Canned Food Is Heavy!

Sziasztok!

Last week was a lot of fun. We got to spend a lot of time doing service for a member. His mother passed away a few months ago and so we helped him move her things out of her old apartment and to his home. The not so fun part was that her apartment was on the fourth floor of an apartment building! In Hungary the ground floor doesn’t count as the first floor so there were four flights of stairs. And we had to carry a bunch of cabinets and stuff and it was hard! Haha. But it was a lot of fun too. We made two trips and the other Elders came so that was really good. It was just fun to do service and help someone out. The moving reminded me of when Davie and I worked at the furniture shop together moving furniture all over Stanwood and the Island.

On Wednesday it was our investigator’s (Sándor) birthday and Elder Musters’ birthday too and so we had a little party at a members house and it was really cool. My companion, Elder Gardenhire, made Elder Musters’ “cake” and it was hilarious! He cut a roll in half, covered it in chocolate frosting and put 21 matches in the middle and so it was really cool to light!

Friday was really intense physically. We helped out the same member again and moved a bunch of canned food out of the pantry. Canned food is really heavy! Haha. And then we had to run to the bus so that we wouldn’t miss it. And then later that day we had soccer and we were running late and we didn’t have time to wait for a bus so we just ran to the soccer field which was a 10 minute run! And then we played soccer for an hour and a half! But then we had a program after that and they fed us, but we weren’t expecting that so our program ran kind of long and we had to run to the bus stop! It is almost impossible to be on-time to anything as a missionary! A member in Sopron called it the “missionary sickness.” Haha.

Sándor is doing really well! If everything goes according to plan then he’ll get married on April 12th and his baptism will be on the 17th! So we are all really excited for that! He is a great guy.

Sunday was really good too. The meetings were great and then after church we went with a part-member family back to their home, which is about an hour and a half drive by car! We taught the husband, who is a really awesome guy, but religious things are pretty strange to him. We are hoping that he will continue to progress.

Well I’m going to head out now. I love you all thanks a ton!

~Anderson elder

Friends in High Places

Sziasztok!

Last week was really neat. On Thursday we helped a member move furniture from his mother’s old apartment which was on the 4th floor of her building. We had to carry some big cabinets all the way down the stairs and that was no fun at all! Haha. Well, it was kind of fun, but it was painful too! It is always good to do service. This week on Thursday and Friday we will get to finish helping him!

Last Thursday night we went to the member’s house whose husband is Syrian. We had a really good lesson with her and her daughter. And the way cool part was that their dad was outside cooking dinner and so we finally got to meet him! He is a really cool guy. He made a joke about how he was Osama Bin Laden’s brother and then took it back and spit on the ground, basically saying that Osama is dirt. Haha. He doesn’t speak the best Hungarian, so it was kind of funny listening to him. He was super nice and wouldn’t let us leave until we had eaten a ton of the food he had cooked. And it was really good! So that was a really fun experience. The only bad part was that since he wouldn’t let us go till we had stuffed ourselves with food, we were really late to a meeting with our ward mission leader. That was OK though, because he recently returned from his mission totally understood.

Friday was Zone Conference and it was a blast as usual! The coolest part of the day was when we were leaving and we had to hurry to catch our train. By the time we got to the train station we had only five minutes left until the train departed, and when we got to the ticket counters and there were giant lines of people already waiting! We almost gave up, but one of us in the district saw that some other elders were already in line. So we had them buy our tickets and then we ran as fast as we could to the train. We jumped on the last car and not even 30 seconds later the train started to leave! It was perfect timing! Then we had to walk through the entire train looking for six open seats, but it was full of people and we didn’t find any room until we got the the bicycle car. It was completely empty—since there were no seats—so we just decided to stay in there. It was a blast!

On Saturday one of the other elder’s investigators, Kriszti (Kree-stee), got baptized. It was a really good service. She is awesome and was definitely prepared by the Lord.

I would talk more about our investigators, but it’s probably not a good idea to talk about other people’s lives since this is a blog, open for everyone to read. Haha. But basically they are doing awesome! Our main investigator Sándor is especially awesome.

Thanks for everything! I love you all!

~Anderson elder

Sodbusters

Sziasztok!

First of all, Monday was a national holiday and everything was closed. So now Elder Gardenhire and I have to squeeze emailing and shopping into our normal week—and that is no fun! Haha. I forgot what the holiday is called, but it is in commemoration of a nonviolent revolution that happened in the late 1800s. The Hungarians don’t really do anything to celebrate the day; it’s kind of like President’s Day in the US.

So on Monday we went with a few of the ward members to another member’s house way out in the boonies to help them out on their little farm. It was a cool experience because we live in kind of a big city, but thirty minutes away there is nothing but farmland. We planted some trees and raked up dead leaves, but the hardest part was digging. We dug up tons of dirt to prepare the soil for planting. It’s kind of like we were doing the work of a plow—we just dug up the dirt so that it wasn’t all hard and compacted. It was really hard work! Haha. But it was a lot of fun.

There is a member here in Kecskemét whose husband is from Syria. She and her daughter both speak Arabic really well and they taught us how to say a few things. So that was kind of cool! They are a great family, but unfortunately the dad doesn’t like us for some reason. But I’m sure he’s a great guy.

