Braden's Super Cool Mission to Hungary!

A Final Note from Hungary

2011-02-01T11:30:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

This past week was a blur, a really sad blur. Saying goodbye to so many amazing people has been incredibly difficult! I can’t begin to describe my feelings about leaving Hungary. I seem almost bi-polar! One moment I’m really excited to go home and get back to school, and then the next moment I’m so sad to leave Hungary and the wonderful people here whom I love so much! I wish I could just rip Hungary out of Europe and stick it in Montana or Wyoming – that would be the best solution I think. It’s really depressing that I might never see these people again. I would love to come back but, sadly, there is no guarantee.

It is really humbling to have people express over and over their heartfelt gratitude for me and for what I’ve done, especially since I feel like I haven’t done much to be worthy of such thanks. I’ve worked hard, and have tried to improve whenever I slowed down, to teach this wonderful gospel and share my happiness with the people of Hungary – that’s all. Serving here has been really difficult and stressful, but when I think about the friendships I’ve made and the good experiences I’ve had, the difficult times seem small and insignificant in comparison. I can easily say that my experience here in Hungary has been the absolute best experience of my life! I am so grateful that I had this opportunity to serve a mission! I thank everyone for all of the support, love, letters, and emails you have sent to me over the past two years!

~Anderson elder

The Coolest Experience Ever

2011-01-24T14:30:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Yesterday was one of the best days of my mission! Does anyone remember that one crazy day in Érd I mentioned last summer when my companion and I were tabling and a drunk, homeless man volunteered to help us? The first person he approached was a girl named Nóra who actually came over and talked to us. She began meeting with us regularly and eventually became a strong investigator. But then she moved to France. I feared that might be the last I heard of her until I got a surprise email from her telling me that she was getting baptized on October 30th in France. Of course I was super happy!

A few weeks after her baptism, she told me that she would be coming back to Hungary for a visit around Christmas time. I was hoping that I could meet her in Érd before leaving Hungary, but she never replied to my email. And then yesterday she walked into the branch house in Pápa for Sacrament Meeting!! My jaw dropped and I was almost speechless. Her timing was pretty good because I was giving my last talk in church as a fulltime missionary. After Sacrament Meeting ended, I got to talk to her and it was the coolest experience EVER! She showed me her French baptismal certificate and told me how happy she is. It was amazing to hear her talk about the gospel and the church and to see how strong her testimony is!!!

During this whole time I was in shock to be talking to Nóra, my old investigator with whom I had struggled to teach the gospel and resolve lingering doubts before she basically just disappeared into France. And now here she was: a strong, dedicated member of the Church of Jesus Christ with a powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. To think that I was able to help her in the very beginning; well, there is NO better feeling in the world than knowing that you have made a difference for the better in someone's life! I still can't believe how fast yesterday went by, but I will never forget it. Nor will I forget my personal testimony that the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 18:15 really is true!

~Anderson elder

Working with the Members

2011-01-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

I don't have much to write about today since I just wrote a few days ago. Four of our investigators came to church on Sunday and they really enjoyed it! That’s pretty exciting.

This week will be interesting because our mission president wants us to place special focus on meeting with the members so that we can build our relationships with them and get referrals from them. I’m sure that will be really fun because members can be the best missionaries ever! So please pray for us and the members here in Pápa this week!

~Anderson elder

A Crazy Week

2011-01-14T12:40:00.000-08:00

Helló!

Well this week has been pretty crazy and busy which is why I didn’t have time to write until today. One thing that is kind of frustrating for me right now is that people have started referring to my mission in the past tense! My mission wasn’t great! It IS great! I haven’t left yet! It is really weird to think that I only have a few short weeks left – so I try not to think about it.

Things in Pápa are doing really well. We started a branch family night that has really helped our investigators get to know the members and develop friendships with them. Such friendships are important because we missionaries eventually always leave, but the members don’t. The people we are teaching are doing well and getting more serious about studying the gospel! It is so neat to see them progress! I know that as they continue to come to church and read the scriptures they’ll gain a testimony and receive an answer from God that this really is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness and that with this gospel they can find true peace and happiness in their lives! This gospel has blessed my life in so many ways and it is so cool to see others progress and receive those same blessings!

~Anderson elder

A Miracle

2011-01-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

Boldog Új Évet!

Happy New Year! Life goes by way too fast!

The coolest thing that happened last week was when Elder Austin and I along with Lackó, one of the youth here, tried to visit a few inactive members. We couldn’t get in touch with the one we looked for first so we decided to try to visit someone who had been on our minds lately. He was really surprised and actually very happy to see us. He invited us in and we had a super long program with him.

To make a long story short, this less active member told us that he regrets leaving the church and that he was happier when he was fully active! He kept on saying that. Something happened to him recently to change his heart and now he recognizes what he had once had in the past but is now missing. He came to church yesterday for the first time in a while and everybody was super glad to see him! He had such a good experience that he wants to come to all of the activities! What super great news!

The thing that was so neat about this experience is that we didn’t do anything! The Lord did all of the work and we just witnessed the wonderful blessings of His work! I really hope that this member will continue to come to church because he is such an awesome guy. So, the lesson for me is: don’t give up on people who aren’t active in the church. You never know when the Lord will step in and show us one of His miracles!

~Anderson elder

Boldog Új Évet!

2010-12-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

Boldog Új Évet!

I hope that everyone had a great Christmas! I did! It was really difficult to do missionary work though. Everyone was busy and so no one could meet with us. But on Monday we were able to find a really cool family while tracting and we had a really good program with them. So hopefully we'll be able to meet with them more!

Standing at the edge of frozen Lake Balaton.

On Christmas day, my companion and I drove down to the Balaton! (Lake Balaton is the largest lake in central Europe and a major tourist destination in Hungary.) It was freezing! Literally. The wind was soooo strong and the lake was almost completely frozen over. It was a fun experience.

Happy New Year!

~Anderson elder

Boldog Karácsonyt!

2010-12-20T14:10:00.000-08:00

Helló!

I don’t have much time to write today. My new companion is Elder Austin and he is from Mississippi. He’s way cool and we get along really well. Everything is going great here in Hungary! I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Boldog Karácsonyt!

~Anderson elder

Another Transfer

2010-12-13T11:55:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Well, transfer calls came this week! This transfer was a week shorter than usual so that the missionaries who are leaving Hungary wouldn’t have to travel during the crazy Christmas week. It is going to be really weird to see four of the missionaries from my Missionary Training Center (MTC) group go home on Wednesday. The way MTC assignments and transfers in the field work is that missionaries can choose to stay in the country for 15 transfers for a mission total of 101 weeks (three weeks short of a full two years) or 16 transfers in the field for a total of 107 weeks (two years plus three weeks). Four of the missionaries in my MTC group chose to serve for 15 transfers and one other Elder and I chose to serve for 16 transfers. More than half of my group is going to die (missionary slang for completing their service) in two days! That will really be weird.

I’m going to be training again! That’ll be exciting. On Wednesday I'll find out who I will be serving with.

Things are going well, but the work is still difficult. After handing out almost 3.000 – in Hungary, commas and periods are switched – fliers only about six new people came to our English class! We really need to figure out a better way to advertise. And as soon as we do we’ll be able to have a lot more success!

~Anderson elder

Mikulás

2010-12-06T11:30:00.000-08:00

Helló!

Last week was awesome! It snowed a few inches and that was great! The snow made driving a little interesting and REALLY slow, but even that was okay.

My companion and I are trying to get more people into our English class program because it is really weak right now. We put an announcement in the newspaper and passed out almost 3,000 fliers, so hopefully more people will start attending soon.

On Saturday we had a “Mikulás” party in the branch house! Mikulás is Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas in Hungarian. Here in Hungary Mikulás comes on the night of December 5th and the kids get candy and stuff on the morning of the 6th. So you can all be jealous because I already got to see Santa!

Sitting on the lap of Mikulás during a party at the branch house.

Our investigators are doing well. Unfortunately, one of them lives in a small village about 25 kilometers away from Pápa. It is extremely difficult for him to get to church because the bus schedules are so incredibly terrible. But we’re just going to give him time while we try to figure out some possible solutions. It is kind of a frustrating situation.

Well, this week is sure to be fun! Pray for us and our investigators! I love you all!

~Anderson elder

Thanksgiving in Szombathely

2010-11-29T11:20:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

The past few weeks have been really neat! Two Sundays ago my companion and I drove one of our investigators home from church and his mom surprised us with a HUGE lunch. Her hospitality was awesome, but we already had planned to eat at a member’s house so it was really difficult to eat that second lunch! Hungarians are so nice! Then we drove to Győr because there was a new missionary who had come to Hungary a few weeks late because of a surgery. The mission office sent him on a train to Győr by himself and then we picked him up and drove him to his first area in Sopron! We then stayed in Sopron and went on splits with the missionaries there.

Monday was really cool because I was able to meet with Marika and Bea whom I helped find and teach when I served in Sopron a year ago! They were baptized the week after I left Sopron and they are still doing great! It was so much fun to be able to meet with them again!

Thanksgiving was great! We drove up to Szombathely and the Haslems, a senior missionary couple, cooked a giant American Thanksgiving dinner for us. It was great! We also watched the movie “The Other Side of Heaven” in Hungarian! That was pretty fun!

Tomorrow is Zone Conference and I have to give a training so wish me luck!

~Anderson elder

Hédi's Baptism

2010-11-15T21:05:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was really fun! We had a lot of programs and were able to teach a ton, which is the best. But by far the best part of the week was Hédi's baptism!

Left to right: Elder Murray (who replaced me in Érd), me, Attila (the ward mission leader in Érd — he’s a STUD), Hédi, Elder Saunders (the new elder I trained in Érd — he just moved to Békéscsaba), and Elder Allen (who replaced Elder Saunders in Érd).

So, one of the people that I taught in Érd was baptized on Saturday and I was able to drive down and attend her baptism! First of all, driving in Budapest is CRAZY! Well, at least a lot crazier than in Washington. I made two wrong turns and had to suffer through an hour of traffic in Pest before I figured out how to get to the mission home in Buda. So that was interesting.

It was really great to see the members from Érd again and to visit with them. Hédi was really excited about getting baptized, but was a little nervous too! The service went well and the spirit was really strong! It made me want to stay in Hungary forever! Hédi bore her testimony and it was so cool to see how much she had progressed since I first met her. Missionary work truly is amazing and it brings the best joy ever! This experience is worth more than all the money in the world!

Hédi's baptism is pretty much the only thing that comes to mind about last week so I'll see you all next week!

~Anderson elder

A Strong Testimony

2010-11-08T14:20:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Well, a new transfer starts today! Time just keeps on flying by.

Everything is going well over here. Fast and testimony meeting was great yesterday! A super cute little kid, who is about eight to ten years old, bore a wonderful testimony! He told about preparing a talk for a special sacrament meeting a few weeks ago when the kids gave talks and sang songs. He had been having a hard time writing his talk when he remembered that he could pray for help. So he prayed to God that he could write a good talk. After that, he said that the words just came really fast. He really got into writing the talk and it ended up being really good! He said that he knows that God helped him and that his testimony was strengthened a ton! How cool is that?! The Spirit was really strong during that meeting – it was really neat to hear such uplifting testimonies.

I had another interesting experience yesterday. My companion and I were going to meet a member of the church who hasn’t been coming to meetings all that regularly. I wasn’t looking forward to talking to another person I was sure was just going to throw out a bunch of excuses for not coming to church. It’s so easy to assume that less-active members are just using lame excuses to justify not coming to church – so I judged this man pretty harshly. I was really surprised when I actually talked to him and was able to hear and see and feel his testimony. I came to understand his work situation better and see that it really is difficult for him and he really does come whenever possible. He told me that one week he gave a talk in sacrament meeting and taught both the Sunday school lesson and priesthood lesson all on the same day because he didn’t want to turn anyone down since he can’t help out as much as he would like. He said that the lessons went well and he loved it. He is coming to church next week and will be teaching the Sunday school lesson and the priesthood lesson again because people had to cover for him yesterday. That’s real effort. The members here in Hungary are amazing!

As I was thinking about this experience, it popped into my head that if I choose medicine as a career I too will probably have to miss church a few times because of circumstances that are out of my hands. So I learned a good lesson about judging people because I completely misjudged this awesome member. Improving and becoming more Christlike is a long and hard but wonderful process! So let’s all do a little self-examination right now and commit ourselves to be more forgiving, loving, kind, humble, and Christlike! Changing bad habits is always worth the effort!

~Anderson elder

The Best Email

2010-11-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

Helló!

I just got THE BEST email of my entire life! In Érd I knew a really cool investigator, Nora, who was doing really well but then she moved to France and I haven’t really heard from her since. But I just got an email from her and she said that she was baptized on October 30th in France!!!!! I am SO HAPPY right now!!!!! She’s the girl who a homeless person streeted for Elder Saunders and me. He told her to come and talk to us and she did! And now she has been baptized! I’m so happy for her!!!!!!

Also, another investigator from English class in Érd is getting baptized next Saturday!!! I couldn’t be happier!!!! I’m in Budapest right now and our train leaves really soon so I have to go. But God lives and He is definitely a God of miracles!!!! He loves us! Being a missionary is awesome.

~Anderson elder

More Red Sludge Cleanup

2010-10-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

Helló!

Hey everybody! Things are going well here in Hungary. Elder Caviness and I went to Devecser again on Saturday. Everything is still red. I spent the day working with a few firefighters from Zalaegerszeg, a city southwest of the Balaton. There were about seven of us at this one house. We had a front loader with which we worked on the front yard all day long. After one full day of hard work we were able to get most of the sludge out of the front yard and a small part out of the back yard. But the homeowners have a pretty big garden that we didn’t even have time to touch.

Hungarian officials have extended the state of emergency to December 31st, so we have plenty of work to do! But most of the people in the affected areas have already moved away and no one wants to move back, which is pretty understandable. We are all wondering what the long-term consequences are going to be for the ground, rivers, plants, and people who live here and for the people who have helped with the cleanup.

The missionary work in Pápa is going pretty smoothly. The situation in Devecser has really distracted us, though. And since Elder Caviness and I are zone leaders, we have to try to help resolve any conflicts or contention among the missionaries in our zone. That is as hard, if not harder, than shoveling sludge all day long! So our focus on our own area has taken a hit and we need to work on that a bit. All in all things, are going well.

Thanks for all of your support and love!

~Anderson elder

Toxic Sludge Cleanup

2010-10-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

Sziastok!

Last week was really crazy! We went to Devecser to shovel toxic sludge on Monday and on Saturday! It has been a really interesting experience. An especially cool thing is that people in other cities have actually come up to the missionaries on the street and thanked them for our help in Devecser! So hopefully this event will let people see that we are actually normal, kind people.

On Saturday we had a small group of about fifteen people – which was perfect because we could stay in one group – and we were sent to an auto repair shop to work. There were about ten firefighters and ten other people from another group that were there too. We worked for seven hours straight! The shop owner’s house was right next to the shop. The family was pretty wealthy so they had LOTS of stuff. They had a storage garage that was completely full of furniture and clothes and we had to throw EVERYTHING away. Anything that you can imagine that could be in a house was covered in sludge. We just threw everything into piles so that a bulldozer could come and put it into a large container.

Helping with the cleanup is actually really fun work, kind of like playing in mud – but you don’t want the mud to touch you. It’s fun, that is, until you remember that everything you see and touch and throw away used to be a part of someone’s life and now it is ALL gone. It is a really weird, humbling, and sad feeling to go through someone’s belongings and throw everything away.

I have so many pictures and videos – I’ve already filled up a brand new 4 GB SD card! The only problem is that I forgot my camera at home so I can’t post any new pictures today!

I am really grateful that I have had this opportunity to help these people physically and spiritually. Being a missionary is amazing!

~Anderson elder

Vörösiszap

2010-10-12T10:10:00.000-07:00

Helló!

Well, I’m sure that everyone is really curious about the vörösiszap. (Literally: “red sludge,” but I guess everyone in America is calling it the toxic spill). Last week was intense to say the least. Since Elder Caviness and I are the closest missionaries to the towns that were affected, and since we are also Zone Leaders with a car, the responsibility to organize and coordinate a relief effort sort of fell onto our shoulders! So we spent about two days straight calling the Stake Presidency, missionaries, branch presidents, and bishops to figure out how many people could participate and how many supplies we had to buy.

It all started last Monday when we were with an investigator and she told us that something crazy had happened in a nearby town called Kolontár. She said that there was some sort of toxic sludge spill. We drove to the area from the east through a city called Ajka, but the police had closed the road and we couldn’t get in. We drove around for a while and tried to go into Devecser, but the entrance to the city was closed – there were cars lined up along the road and no one was getting let it. The road into the town was completely red.

A few days later we learned that people were being let into Devecser to help, so we talked to our mission president about putting together a relief effort. Friday morning we drove back to Devecser. There were police everywhere with protective masks, and they even had automatic machine guns too! (I assume that the guns were to make sure that no one did anything stupid because of panic.) It was really surreal to walk and drive through the town. I felt like I was in a war zone. Everything was red and destroyed.

We went to city hall and talked to the people in charge of the relief efforts. They said that they would love to have a group of people come and help. We then talked to our mission president who told us that the church would be sending tons of money to help with the cleanup. He also told us that we were in charge for the time being. That’s when things got really hectic.

We had our own relief plan, and then we found out that other branches and the stake all had their own plans too, so we had to coordinate them all and try to group them together. We had a small group planned for Saturday (okt. 9) with people from Veszprém and a few from Győr. Then on Monday (okt. 11) we would have a big official group from Szombathely, Győr, Pápa, Veszprém, Székesfehérvár, and Budapest.

