Autumn - Duna, Hungary - BOLDOG KARACSONYT!

SZIASZTOK!!!

Well this week has just been CRAZY and wonderful with the Holidays, only to be topped off with the most insane intense transfer calls of my life. So today I got the call to find out what is happening with me this next transfer. I wasnt suspecting anything, because I just started training Sister Mills. But President Baughman called me today and told me I AM TRAINING AGAIN!! .... and WHITEWASHING a new city.... SZEGED!!! ... Sisters havent served in this city for over 4 years and so this will be a big change for them and a HUGE change for me. It is just crazy to be training back to back. The awesome thing about it, is that Sister Roderick and I this summer "vacationed" to this city Szeged. We performed a concert on a friday night, and the next day was a national holiday that we were able to spend in this city. So we spent the night in Szeged and toured around the next day and I just FELL IN LOVE with this city. It is beautiful and just really culturally rich. When we were there I kept saying "oh man I want to serve here. I love it here." but sisters havent been in that city in over 4 years. So i knew it was impossible. Then sister Roderick said "Im going to make a prediction. You will open up Szeged, in January, with a Greenie" .... I just laughed that off, cause that was impossible. and seemd REALLY impossible once I found out that I was training last transfer because we dont ever train back to back in this mission. So then this morning when President baughman said I would be training and opening Szeged for sisters...my jaw just dropped and I remembered back to that day in August when Sister Roderick predicted this very same situation. We even had picked out which greenie it would be (since in the mission home you can see their pictures months and months in advanced. So back in august we had my greenie picked out)...so on thursday I will found out if I get matched with that sister. So perhaps Sister Roderick will be 3 for 3 on the prophecy scale.

I am really soo sooooo excited and terrified and nervous and freaking out and overwhelmed..but excited. I really did fall in love with that city after that one random day we spent there. So it is like a dream come true to actually be going there. I am so excited for that, but I know I am entering the hardest work I will ever do on my mission. But I am so excited to apply everything I have learned on the mission to this next area. I feel like my whole mission has led up to these next few transfers. It sounds super corny, but I know I am supposed to be going here. Almost destiny like. It just all fits so perfectly. I am really excited for my Szeged Saga. let the Adventures BEGIN!!!

OH YEAH.. and there was Christmas. It was a great Christmas. On Christmas eve we drove down to Pécs, that pretty city we went to for Thanksgiving. We ate at a chinese restaraunt. Did some shopping and played cards. Sister Mills and I did some sight seeing. We visited the Lock Wall... the place where people attach all of these Locks to these iron bars and it symbolized that they will be together for eternity. A couple before they get married, or a couple in love with attach a lock to this wall to symbolize their love. and so we took a bunch of pictures of that. I attached some cute locks we found. Then on Christmas day we went to church and then ate lunch at a members home and then got to Skype my family. It was absolutely delightful. The best call home ever. So great to see them all, and my sister Amy home. I loved it. Then monday we just hung around and watched movies and relaxed. Then that night we went to a members house for dinner and painted candle holders, apparently it is a hungarian tradition to do a painted craft during christmas. Then we played charades in Hungarian with them. It was hilarious. It was the perfect holiday weekend. I needed the rest especially since this week is going to be NUTS moving to a city with a greenie and both us of will have NO CLUE where we are or what we are doing. Well, I will know what we are doing, just no clue where we are. It will be an exciting thrilling adventure. I can't wait.

I love you all!!!

Papritz nővér

Autumn - Duna, Hungary - SNOW!

SZIASZTOK!!

WOW.... snow is falling for the first time this year. Right now. I am kind of loathing it. BUT... I will survive. The city is covered in white, which is making this land of factories look a little bit prettier...and its feeling a little bit more like Christmas.

Well this week turned out AWESOME!!! I was super sick for most of the week until friday. I was just out, couldnt really get out of bed, just flu/sinus infection nastiness. My brain was super cloudy and just couldnt think straight. Then on friday, I woke up and my mind was clear and I was just READY to get to work again! I felt like a missionary again! It was great. So we went out and streeted and tracted for a little bit and just had the funnest little miracle. We had prepared our five "presents" for people and said we were giving people a Christmas Present... aka. Book of Mormon. So we were able to hand out 4 of them on the streets and through tracting, but we were getting super tired.. and mind you this is the first day after many days of sickness that I was working. So I was exhausted...but we had 1 Book of Mormon left. So we decided to knock on one last door... (yes.. this is one of those "on the last door" stories).... and so we knocked, and these two women answered the door about 50 years old. One was a friend that was visiting, and the owner of the apartment, Marci said "come on in, just come on in"...we hadnt even said anything and she invited us in. Then we sat down and she said "I used to meet with the sisters, like 10 years ago... then they left the city and nobody has contacted me since. I always wondered where the went." then she started telling us everything she had learned from them.. she is hilarious, and we just had this awesome lesson, talked about the Book of Mormon with her friend, gave her our last copy..and then set up to come back next week. We actually ran into her on the street before we emailed and she said "youre all coming over tonight right?! We'll be waiting!"

THEN i got the surprise of a life time, a call from Béla! This investigator that Sister Roderick and I found in Budapest, the one that we did Tai Chi with, and he told me he was getting BAPTIZED on sunday!! So I rearranged some stuff and we were able to go to the Baptism in budapest! It was the most wonderful baptism I have been to. So many people were there and another girl named ZsuZsa got baptized the same day. I was able to talk to Béla and see so many people from Pest. I miss the city so much and it was so fun having everyone say "wow you speak Hungarian now!".. since that was my greenie area, I communicated with a lot of smiles and laughes. It was so great seeing my old friends, and then seeing Lászlo and Barbye, my two miracle children. I was so grateful to have 3 people be there, whose baptisms I was able to be apart of. It was just the greatest joy to see them all. The best part was when Béla was baptized. He went down into the water and came back up beaming, and then embraced the Elder that baptized him, with the fiercest gratitude I have ever seen. He just didnt let go for the longest time, and I could just feel the genuine love he had for the gospel. You could just feel the spirit so strong. I knew back when sister Roderick and I found him that it was too good to be true. Then it was all manifest in that font, all of the preperation he had had was so evident in that hug and his beaming smile. It was one of those moments I will always remember from my mission. It was TOTALLY AWESOME! (to use a favorite papritz phrase)

So that was the week. spiritually packed. It is so great to be serving here and on a mission. best decision ever. OH ALSO this week we went to a Christmas concert for a less active member who sings in this local choir. The first half of the concert was the school of music recital, and all of these cute little kids were banging away on the piano and clarinets. and then the grand finale was an ACCORDIAN QUARTET... they did a rocking version of "Jingle Bell Rocks" full of all of that Umpa umpa umpapapa accordian style. I felt so european to be watching a christmas accordian quartet.

So this week is Christmas and I am so excited to talk to my family! woo hoo! AMY gets home tomorrow! wow! Christmas is so great. I am excited to spend it on the mission and basking in all of the Christmas glory that the mission has to offer.

I love you all!!