One of our investigators is doing especially great! He’s having a little bit of a hard time with tithing, because he is in a really difficult economic situation. But he has faith that everything will work out. He is getting married on April 12th and plans to be baptizes sometime after that! So we are now working on turning him from an investigator to a member.

Being senior companion is pretty interesting. For some reason I understand and speak the language so much better than I did last transfer. Maybe it’s because I have to understand it now. I don’t have anyone to rely on to help me; instead, people are now relying on me to understand! Weird.

Well I have to go now. We are going to teach a really cool guy named Béla (bay-law)! Being a missionary is awesome! Time just goes by way too fast! I love this gospel and I love my Savior Jesus Christ!

~Anderson elder

A Sweet Welcome

Helló!

Hey everyone! Last week was pretty fun! So to start off, transfers went really smooth and everything was great. As we got to Kecskemét—it is way pretty and looks way cool—my suitcase felt like it was getting heavier. I look down at it and one of the wheels is like bending into the suitcase and before long it just stopped rolling and started to grind away like my first suitcase!! NOO! So both of my original suitcases that I bought for my mission have died. At least this one lasted a lot longer than the first. I’m not going to buy a new one though since they cost a lot. Instead I’m going to get a little handcart thing that I can strap my suitcase to! A few elders here have already done that.

But that’s not all. I walk into my new apartment and it is super awesome! It is way bigger than the one in Békéscsaba and I’m loving it. Then I pick up my coat to put it away and my camera falls out of my pocket and lands on the wood floor. Lame. So my small camera broke! My other camera is fine, thank goodness. I would die if it broke.

Before I got to Kecskemét the weather was super nice and in the 60s I think. And then yesterday it snowed. Haha. So I got a really sweet welcome to Kecskemét!

The members here are awesome and our strongest investigator, Sándor (Sándors are like Johns in America, there seem to be tons of them) is awesome and way strong. As soon as he is able to get married, he’ll be baptized. Getting married is a lot harder here in Hungary, and it is more expensive, but he is willing to sacrifice. He loves church and carries his Book of Mormon almost everywhere he goes.

My new companion, Elder Gardenhire, is so cool. He is from Utah, but has moved a lot in his life so he doesn’t consider Utah as his home. He is one of the most optimistic people ever and one of the most charitable too. He always focuses on people’s strengths and so I am going to absorb some of his awesomeness into my own character!

It is really fun being a senior companion! But it is strange that now I can’t ask for advice from my companion about the language and that now I have to focus and understand everything that is being said. But I’m not worried at all; I don’t worry as much as I used too and that is super cool.

I’m glad that I am able to serve a mission. I have gained a great love and appreciation for this Gospel. I am incredibly grateful to be able to help others become much happier through the Gospel of Christ. I basically think that everything is awesome! That pretty much sums it up! I believe with all my heart and soul that Jesus Christ’s complete gospel has been restored with His authority and power! And it is great to be able to share this message with others.

~Anderson elder

Kecskemét

Helló!

Last week was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my journal and old planner with me today so I can’t remember a lot of the most cool stuff! The main thing is that this week is transfers and I’m leaving Békéscsaba and going to Kecskemét! I’ll be the senior companion for the first time with a really cool elder who is in his sixth transfer so language won’t be a problem for us. I got off pretty easy. Elder Larson, who is in my MTC group, is becoming the Branch President in Eger, where I started my mission, and going senior at the same time! That’ll be crazy for him! I’m way excited to go to Kecskemét! It’s a ward too! With about 60 active members! It’ll be a lot different from Békéscsaba! So basically, I am super excited.

We had a really cool program with an especially cool family last week. We knew that they had kids so we brought a bunch of plastic cups to build a gospel pyramid. On the bottom layer we put twelve cups representing the twelve apostles; our next layer represented basic gospel doctrines; the third layer had cups for the First Presidency; the next layer stood for revelation and authority; and the single cup at the very top represented Christ. Using this cup pyramid, we taught this family about when Christ was on the earth and about the apostasy and the restoration. We had focused the lesson on teaching the kids, but the coolest part was that even though we were trying to teach using simple concepts so that they would understand, their mom, Emese, explained it even better! We would say something we thought was pretty simple and then she would restate what we had just said in even more simple, perfect, mommy-to-child language! So she helped us teach her kids about the restoration—and it was awesome! I hope that she will progress.

Our family in Doboz is struggling to get to church and that is pretty disappointing because they are so cool. But they’ll get stronger I’m sure.

Our other family is doing great and now that both the mom and dad are investigating they are getting more serious. They come to church now and it is great! They’re awesome.

My companion and I found a playground near our apartment while running last week and it is so cool! Haha. Our favorite part is this small pole with a platform to stand on while it spins really fast. You run up to the pole and jump on the platform in a kind of sitting down position, then you try to stand up while the spinning poles tries to throw you off! It is a really good way to wake up in the morning!

Well I’m going to go now. Everybody read your scriptures and pray to know what your Heavenly Father wants you to do to be happy! Have a great week! I know that I will!

~Anderson elder