and her mother was watching over her and we asked her if we could come back sometime and she said yes.
may 1st, friday: It was amunka ünnepe or hungarian labor day here so we went with one of the elder's investigators to this neighborhood party in the morning. It was nice, they spoke english so we told them about angol óra and they said they would probably come. They were super nice. There was a carnival in the town center that afternoon so we streeted through it and passed out flyers. We then went to Ani_'s that evening. It was super great. She made us paprikás csirke and it was super finom. We also ended up talking about gospel stuff and missionary life the whole time. It was super great. I feel like now we are friends with her enough that we can ask a little more of her. She is just so great and needs to come back to church!
may 2nd, saturday: this day was pretty uneventful. We had játék est that evening with the palmerék. Its always good spending time with them.
may 3rd, sunday: we had church and it was a super great sunday. It started off pretty sad because we went to pick up the andrásék for church but they didn't come again. But we had gotten a couple of chocolate bars and written notes for a couple of members in the branch and we gave them to them and it was super great. I just love our branch so much. It was mothers day in hungary so relief society was all about mothers. It was great, there was an old missionary visiting with his parents so we helped translate for his mom in relief society. Later that afternoon when we were home we got a call from Attila and he asked us to come outside so we go out and him and his son were standing there with a big bouquet of lilacs and told us happy mothers day. It was just super sweet and so we had a beautiful bunch of flowers in our kitchen this week.
okay, on to this past week.
On monday we got permission from president to go into budapest!! It was incredible, I can't even begin to describe it. The photos can't even describe it. Its just a gorgeous city. I really hope I serve there someday. The only downer was that we had bought tickets online to tour parliament but when we got there our tickets had been for sunday instead of monday so sister sholly was super bummed out. But it meant that we had time to see a couple of other things that we wouldn't have seen if we hadn't of missed it so it was okay in the end.
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| Buda castle! |
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| Buda Castle |
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| fisherman's bastion overlooking parliment |
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| fishermans bastion |
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| view from the sziklatemplom (church in the rock) and from gellért hegy 1 |
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| Parliament |
Since we were in budapest all day and had családi est that evening we hadn't been home til right at the end of the day so when we got home we had a pleasant surprise for us in the bathroom. So in our bathroom there is a drain in the middle of the floor that occasionally overflows when we use the washer. When we got home on monday night we went into the bathroom and there was water on the floor and so I wasn't super surprised, I cleaned it up and used the bathroom and as I flushed the toilet, water, and other things...started shooting their way out of the drain. I quickly jumped out of the way and shouted for sholly to come help and so we grabbed a couple of towels and created barriers so the pee water wouldn't come out into our bedroom. We called our land lord and he inspected it, walking into the pee water, and just sort of looking around, and then walking out of the apartment leaving a trail of water behind him saying he would call someone. We were annoyed and had no idea what to do until he came back. When he came back he said that someone would be by in the morning and that he would bring by some drain-o or something to help it. We waited for like 45 minutes for him to come back but he didn't and our apartment was growing to smell increasingly like pee but we were so exausted from our day in budapest that we crashed on our extra bed in the living room because our room smelled so bad. In the morning we checked on the bathroom and the water had drained out a little bit but it was all smelly and covered in nastyness. We waited for the plumber to come and he came, messed with a few things and then left saying it was all good. But that was only the beginning. We then went to the store got a bunch of cleaning supplies, a new mop and towels and spent two hours sanitizing everything. By the end though you couldn't smell anything but bleach so it ended up being okay.
Later on tuesday we went out to nagytétény to look up a referral from a branch member. She wasn't interested in meeting with us so we decided to tract a bit. We ended up getting a let in with a nice man named Sán_. He used to be a minister I guess and calls himself a believer but he isn't religious. He was a little familiar with the church but was interested in learning more. It went really well and he said he wants his friends to meet us too. We will probably be going back sometime. After nagytétény we had a program with kata and her boyfriend Lás_. Lás_ however didn't show up until we only had about ten minutes left in the program so it was mostly talking with kata.
Wednesday we had a long day. We went all the way out to biatorbágy to look up a less active named ti_ érz_, which consisted of going into kelenföld train station in buda and then taking a train from there to biatorbágy and then walking to where they lived. It ended up being a good program, but the Ti_ love to talk a ton so a lot of it was just listening to them talk about their families so we didn't get to do too much of a spiritual though. But it was good and they are super nice. We then barely made the train in time to get back for angol óra. Angol óra was really good though. our angol óra érzsébet brought us the pottery we made and she had glazed it. She was super sweet.
On thursday we went to budatétény and talked with ica again. She was glad to talk with us again and I think slowly we are going to build a trust with her and eventually be able to have a legit program with her. We also had a new lady come to angol óra that evening and she said she would be interested in meeting outside of angol óra so that is good.
Friday was fagyi day in hungary so all ice cream stores had half priced fagyi. So we got fagyi with the elders after district meeting. We then had a program with the Gyönygiék that evening. They are super nice but the kids have SO much energy. Little peti was attacking us the whole time with balloons. It was fun though, they are such a sweet family. Their dad just needs to get over his stubborness and be baptized!
Saturday was pretty eventful. So in the morning we were going to do a játék reggel with the palmerék but sister sholly was not feeling well at all. We called and canceled and I let her rest most of the morning. At first we thought it was just that time of the month problems but by the afternoon she couldn't even eat and was super sick. We had stake conference that evening though and we had been looking forward to going to budapest and seeing people all week that she was super disappointed and decided that she would just suck it up and we would go. I told her it was really okay if we stayed and that I didn't want her to get worse but she said that we were going so we get on the train and she still isn't feeling well. And then we make it to the subway and about half way there she is curled over in her seat and she starts to cry. I wasn't even sure what to do and then we got off the subway and I knew that we needed to go home. We sat down on a bench waiting for the subway back and I reassured the elders that I could get her back. Soon a return subway came and we rushed to get on. Sister sholly made it through the door but right as I was about to step on the doors closed and so I ran to the window so sister sholly could see me and she mouthed "kelleti" (which is a subway stop) at me and I just watched my sick companion go on the subway and had to wait a few minutes til another one came. I was freaking out but was glad that she had the phone so at least she could call someone if anything happened to her. Eventually I got to kelleti and we were reunited and we made it back to déli. We got on the train but we knew she wouldn't be able to do the 20 minute walk back home from the train station so we called sister palmer and asked if she could give us a ride home, which she was more than happy to do. Once we got home then she went straight to bed and slept til 7 the next morning.
Sunday we decided that sholly was still not doing well enough to go to stake conference so we stayed and let her sleep some more. Luckily the sharp stomach pains from the day before were much milder and she was able to get some food down. We then headed over to the branch house to skype home. The elder wilcox made tiltott paprika, or stuffed peppers, which was super good. We then all talked to our families and it was super great.
Sholly is feeling a lot better today luckily and we have interviews with president tomorrow so we are grateful that she is doing better for those.
Well thats about it for my exciting two weeks. I love you all and it was great talking to the family yesterday. I hope you can all find someone to help this week and that life is great.
sok szeretettel,
sister heath
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| a cool fountain |
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| fishermans bastion |