Love
Papritz nővér

Amy Nov 6, 2011

Qin ai de jiating,

Ok before you kill me mom I'll write my weekly e-mail. You gotta shake things up a little right? This week has been pretty good. Another week has gone by and I can't believe it. Nothing super eventful happened. Oh, last P-day I passed off Phase 2 for Chinese!!!! I am now on the last part of the language program. I can start studying characters. I am really excited. For the Phase 2 test I had to test with the Assistants. Luckily Elder Binkinuan was really nice and helped me a lot. When I pass off Phase 3 I pass it off to President Grimley. Basically I just read the Book of Mormon to him in Chinese. But first I have to get through 2,530 flash cards. Yahoo!

This last week many of our investigators had mid-term exams for college so we weren't able to meet with them. This week we will be able Tiffany will have her baptismal interview this week and get baptized on Sunday!! I am so excited for her. She is ready to get baptized. So keep her in your prayers. Many of our investigators also set baptismal goals. Sister Finch worked really hard to help them understand the importance of baptism. The Spirit was so strong in those lessons. We also had more of our investigators come to church. It was so great to see them at church and also to have the ward memebers guanxi (fellowship....ba) them. Our investigator Zhan jiemei is also progressing a lot. She is set to get bapitzed on November 19 but we will need to move back her date alittle so that we can teach all the lessons.She came to church on Sunday for the second time and really liked it. Many of the ward members who have peiked for us talked to her and helped her get to the Sunday school class and Relief Society.

Well I dont' know if there is anything else to write about. One last thing, There is a man that lives next door to the church and owns a motorcycle repair shop. He talks to the missionaries a lot mostly to the Elders. The only time he ever talks to me is to ask if I want to eat cuabing. I usually just ignore him. So the other night right before we had to go home he walks up to me as I am unlocking my bike. He told me he had given Elder Wyatt a picture of him and he wanted to know if I wanted one too. I said hesitantly ok. He went back into his shop and got me this wallet sized picture of him. It is hilarious. He isn't even smiling in this picture. He was so excited to give it to me so that I can remember him. haha

I hope that you all have a great week. I love you all!!

All my love,

Sister Amy Papritz

P.S This month the mission is working on becoming better teacher through studying Chapter 10 in Preach My Gospel. President Grimley invited us to memorize or review the How to Begin Teaching Phrases. It has been great. They have so much power. So my invitation to Autumn and Austin if they don't have those memorized is to memorize them. They are great!!

Austin Oct 31, 2011

Dear Family,

So last week I talked about how I was reading the war chapters in the Book of Mormon. Well that night we had a dinner appointment with the bishop and his family and I gave a little spiritual thought based on something I read that morning. There was actually a little part in one of the chapters that reminded me of the ward and it's situation with a lot of new move-ins and converts. I could tell Bishop really liked it. At church yesterday someone in the ward council told me that Bishop really wants to focus on the recent-converts and get a binder made so that we can keep track of them and make sure they are being taught. He told me that Bishop mentioned that the scripture I shared after dinner last week had really impacted him and he had been thinking about it all week. Then the stake had a temple night at the Chicago temple and he even took it to the temple to pray about it and figure out a plan. Anyways, he told the ward counsel the summation of his thoughts and plans and that we need to fortify our recent-converts to avoid being 're-captured' by the adversary just like the cities in the chapter I shared with him. That was a lot of comfort to hear that because last month when they had us over we didn't have a lesson because we were rushed and we figured 'Hey, he's the bishop. If he needs a lesson then we are in trouble so we can skip it.' But the spirit later chastised me about it and now I'm rather glad I prepared for it. And then he bragged about us during testimony meeting yesterday (we have stake conference next week).

We received a referral last week for a lady that lives here in Waukesha and just had a heart surgery, I think. She has been having a hard time and her brother (who is a member in Kentucky) told us to go visit her. We had a fanTASTic lesson with her. I think she cried like 6 times and told us they were tears of hope. She had just got over a hard divorce and had many questions that she wanted answer. Definitely one of those times in my mission where I knew I was fulfilling my purpose. She is already on track to be baptized and reading the Book of Mormon.

Our ward had a Trunk or Treat last week and a lot of the kids went all out. It was pretty impressive. There was this kid in this hilarious outfit it was this little pillow pet apparently but it looked like his parents just put him in a dog bed. I laughed every time I saw it and he was too young to even realize what he was in.

The less active we found at the library went to the temple last Saturday with the stake. Apparently they had a great experience. I can't believe how awesome that guy is just coming out of the army and having never really experienced church outside of it. We had a dinner appointment with a member and it was a last minute thing so we didn't have a lesson prepared so we just did a music extravaganza. All their kids are super young and so we did little primary songs it so was funny. One of the kids was super shy and was practically crying while doing the popcorn popping. The whole thing was a sort of disaster but that's what made it hilarious. But we ended with Families and Be Together Forever and that one went well.

Love you all and pray for you and that you can speak your little langauges that you'll never use in the US!
Elder P

Autumn October 31, 2011

Hello EVERYONE!!!!!

Transfer 6 week 3... weird. I hit my TEN month mark on the mission..... and that just seems like a lot of months. That is nuts, because I vividly remember the day my sister went into the MTC and that seemed like just yesterday, but that was in JULY of last year...and now she is coming home soon. wowzers. Time is flying. MAKE IT STOP!....well maybe not, just uh make it go a little bit slower.

This week wasn't super eventful except for this one big event.... haha. Uneventful in the sense of missionary work, VERY eventful in the sense of fending for our lives from a scary man that looks like a clown, without makeup...well, heh, with makeup, that would be weird. anyways, so this man named Nandor..well we were tracting in his building, knocked on his door. immediately my creepy senses were going crazy. We stood there and said "We have a message about Jesus Christ can we share it with you?".. after talking about religion for a while at the door he was all about it, ... thinking there was someone else in the house we stepped in, bad move, so we left him with a short message set up for a later time and left. Just feeling like, eww that was weird. BUT he asked some really good genuine questions. So we set up for the following saturday and we planned to bring a young male member... to protect us, and be a member present. SO that day comes, we go to the apartment building and the MEMBER dogs us... what the?! so we are left to fend for ourselves, we step up knock on the door.. literally throw a book of mormon at him (i know the wettlaufers are scoffing at my use of literally there, no we did not LITERALLY throw the book, just really maybe practically threw it at him) and said "this book is about Jesus and faith and here's a good chapter on faith... got to run" (our voices are trailing off as we are running out the door trying to escape his creepy gaze) mind you he keeps looking us up and down, gross. and he looks like a creepy clown... creepy giant mustache, hair that LITERALLY (used correctly) stuck out from both sides of his head, bald on top, squinty little eyes, kind of muffled slurring speech (im sure clowns talk muffled and slurridly). So we run away, but still want to give this guy a chance to accept the gospel because he genuinely had some really good life questions, and so we set up to come back tomorrow WITH the member. Tomorrow comes, member is with us, we go in the apartment and teach a great lesson on the Book of Mormon, testimony is shared from the member and sister Wright. Unfortunately I cannot concentrate I am devising an escape plan in my mind and other self defense methods if something were to happen... etc. My mind is always working as the protector/nurse. So I notice he is not really commenting on what we are saying other than like "yea thats a possibity, sure that sounds nice..etc" but he strangely enough liked to stare at us. sooo yet again creepy sensers are going crazy, we decide to wrap this up and leave. The member leaves the door first and turns to shake his hand then walks down the hall to the elevator. Then sister Wright and I turn around to shake his hand and say goodbye. Sister Wright sticks her hand out and he grabs it and looks like he is going to kiss it (which is something some old men do out of respect) but instead of kissing it, he just gets really close to her and starts pulling her back into the apartment, I step in and grab her arm to pull her back, we keep telling him "This is not allowed, stop, we cannot be in there alone with you" and he kept saying "just come in, I have something to tell you" .... OH REALLY?! yeah right. So I grab her and try to put her behind me, so I could step between them..so I could do what?! No clue, punch the guy?! who knows.. All I knew is that I needed to step between Sister Wright and the creepy clown.. then he lets go of her hand and we just BOOK IT to the elevator. We turn the corner and the MEMBER who was there to PROTECT US, was like what just happened. We just had huge dazed eyes, and then he knew he had failed at proteting us. haha. he felt so bad. needless to say. A large majority of men in Hungary are really creepy, and even if we want to give someone a chance to learn the gospel.....sharing it with CREEPY men is not the best method. So now we have devised a plan where the Elders and 3 of the biggest men in the ward are going to go to his door for the "next appoint" and stand behind us as our body guards, and we will give him a little taste of judgement day. haha. So that was the big event of the week. It was creepy, and we survived. Hallelujah. Sister Wright wanted me to note, he was super short and so we could have taken him anyways.. no worries.