We drove to Tatabánya and met the senior missionary couple who work in the mission office and they gave us almost $2,000 and a small van so we could purchase and transport supplies for the groups. This was the stressful part because we had to buy boots, gloves, masks, and glasses for about 40 people and we only had about 24 hours to do it and there were only a few stores that sold those things with the quality and in the quantity we needed. Also, everyone else wanted to buy those things too. So we drove all over the place trying to get what we needed. In the end we were able to get almost all of the needed supplies.

On Saturday we went to Devecser to work with the members from Veszprém. The security was more relaxed by then; none of the police had machine guns. We spent the day shoveling sludge from people’s yards into giant containers. As soon as we filled one container, someone would take it away and bring in a new one. People were still living in Devecser and it was crazy to hear and see them cleaning their houses and talking about what happened. Pretty much everyone wants to move since their houses and yards and belongings have all been destroyed. The worst part is that all of the land is probably going to die and no one will be able to grow anything – it will be extremely dead and devoid of green vegetation, so even if people could clean their houses the area would be miserable to live in. Kolontár is the little town right next to where the waste was stored and everyone is calling it a dead town. No one will be able to live there for a very, very long time.

Monday was the big day and it was really cool to see about 45 members from all over the northwestern part of Hungary come to help. We were split into two groups and the group that I was in went to the post office in Devescer. We pretty much stayed there the whole day getting furniture out and shoveling sludge. But we were also able to remove a lot of destroyed furniture and stuff from a nearby house. And since we came in such a big group we got to wear the yellow Mormon Segítő Kézek (Mormon Helping Hands) vests! It was actually a lot of fun.

Many are probably curious about how dangerous the sludge is. When it came out of the storage area it had a pH level of 13 out of 14 and so it was burning holes in people’s skin, but now after it rained twice the pH level has dropped down to 11 in many areas. So we can get it on our skin and not have any problems if we scrub it off with soap and water within about 24 hours. And now since the weather is a bit nicer, the problem is that the sludge is drying and the dust will cause cancer if you breath enough of it. But if we wear good quality masks, which we did, then we shouldn’t have any problems.

Another big group is probably going back to help again this Saturday and my companion and I will be helping out every p-day until there is nothing left to do. Also the church is donating A LOT of money to the relief efforts. I don’t want to give an exact number because I’m not completely sure, but it is very generous. And very much appreciated.

Please keep the people affected by this disaster in your prayers. They really need it.

~Anderson elder

Life in Pápa

2010-10-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was really good! Pápa is a really cool place! It reminds me of Sopron, just smaller. The branch is really small; there were about 15-20 people in church yesterday but they are all really cool! There was a really cool girl who went to college in Sopron when I was there and she was baptized last December with her mom and they live here in Pápa! So it is really cool to see them here again!

We have a few investigators here, but our English class isn’t doing so well. We’re going to work hard and get it going and then we’ll be able to find more people to teach.

I’m sure that everyone loved General Conference, but we weren’t able to see it live. We’re going to watch it in our branch house this weekend. I’m really excited!

One of the interesting things about Pápa is that the people speak with a slightly heavy accent. This country is smaller than Washington state, but there are at least 4 different accents in the country! They aren’t difficult to understand though, but they are very noticeably different.

I’m still trying to get used to the new area so I don’t have a ton to write. But I love you all and I love Hungary! It is such an incredible privilege to teach the people here about Jesus Christ and His restored gospel!

~Anderson elder

Go West, Elder Anderson

2010-09-27T14:15:00.000-07:00

Helló!

I have interesting news! I’m being transferred to Pápa! My new companion will be Elder Caviness who is just one transfer older than me. We spent time together in the MTC! It’ll be a blast, especially since we can both speak Hungarian pretty decently! I’m kind of sad to leave Érd because I have grown to love the people and members here, but I know that they’ll be in good hands. Especially because Elder Murray from Stanwood will be taking my place in Érd! He’ll have a great time.

Last Saturday we had a branch party in a park north of Budapest and it was really neat. The son of one of the members of the branch presidency has a kung-fu camp there and that is where we went. He came to the activity and brought a few of his students, and they did a really cool presentation for us. He is SUPER talented. He has won three kung-fu world championships and one Thai boxing world championship too. Through a bunch of interesting connections he was able to travel to China and study and practice with kung-fu masters for five years at a place called Shaolin Temple which has been around for 1500 years! So basically I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side. After he and his students did their presentation, he told some really cool stories about when he was training in China and what he had to do. Then we played soccer and had a lot of fun together. One of our investigators came to the activity and she had a really good time hanging out with the members. It was a big success!

Our investigators are doing really well and one was finally able to come to church! She was struggling for a while because she is so busy, but she came this week and she really enjoyed it. When I asked her how it was she said that it was all igaz which means true! I’m super excited for her.

I have a firm and solid belief that Jesus is the Christ, our Redeemer and our Savior, and that He has restored His complete gospel to the earth. I’m very grateful to have the opportunity to share with others the faith that has blessed my family and me so much! Missionary work is awesome!

~Anderson elder

‘Flyering’

2010-09-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was pretty good. Fall is definitely here. The weather is getting colder, and that means that ‘streeting’ and ‘tabling’ are getting less effective. Elder Saunders and I printed a ton (1,800) fliers to advertize our English class. So now we go ‘flyering’ when no one is on the street and no one feels like talking to us in their houses.

We made some really nice looking posters for our table and were really excited to go tabling this week. I was especially interested to see how Elder Saunders would like the experience. He said that it was the most awkward thing he’s ever done! Haha. And he’s right: it is pretty awkward. But that’s missionary work! I’ve heard missionaries say that a mission is a two-year awkward moment! Hahaha. That really is true, especially for missionaries who are bold. So tabling went well with Elder Saunders, but we didn’t have much success. The location where we set up our table is really bad, but it’s the only place where we have permission from the city to table.

On Saturday we have a really cool branch activity planned! We’re going to a park where we’ll play soccer and volleyball and have fun. At least one of our investigators is coming with us, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it to go. Things are going well with investigators, but we definitely need more people to teach! But all in all things are going really well here in Érd!

As usual, I’m in a hurry and have to go now! I love you all!

~Anderson elder

Sweetest picture ever of tracting!!!

Inspirational Training

2010-09-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was really fun! And the three-day training was really, really cool. We didn’t learn anything new; the lessons were just to help us teach to people’s needs instead of just saying the same thing to everyone.

One of the most powerful lessons was about love and missionary work. This lesson taught us that genuine love and concern for other people need to be our main motivation. We need to find investigators because we love and care about people. We need to teach people because we are concerned for them, not just because it what we’re supposed to do. And we need to make sure that people understand and feel that we care about them, that we’re not meeting with them just because it’s our “job.” That was the overall theme of the entire training. It was really inspirational.

It was also fun because after about an hour of training we would role-play and practice what we had just learned for another hour and a half. At the end of each day, my companion and I got to sleep in the mission home, which was a real treat because it is super nice and the beds are very comfy!

Well, as usual I’m in a hurry. Elder Saunders and I are going to visit the Parliament building and we need to leave now. I love you all and will write again next week!

~Anderson elder

Lovin’ Life in Hungary

2010-09-07T07:45:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was really fun and we had some good success. Unfortunately, I don’t have any time to tell you about it. I have to go right now because the really cool training I mentioned two weeks ago is going to start in half an hour and I haven’t even read all my email yet. I just want to say that I’m alive, that I’m well, that our investigators are doing fine, and that I’m lovin’ life in Hungary! Love you all!

~Anderson elder

Miracles

2010-08-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

This last week was really fun! Elder Saunders and I found a new investigator and she is really cool! She has never been taught anything about religion or any sort of spiritual stuff so we get to discuss all the basics with her. It is really interesting trying to help her understand who and what God is. And who Jesus Christ is and what He did for us and what his atonement means for us. Everything is so new and strange to her, but she loves the feeling she has whenever we teach about the Gospel. We have really high hopes for her! She’s awesome!

Also we had a really cool miracle experience with another investigator this week. We have been teaching her about prayer. We have shown her how to pray in her own words, making it a personal experience. Then yesterday she sent us the coolest text message ever! She said that she had just visited one of her colleagues from work because he was sick and pretty old. She bought some groceries and stuff for him, then said a prayer for him before leaving. When she got home he sent her a text message saying that his fever had gone away even though he hadn’t taken any medicine! She said that she was super grateful that God really did hear her prayers and that He answered them! How cool is that?! Now she has a testimony that God really does answer prayers! It is amazing to be able to teach people about the gospel and to see their faith in God grow as He works miracles in their lives! Being a missionary is pretty amazing.

~Anderson elder

Greenie Fire

2010-08-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

I’ll bet some people were surprised last week to read that I am a father! Haha. Missionary slang is great! So my “son’s” name is Elder Saunders and he’s from a town near Salt Lake City, Utah. He is so cool! He has greenie fire coming out of his ears! That means that he has a really strong desire to work hard. They do a really good job of preparing missionaries in the MTC. And he speaks Hungarian really well for a greenie too! I'm super excited to be able to serve with him. He has a lot of great ideas and is very good at following the Spirit. It is way fun to be a trainer!

Oh there may have been a misunderstanding about my assignment as a trainer. I probably won’t be training for six months. It’s very possible that I will leave Érd and Elder Saunders in six weeks. I am a trainer this transfer, but next transfer I could go back to being just a regular missionary in another area.

Some very interesting things are happening nowadays with regard to missionary work. The Church’s missionary department has come up with some really neat worldwide trainings for missionaries and we get to have them this transfer. So for three days we will be in Budapest being trained for almost the whole day about how to be more effective teachers and how to teach according to people’s individual needs rather than just teaching canned lessons to people. I’m really excited about it!

Unfortunately, most of our investigators are on vacation, but everything seems to be going well with them. But we still need your prayers and love for the people here! I love being here and serving the Hungarians the best that I can!

~Anderson elder

Trainer

2010-08-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

I’M GONNA BE A DAD!!! Not really, of course. In missionary lingo that means I get to be a trainer for new missionaries! I’m super excited! In a few hours the greenie group is going to wake up at the MTC and get ready to get on the plane to come to Hungary! On Wednesday we’ll get paired up and meet each other. So that is some really cool news.

It has been kind of cloudy lately and now the sun is out and it is HUMID! Even in the shade it is impossible to escape the heat!

I got some really good news this week about one of our investigators! Remember the girl who went to France a few weeks ago? Well, she has been emailing one of the young women in the Érd Branch and says that she has been going to church and ward activities in France! That is soooo cool! She is amazing. Thank you all for your prayers!

I forgot my camera cord, so I can’t send any pictures today. And now we have to hurry so that Elder Taylor can pack his stuff. So I love you all tons! Keep on praying for us! We need it!!

~Anderson elder

A Few Pictures

2010-08-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

As usual I am in a hurry today. Elder Taylor and I went to see a castle in a city called Visegrád north of Budapest this morning and it took a lot of time to get there and back. So instead of writing a ton, I’m going to take advantage of the “a picture is worth a thousand words” philosophy!

We are losing investigators and having a hard time finding new people, so I’d like to ask you to keep the people of Érd and us in your prayers! We know that your prayers can help us and the work here!

~Anderson elder

Lower part of the Visegrád Castle.

During Zone Conference last week, we went to a really cool outdoor museum called Skanzen.

We hiked all the way up to the castle in our missionary clothes – definitely not a good idea.

At the castle looking out over the Duna – that’s Danube for you English speakers.

Entrance into the main castle ruins.

GO HUNGARY!

Inside the castle ruins.

Sometimes missionary work is really hard!

Teaching “Nice Things”

2010-08-03T02:05:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

I would have written yesterday but the library in Érd where we access the Internet decided to close for two weeks. Today Elder Taylor and I are in Budapest for Zone Conference and I only have about ten minutes to write!

Last week was really cool! We were able to meet with a few new people from our English class. That is the most effective finding tool that we have because our small city has been tracted out many, many times over.

We have had to drop some investigators, which is really sad. Surprisingly a good amount of people just meet with us because we teach “nice things” but they don’t really have any genuine desire to apply what we teach into their lives. But I know that God will bless us and we’ll find some people who are ready to hear our message.

I know that God lives and loves us and I know that the harder we work to become closer to Him the more He will help us in our lives and the closer He will come to us!

~Anderson elder

A Thirty Minute Talk

2010-07-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was really neat. On Tuesday the Zone Leader companionship came and we blitzed Érd. That means that they stayed the night here in Érd and worked with Elder Taylor and me instead of taking one of us back to their area. It was pretty fun. Elder Apgood, the Zone Leader, and I were together and Elder Taylor went with Elder Crandall. (Elder Taylor and Elder Crandall were in the same MTC group, so working together was really good for them because they are both young in the mission. This experience forced them to speak to people instead of relying on us older missionaries to do all the talking.)

On Wednesday we had a really good English class. Then after class we had a little party which a bunch of members also attended. We watched the short film The Great Apostasy and then just talked with the students. It was great experience.

And then on Friday the APs (Assistants to the Mission President) came and spent the day with us. They were a big help. We brainstormed a bunch of cool ideas with them to help the missionary work in Érd grow.

Sunday was pretty interesting. I had to give the last talk in Sacrament Meeting so I was pretty nervous. I was worried that I might have to talk longer than fifteen minutes and I wasn’t prepared for that. But then there was some miscommunication and one of the assigned speakers didn’t even know that he was supposed to speak. So that meant that just the branch president and I were prepared and that made me even more nervous. But somehow I actually spoke for thirty minutes and I almost took up the whole meeting! I wasn’t paying as much attention to the clock as I should have been – it was kind of embarrassing! Haha. But it was all good. So our week was pretty interesting. Missionary work is great!

Oh! The weather finally cooled down and a storm came in so we have some relief from the heat.

Well I better get going now! I love you all! Read your scriptures and pray everyday!

~Anderson elder

Hungary Is Hot!

2010-07-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

Helló!

Hungary is really hot right now. Haha. For most of last week it was about 95 degrees in the shade! And we don’t stay in the shade very much. But other than the heat things are going great!

Church was really good this week! One of our investigators said that she felt inspired! So that was neat. I don’t know what it’s going to feel like to be in a big ward when I get back home. I’m so used to going to church in comfy little branches with just 30 people.

This week, a High Counselor came to visit our branch. He’s German and is a member of the international branch. He gave a really good talk which our branch president – he’s awesome – translated. The High Counselor spoke English almost perfectly so I interpreted for him during the meetings. It was really hard! Whenever I would give him an English translation I couldn’t hear what the Hungarians were saying so I would miss a lot of information. Translating and interpreting are really hard!

Well I have to go. If I could give one little piece of advice it would be to read your scriptures a ton and pray a lot! See you later!

~Anderson elder

Finally – Some Service

2010-07-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

So last week was pretty interesting. It was filled with a bunch of activities, some good and some not so good. The most not-so-good one wasn’t bad, just sad. My companion and I went to the funeral service for the mother of a really cool member. The member’s name is Csaba and he is a super cool guy; he’s 29 and a returned missionary. His mother died of cancer. Her death was pretty sad, but Csaba is taking it well. He’s an awesome guy.

Elder Taylor and I finally got to do some service this week! I love doing service! A member family had a shed with a roof that was falling apart and we got to repair it. It was a lot of fun. The roof was made of traditional European red tiles supported by small wooden beams that were rotting away and needed to be replaced. It was fun helping the family out.

We have been having some success helping members in the branch who have been having a hard time coming to church regularly. The wife of one of the members is in a coma and he takes care of her at home. He lives about 30 minutes away, but he wants to be active in church again because he misses the blessings that come from obedience to God’s commandments. He’s been coming to church regularly for a few weeks now and says that he can really feel the difference in his life! So that is way cool! And another member came to church yesterday and also wants to be more active – so that is also great news too!

The coolest thing that happened this week is that our main investigator hasn’t smoked for two weeks straight. He is really happy that he has been able to quit, especially because he had smoked so much before. The quit-smoking program we use really works! And just as exciting, this investigator was in another city on Sunday (Pécs) and he went to church there all by himself!!

Today Elder Taylor and I had a fun time in Budapest. We went inside the Parliament Building and one of the biggest cathedrals in the city and then walked a ton in the city. It was really cool! But pictures are better than me describing so I’ll attach a few.

I’m super grateful that I have the opportunity to be here and to teach people about how to find lasting happiness through Jesus Christ! It’s awesome to be a missionary!

~Anderson elder

Mosquitoes!

2010-07-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Last week went pretty well. One of our investigators started our quit smoking program and he is so far doing awesome! It is really hard for him though because he smokes a ton.

Today we received our transfer calls. Both Elder Taylor and I are staying together and that’s pretty cool. We really want to see the work in Érd progress. It’s a difficult area, but where isn’t?

The weather was ridiculously hot last week. We live in a ten story building and it gets unbearably hot and humid in our apartment. And there are a ton of mosquitoes! One night I was so sick of the mosquitoes that I emptied my laundry basket and stuck it on my head! It is made of mesh so no bugs could get through it, but it also trapped all the heat. I couldn’t bear it for more than five minutes at a time. Haha. Eventually we just bought a small fan and that has saved our lives!

Unfortunately I have to go now. Sorry that this blog entry is so short!

~Elder Anderson

Great Experiences

2010-06-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was really good! On Wednesday we had a really interesting program. We had set up a program with a couple that we had met on the street. We went to the address and it turned out to be some sort of home for people just over eighteen years old who don’t have a place to live. Running the house was an older lady who is their “mom”. The couple we had talked to on the street couldn’t find a place to live together so they moved into this house. I forgot the older lady’s name, she was really kind and wanted us to share our message with all of the kids—there were like six or seven of them. Unfortunately, the girl that we had talked to on the street came late in the program, but the older lady really seemed interested. The kids were just kind of curious. Haha.

And then we had an interesting English class. After the first hour, a bunch of members come to the branch house where we teach. We had refreshments and our students just chatted with the members and then went a little tour of our branch house. It was really neat!

