So now I am in a place called Komló. It is an interesting town. It is built on a bunch of big hills so each hill has its own little mini-town on it. We are on the biggest hill and in the largest mini-town, but there is just one main road that goes through the main part of town. Komló isn’t as compact as Eger so there are a lot fewer people on the streets. On Saturday and Sunday the streets are almost empty and the stoplights just flash yellow after about 5pm because there is so little traffic. Komló hasn’t been open for missionary work that long and so there are only about six members here. We don’t have our own branchhouse, but have to take a 30-minute bus ride to Pécs for church.
Pécs’s branch is SO AWESOME! There are like 40 active members and they don’t even need help from the missionaries to function! Church is the regular three hour schedule. After church this week we hold a missionary meeting and there are three or four youth and a few older members who are awesome branch missionaries. One kid, Bencen, is saving money to go on a mission soon and a young woman from Pécs is currently serving a mission in Salt Lake City, UT. I actually met her last November. If I stay here for two transfers I will see her when she comes home. That would be really cool.
My new companion, Christensen elder, is pretty cool. Right now, he and I are the only missionaries in Komló. Hopefully we will be able to help some more people from Komló find the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Oh just so you know one of the sister missionaries who is teaching Éva is Nester Növér not Ester. I got her name wrong when I mentioned her before.
Ok, so a kind of funny thing happened to me this week. On transfer days we are always in a huge rush trying to catch trains and buses with luggage. One of my suitcases is the kind that has four little wheels instead of two larger ones. My companion and I were running to the bus stop in a hurry to catch the bus. I’m pulling the four-wheeled suitcase and it is unusually hard. So I stop and check it out—because the bus left when we we’re like 20 feet from it—and one of the wheels got stuck and was just grinding on the pavement. That was bad news, and I couldn’t do anything to fix it and didn't have any time anyway. Needless to say, after traveling from our apartment to the train station in Eger, from a train station in Budapest to the mission home and back, from the train station in Pécs to the bus station, and then from the bus station in Komló to our apartment the wheel that got stuck didn't really exist anymore. Most of it had been ground dust and the bottom part of my suitcase was ripped up from dragging on the ground. The only good news is that I got a nice, hard workout dragging that heavy suitcase all over Hungary! So after one transfer one of my suitcases is dead. I’ll figure something out for the next time I move.The important thing is that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored onto the earth and that we can know if it is real or not by reading the Book of Mormon, praying about it and following what the Lord has told us through it. I know that our lives can and will improve if we live the principles and commandments of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is difficult to change our bad habits—and sometimes even harder to change our mediocre habits into good habits—but if we consistently follow the teachings of Jesus Christ life will be more fulfilling, enjoyable, and just better. I love this Gospel and I have a testimony that it is true and that the happiness it brings is worth the effort it requires. Like everyone else, there are a lot of things about me that need changing, but still my testimony stands firm.
Thanks for all of your love, support, emails, and letters. Your emails and letters are appreciated VERY MUCH! I hope I will be able to respond to all of them. It was hard in the MTC to write back and now I have even less time. Maybe I’ll just end up helping you work on the virtue of patience! haha. Just kidding. (Well, sort of.)
~Anderson elder