So that was the big event of the week. Dont worry mom, I have been doing P90X, I am prepared to keep us safe. It was a crazy feeling after that, we just went home and had to pray and read our scriptures to get our heads on straight. After that we realized we had a learned a couple of good lessons and were grateful that we had been able to just go on with our day.

I learned a great lesson last week from a less active member that we looked up. Her name is Danfy Anna and she lost her right leg and left toes to Diabetes. We had no clue who she was when we knocked on the door and then got let in, low and behold she was legless and so HIGH SPIRITED! She was HILARIOUS!!! We sat and visited with her for a long time, and we got to talking about her illness (Hungarians LOVE to talk about their sicknesses) she told us, "You know a lot of people would think I am in a really rough spot, and I am, but you know what... whats the use of being sad about it? I would rather laugh about it all then be sad!" She was just all smiles and made us laugh and seriously, I was so inspired by this woman. Because I have met a lot of Hungarians who in that circumstance would have essentially stopped living, would have just given up all hope. But not Anna, she lives each day laughing and loving her family and just holding out, despite her lack of leg, heart problems, poor eyesight, yet has the incomprehensible ability to say "Its so much more worth it to laugh." Thats my kind of woman. Just laugh it off, and keep on keeping on. Laughter has always been a huge part of my life, but on my mission it means so much more to me. Its what keeps me and companions sane, it what always makes a crazy day better. If I have laughed that day, then It was a good day. I know that laughter is a true gift from God, and I am so grateful for it.

The mission teaches some incredible things, and I think the most intriging thing is that it has illuminated the simple everyday life things that I perhaps took for granted. I now appreciate my family, laughter, sunshine, health, english, happiness, america, freedom, my job, my friends, my education, my parents, the gospel.. more than I ever could imagine. It so incredible to think that it would take a mission to put it all into perspective. I am truly so blessed to be here having this experience, there is absolutely nothing on this earth that I could exchange it for. Thank you all for your support. Go share the gospel with someone this week. Do it, you'll never regret it.

Sok sok szeretettel,

Sister Papritz

p.s. today was super PDAY and we had some incredible adventures including a roadtrip to the Balaton, a castle, thatched roof houses, true Hungarian countryside, amazing rock skipping, and incredible fall colors and hanging out as a district. Details to come next week. Stay tuned!

Amy Oct 30, 2011

Zao an qin ai de jiating!!

I hope that ya'll have had a great week. Wo de zhege libai guode bu cuo (My week wasn't too bad). Not much happened this week besides the normal missionary work. We have a lot of steady investigators that are progressing really well toward their dates. Tiffany set a baptismal date for November 13!!!! She is definately going to make that date! We found one new investigator who is great. The Elders tracked into her. She is 16 named Zhang. She told us that her family opposes but she still wanted to meet with us. She has a lot of kewang (desire) to learn the Gospel and see how it will help her.

We had an interesting experience at the park the other day. I was riding my bike when a man started riding next to me. I found out he was from France. He was in Taiwan for work and to try out a new bicycle. He asked about why I was there and when I told him I was a missionary it started a very interesting conversation. I found out that he is basically atheist. When I tried to share about the Book of Mormon he started to tear it apart and say that the people back then didnt have a writing system so how could they write a book. He said that the Bible is man's creation and not from God. He was taught by Jesuit scholars which teach them to question everything but forbid them from questioning God. Its so interesting. He said that the question he has asked his whole life, He was once a devout Catholic, is who created the creator. His answer....man did. It is just an imagined thing we have no evidence that God exists. It sounds a lot like Korihor in the Book of Mormon eh? Needless to say we didnt' get very far with him. I left that conversation very sad that he has been so decieved. There really is a God, our Heavenly Father, who created this earth for us His children. There are so many things on this earth that testify of God's exisitance. Anyways, I hope one day he will come to know the truth.

Well I think thats this week in a nutshell. I hope that ya'll have a great week. Love you!!!

Love,

Sister Amy Papritz

Autumn October 24, 2011

Sziasztok!!! kedves családom és barátaim! Nagyon hiányoztok nekem! Alig varom hogy újra lássalak benneteket!

Well this week was full of surprises, and one in particular that made me decide if I ever broke an arm on my mission, I would rather be left for dead than taken to a Hungarian Hospital! We went to visit a member that was in the hospital. This member had a history of stroke, with some major left sided weakness. He tries to walk with a cane but instead just decides to RISK it on his own and ends up falling a lot. Hes an old stubborn Hungarian man. Well this week, he fell and got up and then couldnt talk at all! So he was telling us he felt like he had a stroke again and so they took him to the hospital into the Neuro floor. So first of all, this place has socalized health care... problem number one. So he told us to come to the hospital to visit him. Well of course we would, so we walk up to the hospital and it already looks like a psych ward... like a 1940s horror film. We go inside, i first saw the sign for the TRAUMA UNIT!!! THe elders had to peal me away from that, I wanted to run in and see some action! but... oh, little did I know I would be seeing PLENTY that day. We walked up the stairs to he neuro unit, the place looks like death.. the hospital was just gray colors and all dimly lit. There are people lining everyhall just waiting to get seen by a doctor. The emergency room must have had 100s of people just sitting in chairs everywhere. People were just waiting for HOURS outside of these places, hoping to get seen by a doctor that day.