On Saturday we had a really cool program with one of our newer investigators. She called us in the morning and said that she had some time to see us right then. We got ready really quickly and went to the branch house where we met her. She told us that she was really, really busy but that she didn’t want to miss meeting with us because she had promised and her conscience would have bothered her if she hadn’t met with us. So that was way awesome to see a newer investigator follow the promptings of the Spirit even when it was hard for her! We are way excited for her to continue to learn about the gospel!

I love being a missionary! It’s awesome! Have a great week!

~Anderson elder

A Miracle Day

2010-06-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

Helló!

Last week was pretty cool! On Wednesday we had a Zone Conference in Budapest and President Gérald Caussé, who is in our Area Presidency, came and trained us. He is an awesome man! He taught us a lot and the Spirit was really strong. It was a really good experience.

The day after Zone Conference was a miracle day! My companion and I started streeting in the morning and by the end of the first hour we had found three or four people who were interested in meeting with us! Sometimes that doesn’t even happen after five hours! It was really exciting. So we had a really quick lunch and went back out on the streets. (Well, Érd is pretty small so when I say streets I mean the two or three roads on which we can talk to people on. Haha) After lunch we experienced even more miracles! By the end of the day we had talked to ten people or families who were interested in meeting with us! By comparison, during the previous three weeks we found only twelve people! Crazy. And this time we didn’t really do anything different. It just goes to show that the Lord is in charge of this work and only He can make it work.

Those were the main highlights of last week. A bunch of people called about English class so it seems like our advertising worked. We hope that lots of people come! Well I have to go now. I love serving the Hungarian people! See ya next week!

~Anderson elder

Help from the Homeless

2010-06-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Right now the weather is crazy! Last week was pretty cool, but then it was really hot yesterday, and today it is pouring rain! My companion and I went into Budapest early this morning to play soccer with a bunch of other missionaries – and it was a blast – but we were totally unprepared for the rain. It’s pouring rain and I’m in a short sleeve shirt! There is no such thing as a boring day on a mission!

Last week we had some interesting experiences. On Wednesday we had a program scheduled at 2 PM but the contact dogged us so we decided to go tabling instead. The place where we usually go tabling is a little square located between two small train stations. We try to talk to people who are going back and forth between them. Unfortunately, people are often in a rush trying to get to a train and don’t have any time for us, but it is the only place available. When trains aren’t coming we pretty much just bake in the sun while waiting for people to appear. Haha. I’m getting a really bad farmer’s tan on my arms and a really bad tan line on my neck! But anyway, there is a bar right next to the square where we table which always gives us some interesting people to talk to. For instance, on Wednesday a homeless guy came out of the bar and started talking to us. He wasn’t drunk, just really nice, even a little too nice. He said that he really respects us and that he was going to help us out! I tried to dissuade him. I told him no, that he didn’t have to help us, but he was really determined! So he turns around and starts walking towards the nearest person, who is a girl about 20 or so years old. Of course, I am super embarrassed by this time. Haha. So he stops this girl and tells her that she needs to come over and talk to us. So she actually came over, I think because of the crazy awkwardness of the whole thing. I was super embarrassed, so I started to talk to her about the English classes we teach hoping that she would speak English so the homeless man wouldn’t be able to help us out anymore. Luckily, she did speak English! So I apologized and we talked for a little bit. She said that she was interested in hearing more about the Gospel! So basically, we went tabling for two and a half hours and we found two people who are interested and a homeless man streeted one of them for us! God really does work in mysterious ways!

Then on Thursday we had a sweet program with someone from our English class who is really interested in the Gospel. She told us that a few months ago she wanted to start learning English. She prayed for the opportunity and then a few days later she got one of our fliers about our English classes! Sweet, huh? She really feels that God led her to us! So hopefully we’ll be able to teach her a lot.

Yesterday was a little interesting too. We missed three trains! It was intense. After church one of our investigators walked with us to the train station. We were waiting in line for our tickets but the people in front of us were taking forever and our train came and went without us. So we had to wait for the next one which was only 15 minutes later. We bought our tickets and were talking to our investigator when the train pulled up on the other track. We realized that we were on the wrong side of the stop so we took off running to the other side, but of course we didn’t make it! Eventually we got on a train to Budafok – just 30 minutes from Érd – where we had a good program. On the way back we went to the train station and looked at the schedule to see when the train left only to turn around and watched it go by! It had stopped farther down the track and then left before we even saw it! So that was a bummer, but not entirely. We got to teach a short lesson and give a Book of Mormon to the one other guy who was waiting at the train station with us! So I guess it was actually a blessing in disguise!

I love being a missionary and teaching people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ! It’s super fun and it is great to help spread happiness among the Hungarian people! Have a great week everyone!

~Anderson elder

The Castle District

2010-06-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

I totally forgot to tell you about my sightseeing trip around Budapest last week, so I’ll give a little summary today. Elder Taylor had to get his permit to live here in Hungary, so a few other missionaries and I followed Elder McRae (who finished his mission just the week before) and his parents to the Castle District in Budapest. On our way there we met Elder Wilson (who finished his mission last December) and his parents and his fiancee. So we saw the Buda Castle, a big church, and this really cool public square with a vantage point that overlooks the Duna River (that’s what Hungarians call the Danube) across from which you can see the Parliament building. The trip was really fun!

Last week was really hard! Elder Taylor and I went finding for 16 hours, which is a lot, but we didn’t see much success from it. We are going to work on using our time more effectively and hopefully in the future we’ll actually be able to find people when we go finding. We did find one really cool family last week. They have so much potential, but right now they are a little more interested in learning English than in studying the gospel. But I have faith that things will go great with them.

Another cool thing was that one of our awesome investigators Gábor came to church and enjoyed it! The experience was a lot different, of course, but he liked it. Right after church we had a really good program with him and our mission leader, Attila. So that was really cool. Gábor is a super smart guy, he’s 27 and finishing his PhD in geothermal engineering! Whoa! So it is a ton of fun meeting with him.

The weather was crazy last week. For the first few days it rained a lot and it was kind of chilly and then on Wednesday or Thursday the sun came out and it was about 85 degrees! Now it is really hot and humid and gross. Haha.

Well that’s what happened last week. I hope that everyone is doing well. Read your scriptures and pray everyday! The basics help out so much! I love you all!

~Anderson elder

What a Day!

2010-05-31T11:40:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Sorry for all of the short blog entries recently, but my companion and I have access to just one computer right now and we are short on time.

I had an interesting and funny first full day in Érd. We started the day off by going to a program on the other side of the city. We took a 20 minute bus ride and when we get to the lady’s house, we learn that she had forgotten that we were coming. And just then, her granddaughter pulled up in a car to take her shopping. Since we couldn’t meet with her, we decided to go to another person’s house. The lady and her granddaughter were nice enough to drive us there. Unfortunately, that person wasn’t home, We decided to visit her neighbor who is also an investigator, but she was busy cleaning and doing yard work. Then we decided go tabling—that’s where we set up a table with stuff on it and basically street people around the table. So we went to the branch house, got the table and stuff, and started to walk to where we were going to set it up. After walking through the city with the table for about five minutes Elder Taylor remembered that we need to have our permit with us in order to table in the city. And the permit was back at our apartment. By the time we took the table back to the branch house we were pretty much out of time for tabling or tracting so we decided to street for about an hour. Unfortunately, no one wanted to listen to us. And then after we got home we had to do our weekly planning before finishing the day. It was crazy because almost everything we planned or tried to plan fell through! Our luck was so bad it was actually kind of funny. Some days are just like that.

Well I’ve got to go now, but I will be back next week! Love you all!

~Anderson elder

On the Move – Again

2010-05-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!
Last week was really fun and went by really fast! Elder Roundy and I worked extra hard and were able to meet with a lot of people.

The biggest news for this week is that I’m leaving Hódmezővásárhely! The city is getting whitewashed! (That’s what happens when all the missionaries in a city are transferred out at the same time.) President Baughman wants older missionaries as Zone Leaders, but he also wants me to be senior. The only solution is for both Elder Roundy and I to leave at the same time since he is going home. I’m going to a city called Érd. It is right below Budapest, so I’ll be able to visit the big city often! And my new companion is only in his second transfer so he’ll be a lot of fun.

We just had a cool program with one of our investigators and she said her first prayer out loud! It was awesome! I love hearing people pray for the first time! And during the last program with her we taught her kids how to pray. Laci, her five year old son, said his first prayer! He seemed to be talking to us while he prayed, so the next elders will have to help him understand that we pray to God. Still, he’s doing pretty well considering that he hadn’t learned about God at all before we came. In any case, his prayer was really cute!

Well I have to go now because we still need to pack and say goodbye to a ton of people here! Thanks for everything. I love y’all!

~Anderson elder

Little Miracles

2010-05-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was pretty neat! Elder Roundy and I went on a lot of splits and it was a ton of fun. Monday night we traveled up to Szolnok and blitzed the area with one of the companionships. Both my companion and I stayed in the area for the whole day, so on Tuesday there were six missionaries in the city and not just four. I went on splits with Elder Peugnet, which was cool because he is just one group above me and so he was in the MTC with me for a while. Unfortunately, he had a ton of chores to do—he is the branch president in Szolnok—so we spent most of the day doing those things.

On Tuesday night we drove down to Kecskemét and I went on splits with Elder Gardenhire. It was really strange because it felt like I hadn’t even left Kecskemét and that all of the stuff that’s happened in Hódmezővásárhely was just a dream. Weird. (Before last transfer, I was companions with Elder Gardenhire and Elder Musters was part of the other companionship in Kecskemét.) I wasn’t in Hód for two whole days last week. It was a fun little excursion!

We had a few neat little miracles on Saturday. It was raining like crazy, so we decided to tract a ten story apartment building which has sixty apartments in it. For some strange reason there were a lot of people that weren’t home and those who were home were not nice at all. It was pretty lame knocking on those doors since no one was interested in talking to us. BUT the last two people we talked to in the building were SUPER nice! They weren’t really interested in our message, but they were just really happy and nice to us and that was wonderful! I think that experience was a little gift from God helping us not to give up. And so we continued tracting in other buildings where we found a lot of people who were home and many were really kind. We had lots of good conversations and even found a few people who are interested in meeting with us again! It was actually fun! We also tracted into a member’s sister-in-law on accident. That was a huge surprise, since it’s not at all common in a city of tens of thousands of people to tract into someone who is related to one of just fifteen members!

So all in all it was a fun week. We were able to get a lot of good work done and it was really neat to see the hand of the Lord helping us during the week. I love you all! See ya next week!

~Anderson elder

A Day In Békéscsaba

2010-05-10T03:05:00.000-07:00

Halló sziasztok!

Last week was pretty cool! On Monday my companion and I drove to a small town called Szentes to visit a really nice member family: the mom, Edina; her sister, Viki; and Edina’s two small boys, Ábel and Gergő who are like five and eight years old. Edina served a mission in England and the whole family is so cool! Every Sunday they either drive or take a train to church in Szeged which involves an hour of travel time! They’re pretty awesome members. We go over to their house every Monday and teach the kids a little lesson. But it’s not like they really need it—Edina does a super good job of teaching them the gospel at home. After we teach the lesson we go out in their yard and play soccer with them! It’s a lot of fun playing soccer with little kids!

On Tuesday we went on splits with the Békéscsaba elders and I got to stay in Békéscsaba for the day! It was really fun to be back in the city. I got to visit a few members and teach English class too. It was interesting how when I was assigned there the weather was really cold and wet but now it’s all warm and green and pretty! I had a lot of déjà vu during the day I was there, it was really neat.

Throughout the week we were able to meet with a lot of new people, but we really need people who are willing to investigate the gospel seriously. Hopefully we’ll find even more people this week.

We were able to get the mission goals and achieve standard this week. It was really cool to see how things just came together for us. It was obvious that God was helping us to achieve standard. I know that God really does care about us and will help us achieve worthy goals!

Well I’d better get going. I love you all—thanks for everything!

~Anderson elder

What’s the Point?

2010-05-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

Helló!

Last week was pretty crazy! It was a lot of fun. On Tuesday we had six programs! It was a ton of work. We met with five investigators and then we met with a cool member family. It is always really fun to have a bunch of programs in one day. The day flies by and teaching people is the best, a lot better than spending a lot of time finding people. Part of me is jealous of the missionaries serving in Utah because some of them don't have to do much finding at all, they just get tons of referrals from members and so they teach all of the time. That would be sweet. But it sure is an adventure talking to strangers on the street all of the time. We have a lot of interesting experiences.

Wednesday was also pretty fun since we had Zone Conference. The funny thing was that we drove down to Szeged to pick up one of the companionships there but we got stuck in some rush hour traffic and construction areas so we ended up being late to our own Zone Conference! It was pretty fun, well interesting at least. We had some really good trainings by the Assistants about planning and goal setting. They were trying to get us to strive to set high goals and push ourselves to get them.

Thursday was also interesting. We had a program with a new lady named Irén (so now we have two Irén investigators) and the program was pretty crazy. Haha. She has a four year old and two year old and they were insane! The four year old was asking us questions nonstop. He took a little pamphlet from my shirt pocket and asked, “What’s the point of you having this?” I told him that we give the pamphlets out to people and that he could have one. He took it and looked at it a little more intently, then looked back at me and asked, “What’s the point of me having this?” Haha. We laughed so hard.

Saturday was pretty intense. It was a national holiday. My companion and I got permission to drive up to Nyíregyháza (literally: “the church of birch”) because Elder Roundy had served there for a long time and he wanted to visit some people before he goes home. It was about a four hour drive though! We spent a lot of time in the car that day. We visited a few members and went to a branch party that was held in a really pretty park. I have now been to every remote city that missionaries can go to in Hungary and I have been to every corner of the country! That isn’t that difficult since the entire country of Hungary is smaller than Washington state! Haha.

I am so grateful to be here! I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored in its fullness. I am also grateful for the Book of Mormon and that it has strengthened my testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ! I love you all!

~Anderson elder

The Synagogue in Hódmezovásárhely

2010-04-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Life in Hód is pretty swell! In fact, last week was great. On Wednesday Elder Roundy and I went to Budapest for a Zone Leader Council Meeting. (Elder Roundy, my companion, is a Zone Leader.) The meeting was really cool. We discussed mission policies and talked about what to change, what to keep the same, and how things are going in the mission. I found the meeting especially interesting because I got to see how and why mission policies are developed. A lot of times when policies are changed all the regular missionaries are told is that a change is being made, but they don’t get to hear the discussion behind the change. It’s tempting to think of a change as ridiculous or something if you don’t know its context. So it was cool to see how things work and to hear the discussions behind the policies, and to know that our leaders in the mission are really just trying their best like everyone else to be more effective missionaries. I now have more confidence that there are lots of good reasons for the mission’s various policies.

In Hód there isn’t much to see. It is a pretty small city and it’s not that pretty. There is, however, a really beautiful Jewish synagogue here that we visited today. One of the students in our English class is married to a Jewish man. He’s in charge of the synagogue and gave us a tour. It was way cool! I have a ton of respect for the Jews here in Europe. There are so few of them nowadays and that’s really sad. About a half million Hungarian Jews were murdered in World War II and now there are barely any left in the country. It was both wonderful and sad to see the synagogue today, sad because it is a big reminder of what has happened to the Jews in the past. I had planned to post some pictures of the synagogue to my blog but just found out that the computers in this Internet place won’t allow it. Lame.

We had the opportunity of going to Békéscsaba last week! Elder Roundy had to hold baptismal interviews for a couple there. The coolest thing was that this couple is the family that Elder Smith and I found in Doboz! Since I left, the husband started investigating the gospel and the family has been coming to church. Now they are getting baptized! It was so cool to see them again and I am so excited for them! It is way cool to be with the Zone Leader, especially since I have already served in this zone a bit.

Well I am going to go now. I love this gospel and I am so glad that I have the opportunity to teach it to others! So cool! I love you all!

~Anderson elder

Sándor’s Baptism

2010-04-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

Helló!

Last week went by pretty fast! Sándor and Ancsa got married on Monday and Sándor was baptized on Saturday! It was way cool.

Transfers were pretty interesting. Maybe you remember the blog entry I wrote when I first got to Kecskemét—I said that I broke my camera and that my suitcase died. Well, I got a new camera, but I didn’t get a new suitcase. Haha. Needless to say, I hope that I don’t get transferred much more. So with only one wheel working, I dragged the suitcase all over Kecskemét and Budapest. It was a really good workout!

Elder Gardenhire and I ordered a tiebag while we were in Budapest! These things are so famous in the mission. There is this guy in Budapest who somehow collects hundreds of ties and sells them in huge bags! It is pretty crazy. When I go on splits in Kecskemét, Elder Gardenhire and I will divide up the ties. I’ll be sure to take some sweet pictures for you.

One of the coolest things about serving in Hód is that we have a car! I don’t have a license so I can’t drive, but that’s fine. I get all the benefits anyway! I might get a license next transfer.

On Friday we had a little branch party in Szeged. (There isn’t a branch house here in Hód so we have to travel to Szeged, which is about a thirty minute drive by car.) It was a lot of fun. We played ping-pong and some of the people played basketball. My companion got pretty into the game and slid on the ground. He was in pros—mission lingo for proselyting clothes, meaning that he was wearing a white shirt, tie, and dress pants. He totally ripped a huge hole in his pants! It was really funny.

Saturday was also a really fun day. In the morning we went to the branch house in Szeged where we helped the members clean the building. Of course, they gave us the hardest job! Haha. We had to clean the walls with sponges. The paint that they use here in Hungary is a lot different than what I’m used to in America. If anything rubs against the paint the color will rub onto the wall. So we had to scrub off all those spots with sponges! It was actually kind of fun! Then we ate some really good Hungarian gulyás (goulash) and it tasted so good!

