No one wanted to hear our message and then we got to the last house on the street...

January 29, 2018

Sziasztok Mindenkinek, (Hello everyone)

Last week for p-day we went to a go-karting place and it was a lot of fun. Fuchs Elder, the missionary form Germany serving here in Kaposvár, said it was his first time driving anything with a steering wheel. I thought it was a little weird, but I guess driving just isn't as common here in Europe. It has also been almost 5 months since I have driven anything, so it was a nice refreshing feeling for me. 

For about the past month and a half we had a break in our English class, but we are starting it back up this next week. This past week, in order to get a lot of people to attend, we made a bunch of flyers and called about 70 people who used to attend English class at some point. Hopefully we can get a bunch of people to attend. 

Also I was on splits with Spencer Elder and we were going out tracting and nobody wanted to hear our message about Jesus Christ, like usual, but then we got to the last house on the street and we were joking around saying that this house is going to let us in. And it turns out they actually did let us in. It was cool because they had met with missionaries over 20 years ago and they showed us their really old Hungarian Book of Mormon. It was before the church had translated the entire Book of Mormon into Hungarian so it was just select sections that were translated and compiled into a book. I have seen some of the older translations of the Book of Mormon, but this was the first time I saw this selected translations edition. We were only in their home for about 5 minutes because we had to run back to our bus. But we gave them the “entire” Book of Mormon and are going back this week. And we also taught a handful of other people this week too. 

Recently I read in a 2012 Liahona, an article by Elder Jeffery R Holland, about his time as a missionary in England. And I just thought it was very similar to missionary work here in Hungary. He said, "We threw ourselves into the only thing we knew to do—knock on doors. We knocked on doors in the morning, we knocked on doors at midday, we knocked on doors in the afternoon, and we knocked on doors at night... but we kept knocking on doors. And we got in almost none of them."  Whenever we get the opportunity to go inside someone's house, we always cherish it because it doesn't happen very often. 

To answer dad's question from last week about parents picking up missionaries here, President Szabadkai is okay with it but he will only be the mission president until July 1st of this year. The church will announce the new mission president on February 3rd. So keep your eyes out for that new announcement ;). So I will have to ask the new mission president, but I think it shouldn't be a problem. 

I wish Dad a happy birthday. It has been a crazy year for you guys becoming grandparents and all. Hopefully you guys aren't spoiling Noah too much. I can't believe you guys are actually on a diet. That’s good. My diet mostly consists of frozen pizzas and ramen. It’s not as good as having a home cooked meal every night from Mom, but I survive. I did make tacos this past week which were good. 

Playing pool on p-day

Sok szeretettel (Lots of love)

      Udy Elder

I finished my 12 weeks of training

January 22, 2018

Sziasztok a barátaim és a családtagjaim,

This week I finished my 12 weeks of training. The first 12 weeks in the mission field we take 30 extra minutes each day during our studies and learn the fundamentals of missionary work. So technically I am no longer considered a trainee, and I am a normal missionary who is supposed to be ready to train someone else. 

Also this week we traveled to Budapest for interviews with Szabadkai elnök, our mission president. It's crazy to think that we have to travel 6 hours, of total traveling, just to have a 15- minute interview with the mission president. But we had a good time. While walking downtown Budapest there was a guy promoting Segway tours around Budapest, and he let us try riding one which was a lot of fun. You only use your feet to control your speed and steering, and you use your hands just for stability. 

Also this week I ran into a fellow American who used to play on UCON's basketball team a couple years ago, and now he is playing for the Kaposvár Kosárlabda Klub (Kaposvár basketball club or also known as the KKK around here) I guess its a professional team here in Hungary or something. He invited us to one of his games so maybe we will go some time. 

We are allowed to go 25 kilometers outside our area to proselytize. And our area covers everything on the west of Kaposvár that is within 25 kilometers. My guess is there’s probably like 20 villages in our area. The population of Kaposvár is about 45,000 (internet search reveals pop. of 67,000) and we cover half of that so 22,500 and then the population from all the villages, I would guess our area covers somewhere around 35,000 or 40,000 people. 

Map of Kaposvár and surrounding villages

Sok Szeretettel,

       Udy Elder

We traveled to a village and luckily this time didn't get kicked out

January 15, 2018

Szervusztok Mindenkinek,  (Hello to everyone)

This past week has been good and we have stayed busy in the work. Since my time here in Kaposvár I have been to about every apartment door in our area so now we have started to go to the houses in our area. I like the apartment buildings because it’s nice and warm for the wintertime. And now since it is getting cold and there is snow on the ground, I need to start bundling up.  We also traveled to a village outside of Kaposvár to teach a referral. My last experience with going to a village wasn’t a good one because we got kicked out of the town by the mayor, but luckily this time we didn’t get kicked out. And we are going back next week too. 