So we finally found the neuro unit and just walked right in....no questions asks, just 4 random americans can strut into a hospital. So the hospital staff is all dressed in classic "white" everything.. so old school. So we start down the hall and I start looking into everyroom, and they are rooms that are maybe like 20 feet deep and 12 feet wide with 3 OLD metal beds crammed side by side. They cram 3-6 people into these rooms, with literally a knees length of room between each bed. Each patient could literally sit at the side of their bed, and their knees would be touching the next persons bed. AND to top it off, everyroom was just this ugly death gray color and the floors were old black and white tiles, that looked like from some horror show. The beds looked like they were the same ones used back in the plague era from the 1910s, there was a little thin pad of mattress. We finally found his room and I immediately see that there is not ANY kind of hand sanitation anywhere, no soup by the sink, no hand gel.. nothing. No gloves on the wall! NOTHING. there were not even curtains to seperate each of these patients. We sit own and start talking to him and he is telling us all about the ambulance bringing him in and how scary it was that he couldnt talk.. etc etc. Well then in walks the aide with Lunch for everyone. She just sits all of these trays on the windowseal for these stroke patients to just, what.. get up and feed themselves?! so. she leaves the room and Lájos the patient we were with yells to the aide "hey I need my insulin" she said " well dont you usually just do that for yourself?!" (mind you he cant even move his left arm) he said "well it would be helpful if you could do it for me" so she walks over, (no hand washing, no gloves) and opens this old container that had an old insulin syringe with an old needle on it, she draws up the amount, lifts his shirt up and just shoves it in him... no alcohol wipe, no pinch of the skin, no NOTHING! just plop, in with an old needle! and shes not even a NURSE! who knows if it was even HIS old needle because it was on the table next to the other patient and HIS old insulin needle. no labels. needless to say I was having an inner cow. But obviously, could do nothing. Then I start looking over at the other patient next to them, he is in some kind of resperatory distress and my brain got to imagining things "what if he coded right now? what would I do? Where is the crash cart? where is the oxygen masks? where is the nearest intubation kit?" (my imagination really went wild) So i started looking around the room, there was absolutely no oxygen, no alarms to call anyone, no emergency anything! no way to even lay the bed down easily to do CPR! Luckily the man did not code, he did not die... but who knows how much later he did. it was NUTS! It was like I was walking into a horror movie. So we left and I was just in shock. and SO grateful I am american citizen with american hospitals. It was quite the experience. So glad I didnt have to use my ACLS skills that day, I would have been ready to jump into action with nothing to use, because they probably didnt have emergency meds in the entire hospital! crazy.

So that was the most exciting thing this week. oh man, it got my inner nurse all fired up. Then it reminded me how funny my nurse position is right now. I got two calls this week for throwing up, 1 for a twisted ankle, and one for a box lifting back injury! Oh my ICU skills! why cant someone call with a traumatic gun shot wound! But no, its just "hey sister papritz can I take tylenol on an empty stomach?" " well, i mean, try to eat something before you take it." "oh well, i dont have any groceries so I have nothing to eat" " well then I guess you cant eat anything" "i have some canned peaches" "ok, great... eat canned peaches.. whatever" ... oh the life of the mission nurse. haha.

but luckily I also get to be a regular missionary. and that is THE BEST! teaching people is so fun and finding people is even funner. and tracting is the FUNNIEST. Like this week finding ourselves infront of a STYROFOAM door. uh How do you knock on a styrofoam door?! when we knocked it made NO SOUND?! an the door bell didnt work! we figured we could have just busted in, styrofoam isnt that hard. but we resisted.

This life really is the greatest. I love what I am doing. Just pray I never have to be a patient in a Hungarian hospital, I would never make it out a live.

I love you all!

sok sok szeretettel
papritz nővér

Austin Oct 24, 2011

Dear Family,

So I'm in the war chapters in Alma right now of my reading in the Book of Mormon. During comp study we talk about what we learned during our personal study. I was amazed how many times the Lamanites fell for the chase and flank. It was like 5 times they fell for it. They always march out to meet the Nephites and the Nephites always pretended to run away so that they'd chase after them just for them to get flanked in the wilderness...every time. So I thought that was kind of tight.

After we had emailed last week a guy came up to us and asked about the church. I was hoping he was some golden investigator but it was a recent convert that had moved here from Texas. He had just gotten released from the army and so we gave him the information along with our phone. He later walked in to the clothing closet where we do service. But he just kind of looked surprised to see us and then told me that he wanted to speak to us after we were done. We gave him a call and he we found out that he really needed help. He had spent his last day in the Salvation Army and he would have nowhere to sleep. But he didn't want us to just fix the problem he wanted us to just give him whatever comfort we could give him. We met at the library on Saturday to give him a Book of Mormon and talk to him. He was explaining his situation -- a similar situation that I've seen all too often in my mission. And I had the same feeling I always do - helplessness. I just prayed that he'd find help. I just kept telling him over and over that he needed to talk to the bishop. But he kind of had no where to stay that night. I was surprised to look up and see our BISHOP wondering over towards us casually in regular clothes. I asked him, "Hey, what are you doing here?" (mind you that the guy we know doesn't recognize him, of course.) "I'm looking for something but I don't really know what." So I told him, "Well you just found it, take a seat!" I told the guy, "This is the bishop!" He eyes got suuuper wide, I'm sure he was pretty surprised. We explained the situation and bishop helped him out.

Our two baptismal dates are doing great too!

GOt ot go.
Elder Papritz

Alden - Taiwan - September 4, 2011

Dear Family.


So this week the work has been a little slow. all week we contacted. the good news is we now have a lot more new investigators. We had about 8 Investigators before but we could never get ahold of a lot of them. Or they couldn't find time to meet with us, especially with our crazy schedules. But, all is well, we are being blessed for our efforts to find.

This week not a whole lot happened. Besides a lot of contacting. I had my first incident with a car. Don't worry it wasn't a crash or a near death experience. I just got a little love tap from some car that happened to be there when I was turning around in the road. So all is well. This next week we have transfer calls. YaY. My companion and I have been talking about it, and it is possible that we will split. Which is crazy because normally you are with your trainer for two transfers. But its OK. If I do get moved I hope it is to zhonghe near Amy. Then we could party all the time.
OK so ya I am alive and well I am feeling great. The work here in Taiwan is moving along.
well that's about it. OH... last night I left my bike lock key at the church when we had the fireside. so when we were heading home, I had to carry my bike. sounds like fun. you should try it.

OK well that's it.

Love you all sooooooooooo much.

Elder Alden Papritz.

Alden - Taiwan - August 29, 2011

Hey Fam!


so for the big event this week. we had a baptism!!!!!!!! Yay!!!. But of course my first baptism had to have some crazy thing happen.

about 30 before the baptism we went to go fill up the font. I went in and plugged up the drain and began to fill it up. all was well. my companion told me to go and check to see if the water was warm so I went and saw that it was not too warm, but wasnt too bad. but i did see that there was some stuff in the water just a few little pebbles not really anything to worry about. as we were thinking about if we should clean the little pebbles out before we filled it my companion turned off the water. we decided that we didnt need to worry about it. we began filling it up again. however there was no water coming out. yep none. no hot water or cold. none. at all. we had a baptism in 25 minutes and there was no water for the baptism. we left the pipe open so it could fill up if water decided to come out, and some did, but then it stopped. for about 40 or so minutes we sat there thinking of what we could do to fill it up. while every few minutes a little more water came out. but still not enough. finaly we decided we might have enough to baptize him if he sat in the water and then just layed down. right before we started the bishop and brother cai praticed. it would work. but before the meeting there still was not enough water for even that. however we needed to start. so we went up to the chapel to begin the meeting. remarks were said and the talks given. I think everyone was stalling. finaly we went down to baptize brother cai and guess what there was barely enough for him to lay down in the water. so it worked. we had a baptism and it was very nice.

so that was the event for the week.
 Love you all.

