Budapest Travel, Top of the Tower, & Self Reliance Program

November 27, 2017

Sziasztok barátaim és családom, (Hello my friends and my family)

Every week since I have been here I have traveled to Budapest, and it didn't stop this week. We traveled for Zone Conference in Budapest for all the missionaries in the Southwest region of Hungary. There were about 20 missionaries from our zone there.

We learned how to utilize the #légyavilágvilágossága or  #LightTheWorld initiative in our missionary work.

Also this week I went to the Hivtal which is basically the immigration office here in Hungary. There I applied for a 2-year residency card so I can finally become a legal immigrant. The Hivtal has the reputation of being like the DMV in America--long and very disorganized lines. But we were aggressive and were able to make our way to the front of the line. 

Every P-day since I have been here we have gone to the városháza, which is the city government building.  At the top of the building there is a big tower that looks over the city. Every week we ask if we are allowed to go to the top, into the tower. We usually just ask the people inside and say that we heard they take foreigners up to the tower and we want to go up. Every time they have said it's not possible. Last p-day we asked and some man took us up to the tower and it was cool to see everything from up there and to take pictures. 

Kaposvar, Hungary

And if you could send me some simple and detailed recipes of things I could cook that would be great. I can only eat so much toast. (haha)  We took a picture of a Christmas tree that is in the middle of the city.  The tree actually came from the front yard of one of our investigator's houses.

Christmas Tree in Kaposvar

Every week we work on the self-reliance program the church has so we can get it started here in the future. And I am supposed to let you guys know what I learn each week and I have not done so yet. So this is 3 weeks worth of information.

The first week we learned about working together with others. One thing I learned is that we have to be humble enough to take advice and suggestions from those whom we work with.

The second week we learned about communicating with others. When we are listening to others it is important that we use good body language such as using small words like "yes" and "okay" to let the speaker know we care about what they are saying and that we are listening to them. And if something is confusing it is important to ask them if you understood correctly.

The third week we learned about perseverance. When we have a long or strenuous task to complete, it is important that we do 4 things:

1. Keep a positive attitude and list our blessings.

2. Work together with others and ask others for help if we are unable to do something.

3. Replace our fear with faith. Avoid doubt. And

4. Move forward with patience and courage. Never give up and endure with faith. We can call upon the Lord for help and he will also help us. 

(To learn more about the Church's worldwide Self Reliance program click here

  LDS Church Self Reliance Services)

Sok Szeretettel, (Lots of Love)

     Udy Elder

We went to this restaurant called Texas Burger

November 20, 2017

Sziasztok barátaim és csalódom, (Hello my friends and my family)

      Last P-day was Spencer Elder's birthday, another missionary here in Kaposvár. To celebrate we went to this arcade place where we played a couple rounds of bowling and some ping-pong. It was nice to handle the ol’ paddle again.

Spencer Elder, Cushing Elder, Udy Elder

Bowling

 Afterwards we went to this restaurant called Texas Burger. They had country music playing and a bunch of American decorations. It was interesting to try some Hungarian-American food. I ordered a Philly Cheese Steak, but it definitely was not as good as the original but you can't expect much more.

Texas Burger--Kaposvar, Hungary

While I'm on the topic of Hungarian-American food, after church on Sunday, our branch held a Thanksgiving lunch. There was turkey, cornbread, and stuffing. But again Hungarian-American food is not the same and there was no football in the background so it didn’t quite feel like Thanksgiving. (haha)

On Wednesday we traveled to Budapest again for new missionary training. After the training we went to one of the malls in Budapest. I was surprised by how big the mall was. I ordered a suit there because we have to wear a suit every day from October 15th to April 15th and I only have 2, so I figured it would be best if I bought one more. I bought the suit for about 30,000 forint which is about $115. Everything here is a lot cheaper than in America which is nice. 

This week our branch had a talent show which was a funny experience to watch everyone do their talents. I was going to do a juggling duo with Spencer Elder but I can only juggle and he can do a bunch of cool tricks so it would of made me just look lame. Instead he did it by himself and us four missionaries sang a hymn. It wouldn't of mattered what we did they would of loved it even if we would have just stood in the front and waved our hands. 