After cleaning the branch house, we drove to Kecskemét to see Sándor’s baptism. That was really cool. Tons of members were there and it was really good to see them all. Sándor is such a stud! It was so cool to see him baptized! I’m really happy for him. And his wife came to his baptism! I hope she liked it. It was a really cool experience.

Well I need to go now. Thanks for all your support! I love all of you! Keep on strengthening your testimonies of the gospel and reading from the scriptures!

~Anderson elder

Transferred Again!

2010-04-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Today we got transfer calls! It was crazy as usual. I’m getting transferred again! I am going to Hódmezővásárhely! I went there on splits while I was serving in Békéscsaba. Looks like I am going to be in this zone for a while! So this is my 6th area! I’m kind of tired of moving! And I have a terrible curse. Whenever I leave an area someone gets baptized soon after I leave! And Sándor will be baptized this Saturday and I’m leaving on Wednesday! But I’m sure that I’ll be able to get back to Kecskemét for it.

Well, that’s pretty much all of the exciting news I have since I just made a blog entry a few days ago.

I am super grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission! It is such an awesome experience! I am learning so much and it is way fun to help people strengthen their testimonies of Christ. The mission is definitely stressful—I’m getting a crazy widow’s peak on my head!—but it is totally worth all of the effort! The Hungarians are wonderful people; going on a mission has easily been the best decision I’ve made in my life thus far!

Sok szeretettel,
Anderson elder

Great News!

2010-04-09T17:15:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

I have great news: Sándor is getting baptized on the 17th! He has been investigating for a few months and now he has so much faith. He is awesome! I should have written more about him, but the point is that he is so cool and he is finally ready to be baptized! He is 26 years old and is getting married to his girlfriend on Monday. They’ve been together since they were 16! She isn’t interested in the gospel (yet), but she is way cool too. I am so excited! He is a super cool guy and it will be great to have him as a member. He was so prepared because he didn’t really believe in much before he met the missionaries, but now he has a strong faith in God and in the restored gospel of Christ! So cool!

So pretty much nothing else is as cool or important as that, but last week was pretty fun. We went to the Stake Center in Budapest on Saturday and watched conference! It was a great experience! Six of us missionaries slept in the same apartment Saturday night, so it was a little crazy! Elder Murray was there too and it was way cool to see him again! The first session of Conference, the Saturday “Morning” session started at 6 PM for us! But it was fun to be able to watch it live. In the end we were able to watch all of the sessions—some live, some recorded—except the Sunday Afternoon session. I loved all of the talks! They are always so spiritual and motivational!

We did another really cool thing on Monday. A few of us took a short trip north of Budapest to visit a fascinating and historic Catholic cathedral in a city called Esztergom. The Duna (that’s Danube in English) River right next to the city separates Hungary from Slovakia. The excursion was really fun. The cathedral is one of the biggest in Europe, I think, and it is REALLY big and old! I wish we had big old buildings like that in America.

Things are going pretty well here in Kecskemét! The weather is getting a lot nicer so that is really cool! The trees are becoming green and everything is blooming and it is super pretty. I love you all tons! I wish you could be here in Hungary with me! (It’s all right to be jealous!)

~Anderson elder

Canned Food Is Heavy!

2010-03-29T05:00:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-22T03:40:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

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

2010-03-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

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

2010-03-01T10:30:00.000-08:00

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

The Beaver-Field Shopping Place

2010-02-22T22:15:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was pretty good. On Tuesday I went on splits to Hódmezővásárhely which was really fun. The literal translation of the name of that city is pretty awesome. It means “beaver-field-shopping-place.” Hahaha. The really cool part of splits was that I got to spend the day with Elder Kunz who was in my MTC group! We got to reminisce about our days in the MTC and to talk about how crazy it is that we don’t even have a year left here in Hungary! Also his companion is the Zone Leader so we had a car and that was fun! I felt like I was a missionary in the US. They are so spoiled. Haha. The fun part was that when we got home we found out that our radiators didn’t feel like working so the apartment was super cold. We tried to fix the radiators, but couldn’t really do much. I ended up sleeping in my pajamas with my socks, my beanie, and both of my coats! That’s what it took to stay warm.

We are meeting with this really cool guy named Tamas (Tah-mash, the second “a” is pronounced like the “a” in cat). He is only 24 but looks older because of the sweet goatee that he has. Haha. He says that he is praying about the Book of Mormon and that is promising. I hope that he continues to progress.

The family in Doboz is also doing well. The mother, Judit, wants to be baptized and is a way awesome person. The family’s biggest struggle is making it to church since they have to take a bus to get to Békéscsaba.

I have something to confess. We went to Gyula last week and visited a really good hamburger restaurant. This place had a giant TV with the Winter Olympics on and we just couldn’t resist! Haha. We watched the men’s sport where they ski down the mountain really fast making really sharp S-turns around the flags. It was pretty cool. I would so be up there at Whistler if I were back at home. But living in central Europe for two years as a missionary is WAY better! Haha.

Sunday was pretty good. Everything went smooth except not very many of our investigators came to church. That was really disappointing. Especially so because Mecséri Olivér from the Mission Presidency came to our meetings. He is so cool and he gave a sweet talk about faith and how we need to do all that we can do first before God will do His part. He used the story of Jesus raising Lazarus to illustrate his point in a really cool way. He asked why Christ had asked those around him to show him where Lazarus had been laid, why He told them to take away the stone, and why He asked them to unwrap Lazarus? Because these were all things that those people were perfectly capable of doing themselves. The only thing that Christ did was what the others could not do: He raised Lazarus from the dead. And so Olivér said that sometimes we pray really hard for God to do things for us that we can do ourselves, things that God wants us to do for ourselves so that we can learn and grow. If God did everything for us, we wouldn’t be able to learn and progress. When we work hard to do all that we can do and then face something that we cannot do, that is when God will do His part and we’ll see miracles. But God knows what we are capable of a lot better than we think. And usually we are capable of more than we think.

So it was a fun week. I can’t believe that my mission is half-over! I love this Gospel and I am very grateful to be able to teach others about it!

~Anderson elder

***IMPORTANT***
I have a new email address. It is braden.anderson@myldsmail.net.
(There’s a period where the underscore was in my old address.)

The Train to Kecskemét

2010-02-15T23:00:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was good! The people at two homes let us in while we were tracting and that was great! At one home we found a cool middle-aged couple and then at another home in the same area we found a 29 year old guy. The programs were really good, so I am excited for them!

Church wasn’t that exciting last week. Haha! A few members were sick or something else happened and so we missionaries had to do everything. We gave all the talks and blessed the sacrament and taught the Sunday School and Primary too. It was intense, but it went well.

Oh, Happy Valentine’s Day! Hungarians celebrate Valentine’s Day too. But kids here don’t make card holders out of shoeboxes in school and pass out Valentine’s Day cards to each other. I don’t know why not, that’s the best part!

We had Zone Conference last week and that was really neat. I love being able to get together with a bunch of missionaries and learn from each other. The only bad thing was that the train ride is three hours long and since our train was late coming home I was exhausted. Going there was pretty funny. We woke up early in order to catch an early train to Szeged (seh-gehd) from where we had to get on another train to Kecskemét (kech-kehm-eight). So we get off of our train in Szeged and go into the train station to see when the train to Kecskemét leaves only to learn that it was leaving right then. We ran back outside just in time to see the train leave. The Szeged missionaries were on it and they were kind enough to wave goodbye to us! Haha! We had to wait almost an hour for the next one.

We are getting a few more good investigators which is fantastic! The family that lives in Box—I love that town’s name!—are doing great. So far only the mom is interested, but we can tell that she wants everyone else to be interested too. She’s definitely going to lead them along.

I love this country and the people here! I am super grateful to be here and be a missionary!

~Anderson elder

Unpaid Clergy

2010-02-08T23:10:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was really good. And we had another funny experience in sacrament meeting! Right before the water was blessed a person who’d never been to church before came into the chapel and sat down. Because the meeting had already started, none of us missionaries had a chance to talk to her and explain the sacrament ordinance. I was passing the water and when the tray got to her I heard a loud clunk-like sound. I thought that her ring had fallen into the tray. Sister Richards (one of the sister missionaries) was trying to fish it out. I looked more closely and saw that it wasn’t a ring but a 100 forint coin!!! She had heard the empty water cups being put back into the tray and had assumed that people were offering money! Hahaha! She and Sister Richards tried for a minute or so to get the coin out, but couldn’t do it. I took the tray back to the table and gave her the coin back after the meeting was over. It was a very funny way to introduce the concept of an unpaid clergy.

Other than that our sacrament meeting went really well. We have a new investigator and she is awesome. Her name is Judit (pronounced yoo-deet) and she came to church and really loved it! Hopefully next week we can help her whole family come too.

I have like no time to write today because earlier in the day we spent a lot of time exploring the ruins of an old mansion—it was way cool. We have a program tonight in about 35 minutes so I have to go now!

~Anderson elder

The Value of Goals

2010-02-01T23:35:00.000-08:00

Helló!

Last week was pretty good. I conducted the meetings at church again and everything went smoothly. I am thinking that nothing can phase me now since last Sunday’s experience with the Sacrament water. Haha. If anything embarrassing happens now at least I won’t freak out. Haha.

These past few weeks Elder Smith and I have been trying hard to achieve Mission Standard for our weekly goals. This standard is a performance goal for activities like having investigators at church, finding new contacts, teaching lessons to investigators, etc. that the whole mission is trying to achieve. We haven’t achieved the standard yet, but we’ve been working harder and we’ve had more success at finding people who are interested. For a long time I haven’t understood why we have goals like these when their realization depends mainly on other people’s agency or freedom to choose. But I think I understand the reason more clearly now. Even though success depends largely on other peoples’ decisions to meet with us, it cannot happen without our effort as well. Taking these goals more seriously has helped us become more motivated to share the gospel with others and to find those who are interested. These goals can help if we let them motivate us. Lately Elder Smith and I have found a lot of really cool people; in fact, these past few weeks have been some of the most successful of my mission, and it’s all because I am taking our goals more seriously and not letting myself get frustrated because I cannot control other peoples’ decisions. So that was a cool insight I learned recently.

Elder Smith and I taught Primary—that’s like Sunday School for children under the age of 12—last week and it was great! We had no idea what we were going to teach when the meeting started, but the lesson came together really well! Usually after a short spiritual message we lose control of the kids and end up just playing games. Haha. Neither of us really knows how to teach Primary and kids that young are way hard to teach! Primary is intense. Yesterday when we went to start the meeting, none of the children wanted to say the opening prayer—so we decided to teach them about prayer! We taught them how to pray and then we had them draw things that they are grateful for and for which they could offer thanks to our Heavenly Father. It was way fun. Tibi (his name is pronounced Teebee), who is like four years old, drew dinosaurs and then said the closing prayer. He was sooo cute! I love it when little kids pray!

Well that was some of the cool things from last week! God lives and so does His son, Jesus Christ. They have restored the fullness of the gospel on the earth and I love it!

~Anderson elder

How Not to Prepare the Sacrament

2010-01-25T06:15:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

I don’t remember last week very well; it went by really fast. I mostly remember that it was awfully cold. And that my bike broke again. And that later on my backup bike’s shifting cables froze and somehow popped off and I couldn’t get them back on! So now Elder Smith and I have to walk everywhere we go—and that’s really annoying because I’d just gotten used to having a bike. It really has been cold. This morning the temperature was like -10° C (that’s about 15° F) and my nose hairs were totally frozen! Haha. Fortunately it’s warmed up a little now.

A super funny thing happened on Sunday. Everything was going well during church until it came time for the sacrament. I go up to the table to get the water and as the cloth is lifted off the table this thought goes through my head, “I don’t remember putting water in the sacrament cups. Uh oh. But there has to be water. We definitely filled the cups up. I think…” So I just stand there staring as hard as I can at the cups. I don’t have a clear view, but I can’t see any water! Elder Smith says the blessing on the water and then reaches over to pick up the tray. I’m secretly praying, “Please, please, pllllleeaase, let there be water!” Then Elder Smith grabs the tray and we both see that it’s empty. Misi, the Hungarian who blessed the sacrament with Elder Smith, gets this big grin on his face as he tries to hold back from laughing! Elder Smith and I just look at each other for a second, then I whisper, “Ya, there’s no water. Um, I guess you should probably tell everyone.” Hahaha. So I go fill up the sacrament cups while Elder Smith announces our mistake to the congregation. And then of course a few members start laughing! What an embarrassing and funny experience! That’s the first time I have ever seen that happen in church!

We met a really cool family last week and we have high hopes for them. They live in a small town called Doboz (box). Haha. Hopefully we’ll be able to meet with them some more.

On Sunday we had two members from the ward in Buda—there is a ward in Buda and a ward in Pest, so two wards total in Budapest—come down here and teach Relief Society for us. It was awesome! It is so good to have solid members who know how things are supposed to work inspire the members here. We always try to help the members but sometimes it seems like they are too used to the missionaries. They need awesome Hungarians to inspire them. This experience with Relief Society was great!

Well I’m going to go now. Thanks for everything! See ya next week!

~Anderson elder

A Whole Year Now

2010-01-18T10:40:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was really neat. I had another funny biking experience. Elder Smith and I were riding our bikes home on Monday from Tesco (European Walmart) when it happened. Elder Smith was holding a big bag in his left hand which he normally uses to change gears. So he reached over with his right hand to change gears and lost control of the bike and totally crashed! And then I ran over his bike! But somehow I managed to stay on my bike. Elder Smith didn’t get hurt, but the bad thing was that our yogurt exploded all over the place! It was so funny.

Also, I have officially been on my mission for a whole year now! WHOA! Doesn’t seem like it’s been that long at all.

Another cool thing this week was that we restarted our English class and about 70 people came! Our branch house here is super small so there were people who had to stay standing because we didn’t have enough chairs! It was great. Hopefully we’ll be able to find some people to teach through our class.

One more out-of-the-ordinary thing: I got my Christmas presents! Haha! So we had a mini Christmas on Friday. It was great!

Our investigator, Sándor, is awesome and is doing well. We just began teaching him about the Ten Commandments. So now he knows that there is more to the Ten Commandments than just not killing and stealing, which is what a lot of people here think. We are trying to met with his wife too, but she isn’t really interested yet. He is a great guy; I have great hopes for him!

Well I am in a hurry now, so there is a good rundown of last week! It was good. I love this gospel with all my heart and I am so glad that I can be here and teach others about it!

~Anderson elder

An Egyptian Lesson

2010-01-11T13:55:00.000-08:00

Cső! (Slang for hey, but it literally means pipe! Haha)

Last week was pretty good. Two weeks ago we asked an English class student if we could meet with her whole family and last week we did! But I guess we didn’t clearly explain to her that we wanted to talk about the gospel with her family because when we showed up we found out that they had planned an outing for us to go visit an old Catholic church. We couldn’t say no—that would have been unbelievably rude and would have ruined any chance of teaching them later on—so we went along. It was a lot of fun. The coolest part, by far, was this ancient pump organ in the chapel. Elder Smith asked if he could play it and they let him. So he played “Choose the Right” on this magnificent old organ in this stately old cathedral! I was hoping that he would play a restoration hymn—that would have given us an easy way to talk about the gospel—but he didn’t think of it. It was a fun experience, but next time we’re going to make sure that our hosts understand why we want to meet with them and that we didn’t come just to hang out.

We had splits with the zone leaders on Wednesday—that was fun too. I spent the day with Elder Liljenquist, who is from Burley, Idaho. He knows Brady Anderson and all my Burley family. The best part of the day was that he forgot to give his house keys to his companion until long after they’d left. They had to drive all the way back and spend the night with us. It’s always nice having another companionship around.

Oh! We also met an Egyptian this week! He married a Hungarian and they are visiting Hungary for a little while. He was really cool. He’s a Muslim and was pretty curious about our religion and so we had a pleasant conversation with him. He was way nice, definitely a lot nicer than the vast majority of Christians that I’ve met here, which is really interesting. He told us a lot about Islam. (FYI: Islam is the religion and Muslim is the person who believes in Islam, like Christianity and Christian.) It was a lot different learning about Islam from a Muslim than learning about Islam in an American high school where there is some prejudice against Muslims and Islam. This man basically explained that most Muslims are good people and that their religion inspires them to become better, kinder people just as Christianity does. He admitted that there are Muslim extremists who disregard the original teachings of Islam and substitute their own ideas in order to justify their hatred of others. But extremists are not unique to Islam, of course. There are quite a few Christian extremists who disregard Christ’s teachings of love and instead adopt their own made-up religion that allows them to be hateful and prejudiced. Racism and hate and prejudice are denounced by both religions, but that doesn’t stop people who say they belong to the religion from refusing to follow the very teachings they profess to believe in. Interesting. This Muslim man, Ahmed, tried so hard to explain his beliefs clearly and to help us understand that the majority of Muslims are good people. I was glad to be able to let him know that we understood his point because Christ has taught us to love others and that we follow that teaching.

This experience reminded me of how Latter-day Saints are wrongly perceived by so many people, at least in America, because of polygamist groups who claim to be but are not in fact affiliated with us. Those who don’t like us make us lies and rumors that others are willing to believe. Other people hear about polygamists in the news and assume that we are the same without bothering to find out the truth. They are satisfied with denying Christ’s commandments of love and understanding to maintain their prejudice. In his conversation with us, Ahmed was trying hard to lessen the prejudice against his people.

Whoa! That was a big tangent! Haha. Basically, I learned again the fact that there is a big difference between saying that you believe something and behaving according to your beliefs. In the book of John, chapter 14, Christ said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” That is one of the greatest challenges in life, but just because it is difficult doesn’t mean that we can’t strive hard to do it. Let us live by what we believe and know and enjoy the blessings that Christ promised! Breaking the commandments—there are many more than ten since we believe in what Christ taught in the New Testament—leads to a much more difficult and unhappy life!