Elder Alden Papritz.

Alden - Taiwan - August 21, 2011

my dearest Family.


This week has been great. Last wed I got to go to the temple with AMY!!!! It was so cool. I loved being there and feeling such a strong spirit. Amy and I sat in the Celestial room for a long time. just sitting there and talking. we were the second to last people to leave, so we were there a while. afterward we went to Taipei main station where we ate. then we went our separate ways. It is so amazing having her so close.

after our Preparation day on wed we then had English class. OH JOY!!! it is great. It really is. I teach the Advanced class all by my self. This class is the one that have learned a lot of english and are able to speak it very well. so i dont need to speak chinese. it is great. But as always there are those weird people that come that... are just.... they are weird. this one lady always askes about random things. last week she asked me if i could tell her the lyrics to Transformers. she told me that all she remembers was "transformers robots in desguise" and that was it. I told her that that was all i remembered. she asked if there was some way to find it. of couse you can use the internet. she was very supprised that you could find it online. so i told her that if she really wanted she could just look it up. she then just told me in her fairly rough english "well, isnt that a little idiotic" yes, yes it is. She is the one lady that always askes about random things that i dont know. and it has nothing to do with english. just other things. and most the time i dont understand her. well that was one of the crazy english class things for the week. most the time I just answer quetions mostly about myself and America.

now for some amazing news. we are having a baptism this saturday. YAY!!!!!! brother Cai is getting baptised. it is so amazing. his wife is a member, she was baptized about 6 or so weeks ago. we have been teaching her husband since i got here. He is so amazing. he and his wife are always looking out for us. mainly giving us food. also last night we went to a ward family home evning at a family's house. they had a lot of food. and sister Huang, bothers Cai's wife, kept giving me more and more food. I used my eating tactics and ate slowly so that hopfully she wouldnt give me any more. but that did not stop her. she just kept pilling it on. the members where also being very nice and inviting me to eat more and more and more. I thought I was going to die. I don't think I will die here from starvation but possibly from choking or from overeating. I dont know what to do.

so ya Baptism, YAY!!!.

ok also this week we went on exchanges again. so far I have gone on an exchange every week, because my comp. is the district leader. anyways this week i was with Elder Zhou (Elder joe) he is the Zone leader. he is just plain crazy. I thought I was going to die. but I didn't. We went contacting almost the whole day. I was so tired by the end of it. just so mentally tired. but I survied.

well that is about it for this week. Love you all. write you all next week.
Love
Elder Alden Papritz.

Alden - Taiwan - August 16, 2011

Hey Family. how is it going.


so this week has been a lot of work and a lot of trials. honestly it hasn't been that different from other weeks but the work can get fairly hard out here. I love it here in Taiwan, but it can get very discouraging very fast if you dont keep yourself up. once again, we are contacting a lot. we have a good amount of lessons each day but we are always contacting. everywhere we go we are talking to people, or at least i am trying to. It is very sad when i start talking to someone I think is interested and then they need to leave. it Sucks. but besides that I am loving it here.

Ok so just so you all know, I Will not starve her in taiwan. not only is the food very good and very cheap but we have great members who want to qing us chi. wich is to take us out to eat. or they bring us food. all of the time. there is one sister who brings us food every time we teach her husband. it is amazing. I love it. But sadly Im not so sure if all of this running and biking can make up for all of it. so maybe I will lose weight or maybe not. I dont know.
Oh next week I have a baptism, YAY. for Brother Cai, his wife is the one who brings us all of the food. they are amazing. I love them so much. Brother Cai is doing very well. he is very accepting of the teacings and really tries to understand them. He is always great to see. I am very excited to see him get baptized.

ok just a quick side note. sitting here in the internet caffe, in the background we can hear the tv or some video. and it is full of just crying. first a baby then a man then some lady. all just crying. very loud and very very very long. it is crazy I didnt know there was such a channel as the crying channel.

ok well All is well. It is great. I am loving it here.

well I love you all. gongxi gongxi to katelyn and kyle. love you all.

Elder Alden Papritz.

Austin August 9, 2011 Kenosha, Wisconsin

Dear Family,

We are on fire here in Kenosha, Wisconsin. We just tore through another week getting 20 lessons and plenty of new investigators and referrals from members and non-members alike. It was almost just a hilariously weird week. It's almost guaranteed that the more you are out the more likely that just crazy stuff will happen. While we were teaching this one guy in his front yard I heard the engine of a bus driving down the road in front of his house. We kept on teaching the guy and it was going really well, he really understood the restoration and committed to read the Book of Mormon. Then I noticed this African American man and Hispanic-looking teenager walking up to us. The guy interrupted our lesson and handed us a pamphlet. He told us they were just talking to people on the street and encouraged us to read it and told us he wasn't trying to pull anyone away from their church or anything. So I thought, okay, fair-enough; we do the same thing so I can't be too annoyed. And then I thought he was done and then he started probing asking, "So are you guys saved?" I looked over at our investigator expecting him to answer because at that point it hadn't occurred to me that he was really just talking to us and I forgot our investigator didn't speak any English. And so I answer, Yes. And then he asked, "Well how do you know you're saved." "Because grace in Jesus' atonement saves me and through faith, repentance, baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost." I replied, hoping to be able to shake him off fast and get back to the lesson. But no no, he wasn't satisfied with my answer, "Well sir, the baptism isn't what saves us. That is merely a demonstration, it symbolizes His death, burial and resurrection. It is merely how we show to God that we are truly saved through Jesus." To which I possibly too boredly replied, "Which is why I said that I am saved through Jesus' grace and atonement." So I asked him, "Do you know what we do?"

-"No, I'm not sure I'm familiar with what you do."

-"Where are missionaries for our -"

-"Oh that's great, we have missionaries in Brazil and Peru. We support them as they spread the word of God"

I realized he was really just there are fight with us on no matter what we said. So I just stopped paying attention to him. He eventually tapered off and walked away. The whole conversation his co-hort shaking his head in agreeance to everything the Baptist pastor said. I looked over and saw them hop on the bus that I had heard earlier, like a SCHOOL bus with like 12 teenagers in it. I looked around and realized there was no one else on the entire block. He literally stopped that giant bus and got out to stop our lesson and argue with us. It was way lame.