On Saturday I went on splits with Spencer Elder in East Side Kaposvár. He has only been out in the mission field for one complete transfer so it was a good experience because neither of us can fully quite understand everything when people talk. We ended up finding this guy in the park who we taught and it went well. People are usually pretty kind to us when we say we have only been here for 2 moths or 2 weeks.  

This video is of a man who always tries to do an Elvis impersonation and sing for us...

In our mission we are allowed to use Facebook or e-mail our investigators for 30 minutes each day. We have a Facebook page we operate and post a spiritual message every day. Since I have not been on Facebook since middle school, I had to change my profile picture of Kobe Bryant, which was sad because it has been my profile picture for I think 8 years, but it's probably not the most missionary appropriate. 

The baptism with our investigator needs to be rescheduled because he still drinks coffee. I even promised him that if we would not drink coffee, I would not speak English and I actually did not speak any English for 2 days but he still drank coffee. We get fed by the same member every Friday, and she makes us pizza. But to provide for myself we usually eat out a few times a week or put some frozen pizzas in the oven or make a sandwich. I think I am going to try to get a little more creative with my cooking, but that is a big step to take so we will see how it goes. And my companion says that our apartment is one of the worst in the mission, but I don't know anything else so it does not bother me. Also I have yet to do any service, we just mainly proselytize, study, and teach all day. During the day sometimes we take a whiteboard out with a question like ˝Miért itt vagyunk a földon?˝ Which says ˝˝Why are we here on the Earth?˝ and we talk to people about their thoughts, or we go tracting (knock on doors). And we probably teach about 7 lessons a week. 

-Udy Elder

Every Thursday we teach a free English class

November 13, 2017

Sziasztok barátaim és családom, (Hello my friends and my family)

       All is well here in Hungary. I am slowly starting to understand more of what people are saying. I carry around with me a little pocket notebook in which I write down words that I don’t know. Pretty soon it will be as big as a dictionary because there are a lot of words I don’t know. Cushing Elder has me lead a lot of the lessons. He says that way I will be able to learn and grow more. 

When we go tracting it sounds like a dog pound or something. On average every house has 2 dogs outside their house and every time we walk down the street and ring the bells on the gates outside of people's houses, every dog on the street starts barking. And then we have to yell for people to understand what we are saying. But don't worry, I am learning how to be louder than the barking dogs.  

Also every Thursday we teach a free English class. There has been up to 30 people who show up to the class, and then we split them up into a beginner and an advanced class. I don't know how qualified I am to teach Hungarians English, but it's a free class so I guess the expectations are pretty low. This week we taught the advanced class and they all know English pretty well, so we just played 20 questions with them and explained a few things about English. 

On Friday we got fed by a church member for the first time. She ordered pizza for us. I made sure to take advantage of the opportunity because the more I ate meant the less I had to provide for myself. So I ate an entire pizza (8 slices) by myself.

On Sunday we went to stake conference (regional church meeting) in Budapest. It was a 3-hour train ride one-way. I had never seen so many missionaries at a stake conference before. There were over 50 missionaries there. We arrived right when it started so there were no chairs for us, so I was standing in the back the entire time. Someone form the Quorum of the Seventy came, I forgot his name, but he spoke in English which was nice to hear because I could understand all of it. It was also nice to see some of the missionaries from my MTC district and to meet the other missionaries in the mission.

Sorry about no pictures, I will do better next week.  That’s about all I can think of right now.

