Since we have no baptismal font, we went to a local indoor pool

March 26, 2018

Szervusztok,

Last week was really good for us. We had a baptism for a 13 year old girl.  Her mom is a single mom with three daughters and just recently started to return to activity in the church. Since we have no baptismal font, we went to a local indoor pool to perform the baptism. The branch president was the one to baptize her and it went well. We plan on having another baptism for her little 8 year old sister, but she said she wants to be baptized on her 9th birthday on April 14th.

And then on Sunday we confirmed her a member of the church, and the stake president for the Hungary Budapest stake was also there because he was visiting our branch. The stake president’s name is Southwick elnök and he is actually an American from Idaho. He was a missionary here years ago and married a Hungarian girl, so now he lives here in Hungary and is the stake president and he looks super young. I think he is only in his 30s. Listening to him speak during church was so much easier to understand just because the way he puts sentences together as an English native speaker as compared to a native Hungarian speaker. 

Last p-day we were just walking around the town and we decided to walk in one of the dozen Catholic temples in the city.  Mass was starting so we decided we might as well just stay and attend. It was a little weird because everyone got up to take the sacrament except the two Mormon missionaries sitting in the back. And then when it was over, and we walked out onto the street, everyone was being really nice to us because they thought we were Catholic priests, haha.   

At night there are lights that light up downtown 

I don’t really know what is in the water. I just know it causes missionaries to lose their hair. My companion takes some pills to keep his hair intact and it has worked for him so I just decided to do the same thing. And I have yet to be fed by a member here. Missionaries just don’t get fed too often here, we just have to fend for ourselves most the time.

View from the roof of our 10-story apartment building

View from the roof of our 10-story apartment building

Sok szeretettel,

     Udy Elder

Zone Conference, YSA Conference, and Hair Loss???

March 19, 2018

Hellosztok, (Hello)

     On Wednesday the whole west side of the mission went up to Budapest because Elder Paul Johnson, the President of the Europe Area for the Church, came to visit our mission. It was really good to hear from him. 

Budapest

Surdu, Udy, North Elders at zone conference in Budapest

Pizza lunch at zone conference

Also this week there was a Young Single Adult activity held here in Székesfehérvár for all of the Young single adults in Hungary. They came on Friday and stayed unitl Sunday. It was good because we never had to cook because we could just go over to the church and they would have food for us. Also there were 3 senior missionary couples who came. And because the activity lasted until Sunday our attendance at sacrament meeting was practically doubled from just a bunch of young adults. 

Howard and Udy Elders with Russell Elder and Russel Nover--the new YSA missionaries

We went to a city called Mór to teach one of our investigators. It is actually outside of our area because it is further than 25 kilometers away from us, but we have permission to go out there since we our teaching a promising investigator with a baptismal date. We talked about the baptismal program and everything looks good, so we should have a baptism on Saturday which is exciting.

Also this week on March 15th there was a Hungarian holiday that celebrates the independence of the Kingdom of Hungary from the Austrian Empire of 1848. It is sort of like our July fourth I guess. Outside of our apartment building there were dudes riding horses dressed up in old military gear and it was cool to see.

Also our apartment has a history of missionaries losing a bunch of hair because of the shower water hahaha. The last missionaries who served here all lost a good noticeable portion of their hair. SO to combat the hair loss, I bought some pills that are supposed to keep my hair from falling out. Hopefully they work haha.   

That’s crazy you guys are finally doing the remodeling. You might be able to finish in under 2 years.

Sziasztok,

Udy Elder

From Kaposvár to Szekesfehérvár

March 12, 2018

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

        This week I was transferred from Kaposvár to Székesfehérvár. This town has over 100,000 people and seems like it is twice the size as Kaposvár. On top of that there is only one missionary companionship in the city, so my area is now about 4 times as big. My new companion is Howard Elder. He is from somewhere near Olympia Washington and has been on his mission for about a year. So I am still 4 for 4 for no companions from Utah. And he already has spent 4 months here in Székesfehérvár so he will be here for at least 6 months. Since we are the only companionship, we get to go to Dunaújváros for our district meetings. It takes us about and hour and a half  to travel there. It’s crazy because it takes us longer to go to district meeting than it does for us to go to Budapest. And since my companion is the district leader and the zone leaders are in Dunaújváros, we get to go on a ton of splits this transfer which will be good. 

