A Car Crash

Sziasztok!

Last week was pretty exciting. I’ll start off with the crazy part! On Thursday Elder Hintze—he’s American even though his name looks foreign—and I were on splits, streeting on opposite sides of the Várkerület. I was about to talk to a couple when I heard a crash behind me. I turned around, hearing tires screeching as a big, white van parked at the side of the street jerked back and forth. Obviously there had been a car crash. I asked the couple who I had just approached if they had a cell phone, but they were Austrian and didn’t understand Hungarian and were of no help. They just pointed to a nearby payphone. I didn’t have any money and didn’t want to deal with a payphone anyway so I gave up the idea of calling for help. Running to where the crash had occurred I saw that a car was wedged between the white van and another parked car. I was the first person to reach the car; everyone else just stood where they were and stared. The driver of the crashed car was an older woman. She was conscious so I gave her a thumbs up sign and asked her if she was okay. She couldn’t hear me but nodded her head that she was all right. In hindsight I should have ran around and opened the door for her and helped her out, but I wasn’t much more helpful than the rest of the onlookers. The driver got out of her car looking really dazed and not at all like she was all there—she was probably in shock or something. I asked her again if she was okay and she just gave me this weird look. Then I looked at her car’s license plate and saw a big “A” which stands for Austria. So she was Austrian too and couldn’t speak Hungarian, and I was totally stumped as to what I should do. By then a big crowd of people had gathered behind me and they were all just staring at the lady. A few minutes later someone who spoke German finally arrived and began talking to her. Elder Hintze and I then left, not knowing how we could be of any help. It was pretty crazy. Apparently this lady was slow to accelerate when the cars ahead of her started to go. A bus behind her probably assumed that she would get going along with the other cars and when she didn’t it slammed into her. It rammed her car from behind and skidded it across the other lane of traffic where it got wedged between two parked cars. The bus driver looked pretty distraught, as he should have, because it was probably his fault. If so, he’ll likely lose his job. So that was a pretty intense experience.

Missionary work has been getting more difficult lately. Most of the people we’re trying to teach don’t seem to want to meet with us anymore. They’re just too nice to say no which, I guess, is kind of nice of them in a way. But it’s not much fun having people continuously put off meeting with us either. So we are spending more time trying to find people to teach—one of the more difficult and less enjoyable aspects of missionary work—although finding makes teaching all the more enjoyable! If everything was fun and enjoyable and perfect, then we wouldn’t even be able to enjoy it. We only truly enjoy good times when we have had to go through hard times. The scripture in 2 Nephi chapter 2 explains that concept well I think.

Christmas season is coming! The stores here in Sopron are starting to show their Christmas wares and the city is putting up little Christmas trees on stoplights and other decorations all over the place. I’m way excited!

Well I better get going now. Thanks for everything! I hope all is going well back in America! Watch out for that nasty flu! It’s not that bad over here. Helló!

~Anderson elder