Photo shoot in the park for our Facebook page

This week we also met with a new investigator who I met on the street a couple of weeks ago. He's a lawyer here in Kaposvár and we met with him inside of his office. When we first got to his office, he said he had only 15 minutes and was only meeting with us to be nice and he wanted to practice his English. But we ended up talking with him for over 45 minutes and we introduced the Book of Mormon to him and talked about how it can help us in our lives. He said that he had never prayed before, but he will read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He also said that he felt a good feeling during our lesson that he has never felt before.  

We taught a few other people and we also were able to watch President's Monson's funeral which was nice. 

                                                   Watch President Monson's funeral service here

On Sunday we made a bunch of cookies and took them to the members so we could meet and visit with all of them. 

I haven't bought winter boots yet, but maybe I will soon because there is snow on the ground now. That’s bad that the Steelers lost to the Jaguars. Since when have the Jaguars been good? I don’t know if we will get to watch the new presidency announcement, maybe we will though since we watched President Monson's funeral live. To answer dad’s questions about the branch: The Branch presidency is made up of Balint elnök and his first counselor Fekete elnök who is assigned to come to Kaposvár from Pécs. They just made a branch mission plan with some good goals. And branch council is usually only once a month here, but when they have it we go to it. 

- Udy Elder

I ate left over parts of the pig like the ears and the hooves

January 8, 2018

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

On Wednesday I went to Budapest to pick up my new companion. His name is Surdu Elder and he is from Calgary, Canada. I'm 3 for 3 for not getting a companion form Utah, maybe I'll be able to go my whole mission. We'll see. He has been out for a little over a year and is really good with the language. No one mistakes us for Hungarians because we stand out so much with my blond hair and his red hair haha. Since I have been here for a transfer I now lead the way when we’re going places and I’ve been showing him around the city.

Udy Elder and Surdu Elder

While we were over at one of our Investigator's houses, he fed me a thing called Kocsonya. I didn't know what it was and Surdu Elder did, but he told our investigator that I needed to try some. It is made up of the left over parts of the pig like the ears and the hooves--it gets put into some jello fat substance. I'm usually a fan of meat but meat should not be in that form of a substance. 

Kocsonya

As for our investigators we currently have a 62-year old man who fed me the pig jello, He comes to church often. A 30-year old woman and her 4 year old daughter who have some relatives who are Mormon. 2 people that we teach at the park every week during their work shift of picking up the trash, and a few others. We hope we can get a baptism this transfer. That’s the goal at least. 

I've never had that dish (Rakott Krumpli--Hungarian layered potatoes), but it looks good.

Rakott Krumpli--We (Julia and Craig) made this for dinner recently

Sister Berente's dad is Hungarian so he knows his stuff. Good try on stalking but you were wrong on who my new companion is. Did you see my talent on the Facebook page? And I got the 4 cards from people from the Southgate ward... 

I'll end with a quote form President Monson's last talk he gave in April 2017:

"We live in a time of great trouble and wickedness. What will protect us from the sin and evil so prevalent in the world today? I maintain that a strong testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and of His gospel will help see us through to safety. If you are not reading the Book of Mormon each day, please do so. If you will read it prayerfully and with a sincere desire to know the truth, the Holy Ghost will manifest its truth to you. If it is true—and I solemnly testify that it is—then Joseph Smith was a prophet who saw God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ."

Sok szeretettel, 

        Udy Elder

Today we got our transfer calls...

January 2, 2018

Boldog Új Évet, (Happy New Year)

Today we got our transfer calls to find out where be will be going for the next 9 weeks. I will be staying here in Kaposvár, but Cushing Elder is being transferred. So tomorrow we will head to Budapest, and I will pick up my new companion and get a hot start on the new year. 

On Dec 23rd we had our big Christmas event where we used a projector and showed a bunch of videos on the street and talked to a lot of people. It was successful. There were a handful of people we got to come off the street and into the church, where there was a little Christmas program going on.  We gave them Books of Mormon and a few of them showed up to Church the next day.

On the train with my new nativity

On Christmas Eve we had a sleepover with the other elders here in Kaposvar and on Christmas morning I opened my many wrapped gifts under the Christmas tree as usual, but this time the tree was drawn on a piece of paper and not an actual tree. On Christmas we took a 30 minute train ride to a member who fed us some tasty Hungarian food: Cabbage soup, duck, bacon- wrapped chicken, potatoes, it was quite the treat.   It's crazy that it is 2018 already. The time has gone by fast. I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Some service we did a couple weeks ago

Service

The Hot Fries and the Funyuns survived in the mail and I already ate them all. They were really good. How is BYU basketball doing? Don’t forget to send me updates ;) 

 - Udy Elder