I love the gospel of Jesus Christ! I know that it is not easy to follow Jesus, but life is so much more rewarding and we are so much happier than when we don’t follow Him!

Well that tangent wore me out! Haha. So I’m going to go now. I love you all!

~Anderson elder

Starting the New Year

2010-01-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Last week was really cool. At least one crazy thing happened that I can remember. The handlebars on my bike came loose and started to jiggle a little bit, but I didn't pay much attention to it. (You can probably guess the rest of the story already!) Well, last Wednesday Elder Smith and I were riding home to get some stuff before going to a member's house and as we were turning a corner my steering failed. I turned my handlebars, but nothing happened. I looked down and saw that my front wheel hadn’t turned; then I looked up and watched helplessly as I ran into Elder Smith’s bike. We collided, but somehow managed to stay on our feet! I got my pants all muddy from the street and I broke one of the spokes off of the front tire, but fortunately nothing worse happened. At this point, I thought the worst of my bike saga was over, but my day just got better! We walked our bikes home and picked up the stuff we needed before going to the member’s house. My bike was not ridable, but fortunately, we had an extra! Unfortunately, one of its pedals was broken off. I put the pedal back in place as best I could and rode off to the member’s house. That trip was a lot of fun! Every five to ten rotations the pedal would come loose again and I’d have to tap it back in with my foot—a really tricky maneuver! The pedal fell off a few times so I had to coast back to where it dropped, pick it up, and stick it back on. That was quite the bike ride! Later on Elder Smith and I went to Tesco (Europe’s version of Walmart) and bought some tools to fix the first bike. And now everything is great!

New Year’s Day was pretty cool. For language study I watched a part of The Prince of Egypt in Hungarian and wrote down the words I couldn’t understand. Singing is almost impossible to understand! And really fast talking too. But watching movies in Hungarian is a ton of fun. I don’t understand every word, but enough to get the main points and to enjoy the movie. On New Year’s eve there were tons of fireworks. I don’t know if they are legal here or not, but everyone loves them and sets them off. It felt like the 4th of July at home!

Our investigator, Sándor, is doing well. We are going to start meeting with his wife and daughter now! Awesome! We recently watched the Restoration video with them—the audio is finally in Hungarian! It was great.

Well I need to go now, I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and will enjoy going back to work and school! Whoooo!

~Anderson elder

Christmas in Békéscsaba

2009-12-28T08:15:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

I hope that everybody had a great Christmas! I did! Unfortunately, all the snow melted, but that was OK. Elder Smith’s parents sent gifts for the members here and we had a lot of fun wrapping them and delivering them. His parents made scripture bags and bought copies of the new Gospel Art Book for everyone. We gave the members those gifts along with copies of the Hungarian General Conference Liahona, which finally arrived last week.

On Christmas day an English class couple invited us over to their house for dinner! Hungarians are so nice! They are standoffish at first, but become friends quickly. They made us mutton! It was really tasty! I’ve never eaten sheep before, but it was very delicious.

The day after Christmas, which is still Christmas here, we visited some more members and had a ton of fun. We biked our way to a member’s house who lives about 30 minutes away from our apartment. The trip there was fun because we had to go through a forest that was way muddy and wet from the rain. We got really muddy from riding all over the place! It was great! And then when we got there we just played outside with Laci, who is 10, and his mom using a soccer ball and a frisbee. They live in a farming area where the soil is super good. It’s like pitch black and apparently really fertile, which is probably why the food and juices are so good here! Anyway, we spent a few hours with them just playing around and having fun. Laci really looks up to us and he is such a cute kid. I hope he pays more attention to us and our examples than the kids at school.

Church went really well yesterday. Oh I completely forgot to write about it, but since my companion was so sick last week and since he is the Branch President we had to cancel church! That is unheard of in the mission. And so yesterday we had our Christmas program and it went well. I decided it would be a good idea to read the story of Christ’s birth from the scriptures as a Sacrament Meeting talk; I have now decided that that probably wasn’t a good idea. I’m pretty sure I put a few people to sleep, which is really bad since we only have a few active members here! Haha! But the rest of the program went well. Elder Smith and I sang some Christmas songs and that turned out good since he knows how to sing. I have figured out that I can sing decently only if I am following someone who has a similar voice as mine. I never would have sung with just one other person in Sacrament Meeting at home, but I guess singing in front of 12 people is a little easier than 140 people!

Sister Richards (one of the sister missionaries here in Békéscsaba) and I taught Primary yesterday! And it went well! Yes! Well, it went well for the first 20 to 30 minutes. We talked about Christ’s birth and the shepherds and then we talked about how we celebrate Christmas. We tried to teach them the song “Stars were Gleaming.” The girl, Brigi, was really well behaved, but her younger brother was a little more of a handful! Haha. After a while I just helped him draw dinosaurs from his new dinosaur book! But is was a ton of fun. I hope they will remember what we were able to teach them.

Well I have to go now, I love you all! I hope Christmas was great over there. Happy New Year in a few days! Let’s set some sweet New Year goals and work to be a little kinder, happier and more loving to everyone!

~Anderson elder

Boldog Karácsonyt

2009-12-23T08:50:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Boldog Karácsonyt!! (Merry Christmas!!) This past week was really interesting. It snowed a lot, which was really awesome. My companion and I had a ton of fun riding our bikes in the snow. Unfortunately, on Thursday he got sick with a really high fever. We had to stay in the apartment for like two to three straight days! I don’t even remember how long exactly—it was just long. The crazy thing was that I was stuck in this teeny apartment with a sick companion but I didn’t get sick! I did a lot of studying though, which was nice. But then last night almost all of the snow melted away, which is a bummer! We were so close to having a white Christmas!

Seeing all the snow has made me miss snowboarding, so I figured out how I can snowboard here! Well, kind of. Whenever we ride the bus, I stay standing and don’t hold onto anything and it almost feels like I’m snowboarding on the bus! So that’s pretty fun.

Zone Conference was really neat this transfer. For a Christmas present we got to watch the movie “Up” which was pretty good. And we sang lots of Christmas songs and of course had trainings about how to take advantage of the holiday season to preach the Gospel.

Well my mind is going blank so this week’s blog entry will be a short one, sorry! The Gospel is amazing and I am super glad that I am able to teach others about it and see them become happier people! And speaking of happy people, Marika from Sopron got baptized on December 20th! She is awesome, I’m grateful that I was able to teach her! Remember that Christmas is about Jesus Christ! He is our Savior and I know that if we try to follow His example we will be so blessed!

Boldog Karácsonyt!

~Anderson elder

Paprikás Csirke

2009-12-14T08:15:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Last week went by pretty fast. Getting transferred to Békéscsaba was a long move—and I miss Sopron already—but the people here are incredible too!

I have some great news! I successfully made Paprikás Csirke from scratch on Wednesday and it was delicious!! Whoa! That’s the first time I have made something from scratch and made it taste good! It lasted for about four or five meals! So tasty.

And one of the coolest things about Békéscsaba is that we have bikes! Sweet! I love riding bikes! It is so much better than walking everywhere! Mine looks pretty lame and it doesn’t have any suspension, but it moves! So many people in this city ride bikes, bikes pretty much dominate the roads. OK, its not that intense, but I haven’t seen this many people on bikes in any other part of the country. And it snowed on Sunday! The snow didn’t stick, but it was ridiculously fun trying to lick snowflakes from the air while riding a bike!

I have a kind of embarrassing story to share. On Sunday as my companion and I were about to go to church, the handle on our apartment door broke from the outside locking us inside! The door was unlocked, but the inside handle didn’t have the part that turns the lock, so it just spun in circles and did nothing! We called the sisters—our district consists of my companion and me and two sisters, who are wonderful—and they came and rescued us. Haha. We all thought it was pretty funny.

On Sunday I gave a talk in church and it went well. The branch here is way small. Because there is only one active Priesthood holder in the branch—he just got baptized a few months ago and is awesome—my companion is the Branch President and I am the clerk. I’ll likely be assigned as First Counselor as well.

Well, we are in a hurry, so I have to leave now. Thanks for the support and love! Christmas is near! Whoohoo! Remember what Christmas is really about! Christ and how he is our Savior and Redeemer! Have a great week everybody!

~Anderson elder

Going to Békéscsaba

2009-12-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Last week was pretty good! I don’t have much time to write about it though; my companion and I have a program to go to soon.

So first of all, Marika is doing even better! She is awesome and will be baptized on the 18th! I’m way excited. One of the best things about her situation is that she has two really good friends in the branch who will be taking good care of her and helping her to stay strong in the church. She loves the gospel and I am so grateful that I have been able to teach her. It is way cool to see someone’s life become better and happier because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Awesome.

Some other big news is that on Wednesday I am being transferred to Békéscsaba, which is in the southeastern side of the country. It’s not too far from Romania. I am excited to go, but I am going to miss the people here in Sopron.

My companion and I got to go to Austria last week! Well, we got to go through it. A member moved to a town about 30 minutes south of Sopron and the fastest way to get there from here is through Austria. I never got to step on Austrian soil, but it was still cool to drive through two small towns and see all the signs in German.

This morning we made Paprikás Csirke—pepper chicken. Made with sweet pepper, not the regular spicy kind, it’s way better than it sounds and is one of the tastiest Hungarian meals! Last Monday we visited a member who is a chef and he showed us how to make it. We haven’t actually eaten it yet, but it sure smells good!

Well, I have to go now. Thank you all for all of your awesomeness! See you next week!

~Anderson elder

Thanksgiving in Hungary

2009-11-30T17:30:00.000-08:00

Hellósztok!

This week turned out pretty awesome, although, it didn’t start out so good. I have a pathetically funny story about that. Recently I have been trying to eat healthier and so early in the week I bought some chicken to cook for dinner. I put it in the fridge to thaw for most of the day, but it was still rock solid when I went to cook it. I put it in some really hot water for a few minutes, but then had to go to a meeting. I totally forgot about the chicken even though the meeting was on the floor below our apartment. The meeting ran late as usual and when I went back upstairs I found the water cold and realized that the chicken had been sitting out for over an hour and a half and was now thawed out and probably full of really bad germs. That was really lame of me. Haha. I didn’t trust the chicken since it had been sitting out so long and ended up wasting about a kilo of good food. I had been so excited to make something healthy and tasty and then I totally blew it! Hahaha. I’m going to try again tonight. Wish me luck! I’ll need it...

Last Monday we met with a really cool guy named László. He used to be Christian, but converted to Buddhism when he saw things in his church that didn’t seem right and that didn’t fit with what he felt was right. He’s a way cool guy who loves to rock climb—in fact, he reminds me of the guy who taught me how to rock climb. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon and about how our church differs from other Christian religions. He agreed to read the Book of Mormon. Nothing special happened during our meeting, it was just a good program. Hopefully we’ll get to meet with him again.

Thanksgiving was great! All thanks to the senior couple here, the Haslems! Whole turkeys are available here in Hungary only during Christmas time so the Haslems went to Vienna to get two big turkeys with which they made a great big Thanksgiving dinner! Missionaries from two other cities, Szombathely and Győr, came to Sopron and we had a big party. The party was a ton of fun and the food was very tasty! I felt pretty blessed to have a Thanksgiving dinner halfway across the world.

On Saturday we had a big branch party during which we made Advent wreaths. The making of Advent wreaths is apparently a popular tradition here in Europe. The party was a lot of fun. Almost all of our investigators attended too, which was really neat! This week was full, that’s for sure.

Marika is still doing great and her testimony of the Gospel is growing. She hasn’t been this happy in a long time. She had never been able to quit smoking before we started to meet with her, but she is now relying more on God and is receiving many blessings from Him. She had smoked for 40 years or so but was able to quit pretty quickly. She has a lot of determination which I’m sure has helped as well. It is a privilege to teach her more about God and Christ and what they have given to us through ancient and modern revelation.

Being here on a mission in Hungary is awesome. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ a ton! It is great to be able to teach others and see how living according to the commandments actually brings more happiness and peace and meaning into their lives. Thanks for all of the support from home and everywhere else!

~Anderson elder

Christmas Is Coming!

2009-11-23T19:30:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

Hey! Last week was pretty good. First of all, CHRISTMAS IS COMING! The city is putting Christmas lights on street lamps and setting up trees and other stuff—it is really cool. Supposedly, in early December the city is going to set up a big Christmas tree in Fő Tér, which is the main square in the city. Christmas is awesome!

We visited an older member named Marika Néni last week who can’t come to church because she has to take care of her older sister who is 90 years old and has Alzheimer’s disease really bad. She is such a sweet lady and the highlight of her week is visiting with us. One time she called us her little angels! It is always fun to visit her.

Elder and Sister Haslem, the senior missionary couple in Sopron, have started a branch program called Gofri Est, or Waffle Night, which we hold every other Friday evening. Last week we watched The Polar Express at Gofri Est—it was pretty cool to see it in Hungarian. I could understand the point of what movie characters were saying, but not every word they said. It was fun though.

This week the Haslems are making a huge Thanksgiving dinner for the missionaries in Sopron and a few missionaries from other areas. Yesterday they went to Vienna, which is only 45 minutes away, to get a big turkey. They also had their kids send them pumpkin pie stuff in the mail!

Marika, our investigator, is doing awesome now! She was really stressed out about some stuff in her life, but she made through it and now is more committed to being baptized than ever. She is progressing well and the cool thing is that people have noticed that she is much happier nowadays! I love teaching about the Gospel of Christ. It is an awesome feeling to really believe and experience that God does love us and help us!

Well I need to go now, but thanks again for all of your love and support!

~Anderson elder

A Car Crash

2009-11-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

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

The Blessings of the Church

2009-11-09T09:35:00.000-08:00

Sziasztok!

OK, this blog email will be short, but sweet. Sorry for the disclaimer, but I am running out of time FAST! Whatever emails I write last are always rushed.

This week was really good! Except that my companion and I have been having a hard time getting enough sleep. Because of winter and the reduced amount of daylight it offers, we have changed our schedules. We now wake up at 5:30am and go to bed at 9:30pm. Technically we should be getting the same amount of sleep as before. However, we have a lot of branch activities all of which are later at night and none of which we can reschedule. So we have a lot less time to eat dinner and get ready for bed after these activities and that has meant that we have been staying up later trying to get everything done. We almost got sick from lack of sleep, but now we are finally used to it. We have been able to organize our schedule better to give us enough time to do what we need and still get enough sleep. I never before realized just how important sleep is! It makes a huge impact on how you feel and how motivated you are to work hard. I’m grateful that we have worked things out now.

One cool thing that happened this week was that we found a guy who hasn’t been coming to church in a few years. He was pretty happy to meet with us and we had a great program with him. His life has recently become extremely difficult. His wife left him for a neighbor just two floors below in their apartment building and now she lives down there with this other guy. She totally abandoned her husband and their two super cute daughters, one who is three years old and one who is five. Because of this situation, he has to take care of the girls all by himself and that has made his work even more difficult. He works 11 to 12 hours a day, five to six days a week and usually gets about three to four hours of sleep after coming home from work and trying to be a good father. He has so many good memories of the church when he was active—I could really tell that he misses the church and the stability and blessings it once brought into his life. I am really looking forward to meeting with him again.

I have to go now; my companion and I need to go shopping and then run some more errands. Thanks for everything I love you all!

~Anderson elder

Halloween in Hungary

2009-11-02T03:10:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody!

I have been informed that I am no longer allowed to say in my blog that not a lot happened during the week—great advice because this week was intense. Elder Carlson finished his mission and I got a new companion named Elder Nichols. He is pretty awesome.

We had a sweet Halloween party last week! Hungarians don’t celebrate Halloween so they really liked our party since it was so different. All four of us missionaries dressed up as penguins! Since you can’t buy costumes here we had to make everything from scratch and cheap clothes. We looked pretty funny. When we walked downstairs into the branch house where everyone was (two of us live above the branch house) everyone burst out laughing because we looked so ridiculous! It was a ton of fun. So many English class students came with their families and friends that there were almost too many people for our small building. There were about 54 people who came and nonmembers outnumbered members of the church almost 3 to 1! So it was a great success. We are going to start meeting with a few of the people who came to the party, which is awesome. At the very least a lot of people have a much better impression of us and know that we are normal people who like to have fun too. It was definitely the highlight of the week.

Also, I turned 20 years old and that was a little weird. I feel like I’m in a time warp thingy and that when I get home I’ll still be 19 years old. During the family night we hold in the branch house one of the families brought me a cake and candy! It was really cool.

I love you all and I am way glad to be here serving the Hungarian people and helping them become happier and more optimistic through the gospel of Jesus Christ. I believe with all of my heart because of what I have felt and studied and experienced that this church is the restored church of Jesus Christ. I love seeing how the church makes people become better and happier people. Again, thanks for everything!

~Anderson elder

A Fast Week

2009-10-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

Hello!

This week was kind of boring, but it went by really fast at the same time. It was Elder Carlson’s last full week here in Hungary and so we had a lot of goodbye programs with people. One of the members took us out to eat at a really nice restaurant—and that was great! Hungarian food is really tasty. Friday was a national holiday celebrating the 1956 revolution against the communist government. Hungary was either the first country or one of the first countries to rebel against communism, but the revolution lasted only a few days and ended when Russia brought in a few hundred tanks and lots of soldiers to suppress the freedom fighters. When the communists ruled Hungary, they added a crest onto the Hungarian flag. Today people sometimes cut out that symbol from those communist-era flags so now we occasionally see flags with big holes in the middle. Those are pretty cool.

The missionary work is still going along as usual, we just need to find some more people who we can teach. Unfortunately that’s a pretty difficult task.

My Dad asked me about Christmas here in Hungary. It is different than in America. First of all Santa comes on December 6th and brings presents. On December 24th Hungarians set up their Christmas tree so that Baby Jesus can come and bring them more presents. They open the presents from Baby Jesus on the 25th. So a Hungarian Christmas is definitely different than an America Christmas. Personally, I like the way we do it better, but I guess that’s just because I’m biased. Haha.