Then another day we were riding to our last appointment for the day and I noticed a tiny, tiny rabbit in the road near the curb. I decided to stop to try to scare it in to the grass. When I approached him he tried and tried to jump above the curb but he couldn't even jump high enough. So I told Elder Woodward we should try to catch him. It was pretty funny with us running around the street, bent over trying to catch him. He'd only run from one side of the street to the other and when he'd get to the curb I was sure he would just run and jump over it and head off in to the grass but instead would just jump straight forward and slam his head in to the side of the curb. It was so cute and sad. He did it like 4 times and finally got so disoriented that we were able to grab him. He was no bigger than one of my palms. We took the spur of the moment and decided to keep him (against our best judgement). So we went to a nearby member's house to get a cage for him (after we figured out that the investigator we were going to visit wasn't home anyways.) And we biked him with a little rabbit in a cage. We got home and realized we had no food for him and so we headed back out to this Italian family that we met on the street that sold vegetables from their front yard (that's a funny story, I'll have to share that one next week) and he gave us some rabbit food because we knew he owned rabbits. We also ran in to his neighbor and had a way sweet lesson and passed him on to the English Elders and they tell us that he is doing well (which is about the only good thing that came out of all of this). We headed back home and tried to feed him but he wouldn't never do anything but just sit in the corner of the cage and just stare at nothing. So we hit the sack and just left him in the cage. When we woke up (Sunday morning) he wasn't in the cage. Yeah we didn't put the top on the cage but the walls are a good foot high and he couldn't even jump 5 inches on to a stinkin' curb. We were befuddled. We started tearing through our apartment to find him and eventually Elder Woodward took some stuff from under his bed and I could tell he found him because he jerked back. It kind of startled him; there was Genesis (we named him Genesis) just sitting there....in the dark...staring back. So we rounded him up and put him back in the cage and left for church but THIS time with the cage closed. But then when we got back from church HE GOT OUT AGAIN. So we declared him a devil animal and we found him in the corner of our closet and we went outside and put him in the grass in the front yard. We sat there for 5 minutes and he didn't even go anywhere. It was so bizarre just like a horror movie or something, it's like he doesn't move if we are looking at him and then he just POOF and then reappears under beds and in closets from an ENCLOSED CAGE whenever we're not there.

So that was weird and kind of funny.

Well, I got to go. Everything is going sooo well. I started P90X today and it was ROUGH but hurt oh so good.

Much love,

Elder Papritz

Amy August 7, 2011 Taiwan

Dearest jiating,

Whelp another great week has come and gone. This last p-day was epic. Between meeting Alden and moving to our new apartment we were both exhausted. This week was back in the normal swing of things. We met with Li xian min. She is the investigator that said she wanted to get baptized in two weeks. We made the plan to teach her 3 times a week. We only met with her twice last week. She did a temple tour on tuesday and really loved it. She told us that she has been thinking about it and doesn't want to get baptized on the 20. She says that she thinks it will be too fast. We told her that Heavenly Father would help her understand what we will teach her but she still thinks it will be too fast. We are still going to keep meeting with her and teach her up until she goes back to China. I hope and pray that when she comes back in 3 months that she will keep learning about the Gospel.

This week Sister Jensen and I also had the great opportunity to do temple tours. Having the temple so close is such a blessing. The spirit is so strong whenever we introduce the temple to people. Just a quick trival fact for ya'll, the asia area where our mission is goes all the way up to mongolia down to indonesia and from taiwan all the way over to Pakistan. In that large area with the worlds most populated areas there are only two temples. Hong Kong and Taipei. Luckily for us it is only 20 minutes away. We are soo blessed!!! I love the temple. I love going to the temple and feeling the Spirit so strongly. Whenever I look at the outside of the temple I can feel Heavenly Father's love so strongly. Everything we teach is to point our investigators and new members to the temple. I also think of my own family and the blessing that we have to be sealed for all eternity. It brings such sweet peace to my heart to know that no matter what as long as we are all faithful to that covenant that we will be together forever.

On Saturday our dear Liu cai xuan got baptized!! It was great!! She has such a sweet testimony of the Gospel. When we started to meet with her she didn't seem that happy. Now she is beaming! The second or third time we met with her she asked us if she could quickly get baptized! She said she will do whatever she needs to so that she can get bapitzed! I love her so much! So much faith. The great thing about her baptism is that He dixiong baptized her. I dont' know if ya'll remember but he just got bapitzed about a month before. I taught him. It was so great to see how much progress he has made. He is now a worthy Priesthood holder and being a great example to his two boys. The Gospel really does change lives like Autumn said in her e-mail.

I could write so much more. A lot happened this week. Blast that we only have an hour to e-mail. I love you all so much. The work is going so well here. Despite the bad things that are happening in the world, the Gospel continues to spread. Even though there might be the temptation to be pessimistic about the world and the future. I think we have every reason to rejoice and be optimistic. The gospel is the only thing that can save this world from its own self destruction as President Benson says in Preach My Gospel page 2. I love this work.

All my love,

Sister Amy Papritz

Alden - August 7th 2011 - Taiwan

Hello family.

So once again TAIWAN IS AMAZING!!!

Ok so this week was mostly a normal week in the field. Except every day my companion had some meeting. Or we had exchanges or some other odd thing during the day this week.

Ok a lot of it is a blur. But there are still some amazing things.

First, last week I Saw AMY!!! yay!!!! It was an epic reunion!!! Tears, laughs, awkward silences. Yep it was amazing. It ends up that I will see her a lot. With so many mission events and exchanges. It is going to be great.

Ok, so this week. I have had a lot of great experiences. Especially dealing with the members here in Taiwan. They are great. I am making such great relationships with them here. One member, named Huang Jiemei. She is great. She just got baptized 5 weeks ago, and she is amazing. Right now we are teaching her husband. He is going to get baptized on the 27th. It is so amazing. We saw her at least 4 or more times this week. And every time she brings us food. It is so crazy. She is so great! Ok well I am really starting to draw a blank now. Well it is amazing here. Next week I need to write down what I plan on emailing because there is so much I could say.

Well its all good here in Taiwan. I can’t believe I get to wake up every day in Taiwan and I get to do missionary work. I love it. Well If I have time and if I can think of anything else I will email again. But for now. Love you All.

Sorry I am so terrible at emailing. But. yep.

Ok well I love you all a whole lot.

LOVE YOU!!

Elder Alden Papritz

Yang Zhanglao.

Alden - Taiwan - August 7, 2011

Hello family. so once again TAIWAN IS AMAZING!!!


ok so this week was mostly a normal week in the field. except everyday my companion had some meeting. or we had exchanges or some other odd thing during the day. so this week.

ok a lot of it is a blurr. but there are still some amazing things.

first: last week I Saw AMY!!! yay!!!! it was an epic reunion!!! tears, laughs, awkard silences. yep it was amazing. It ends up that I will see here a lot. with so many mission events and exchanges. It is going to be great.

ok so this week. I have had a lot of great expiriences. especially dealing with the members here in taiwan. They are great. I am making such great relationships with them here. one member, named huang jiemei. she is great. she just got baptized 5 weeks ago, and she is amazing. right now we are teaching her husband. He is going to get baptized on the 27th. It is so amazing. we saw her at least 4 or more times this week. and every time she brings us food. it is so crazy. she is so great!  well it is amazing here. next week I need to write down what i plan on emailing because there is so much I could say.

well its all good here in taiwan. I cant believe I get to wake up every day to Taiwan. and missionary work. I love it. Well If i have time and if i can think of anything else I will email again. but for now. Love you All.
ok well I love you All a whole lot.
LOVE YOU!!

