We went Christmas Caroling

November 26, 2018

Jó reggelt mindenkinek! (Good morning everyone)

On Saturday we tried a finding activity that I have never tried before. We went  Christmas caroling around the wealthier neighborhoods in Buda, and I was shocked by people's reactions. There were 4 of us, and we would sing a song, and then afterwards we explained who we are, why we are here, and that Christmas is soon approaching and we would love to come back in a week or 2 to share the Christmas story with all of them. People would ask us when we could come back. We were only able to do this for about 30 minutes because of time, but a couple of families agreed for us to come back, so we for sure are going to try Christmas caroling in November again. 

Christmas caroling

As office secretaries we have to plan all of the travel for the Romanian missionaries and buy their train/plane tickets. Since trains don't run as frequently over there, and the cities can be really far away from each other, we handle the travel. My companion Elder Burnett, has always done it by himself, but now President Hettinger wanted us to both arrange the travel. So this past week I learned how to plan travel for all the Romanian missionaries during their exchanges, zone conferences, etc. Also, this past week President Hettinger wanted information on all the baptisms in Hungary over the past 3 years, so I made a spreadsheet with some graphs to interpret the data. This is good practice for me because when I am older I will probably be doing the same thing only with dollar signs, haha. 

Some Hungarian food that I have tried and have liked is pökölt, which is a stew that is usually served on pasta. It consists of a meat, like beef, paprika, and some vegetables. It is probably my favorite Hungarian dish.

Something new that I tried this week at a restaurant that was good was something called Hortobágyi Palacsinta. It is like a crepe that is filled with meat and a paprika sauce. It is pretty similar to the pökölt, but instead of eating it on pasta it is inside of a crepe with sauce on top. 

I haven't gotten permission to drive yet, because I have yet to take the test, but maybe this week I will get it. I have been fed goulash, and it is good but not my favorite. I prefer the pökölt.   We have some investigators but the problem is getting them progressing. Hopefully some of the new ones we have will start. We just got the materials for “Light the World” last week. I’m not quite sure what special thing we will do for it, but I think we will make some sort of plan. Light the World initiative 2018  That is good that you had the missionaries over for Thanksgiving dinner. We also had a Thanksgiving dinner because we were fed by a senior missionary couple that day. 

Thanksgiving dinner with the Russell's

Last week on P-day we went to a communist statues park called Memento Park in Budapest.  Here are some pictures from the park.

  

Sok szerettel,

Udy elder

We took a 2 1/2 hour trip to the Romanian border

November 19, 2018

Jó reggelt mindenkinek!  (Good morning everyone)

Budapest

Life in the office has pretty much stayed the same, except we took a road trip to Romania this week. Both of the new APs and I needed permission to drive because in Hungary if you have been inside the country for longer than a year then your drivers license is no longer valid. But all you have to do is cross the border and get your passport stamped, and then you are all good to go. So we took a 2 1/2 hour trip to the Romanian border, and then just turned around at the closest exit. On our way back we had lunch in Szeged, my previous area, which was nice. I just need to fill out some paperwork and then I should be good to drive. 

Hungarian/Romanian border

Before the Hinckleys, the new senior couple, came to the office we wrote a list of all the things we do so President Hettinger could allocate our responsibilities. But I guess I got the short end of the stick or something because all of my responsibilities stayed the same, which means my work load hasn’t changed. Last p-day President Hettinger took us out to lunch at a nice Indian restaurant and then we went to some Labyrinths in Budapest, where Dracula stayed for a time when he was imprisoned. It was pretty cool.   

Labyrinth

With all of the stuff we do in the office we manage to teach a handful of people. These are some of the people we have been teaching lately.  

'I', she has been to church 2 times, she is about 60 years old.  We have seen her faith grow. 

'P' is a man who lives in Romania, and we teach him over Skype. His wife is a recent convert and was baptized earlier this year.

'S', he has been to church once, he is a police officer in Budapest, about 30 years old. He has been gone and traveling for the past few weeks so we haven't been able to meet with him but we have stayed in touch through Facebook. He has a Book of Mormon and apparently read the entire book. I even saw that he posted a picture of himself with the Book of Mormon on Facebook. 

The house looks really good, and that must be tiring to paint all those tall walls. That would be interesting if Tyler got a job in Seattle. Sok szeretettel,

Udy Elder

New office space, driving certification, and stake conference

November 13, 2018

Jó reggelt! (Good morning)

This was a crazy week and we did a lot of stuff. Since we got a new Senior couple in the office, that meant we had to be kicked out of our previous space and create more office space. So we turned the old little lobby that used to be next to the mission office into our new office space. We had to move a bunch of stuff. And we saw that we have extra computer monitors in storage that no one is using, so we decided why not have 2. So now we each work with 2 computer monitors, and it is great. Two monitors makes it a lot easier to look at different windows at the same time.

My Desk

Our new work space

Also we got 2 new APs that came to the office this week, so it will be nice to get to know them. One is from Nevada (McCann) and the other is from Australia (Fales). Also we have been watching the driving videos with the new APs, so we can all get certified to drive here. President said I will probably be here in the office for a long time, so he wants me driving. I don't know what I did to deserve this, but for some reason I have been sentenced to prison (the office). In Hungary if you are a foreigner that immigrates with a driver’s license you have one year to drive. If you have been in the country over a year, you have to cross the border and come back to be eligible to drive. So sometime soon we will be taking a road trip to Romania which will be fun. 

This week we taught another person who lives in Romania over Skype. He is a native Hungarian and his wife was baptized earlier this year. He really enjoyed our lesson and has happy to be able to speak in Hungarian because he only knows a little Romanian. It is too bad we don't have any Hungarian speaking missionaries in those parts of Romania where there are a lot of Hungarians, but maybe one day. We also had stake conference this week. I have been lucky and have served in areas under the stake my entire mission, and this is the 3rd Hungary Budapest Stake conference that I've attended. It was exciting because there was a patriarch who was called. Hungary has gone a few years without having a patriarch so it was really exciting for everyone.  (What is a patriarch? click here)  Also I got to see a bunch of people, including a girl named Neli, who I started to teach in Székesfehérvár who was baptized last week.  

Sok szeretettel,

Udy Elder

We are spending our p-day with the Romanian APs and 2 elders going home

November 5, 2018

Sziasztok, (Hi)

Not a lot of crazy stuff happened last week. This e-mail will probably be pretty short because we are spending our p-day with the 2 Romanian APs and 2 Romanian elders that are going home, so we don't want to keep them waiting on us. We picked them up earlier from the airport, and we have some fun stuff planned. We are doing good. We met a few new people this past week and had some lessons with them. The woman we are teaching that came to church last week came again this week. We will do some re-modeling in the office this week because a new senior couple is coming. We will have to move to a different room. Also stake conference will be next week. That is about all for this week. 

Sok szeretettel, (Lots of love)

Udy Elder

A coat I tried on

Exchanges: Elders Bridges, Burnett, McCann, Udy