Well, thank you for everything! I appreciate the emails and support and love! I believe with all my heart that God and Christ live and love us!

~Anderson elder

Eszterházy kastély

2009-10-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody!

Last week was pretty good. We went to see a giant mansion called Eszterházy kastély that was originally built a few hundred years ago. It was really neat. I’ll send some pictures.

Earlier last week it was way cold. The wind was really strong and that made it a lot worse.

Marika is doing really well. She is awesome! We decided to talk to her about smoking and to help her quit, but she told us that she had already quit! We were a little taken back. She said that she had already thrown all of the cigarettes out of her house and that she had told her co-workers not to ask her for cigarettes because she doesn’t have any anymore! She is a very determined person. She is progressing well and it’s awesome!

So about the Lutheran missionary girl we’ve been talking to—we had a good discussion last night. We had planned on talking to her about original sin and about what happens to those who don’t learn of Christ during mortality and to answer her questions about becoming like our Father in Heaven. We had a ton of sweet scriptures from the Bible to prove our points. Well, as is usually the case, our discussion didn’t go as planned. Our scriptures were awesome, but she had a different interpretation for all of them so they had no effect on her at all. Our discussion became a “now you know why we believe what we believe and that we have scriptures to back up our beliefs and our disagreements are a matter of different interpretations of those scriptures” meeting. But it was so sad to hear her talk about how babies and others who don’t hear about Christ in this life will go to hell and suffer eternally. She admitted that it’s a hard thing for her to accept.

Truly, NOTHING can convert people to the gospel except the Spirit of God and only then when those who hear the gospel are open to the Spirit’s guidance and are willing to follow it. Talking to this Lutheran missionary has made me think a lot about psychology and about just how ineffective and destructive it is to try to disprove someone else’s beliefs. In our discussion last night, we just talked about our different beliefs in a courteous manner. We didn’t convince her of anything, so some might say that nothing much was accomplished. On the other hand, when a discussion degenerates into contention only bad stuff can come from it. Talking to her has given me a lot of experience discussing beliefs without being contentious. I really like it when neither party in a discussion like this tries to prove the other wrong, instead focusing on exchanging beliefs and trying to understand one another. So it was cool.

I made an interesting language mistake this week. While talking to one of the members, Ádám, I just couldn’t think of what I wanted to say in correct Hungarian. I told him that what I was about to say wasn’t going to be correct. But when I said that I made a mistake! OK, that was confusing. I meant to say „nem lesz helyes,” which means “it won’t be correct,” but instead I said „nem helyes lesz.” OK, so it wasn’t a funny mistake, but it was kind of ironic.

Well I didn’t get a good night’s sleep last night and my brain just isn’t working so I’ll end now. I am very grateful that I have the opportunity to be here and to help others become happier through the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Thanks for everything, I love you all!

~Anderson elder

Marika

2009-10-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody!

This week went by really fast, but some cool things happened. The lady that we helped move last week, Marika, is meeting with us regularly and now says that she wants to be baptized! So that is way cool. Last Tuesday as we were walking through the city, we went past her new apartment complex. We noticed her putting her name on her new mailbox so we decided to go and talk to her. She invited us up to her apartment. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and gave her a copy of her own. She said that she would read from it. Then the next day we met with her again and talked about what she had read. We asked her if she wanted to know if the Book of Mormon was true or not and she said that after reading and praying about it, she already feels that is is true! I was thinking, “Whoa! This doesn’t happen everyday...or week...or month!” We also taught her some more about the Restoration and that went really well. So then we asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said yes! And then I thought, “WHOA!” It was way awesome; I felt the Spirit really strong and knew that this was something God wanted. We have been teaching her more and it has been great. I love to see her happy and to hear her tell about how people who know her can see that she is happier, even though they don’t know why. The Gospel of Christ really does have the power to bring so much happiness into our lives. In other words, it’s awesome!

So we watched General Conference at church this week and it was really cool. I understood a lot more than I did six months ago. Of course I didn’t understand anything then, but still.... This time I could understand the basic message that they were talking about, but not exactly what they were saying because they translate it really well in pretty fancy Hungarian that is way over my head. So sometimes I would understand a few sentences and then there would be a few sentences that were just too full of fancy words and grammar principles that I didn’t understand. And then after a while it felt like my brain would just overload and I would fall asleep. Haha. I could only take so much of that fast, complicated Hungarian at once and then when I hit that mark I would just fall asleep like a rock. But when I payed attention it was somewhat understandable.

Well I’m kind of in a hurry, we have a program with Marika soon, so I better get going. Thanks for everything and for the support and love!

~Anderson elder

Coworkers and Friends

2009-10-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody!

Apparently some people think that my blog entries are getting too short. Well, I agree; but I can only stand being in front of the computer for so long! And two hours, which is the average time it takes me to read my emails and write in my blog and to my parents, is plenty long for me.

So with that disclaimer, this week was really good. This morning we did some service, which was really enjoyable. Balázs, one of the way cool members here in Sopron, has a coworker who was moving. He invited us to help them and it was a lot of fun. We had to move the coworker’s stuff out of the third floor of her building, a pretty interesting task at times. Then when we got to her new place we discovered that the apartment wasn’t empty yet. So we helped the former tenants move their stuff out and then Balázs’s coworker’s stuff in. It was a really good workout! And it was cool because the coworker said that she would come to church on Sunday, which is when we’re showing General Conference in Hungarian—that’ll be way cool.

Speaking of General Conference, Balázs had us come to his house Saturday night at 6pm to watch the first session live on his computer. It was way neat to watch conference live, but the kids were a little distracting. Haha. They have the cutest little girl named Laura, whose nickname is Lala. I don’t know when we’ll get to watch the whole thing in English.

We recently met an American girl who is on a mission teaching English for the Lutheran church. Unfortunately her church sent her out here without any language training at all, so she can’t speak any Hungarian. We have started to meet with her to teach her a little Hungarian and talk about the Gospel. We are pretty sure that she isn’t interested in joining our church, especially since her father is a Lutheran minister, but at the very least we can clear up all of the lies and misconceptions she has heard about Mormons. Maybe she will even become a friend of the church and defend us and spread the truth when she hears bad stuff about us from others.

Thank you for everything, especially for your love and support! I know that God and Christ live and love us and that they truly care about us. If we try to follow Christ’s example and pray hard, we will receive answers to our prayers and questions. I have experienced that for myself and I’m here to help others experience it for themselves too. I love you all!

~Anderson elder

Zone Conference

2009-09-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody!

This week has been pretty good. We have been meeting with Barbara a lot and she is progressing really well. We are trying to meet with more people, but it’s difficult of course.

Elder Erich W. Kopischke, a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy and our Area President (I think), came to Zone Conference this week and taught us a lot. It was really neat. He is an amazing teacher. He did a question and answer session for three hours straight, but it felt like just an hour because he taught so well. Especially so since he had to teach us in English and he’s German. It was really fun to learn from him and his experiences.

We are trying to figure out ways to serve the people here in Sopron, but it’s pretty hard. We have been to the city hall three times and the officials have promised to call us back, but they never have. I don’t understand why they aren’t being very cooperative. Four young men who want to help the city in any way for free. How is that not appealing? I don’t know.

I apologize, but my mind is blank. This week went by pretty fast, so fast I can hardly recall what happened.

I am grateful to be here in Hungary and to have the opportunity of teaching people about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to show them how it can help each of us have a happy, fulfilling and enjoyable life.

~Anderson elder

A Successful Kirándulás

2009-09-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

This week was pretty cool. We had transfers and I got a new companion, Elder Carlson. He is really cool and this is his last transfer, but he still wants to work hard, so that is great.

We had a kirándulás (literally: excursion or hike, but it’s just a party) with the branch this week and it was a big success. We had quite a few angolóra (English class) students come and one of the members brought one of her friends. It was pretty fun! We had shish kababs and cold sandwiches to eat. And we taught a few of our English class students how to throw an American football. There were a lot of other people at the park and a bunch of guys were playing soccer in a small field. They needed more players so they asked Elder Hintze (a new missionary) and I to play with them. It was a ton of fun and I scored the first goal for our team! It was especially fun playing soccer with a bunch of Hungarians. After that Elder Hintze, Ádám (a young member), and I went hiking up a big hill into the forest. It was very pretty. Eventually a bunch of people followed us and we just kind of explored around the forest and talked. Everyone enjoyed themselves and the party was a big success.

Also, we have started to meet with a lady named Barbara (that’s definitely not a Hungarian name, but it’s pronounced Hungarianly—is that even a word?) and she is progressing pretty fast. She has an interesting personality, but that’s OK. She reads the Book of Mormon a lot and really believes that it is also scripture with the Bible. So that is really cool. Hopefully, our efforts last transfer of spending ridiculous amounts of time finding people to teach will pay off.

Today we are going to go on a bobsled izé (thingy) in the city. Apparently, there are things in Utah called Alpine Slides that are the same. I’ve been on one in Whistler, British Columbia before.

Well anyway, being here on a mission is great and I love teaching the gospel! Thanks for everything!

~Anderson elder

Attack of the Giant Book of Momon

2009-09-14T09:55:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Well, a few changes are coming this week. My current companion, Elder Golze, is leaving for Győr so I am getting a new companion. That will be interesting.

Not much happened this week. The senior missionary couple here in Sopron made a giant Book of Mormon sign for us to use with street contacting and that made for some really interesting experiences! Basically we are just trying anything to get people to stop and talk to us on the street. Almost no one wants to because they think that they already know who we are and what we do, when in reality almost no one actually knows any truth about us. So one of us carries this ridiculously large Book of Mormon thing and we try to stop people and be a little humorous since we look so funny. We got a few interesting reactions from people, but for the most part just more people than usual stared at us. haha. But we’ll see how it works in the long run.

Also with the senior couple we started a “Gofri Est” (Waffle Night) where the couple makes a ton of waffles and the branch members just hang out and chat and play ping pong. Hopefully, it’ll help the members become closer and friendlier with each other.

Next week we have a branch party and should be a lot of fun. I’ll write about that later. Thanks for everything! I know that the fullness of the Gospel of Christ has been restored on the earth and that God still speaks to us in our day! Thanks again!

~Anderson elder

Sports Proselyting

2009-09-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

This week was pretty good. Our mission president wants us to keep track of how many hours we are spending trying to find people to teach and so we started to do that this week. My companion and I ended up with 16 ½ hours, which apparently was the highest in the mission. So that was kind of cool, but it was very long.

I don’t remember if I talked about this last week, but we recently started a Sport Nap (Sport Day)—we play soccer in the morning with anyone who wants to play. As long as there is one person who isn’t a member of the church we can do it. It has been a ton of fun! So far two angolóra (English Class) students have come. Last Saturday was pretty fun, except I tripped and totally ate it! I didn’t have enough time to get my hands in front of me and so I landed headfirst. hahaha. Like most of the soccer fields here, the place where we were playing was dirt so I got pretty scratched up! But it’s almost completely healed up already—so don’t worry Mom and Dad. lol. But it has been a lot of fun playing soccer and hopefully more people will come soon. It is a good opportunity for others to see that we are normal people and not crazy religious fanatics.

This week we met with a really cool lady, Erzsi, and her daughter, Tünde, in their beauty salon (after it was closed) and we had a really good lesson with them! They are super nice I really hope that we will be able to continue to meet with them!

We have been teaching an older lady who is a member, who hasn’t been coming to church in a long time. But she came yesterday and that was really cool to see.

Well, this transfer is about over and it will be interesting to see what happens next. I am almost completely sure that I’ll be staying here in Sopron for a while longer.

Thanks for everything! I love you all! I know that this gospel really is the gospel of Christ and I’m glad that I am able to teach others about it!

~Anderson elder

A Little Miracle

2009-08-31T14:20:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

This week was nice. There was a big science convention in Sopron this week and so there were a lot of people here from all over the world. I talked to a guy from Colorado for a little while—he was really cool. I also talked to people from China, Algeria, Cameroon, and England. That was neat.

Well, we still don’t have anyone to teach, which is really hard, but we have found a few people who at least seem interested in meeting with us. We had a little miracle this week when we went through the teaching records in the area book and called up a few people who had met with missionaries a while ago. Out of the five people I called, two said that they would like to meet again! That doesn’t happen very often.

We had some neat changes in our branch this week. The former branch president was released and Elder Haslem, one of our senior missionaries, was called as the new branch president. Balázs, a recent convert I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, was called as his counselor. Balázs is such a cool guy and he is excited to work hard. He has a super strong testimony of the Gospel. Elder Haslem’s main job is to train Balázs. And the old branch president received a new calling so that is good too.

My Mom asked me a few questions this week that I think I’ll answer here. The Sopron Branch is pretty small: typically about 20-25 people come to sacrament meeting regularly. There is one kid who is about 16 yrs old and he is so cool. He is the only member his age in the city and he is very strong. He loves the Gospel and wants to serve a mission. Unfortunately, his old friends pretty much hate him now since he is a member of our church, which is the stupidest thing ever. There are also two families in the branch and they are great. I have had to speak in Sacrament Meeting once so far, but will probably be speaking more in the future because there are so few people here. For exercise, we usually go running in the morning or we work out in our apartment to try to stay in shape.

I hope that you liked the pictures I sent recently. It is pretty cool being in a foreign country.

Well I love you all and I appreciate the emails and support. I know that this Gospel is true and that it has blessed my life a ton!

~Anderson elder

Finding People

2009-08-24T08:10:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Hey, sorry for the super short blog entry last week. This week was OK. Because it’s difficult to get people to talk to us we decided to try something other than just streeting (talking to people on the street) people this week. We set up a table on a street in the belváros (downtown) with church stuff on it and with signs that say, “Ingyenes Angolóra” (Free English Class) and, “Kik a Mormonok?” (Who are the Mormons?). People were curious about the table set-up so it was a little easier to talk to them. That was good. Overall, the missionary work here is going pretty slowly, which is hard, but I’m sure that it’ll pick up sooner or later.

Csütörtök (Thursday) was a big holiday here. It’s similar to our Independence Day as there are festivals and stuff and fireworks at night. It celebrates the time when the first king of Hungary united the Hungarian people into a nation. It was like 1,000 years ago. Haha. It is really weird to think that there are a ton of buildings here that are older than America. lol. So that was a fun day and I have some pictures of it.

I know that this Gospel is true and real and it has brought me a lot of peace and happiness and comfort and direction in my life and in the lives of many other people. It is amazing to hear about how people have changed their lives because of the Gospel of Christ. I love teaching people about this gospel!

Well, I need to go now. Thanks for all of the love and support!

~Anderson elder

No One Wants to Talk to Us

2009-08-17T11:15:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody!

Sorry I have no time today! Everything is going great and hopefully I will get my pictures mailed off soon! The work is really hard here in Sopron—almost no one wants to talk to us about religion and that makes the work especially difficult. The people in Komló, my previous city, were much more open to talking about religion than the people here in Sopron. Hopefully the people here will come to see that we are nice people and will want to talk to us.

Here are some pictures... Okay, well I was going to put some pictures on here, but the CD drive thingy is broken on this computer. I promise that I will include some pictures next week. I’m really sorry, but így van (this is the way it is)! Thank you for all of your support and love!

~Anderson elder

In Need of Investigators

2009-08-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

I’m in Sopron now. It is a really pretty city. My luggage survived the transfer so that was nice! When we transfer everyone who is moving goes to the Keleti train station in Budapest and we all hangout there in a giant lobby until our trains leave. I got to see a lot of people from my group, the group above me, and the group just younger than me, which was really cool. (Click here for more information on Sopron.)

My new companion is Elder Golze. He’s cool, really quiet, which I’m not used to, but we get along well. Sopron is very nice, except like half of the people on the street are Austrian tourists. That’s kind of annoying. I really hope that Frau Holum (my high school German teacher) doesn’t read this, but I have completely forgotten everything I learned in German class! I recognize words and can understand a few phrases, but I can’t speak at all. Hungarian has totally taken over my German. I remember the first week I was in the MTC I kept thinking, “I can’t wait until I can speak more Hungarian than German!” because Hungarian was so frustrating. And now I can’t even remember more than five or so German words! Crazy.

Well the missionary work is going VERY SLOW right now. We pretty much have no investigators and that is really hard. Believe it or not, but after my first day here in beautiful Sopron, I was homesick for Komló, which is one of the poorest and ugliest areas that missionaries can serve in! The people who live there and who we taught and the members there are so awesome. I’ll never forget them. But I’m sure that I will come to love Sopron too. I didn’t like Komló the first week that I was there. So needless to say, we are doing a lot of finding. I haven’t gotten kicked out of any buildings yet. Haha. Maybe Elder Christensen was exaggerating a little.

Sunday was pretty nice. About 20-25 people came to church this week. They are all awesome too. I look forward to getting to know them.

I have been moved around quite a lot. This is my 4th transfer and 3rd area. My companion, Elder Golze is in his 8th transfer and Sopron is also his 3rd area. He is a lot younger than my other companions, but he speaks Hungarian pretty well so it isn’t a big deal.

OH! Our apartment is SO AWESOME! It has air conditioning! What!? And a deck! WHOA! It is one of the nicest apartments in the mission I think. But it does have one big problem. The roof is messed up and leaks a lot! We finally got some guys to come by and repair (we hope) most of the roof, so it should be better now. But I’m pretty excited about the deck and AC. The weather is a little cooler and less humid here than in Komló, but it’s not a huge difference. The AC is wonderful.

Hopefully we can find some people who are interested soon, or else I’ll go crazy. Haha. A whole day of finding and no teaching is not fun at all.