The Zone leaders actually came here for splits last week. And Ballard Elder, one of the zone leaders, and I were just talking to people on the street and we talk to these two young girls and the one actually said she was Mormon, but I didn’t believe her because that just doesn’t happen here. I thought she was trying to mess with us or something. But it was only like my second day here, so I didn’t know anyone, but it turns out she actually was a church member which was funny.  Then we used our whiteboard and were asking people the question "Kicsodák a próféták" which doesn’t really have a direct translation but it sort of means "Who the heck are the prophets?" I thought it wasn’t going to work very well, but we got like 10 phone numbers in just about an hour, so it was successful. 

Then on Sunday the zone leaders came back to hold a baptismal interview for one of our investigators. She is a 13 year old girl whose mom was baptized when she was 16, but then she was inactive for a long time and just came back to activity a few months ago, and the missionaries started to teach her two daughters. So we will have a baptism in 2 weeks which is exciting, 

In this city there are a bunch of 10 story apartment buildings that were built during the Soviet era. These buildings dot the country all over. They are pretty much identical and have a very sketchy small elevator.

A Bunch of Ten Story Apartment Buildings

We live on the 8th floor of one, and we have a good view of the city which is cool. From our apartment we can spot 9 different churches. 

View From Our Apartment

And we can also see our "meeting house" which is upstairs from a children's play house.

Our Branch Meeting House

Today for p-day we went to tour a castle here in Sékesfehérvar called Bory vár. 

Howard Elder and Udy Elder at Bory Vár

This town used to be the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary so it has a lot of history and it used to be the place where they crown the Kings. The castle was really cool to see. This town actually has stuff to see and things to do, so that should make p-days a little more interesting. 

- Udy Elder

I'm being transferred to....

February 6, 2018

Szervusztok mindenkinek, (Hello everyone)

This past week was a good one for us. In our apartment we had about 8 Books of Mormon laying around that were damaged somehow either by water or the cover was faded.  So we were going to just throw them away until we decided that we could write little short testimonies in them and just place them in random spots in the city and put a sign on each one that says “free book”. So that is what we did. And then when I was calling some people to remind them about our English class, the first guy I talked to said he found one of our books and he will read it, which was cool. 

Also it was really cold this week and there was a ton of snow, so I decided I should probably buy a hat. And I got a really nice winter hat that was on clearance for 700 forint which is less than 3 dollars. Its nice how most things here are really cheap.

Snow!

Fresh new hat

This past week I hit my 6 month mark on my mission, so keeping with tradition I burned an ugly tie that was just laying around our apartment. I managed to only get one tiny burn on my hand. It’s crazy that I have been on my mission for 6 months already. 

We also found out officially this week who will be the next mission president. In July when our mission and the Romanian mission combine, President Szabadkai is leaving. But the current mission president of the Romanian mission, President Hettinger, will be the new mission president. It's kind of sad because the mission president will no longer be Hungarian, but it will still be good. 

Also this past week while we were teaching a family, they asked us if we are able to baptize them which is a great way to finish off my 4-month stay here in Kaposvár. Tomorrow is transfer day and I am being transferred to Székesfehérvár. I'll still be in the southwest zone, but I'll be a lot closer to Budapest. And there is only 1 missionary companionship in the city so it will be different than here in Kaposvár. But a new city means new adventures so I am looking forward to it. 

To answer your question, I don’t really know why p-days are moved on transfer week. Transfers are always on a Wednesday and we get a call on Tuesday morning form the mission president or the APs telling us where we are going. So maybe since transfers are on Wednesday, having the Tuesday before be a p-day helps missionaries pack and prepare to leave. As for tracting, most of the areas here in Hungary are pretty big population wise, so I think most areas probably take at least a year or close to a year to tract all of it. In my 4 months here, I probably tracted about a 1/3 of our area inside of Kaposvár. That’s Gooooood that BYU won (against St. Mary’s) hopefully they can beat Gonzaga. 

Sok szeretettel, (Lots of love)

    Udy Elder