Elder Alden Papritz

Yang Zhanglao.

Austin August 2, 2011

Dear Family,

Elder Woodward and I have really been owning people lately. We have just been really blessed with a really good turnover rate when going out contacting people. We had 5 new investigators this week and set an appoint for 2 more investigators this week. Including this one family which has potential, I think, to just rock the branch's world here. They are a huge family, the Mom is solid, outgoing and smart (she reminds me of Mom), and then she has SIX kids that are all fantastic and would be great additions to the branch. We even found out that the 14 year old daughter has a friend that is a member in the English ward. The only thing is that the Mom works 7 days out of the week! It's going to be tough to work with that, we'll see what happens. Another investigator, Irene, is also just really intelligent. She accepted a baptismal commitment and after reading the introduction to the Book of Mormon understand that she needs to read the book and pray about it and already knows that God will answer her prayer. She set a goal for herself to read the whole book in a month! I was like, are you sure? And she said, Yeah no problem I'm a fast reader.

As you can tell things are just going really well, which interestingly correlates with the success that everyone else in the family seems to be having. I'm glad we're just kicking butt throughout the world. I'll tell you guys, I have seen some kind of light being in this new companionship. Things are going a lot smoother, we speak Spanish full-time out of the apartment. We study hard and well and it's just nothing I've really experienced in my mission. It's been tough having trained for 6 months of my mission. I almost forgot what a normal companion should be like.

Loove you guys, I was ecstatic to read about the reunion over there in Taiwain. It's going to be just so, so cool when we are all together again.

-Elder Papritz

Autumn August 2, 2011 Duna Hungary

Kedves családom és barátaim!!

The RAINS are still falling in Duna... seriously everyday since I got here it has been raining. but it makes for some FUN days.. and I would kind of rather be wet in the rain then sweating my brains out in the humidity.

Well lets just say.. this week was AWESOME. The work here in Duna is going sooooo good. Like unbelievably good. I thought the miracles might not follow me to Duna.. once I left Pest... my first land of Miracles.. but low and Behold there are MIRACLES here TOO!!!!! AWESOME!!!!

This is our formula for miracles: 1. We wake up every morning and stand at our 9th floor apartment balcony... look over the city of Dunaújváros and then at the top of our lungs... yell " REPENT YE PEOPLE OF DUNAÚJVÁROS!! REPENT! REPEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNTTTTTTT!!!!!" ..and we start our day off with a little bit of repentence calling to the entire city. Its pretty epic. 2. then we just basically... find a bunch of miracles. seriously dont know how we find so many awesome people. it just happens.

Awesomeness from the week

1. My old buddy László from Pest... my first miracle man... surprised me this week and CAME TO DUNA!!! He just showed up in sacrament meeting and it was such a good week for him to come because I gave a talk in church and sister Roderick and I did a musical number. So he came to church and sat in the congregation and just beemed like a proud papa during my talk and our musical number. The best part of it was... when we walked into the church there he was standing with this HUGE grin on his face and he was wearing A SUIT AND TIE!!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! It was just the PERFECT TRANSFORMATION!!!! Roderick and I found him on the streets in Grubby, gross work overalls and nasty shoes. He came to church in those grubby overalls for several weeks, he didnt have any clothes... then slowly miracles started happening in his life, he found work, steady daily work, he got promoted, he got baptized... and then boom. He shows up in Duna wearing a suit and Tie looking like a million bucks. It was just the epitome of what kind of transformation the gospel can have on someone. Best day ever.

2. The J-Dubs.. or jehovah witnesses... are basically the beign (dont know how to spell that word in english) bane? of our existence here. Apparently years ago J Dubs taught a lot of people here.. and then LITERALLY kidnapped children and took them to their church to baptize them. So parents are TERRIFIED of us because they see us in pairs like the J Dubs... we knock doors like the J Dubs... and apparently they think we kidnap children like the J Dubs. WELL.... we had a little victory over the J dubs. Our churches are basically just down the road from each other in this small town. On sunday we had a little army of investigators we were walking to church with.. and we decided to march RIGHT in front of the J dub church. SOOOO... we had our army and proudly walked with our tags on and chests held high as SOLDIERS OF THE GOSPEL.. and marched passed that J dub church, and all of those people glared at us and gave us the stink eye.. and we just smiled and yelled "JÓ NAPOT KÍVÁNOK!" and just marched our little army over to the mormon church. take that J dubs. (dont worry.... this may reek of pride... but we were pretty happy to be representing the Lord just then)

3. We did some awesome tracting this week. (door knocking) and well I love tracting because its basically like that tv show that says "whats behind door number 1?!" and they throw the door open and its either a new car or like an ironing board. and the person is totally excited or totally bummed at what they get. Well tracting is kind of the same thing... i just get so excited at the surprises that are behind the doors. Here are the spurprises from this week. Behind door number 1:

• An old drunk man in his whitey tities opening his door...and talking to us.. standing there in his underwear.
• An old old néni (old lady) that opens the door with her fly WIDE open... and talks to us FOREVER and then invites us in, only to find her house is STREWN with a lot of REALLY REALLY hard liquer. like REALLY hard stuff... and at the door she seemed like such a sweet innocent néni with her zipper down
• a Different 90 year old Néni that opened the door, quickly started shutting it saying " I DONT HAVE ANY TIME!! NO TIME AT ALL!!!!! IM SO BUSY!!!!"... she definitely was like 100 years old, and 100 year olds just sit at home all day with NOTHING TO DO.. and ALL THE TIME in the world. so.. she definitely wasnt " SOO BUSY"
• We got let in at this house.. of this néni that had two little kittens that were near death crawling all over us, flies were flying every where, and her dog hadnt been bathed in a month AND there was a GIANT HUMONGOUS GOOSE that was just flying around in her back yard. and she had just peed herself. literally.... peed herself when we came to the door. she was too old to realize she had done it. poor thing.

So those are some of the surprises behind those lovely doors that we knock.

Also we had some miracles getting let into this old apartment of this man that had seen missionaries 10 years ago.. and his super rendes daughter, 16 years old, was there that was so sweet and had so many questions about the gospel... then we went back to teach them the next day and she had brought her AWESOME RENDES friend to her house.. and we taught her too and we asked them what kind of questions they had in life and they said " i just really want to know whats going to happen in this next life? where are we going?" ... WELLLLLLL.... we JUST SO HAPPEN to have the answer to those VERY questions. It was such a great program, taught about the restoration, they loved it and loved the Book of Mormon..and then after that is when they asked us all of lifes questions. Boom.... golden. We told them to stay tuned..cause next time their minds are going to get blown with THE TRUTH!!!

So as you can see. life is awesome. and I get to experience my first (well and only) BIRTHDAY AS A MISSIONARY!!! tomorrow is my big day... its gonna be weird. but awesome. i can feel it.