Oh this is kind of funny. I forgot a lot of my bathroom stuff in Komló will have to wait a few weeks to get it all back. I needed a new razor, but I’m way too cheap to buy another nice one like I have right now. So I went to the store on my first day in Sopron and the only kind I found was the pink kind for girls to shave their legs. So ya, I’m shaving with cheap, pink, girly razors and I laugh at myself every morning. Hahaha. They really are cheap, though—maybe I’ll keep on using them for a while...NOT! They’re no fun at all, they actually kind of hurt! Haha.

Well thanks for all of the support and love and emails. I’m trying to get around to writing people, but it is really hard. I know that this church is true and I am so grateful that I can be in Hungary sharing this awesome message with people! Thanks a ton!

~Anderson elder

I'm Off to Sopron

2009-08-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody!

I heard that Ryan Miller and Kyle Murray are both coming to Magyarország!?! WHAT!? That’s crazy! I just might be able to serve with one of them! Whoa! Gyertek ide! (For those of you who don’t know them, Ryan and Kyle are friends from high school.)

I’m being transferred again! Already! I’m going to Sopron! It borders Austria! So if anyone wants any Austrian goods you know who to contact. Haha. Elder Christensen is going to be training a new missionary so I’m getting kicked out of Komló. I’m going to miss it and really miss the Pécs branch. Apparently, the people in Sopron are pretty sick of the missionaries. Lol. Elder Christensen was there before he came to Komló and he said that it is pretty hard to talk to people. He said that he was escorted out of apartment buildings many times! So this is going to be a challenge.

Tuesday was really cool! Elder Feuz, who is fresh from the MTC in America, came over to Komló with me for the day and Elder Christensen went to Pécs. It was really interesting because he can barely speak at all and I can speak only a little more. We had one program, and it was really good—well, we taught well at least. I understood almost everything that they said and I could speak a lot better than usual! I know that the Lord was helping me out because that was the best I’ve done language-wise and it was just that day that I did really well. Teaching with Elder Feuz helped me see how much I have improved since my first transfer (a transfer is six weeks), because I could speak and understand a lot better than he could and I just haven’t realized that I’ve improved. So that was a confidence booster.

Oh, the sister missionary from Pécs who served in the USA brought salt water taffy home with her!!!! I had forgotten how good it is!!! If anyone will send me salt water taffy I promise to send them delicious German chocolate! Deal? Deal!

Sunday was awesome. It was fast and testimony meeting and almost all of the youth bore their testimonies and I felt the Spirit so strong! The members here are awesome. And Balázs, who was baptized just a few months ago, bore his testimony and said that his kids told him last week that he has changed a lot since he got baptized. They said that he is way nicer, more loving and patient, kinder and happier. And the whole time he was up there bearing his testimony he had this gigantic smile across his face and you could see and feel how much the gospel has blessed his life. I hope that I’m able to f ind and teach someone like Balázs who really takes hold of the Gospel and lives it as best as he can.

So I have to go soon. I need to find some new luggage since I’m going to be moving to Sopron. It is a beautiful city so I’ll send some pictures when I get there.

Thank you for all of the letters and emails and love and support! I really appreciate it! I love this gospel with all my heart and know that it is true and really blesses people’s lives!

~Anderson elder

Fake Numbers

2009-07-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

This week was pretty uneventful. So far almost everyone who has given me their number to meet again has given me a fake number. That is so disappointing. On the other hand, Zone Conference was pretty cool. President and Sister Baughman, our new mission president and his wife, are great! Sister Baughman gave a talk at Zone Conference about how we are so blessed to understand why there is adversity in life and why we have trials. So many people just curse God because they are having a hard time in life, but we know from the scriptures that we have trials to help our faith in God grow and to help us become better people. That was really simply put, but the point is there.

Zsuzsa and Gabriella are doing well. They came to church again and loved it. OH! And the Hungarian sister missionary came home to Pécs! She remembered me from when I met her during a visit to Temple Square in Salt Lake City with the Floyds last year. She has an American accent when she speaks Hungarian! Haha. Just not as bad as mine of course. It was really cool to see her again.

So the language is coming still slowly, but surely. Yesterday when I was on the bus, someone asked about angolóra (English class) and I could talk to her about it. It’s funny the way I understand people though. I was pretty sure she said something about whether the class was still being offered and so I told her that it was and where and when. And then she asked something about money so I assumed she wanted to know if she had to bring any and I told her the class it was free. I can understand the subject of what people are talking about so I can reply to what I think that they are asking. Haha. It’s interesting how you learn a new language.

I know that this church is true and that it contains the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Isn’t that awesome?! I think so.

Sok szeretettel,
~Anderson elder

A Button of Ice Cream

2009-07-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

I don’t have a ton of time again today—our bus from Pécs to Komló leaves kind of soon—but I’ll try to write a good amount.

My Mom asked me about what we do for service. Right now we aren’t able to do a lot in Komló. Whenever we ask the people we are teaching if we can help them with yard work or fixing up their house or something like that, they always say there’s nothing to help with—just like everyone in the States says. We teach free English classes two hours every week so that is some service. Komló is a pretty poor city ever since the big coal mine closed down and there are a lot of poor people here, but there isn’t a food bank or anything like that here. We recently found out that a lady in the local Catholic Church is running a little program where she thinks of ways to help people and then does it. We don’t know much about it, but we told her that we would like to serve with her so that might turn out pretty good. So far we’ve barely found any opportunities to physically serve the people here. Hopefully we’ll find some soon. Our main goal is to serve people by teaching them about Jesus Christ and his restored gospel, but of course we try to serve the people in any way that we can.

Okay, let me say something about the language. It’s ridiculous. It’s probably almost as hard as Japanese. The grammar and word order are SO different from English. And you can’t translate Hungarian literally or directly because it makes absolutely no sense at all. Simple sentences are okay, but anything more than like six words is totally different. And apparently, the everyday, frequently used vocabulary in Hungarian is much larger than English. Basically I have to think completely differently in order to speak Hungarian. It’s way hard. It isn’t called one of the hardest languages in the world for English speakers to learn for nothing.

I know that this is going to sound boring, but people in Hungary are pretty much the same as everyone in America. They are a little standoffish when we meet at first, but when we get to know them they make great friends!

Zsuzsa and her daughter Gabriella are still interested in the church and we are still teaching them. They weren’t able to come to church this week, but they loved it last week. Other than them no one that we are teaching is progressing. It is very difficult to change bad habits and behaviors and try to follow Christ’s example. Many people have faith that God and Christ exist, but that is about it. The truth is that if we take that leap of faith and actually change a little bit and actually do what Christ taught us to do we will be blessed and will see the Lord helping us in our everyday lives. It is difficult to take that leap of faith and do something that is hard, but if we do we will experience the blessings that Jesus Christ promises in the scriptures.

Oh, I just remembered a funny language mistake I made. I never really learned the word for “scoop” like a scoop of ice cream, I just knew what it kind of sounded like and so when I bought some ice cream at a little street-side shop I said, “egy gombot kérek,” which actually means “one button please.” Haha. “Gombócot” is what I wanted to say. I’ve made that mistake like three times so far. Haha. This language is awesome. Hopefully, I’ll be able to speak somewhat correctly by next year. That would be sweet!

Being here is awesome. I love it! Thanks for the support! I love you all too! Sok szeretettel.

~Anderson elder

Disappearing Investigators

2009-07-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

This week was pretty good. We had interviews with our new mission president. He is a pretty cool guy. I’m excited to see what he is going to change and stuff.

So Trevor got his mission call! To Ukraine! And his mission is right next to mine! How crazy is that!? We’re halfway across the world and yet we’ll be pretty close! So that was really cool to hear. (For those of you who don’t know him, Trevor Floyd is one of my best friends.)

Well the tons of investigators that we found a few weeks ago have been slowly dropping themselves. We either can’t get a hold of them, they aren’t interested anymore, or they just don’t want to do anything. It is really weird because with a lot of these people we had really powerful spiritual experiences finding them or teaching them the first lesson. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know that God has a plan for them and I’m glad that we were able to be a part of that plan at least for a little while. So this week was pretty hard, but at the same time it was good because Zsuzsa came to church again and her daughter Gabriella came too! And they loved it! So we are super excited for them.

I know that I’m not writing as much lately, sorry! De így van. (This is the way it is). I know that this gospel is true and I love seeing the blessings come into peoples lives who follow it! I love you all! Thanks!

~Anderson elder

An Investigator at Church!

2009-07-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody!

I’m sorry this entry is going to be short again, but my companion and I have lots to do today.

This week was pretty good. We had an investigator finally come to church with us and it was great! She really enjoyed the meetings and hopefully will come back next week.

The rainy month is over and now the nasty, hot and humid weather has begun. I feel like I’m in a never-ending wrestling practice in our heated wrestling room back at Stanwood High School. It’s pretty sick! Haha. Even when the air doesn’t feel that hot your body feels really hot and you still sweat like crazy!

Something unexpected and really cool happened on the 4th of July. We met three Americans from Los Angeles! Crazy—we never see any other Americans in the little city of Komló. One of the guys was originally from Hungary and was visiting his sister who still lives in Komló. Getting to meet them was pretty cool. They waved us over when we were walking along the street because they thought that we would like talking to some Americans on the 4th. Haha. They were really cool. Also that day, we had a little celebration dinner at our apartment and I ate so much that all I could do was rest on the couch for a few minutes. What a way to celebrate the 4th!

Okay, I have lots more stuff to do so this’ll be it for now. Thanks for everything!

~Anderson elder

Teaching with Members

2009-06-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Jó napot kívánok!

Hey everybody! This week was pretty good. Oh, I need to clarify some stuff I said last week. First, I have been on my mission, not in the country, for nearly six months. And when I said that nothing exciting happened, I totally lied! I forgot that last Tuesday was Zone Conference and we went to the ZOO! It was really fun. We had some cool trainings and talks and then we went to the zoo in Budapest and saw all the animals there. It was a ton of fun. I took a bunch of pictures so maybe later they might end up on the blog.

We had a few good programs with members this week. Teaching with members is the best. The language is coming slowly, but surely. They didn’t say that Hungarian is one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn for nothing!

Yesterday we hung out with a few of the members a little bit. We went hiking in a pretty place outside of Komló that has a lot of little lakes. It was intense hearing so much Hungarian straight.

Oh! I forgot! Last week we totally got caught in a rainstorm! We didn’t think that it was going to rain so we didn’t take our umbrellas when we left the apartment. We were walking to a program and all of a sudden it just starts pouring like crazy and we got completely soaked. I took some videos. Haha. The thunder here is awesome. Whenever it rains there is a ton of thunder that you can sometimes actually feel.

Well I have to go now. Our bus leaves soon. Thanks for all the love and support!

~Anderson elder

Staying in Komló (Yeah!)

2009-06-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Last week I said that my blog entry was going to be short, but it wasn’t. This week it will be for sure. My email mailbox is almost full and I need to spend some time archiving it or I won’t be able to receive any new emails.

Today is the beginning of transfer number three! Crazy! I can’t believe that I’ve been on my mission for almost six months already! Both Christensen elder and I are staying here in Komló. So no packing for at least six more weeks!

Nothing really exciting happened this week. Church was really neat as usual. The members are so awesome here! I love them!

Well I know that this gospel is true and real. And I am glad to be serving the people of Hungary. I love all of you and appreciate your support!

~Anderson elder

SpongyaBob Kockanadrág

2009-06-15T15:55:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Sorry, this blog entry is going to be short. We have a ton of things that we want to do today in Pécs and no time to do them. Oh! Guess what I did last week?!?! I bought a SpongyaBob Kockanadrág DVD for 990ft ($5)!!! SpongeBob Squarepants! Haha! I can't watch it for two years, but thats okay. The DVD has English and Hungarian audio so anyone can watch it! I think it was a pretty good waste of five bucks.

I came across a cool scripture yesterday. It is 2 Chronicles 20:1-18. (http://scriptures.lds.org/en/2_chr/20). I was really surprised by these scriptures. They teach some good doctrine pretty clearly—doctrine like praying, fasting, going to the temple, and having faith that the Lord will help you. Pretty cool.

A few days ago we were running in the morning and as we ran past a group of people they called out to us, “Fuss Forrest!” It was completely unexpected. “Fuss” means “run”. So people here in Hungary quote the movie Forrest Gump just like we do when someone is running! So funny.

The Church really makes the world very small. There are three missionaries here in Hungary who know some of my relatives. They are Elders Webb and Lilenquist who know my cousins from Burley, ID. (I am in the same zone as Elder Lilenquist right now.) And Sister Eskelson—I think I spelled her name correctly—knows my cousins from Blackfoot, ID. It's a small, small world.

One day we streeted (met on the street) a lady and she said to come talk to her some other time at her work because she was in a hurry. She said that she worked at the Rose Garden. So the next day we found the place and its full name is the Rose Garden Bar. Haha! We were a little hesitant about going in, but since we’d promised her, we did. We had a nice chat for a little bit. It was a pretty funny and really surprising experience.

OH! I can't forget this. One day we were walking on this road on the way home through tons of apartment houses on both sides of the street when we came upon a bunch of six-to-ten year old kids playing outside. When they saw us, they all raced to us and pretty much attacked us. Haha. One kid bopped us on the head and spanked us a few times with a badminton racket, another kept on jumping on us and a few others were actually kicking us and hitting us. Hahaha. They were really young so it didn't hurt of course, but it was quite annoying and kind of embarrassing too. After like a minute or two we escaped into one of the apartment buildings and closed the door on them. They got bored and left. So that was it. Or so we thought! The next day, yesterday, we went back to check up on a few investigators and we saw them again. And more importantly, they saw us too! They all ran over to us again and swarmed around us while an older teenage girl tried, in vain, to tell them to calm down. Hahaha. But they were nicer this time and just jumped all over us. One little boy kept on jumping on my back and I would reach around and tickle him which made him drop, but he was persistent and kept jumping on my back. Haha. We went into another apartment, and they left, but it was the wrong one, so we had to sneak out the back and sneak away from the kids. Hahaha. Pretty funny. I wish I had a video of them.

Oh and really quick. Apparently, there was a crazy plane crash in the ocean a few weeks ago and no one knows why it crashed. It was coming from Brazil and just exploded or crashed in the ocean. Well here is the really crazy part: one of my English class students told me that one of the victims was a ten year old boy from Komló! I live in Komló right now! He knows the little boy's parents. That is really crazy and sad.

Well I have to go now. Thank you for everything! I love you all and I love the Lord. The Gospel is true, I know it!

~Anderson elder

A Crazy Week

2009-06-08T12:25:00.000-07:00

Szervusztok mindenki!

Hey everybody! This week has been pretty cool. The weather is really weird in Hungary. It was hot in May and then since the end of May random rainstorms have come and dumped a ton of rain on us. Some days it’s cool and cloudy and other days it’s really hot. The random storms are supposed to last through June. When a rainstorm comes we can hear lots and lots of loud thunder, which is awesome, but we can’t usually see the lightning. By the way, the bread is really good here!

Friday was intense. We had three programs set up and they all dogged us. That was a real bummer. Instead we had two ridiculous conversations with drunk people. It wasn’t even funny, it was just incredibly annoying. On the other hand, we did manage to find a lot of people who were interested in meeting again, which was nice. One of those people was a lady who spoke English and had an awesome story to tell us. She was a refugee a long time ago and an LDS family took her in—she lived in America with an LDS family! She doesn’t believe in the gospel, but she loves Mormons. Her son is a member and he is coming to visit her soon! We are going to teach her with him. Crazy. But that’s the way the whole day went. We met a ton of awesome, drunk, mean, and nice people that day. We were exhausted mentally.

Another cool experience on Friday was that we taught a 16 year old kid named Sani about the Restoration. Meeting someone who is immediately willing to hear about the restoration rarely happens. He actually seemed interested, which was even more surprising. Then, on Saturday we were in a completely different part of the city when we tracted into Sani’s parents who were visiting his grandpa! His grandpa was about to close the door on us, then Sani’s parents recognized us from Sani’s description and let us in. They said that Sani told them about us and that he is reading from The Book of Mormon! His mom said that it is a miracle because Sani hates reading and studying. So we taught them too and we are going to meet with the whole family this week. Crazy. I don’t know what’s going to happen to them, but I know that the Lord has a plan for them.

Something I read during egyéni tanulás (personal gospel study) one day has really made an impression on me. Jacob 6:7 says, “For behold, after ye have been nourished by the good word of God all the day long, will ye bring forth evil fruit, that ye must be hewn down and cast into the fire?” What I think this means is that after we “have been nourished by the good word of God” from church, or General Conference, or from reading the scriptures, we need to apply what we have learned into our lives. We need to set goals to improve ourselves and then strive to achieve those goals. Of course it is much easier said than done, but I know that if we walk away from a meeting or from church determined to change something, big or small, in our lives that the Lord will bless us and help us to become better and happier people.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is true; I can see that in my life and in the lives of the members here in Komló and Pécs. Investigators, too. We have an awesome investigator who is progressing slowly, but surely, and I can see his life improve because he is trying to follow Jesus Christ too.

Thank you for all of your support and love. I appreciate it very much!

~Anderson elder

An Old Man

2009-06-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

Szervusztok!

This week went by pretty fast. On Thursday we had a conference and interviews with President Gasser in Budapest. That was kind of sad because it was our last interview with him. President Gasser is really awesome. Next transfer we get a new mission president. I'm sure that he will be great too. President and Sister Gasser both gave really good talks at the conference. Sister Gasser spoke about when we study the scriptures we should take one scripture that sticks out or that we like a lot and simplify or summarize it into one sentence. Then we should try really hard to remember it and apply it throughout the day. That is a pretty cool idea and I'm trying to do it.

