Sziasztok mindenki!
Hungary is pretty awesome to say the least. The flight was seven and a half hours from New York to Austria. That was LONG to say the least. But we talked to an old Albanian man who spoke horribly broken English for hours. It was weird and awesome at the same time. And it was strange hearing and seeing everything in German. Getting off the airplane in Budapest was really weird because everyone was speaking in Hungarian and everything was written in Hungarian! Haha. Who would have guessed? Sorry if y's and z's are switched. The keyboards are different here of course.
When we got to the mission home the Assistants to the President took each of us out to go and talk to people. That was really neat! Except that whenever they said something it was gibberish. Haha. But the AP's understood everything so it was ok. It was fun talking to people. Two people gave us their phone numbers too! Hungarians are much more willing to learn about Christ than I had thought. That night we took a little tour of the city and I took some pictures of the amazingness of Budapest! It is so pretty!
The next day we went on a slow five mile jog around Budapest! That was really cool. I have a bunch of pictures from the run. And then we got our trainers. My trainer is named Lindsay Elder and he is pretty cool. My first area is Eger! It's a city about a hour east of Budapest. Eger is really pretty too.
During two days of the week a car rally was held in Eger. That was really cool. I've been able to teach a little when we meet with people, but I can barely understand anything at all when Hungarians speak. It's probably the most frustrating thing in the entire world! But I know that if I work hard the language will come. I just have to be patient, which is sort of hard right now. Haha. For some reason it was really weird hearing small children speak Hungarian. I thought, "What?! Even the babies speak Hungarian?!" Haha. Also, the dogs really do understand more Hungarian than I do! Haha. Our teachers in the MTC told us about that, and it's true!
We have a few people who we are currently teaching. Csilla comes to church a lot, which is awesome, but she struggles with reading the Book of Mormon and she loses faith in God easily when life gets hard. But she is awesome.
I had to teach English the first day I got to Eger and that was making me super nervous! But my trainer had pity for me and let me teach the profi (pro/advanced) class so I got to speak English and they did too. Only two people came to the profi class. We read a story and I corrected their mistakes in pronunciation and helped them with any questions that they had. I thought that they might have been bored, but they said that they enjoyed it and it helped them out a lot.
Church was interesting. Oh! We have General Conference next week. We didn't go back into Budapest to watch it there. We'll just get a copy and play it in the Branch House next week or sometime soon. And I'll be listening to it in English in one ear and Hungarian in the other. Haha. There's no way that I could understand it in Hungarian already. So church was interesting. We had our fast and testimony meeting. Only about 12 people came not including us missionaries (there are four of us in Eger). One of our investigators, Csilla, came! But we'll have to work on the rest a bit more and try to help them understand how important it really is. We only have two priesthood holders, but they are pretty cool. With so few people at church I bore about a ten minute testimony. In Hungarian of course. That was hard, but they understood most of what I said! It was a good meeting overall, I felt the Spirit there and that is what counts. And we don't have three meetings here we only have two. There aren't enough people to give callings for that. And Erikson Elder (from the other companionship) taught the Sunday School class.
Tudom hogy Jézus Krisztus él és szeret minket. Tudom hogy Joseph Smith lefordította a Mormon Könyvét és Joseph Smith által Jézus Krisztus vissaálította az evangéliumét. That says, "I know that Jesus Christ lives and loves us. I know that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon and that Jesus Christ restored His Gospel through Joseph Smith."
Thanks for everything! I love you all! Sok szeretettel (with much love)!
Anderson Elder