Sok szerettél, (Lots of Love)

       Udy Elder 

I finally arrived in Magyarorszag (Hungary to Americans)

November 6, 2017

Sziasztok Családom és Barátaim, (Hello my friends and my family)

    I finally arrived in Magyarország (Hungary). It took us a while to first get here because our plane in Salt Lake got delayed 5 hours because the fuel pump was broken or something. So they first tried to fix it and decided that it was beyond repair, and they had to get a different plane for us to fly on. But during that time we were able to talk with a woman from Hungary who was on the same flight was us. It was a long 10 hour flight in which I slept most the way. Then we had a 2 hour flight from Amsterdam to Budapest. When we got to the baggage claim there was a surprise for us. No Bags. Somehow the airline lost our luggage. So I went up to one of the desks and explained that we lost our bags, and he was only speaking in Hungarian so I had no idea what he was saying. It was at that moment I knew what Elder Calhoun felt like in the movie "The Best Two Years” when he said, "That's not the language they taught me in the MTC." But he pointed to the direction of the lost baggage desk. And with their little English and our little Hungarian we were able to fill out paperwork for our lost suitcases. 

Our MTC district at the Budapest airport with Szabadkai Elnok and his wife

We then went to the Mission Home and met with Szabadkai Elnök (Mission President), he is the first native Hungarian mission president and is a funny guy to talk to. They fed us a fruit soup with ice cream

Fruit soup with ice cream

and then some rice and chicken with some tasty sauce and an oreo type dessert.After that the APs (assistants to the mission president) took us to a cool Cathedral where we could look out onto the city of Budapest and see the Parliament building. We stayed in a Hotel that night, and I still did not have either of my suitcases. 

Cathedral in Budapest

Parliament building in Budapest

The next day we were able to get most of our suitcases back, but I was still missing the one with all my clothes in it. Also, we found out where we will be serving in our first area and who our companions will be. I am serving in Kaposvár with Cushing Elder.

Udy Elder and Cushing Elder pointing to Kaposvar, Hungary

Cushing Elder has been out for a little over a year and I am the second missionary he has trained. He also trained a missionary in Kaposvár last transfer. He is from Kansas and studied two years at West Point before going on his mission. It took about 2 and a half hours to get to Kaposvár by train from Budapest. Kaposvár is a city in the southwest of Hungary with about 50,000 people living in it. My first night there was “All Saints Day” or “Day of the Dead” so we went to the cemetery to talkwith some people and it looked really cool with a bunch of candles lit up.

Cemetery during "All Saints Day"--Nov 1st

Cemetery celebrating "All Saints Day" --Nov 1st

There are only about 35 people who come to church eachSunday, but the work here is slowly moving along. In Kaposvár there are two sets of missionaries. We cover the west side of the city and the other companionship covers the east side. We have one investigator named "A" who has a baptism date for November 24th. The other companionship had a baptism on Friday so we were able to take "A" with us to that. Since there is no baptismal font in the branch house, we had to do the baptism at a Hotel which was interesting. 

Baptism

On Saturday I went on splits, over on the east side of Kaposvár, with Fuchs Elder. Fuchs Elder is from Germany and has been out for about a year. We went tracting (knocking on doors) and were let into two different homes to teach lessons. The first home we were let into Fuchs Elder had me take the lead in teaching the Restoration lesson. It was a bit of a struggle but I managed and the guy said we could come back. Also President Szabadkai drove down to deliver me my suitcase and pay Kaposvár a visit which was nice.

Kaposvar Cathedral--Cushing Elder and Udy Elder

Since I can't understand too much, I am the piano player in church and it is a good way to get involved. My duties consist of choosing the hymns and pressing the play button on the piano and listening to the programmed hymn. I hope to master this duty by the time I leave Kaposvár. 

Church Halloween Party--Carving Pumpkins

Pumpkin Carving

Later on Sunday Cushing Elder and I decided to do some tracting in a smaller city that was in our area. It was about a 30 minute bus ride away. We were tracting for about 2 hours and then this car pulls up next to us. He said he was the Mayor and that we were not allowed to be here. My guess is someone we tracted into called him and said we were there and then he came looking for us. We asked if we were breaking any law and he said that if we didn't leave he would call the police and have them arrest us. We decided it's probably best not to get arrested, so we walked back to the bus station and the whole time he was following us in his car. After one week I already have been kicked out of a town by the mayor and was threatened with arrest. Who knows what these next two years have in store for me. 😀

Sok Szertettel, (Lots of Love)

     Udy Elder​