I had an interesting experience recently. My companion and I were tracting an apartment building and at one apartment a really, really old man opened the door and instantly told us to come in. We were a little hesitant at first since that never happens, but I shook his hand and he kind of just pulled me into his apartment. Haha. So he started to talk to us a lot and I was barely understanding anything he was saying, but I could understand a little. He was talking about how he loved Americans and British and Germans and Canadians and he kept on saying that he loved us and would give us group hugs. Haha. He was awesome. But we had to go to another program so we kept on telling him that we had to leave, but he just kept on saying that he still had something to tell us. Then he closed the door and almost locked it. Haha. But eventually Christensen elder slowly scooted to the door and opened it and I'm scooting along with him all the while the older man is still talking to us and telling us how he loves American soldiers and stuff. So we finally managed to escape from his apartment, but we felt pretty rude since we pretty much walked out while he was still talking, but it had to be done.

OH! I successfully ordered pizza on the phone! That was pretty awesome. But I can't brag too much because the pizza lady only said two words. Haha. I told her what we wanted on the pizza and she just kept on saying “igen” which means “yes/ok” and then she said “hova” which means “where to”. I gave her our address and that was it. But, the important thing is that I called and the pizza came. Haha.

On Saturday we went to a small village about 15 minutes north of Komló called Kisbatyán to try to set up an appointment with some people we had met earlier. But they weren't home so we just decided to tract the street—there was only one street in the entire village—and the first house was awesome! A really cool lady named Szilvia lives there and she is great. She speaks English very well and doesn't have a Hungarian accent, but a British one. I understood everything and was able to teach her well. Her goal in life right now is to find God and she doesn't trust a lot of the Christian religions so she is trying to search for Him through science. I loved how she said that it is impossible for anyone to understand God intellectually, but we can emotionally. She used to work at the university in Pécs so she is really smart. We taught her about the Restoration and she was fascinated with the Book of Mormon. Hopefully we will be able to meet with her a lot more. I think we will.

Oh and on Sunday a young couple from America showed up at Sacrament Meeting in Pécs. That was really cool. They graduated from BYU a year ago and now they are on a two month long bike trip in Europe. They started in Amsterdam, Holland and are trying to get to Rome, Italy! They are riding about 45-80 miles a day! Crazy.

I know that the true gospel of Jesus Christ is on the earth once more and we can know that for ourselves through the Book of Mormon and personal revelation from God. Thanks for everything! I love you all!

~Anderson elder

Really Wierd Looks

2009-05-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

This entry will be a little shorter because I don't have much time today. I couldn't write yesterday, which was p-day, because my companion and I had to go to Budapest. I had to get some stuff done with my passport to prove that I can live in Hungary. But Komló is pretty far away and so I spent about eight hours traveling yesterday. Hooha. (Hungarians say that sometimes instead of wow.)

The past couple of days have been pretty rough in terms of meeting with people. From Friday through Sunday we had 11 programs scheduled and of those 11 we only taught two. The rest forgot or couldn't meet. So that was disappointing. But on Sunday we had three people who were investigating come to church! It was great! And they liked the meetings so that was even better.

We're teaching a really cool kid named József and his girlfriend, Eszter. On Saturday I taught József how to tie a tie for church. It was really cool! Except I didn't know any of the words that I needed so I just showed him how. After a few tries he was getting frustrated, so I just tied it for him and he kept it in the knot. Haha.

On Thursday or Friday we talked to an interesting lady on the street. Well, she talked to us. We introduced ourselves and then she just went off on telling us her life story and she wouldn't stop talking. Haha. And then she sang a religious song to us while waving one of her hands in the air. Usually we get weird looks from people because we're two guys in white shirts and ties when it is really hot outside, but as this lady was singing she was getting all the really weird looks from people. When she finished her song, she started telling us about the big problem in her life. She started crying a lot and I didn't know what to do or say. It was awkward and sad and strange all at the same time. Then she told us that she used to be crazy. So that was interesting to say the least.

Well I better get going. I know that this gospel is true and that anyone can know of its truthfulness by reading from and praying about the Book of Mormon. Thanks for everything!

~Anderson elder

Life in Komló

2009-05-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

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

First Transfer

2009-05-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

Well this week has been pretty good. Some exciting news is that I am being transferred to a small city called Komló. It is in the southwest near a big city called Pécs. Being transferred is kind of bittersweet actually. I love Eger and I have started to build relationships with some of our investigators and members, so for that reason being transferred is kind of a bummer. Ilyen az élet (such is life). But I know that Komló will be just as awesome.

So I remember kind of a funny story from a few weeks ago. We went to the hospital for the first time to do service and got kind of lost. This one guy who is on the grounds keeping crew, whom we now call Spears—you’ll see why in a minute—helped us to find our way to where we were going to work. He had one of those sticks with a metal tip on it to stab garbage and pick it up and he was pretty good at using it. Well the funny part is when we were on this little dirt road within the hospital complex and a car pulls up behind us really fast and stops really quickly, almost hitting Spears. So this is why we call him Spears: He was obviously quite frustrated from almost being hit by a minivan and to make sure that the people in the car were aware of his frustration he whips out his stabbing stick, or spear, and acts like he is about to throw it through the windshield of the minivan!haha. It was like he was a caveman trying to fight off a fierce lion. Then he just continues to guide us to where we are working, mumbling something in Hungarian. So now we call him Spears and he is one of our favorite guys at the hospital.

Oh and it is just super awkward when we’re tracting apartment complexes and we knock on someone’s door just as their friends come up the stairs and knock too. So we’re all waiting and then the people inside are irritated with us and stuff.

Yesterday I got to talk to my Mom and Dad for an hour or so and that was really cool. It was weird to think that I haven’t talked to them since January. But it was great to talk to them and brag about how awesome Hungary is. My parents are the best in the world. No offense to every other parent, but I’m kind of biased.haha.

On Sunday we went tracting for three straight hours. It was pretty intense, especially since it was super hot. It was kind of weird though because we found two people who are interested in meeting with us and they were almost neighbors. That was really cool and I hope that goes well. I’ve realized that being rejected about a million times everyday really doesn’t bother me. I’m not sure why it doesn’t bother me, but I sure am grateful that it doesn’t.

OH! Ester növér (Sister Ester) in Budapest called me this morning and gave me an update on Éva, the girl that I streeted while chalking and with whom I got to talk in English and teach a little bit too! She is doing really well! She’s met with the missionaries twice and loves everything. She even went to stake conference and loved that too! I’m so excited for her! I’ll continue to share updates about her when I get them.

It is starting to get really, really warm here and I am sweating like crazy and its gross.haha. I wonder what people think about us when we are walking around in the summer in dark pants and a white shirt and tie. Everybody stares at us a lot.lol. It’s a little awkward, but I’m used to it now.

Well I sent my sd cards to my parents so hopefully within a week or two there will be cool pictures of Budapest and Eger on the blog.

I know that Christ lives and that if we follow God’s commandments that our lives will be better, happier and more enjoyable. We have a living prophet on the earth today and he receives revelation from God for the world. I am so grateful that I am a missionary for the Lord and even though it is really hard at times I love it.

Thanks for all of your support and I’ll see ya later! Sok szeretettel.

~Anderson elder

Stolen Flowers

2009-05-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Jó napot kívánok!

This week was pretty good. Especially since I FINALLY got to watch General Conference in English! Well, at least three sessions. We watched the Sunday Morning Session, the Sunday Afternoon Session, and the Priesthood Session. They were really good. I saw one of my old home teachers from BYU-I, Spencer Horner, in the choir for Priesthood session and that was really cool.

So apparently Davie has had some crazy experiences in Mexico. I don’t have anything that can compete with what he has experienced. Everything here is kind of normal. But I remember something kind of funny that happened a few weeks ago. I was on companion exchanges with Daybell elder and we talked to a guy on the street. When we introduced ourselves he said that he had seen “the movie” and that he knew all about the Mormons. (There was a movie here about the Amish that had been translated into Hungarian really badly so a lot of people think that we are Amish. Haha.) He started talking about how we can’t use technology and stuff, so Daybell elder pulled out the cell phone and told him that it was ours. The guy was like, “no you can’t use that, that’s not allowed”. Haha. He refused to believe that we weren’t Amish.

Oh! Something else kind of weird happened recently. There are some planters in front of our branch house that were full of weeds. We bought flowers and planted them before General Conference so the branch house would look nice. But one day someone stole four of our new flowers! I mean come on, they are only 90 forint (like 45 cents) a piece, buy your own! Then a few days ago someone stole another flower and left this weird symbol made of orange electrical tape next to the door. Maybe it was a gang symbol and they were trying to show us how tough they are by slowly stealing our little flowers. Haha. Nevetséges (ridiculous).

Our investigators seem to be örökké való érdeklődők (eternal investigators). They are all awesome, but they don’t have testimonies yet and so they aren’t very committed. Coming to church isn’t as important as other things to them and it is just really hard for them to consistently follow the commandments. Sometimes I just feel like dragging them to church. Haha. Maybe that’s how some parents feel sometimes. Of course we will continue to try to work with them as long as they put forth effort to try to follow the commandments, but I don’t know. So that is difficult.

I just want you all to know that I have a firm testimony that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that He knows everything that we go through and will help us if we ask in faith. God really is our Heavenly Father and He wants the best for us. The fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored in our day and we can know that for ourselves if we read from and pray about the Book of Mormon. I know that it is scripture from God and that Joseph Smith really was a prophet of God.

Thanks for everything everybody. Have a great week!

~Anderson elder

Chalking

2009-04-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

Sziasztok!

This week was pretty good. I know that you all are waiting for pictures and I'm probably going to send them home today or sometime this week. So just wait a little longer! The pictures of Budapest at night are worth it! Haha.

Yesterday was a really good day for the language. I felt like I was understanding a lot more when people were speaking slowly and simply. It's really weird how understanding a language works. I can barely even notice it when I understand. I just do. Weird. Apparently, there are days when you feel on top of the world and you can understand and speak well and other days when you can't.

One weird thing was when we met with a girl named Monika on Wednesday and we were teaching her about the Restoration in the park and about halfway through our lesson some of her friends come and said that they have a class and so Monika said that she guessed that she had to go and just left. And we had scheduled that time with her. We didn't see that coming. Haha.

Angol Óra (English class) was really good this week, or at least just fun. We practiced reading and stuff as usual and then we took a break and I taught my students some English nyelvtörők (tongue twisters)! They loved them. I taught them "Sally sells seashells", "fuzzy wuzzy was a bear" and the woodchuck one. Some were actually pretty good at it. Then they taught me some Hungarian tongue twisters that were super hard for me. Haha. It was fun.

Szombaton (on Saturday) we went chalking! We went to the park and drew out the Plan of Salvation on one of the big walkways. When people walked by we would try to talk to them about our drawing and teach them about God's plan for us. It was really fun, except my vocabulary is really small and so it was hard to talk to people. The coolest thing was that I met a girl who spoke English! So I taught her about the Plan of Salvation. She was really interested so I taught her a little bit about the Restoration. It was an awesome experience. She was from Budapest and had missed her train home. It was her 26th birthday and so she said that it wasn't a coincidence that we met. I gave her a Book of Mormon and gave her some chapters to read. She said that she would on the train ride home. She was also excited to meet with missionaries in Budapest. She seemed really interested and sincere so it was great. I called a sister missionary in Budapest and told her about this girl, Éva, and gave her Éva's phone number. I hope that works out.

Sunday was pretty good. A lot of people came to church and that was awesome. I think that there were maybe a little more than 15 people there. All four of us missionaries spoke in Istentisztelet (Sacrament Meeting). I only spoke for about 7 minutes, but I think that it went pretty well.

I know that this gospel is true and that Jesus Christ has restored His church on the earth again. And I know that the Book of Mormon is scripture from God and will help us come closer to Christ and become better, happier people if we follow what God has revealed to us in it.

Thanks for everything! You all are awesome! Szervusztok!

~Anderson elder

Video - The Branch House in Eger

2009-04-26T22:15:00.000-07:00

In this video, I give you a quick tour of the branch house (the place where members of the church meet for weekly worship services) in Eger. It's a really nice facility, especially for so few members.

Video - Chalking in Eger

2009-04-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a video of an innovative proselyting technique we call chalking. We drew the Plan of Salvation in colored chalk on a large sidewalk in a park in Eger. As people walked by enjoying the park we talked to them about the gospel. It was great fun!

Általános Konferencia

2009-04-22T09:00:00.000-07:00

Szervusztok mindenki!

Sorry that this blog entry is a few days late. On Monday we had greenie training in Budapest and yesterday we had interviews with President and Sister Gasser and some more training in Miskolc.

We finally watched Általános Konferencia (General Conference) with the members. Unfortunately, not very many members showed up to the sessions, but a few did. And the Assistants just gave us DVDs that had the satellite broadcast recorded on them, so it was only in Magyarul (Hungarian). That was crazy. Even my trainer had a hard time understanding everything they said because they use really fancy language. I was lost for the entire time so I wrote letters and read Jesus the Christ. Those who did come really enjoyed it so I hope that it helped strengthen their testimonies of the Gospel.

The work is going kind of slow and it’s getting hard to meet with our investigators who are interested. People are always so busy! Haha. I had a funny experience on Péntek (Friday). We decided to order pizza and eat it as a district and no one wanted to order it so they gave me the phone to order it. That was kind of scary since I can’t understand what people say. Haha. So Lindsay elder wrote on a white board everything that I needed to say in Hungarian. I call the pizza place and this is what I say, „Jó napot, four pizzát szeretnék rendelni.” I said “four” in English and everyone busted out laughing. I didn’t even realize it so I was confused. Haha. Then the lady replied and said something, but I couldn’t understand it at all. After asking her to repeat what she said a few times I just gave the phone to Lindsay elder. It was pretty funny.

Then yesterday I called Mózes and tried to set up an appointment to meet again, but he wasn’t sure so we are just going to call him back later. But I understood what he was basically saying! It was pretty cool. He speaks really fast though so I just caught a few phrases and words.

After Angol Óra (English Class) the other district shared a message about General Conference and prophets and one man from my class finally came to the message! He was pretty interested, but couldn’t come to General Conference because he was going to Slovakia to work in the markets there. The economy is struggling here so people are having a really hard time finding jobs. Hopefully we can meet with him and he will be interested.

Oh about mailing me stuff; I’ll usually get it sooner than once every 6 weeks. Maybe twice or three times. But mailboxes in apartment complexes are pieces of junk so I’d rather have letters and packages just go to Budapest and play it safe.

Thanks for everything! I love you all and I’m going to be sending pictures home soon so everyone will be able to see the awesomeness of Hungary!

Sok szeretettel,

Anderson elder

Settled In

2009-04-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

Szervusztok!

Hogy vagytok? Jól vagyok. Szeretek missziónáriusi munkát! Ok that's enough Hungarian for now. I said, "How are you all? I'm well. I love missionary work!" This week has been pretty good and has gone by really fast of course. "Every day is a week and every week is a day". The "newness" of Hungary has worn off and I'm used to just about everything. I noticed yesterday that I can't remember what it's like to understand other people's conversations as they walk by. Sometimes it is hard to pay attention when we are teaching people. Haha. That sounds really bad, but it really is hard when it is mostly gibberish to me! Apparently it takes most missionaries here at least 6 months before they can understand most of what people say. My trainer is fluent in Hungarian. Some Hungarians say that he sounds like a Hungarian—so I have a good example to learn from.

One of the people we are teaching, Mózes (Moses in English), is so awesome. (Trevor you should pay attention to this!) He's 19 years old and last year he placed 14th in the world for Roman Greco wrestling! And last week we taught him about the Word of Wisdom and he said, "Of course!" He is great. I can't wait to teach him more.

This coming Sunday (April 19th) we are playing General Conference in the Branch House and then on May 1st we get to watch it in English. So I've got a while before I get to enjoy it.

Unfortunately I haven't had any crazy or funny experiences. That is kind of disappointing, but I did have a cool experience on Friday. I was on companion exchanges with Erickson elder. We walked passed a house and I felt really strongly that we should talk to them. Then Erickson elder started to slow down so I asked him if he felt anything. He said that he also felt that we should go back and talk to them. I know that was the Spirit of God. So we stopped and, long story short, they are members of our church but haven't been active for about seven years. They we're kind of interested in attending again. I don't know what God has planned for them, but I do know that he wanted us to talk to them that day. It was crazy that we both felt so strongly that we should talk to them as we walked by.

This is kind of short, but I need to go soon. Köszönöm szépen mindent! Thanks for everything! I love you all! Oh, so you all know, the mission home in Budapest doesn't forward letters to us in the other cities. We usually pick them up when we go into Budapest, which is about once or twice every 6 weeks. So email would be better since I check it every week. Sziasztok!

~Anderson elder

Hello from Eger

2009-04-06T08:30:00.000-07:00

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

Itt vagyok!

2009-04-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Szervusztok!

I made it here safely! It is amazing! The country is nagyon (very) beautiful! Here's a picture with me with President and Sister Gasser. I'll send some really cool pictures when my card fills up. I'm not sure where I'm going to be serving first in Magyarország (Hungary) yet. Yesterday I went out with one of the APs (Assistants to the President) and we got two phone numbers. And one family--a dad, mom, and baby in a stroller--went out of there way to get away from us when we made eye contact with them. They were so anxious to flee that they went off-roading with their stroller! It was really funny, but sad that people dislike us that much. Nem tudom miért. I don't know why. It was fun talking in Hungarian. But hard! Ok, see you all later! Love ya!

~Anderson Elder

Video - At the Vienna Airport

2009-04-01T08:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a video I took on 1 April 2009 during the flight from Provo to Budapest. My travel group and I are waiting at the airport in Vienna for our flight to Budapest.

Last Note from the MTC

2009-03-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody,

I got to send one more quick little note before I leave the MTC. My preparation day will be on Mondays from now on and since my first day in Hungary will be on Tuesday (March 31), I probably won't get to send another note until the next Monday (April 6). Thanks for everything!

~Anderson Elder