I love you all

SOK SOK SZERETETTEL!

papritz nővér

Amy August 2, 2011 Taiwan

Dearest Family,

Ok now that I have semi caught by breath I can write you. This week has been insane! It started off with Sister Jensen now starting to cough. Great! Now she is sick. So Elder Calvert on Tuesday told us on that we needed to deep clean our apartment and that we were moving. He found out that the sisters that lived in that apartment a year ago had the same problem and they couldn't figure out why. One of the sisters even had to go home early because she was still coughing. So for district meeting the Elders in our district came over to our apartment and we cleaned the place. Its was definately a first having all 6 Elders in our apartment. Well we found the source for the problem. Both of our air condintioning systems were covered in black mold! Poor Elder Brunson, our zone leader, took both of them apart and cleaned them. He is great! So after that deep clean we haven't been coughing as much but we also haven't been sleeping as much. So we moved over to the nearest apartment which is 20 minutes away in Taipei. So the end of the rather long adventure is that we are switching apartments with our Elders today so everything should be great now. That is the health update. Sister Jensen and I have both haven't been coughing as much which is nice. But in this whole health adventure we have made a total 5 visits to the hospital with one more on Friday for me so we will be at an even 6. Elder Calvert pulling his magic strings of some sort and getting us moved AND having to even go all the way up to President Grimley to get us moved. We are just trouble makers. hehe

Anways, Chen yi xuan was baptized on Sunday. That was a crazy day. First she didn't come to church on the day that she is getting baptized. She as then late for her own baptism. She forgot the permission slip that she needed her parents to sign. But in the end she got baptized. We found her old record and she started to investigate the church 4 years ago. It was a great day. Elder Brunson and Huang had two of their investigators get baptized too so it was a triple baptism. Yahoo!!!! Next Saturday Liu cai xuan is getting baptized! She passed her baptismal interview on Saturday. I am sooo excited!!! Now we are preparing for her baptism. I have taught her from the very beginning and now I get to see her baptized!! Yahoo!!!!

We also met on Sunday with one of our investigators Li Xian Min. She is from Chongqing, China. She really wants to get baptized. She has come to church now every week for a month and gone to every church activity that we have had. But for some reason we haven't been able to meet with her until yesterday night. We found out that she is going back to China on the 22 of Augest for 4 months. She wants to get baptized before she goes back. Which means we have to finish all of the lessons in TWO WEEKS!!!!! But Sister Jensen asked her if she really wanted to get baptized and she said yes. She is also willing to do everything that she needs to do so that she can get baptized! GOLDEN! We are going to start meeting with her three times a week so that we can finish the lessons. Its going to be a crazy transfer but so exciting!!

The new transfer starts today. I am staying in Shuanghe with Sister Jensen. I am so excited to be with her one more transfer. We have way too much fun together. We have seriously seen so many miracles. We spend half of our day just laughing over the dumbest things. Its a blast! I love her to death. This will be starting my 8th transfer and my third transfer in Shuanghe. It is the first time I have been in an area for this long. I'm so excited!!

As far as seeing Alden. Oh man, Elder Calvert is the greatest! From the time that Alden got on island everyone kept saying, "oh I saw your brother!" I was so bummed I hadn't seen him yet. Elder Calvert called his companion and set up with him a time when they would be at the mission office so that I could be there to meet him. It was seriously the greatest moment of my life. The office was crazy busy with all of the missionaries who are moving and going home. I as standing talking to Sister Calvert and Sister Grimley when Alden walked in the door. I ran to him and we hugged and cried. Everyone cheered and then got really quiet just watching us. I didn't even care. It seriously was like the whole world just melted away. My little brother was finally here!!! I think I finally know how Alma the younger felt when he met the sons of Mosiah in Alma 17:1-13ish. It was a great moment. I can't even discribe it. I still can't believe that he is here!!! We just sat and talked for a while. I introduced him to a lot of the missionaries that came in the same time I did. Alden is here!!! Now the fun can really start! Two Papritz kids in Taiwan. Can you believe it?!?!?! I found out too that I will be the coordinating sister for my zone and a few of the other zones including Alden's. Which means that I get to exchange companions with the sisters in his area and will get to see him a lot! Yahoo!!! I am sooooo excited that Alden is finally here!!!! I kept saying that over and over to him.

I think that is. I think I have told ya'll about everything this week. Holy cow it has been crazy! This next week is also going to be crazy! Yahoo!! Another transfer starts in the greatest mission and place on earth! Taiwan!!! I love you all. I hope that you all have a great week!! I love this Gospel. I am so grateful to have it in my life and to be sharing with others.

Love,

Sister Amy Papritz

Yang Jiemei

Alden - August 2, 2011 - Bangiao, Taiwan

Hey Everyone,

Guess what I am in TAIWAN!!

Man there are miracles here in Taiwan. Really there are. So much has happened since I arrived I don't know where to start.

Ok well last Tuesday at 2 in the morning we woke up at the MTC for the last time. When loaded our things on the bus and left the MTC. That was about it for the MTC.

Ok. So I really do not know where to start. So one not so great experience. When we where on the bus headed to the airport, I was looking at my passport and my visa to make sure everything was Ok. And guess what. According to my visa I am about 90 years old. The year on my birthday was wrong, it said 1922 instead of 1992. So that was a great way to start out my day. I was so scared that they would deny my visa. But of course I was so tired that I couldn't worry about it too much. After that the flights were nice. They were long but I slept most of the time.

Ok so skipping to Taiwan. So when I arrived. They did not accept my visa, at that time. They told me to go get it fixed at the visa office.They corrected it and it didn’t take long. So I did make it here.

The weather here is nice. I don’t think it is that hot. But it is humid. I am sweating so much.

...There is so much to say I don’t know what to do!!!!!!

Ok so the first night we headed to the mission home. At got some rest. In the morning we ran to the freedom memorial/plaza. It is so beautiful, I LOVE IT!! Then we had some amazing breakfast. Then headed back to the mission home to start orientation.

I was the first to get ready and head up to the office. When I got there I met sister Calvert, Elder Culverts’ wife, he is the mission nurse. When she saw me she was so happy. They have been waiting for me for a while. Every one tells me how excited they are that I am here and how amazing Amy is. Even some members in the ward know her and are so happy that I get to see her.

So now onto my trainer. My trainer is Elder Adam. He is really cool. He is from California, Fullerton. We are getting along really well. He is the oldest in his family and the fist to go on a mission. He likes music, and he likes to joke around alot. He is really cool.

The second day in my area, which is: Banqiao. We went to an old folks home for a ward service activity. I got to message some nice old Lady's shoulders as they all clapped along to some music. I met the bishop and some other ward members. Then we went to dinner with the bishop. He is really nice. Every one here is very nice. They all are very helpful.

Ok well there really is so much I could say. But that is about it for now. The food is AMAZING and the people are AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE IT HERE!!!

I am so happy to be here. During sacrament meeting, I could not stop smiling. I just had this huge smile on my face that I could not get rid of. I love the work here in Taiwan.

I love talking to every one on the street and attempting to invite them to come unto Christ.

I love it here and I love you all.

I will tell you more later. Don’t worry that is the bulk of it all.

Love you all.

Elder Alden Papritz.

Yang Zhang Lao.




Alden - Banqiao, Taiwan - July 31, 2011

Hey everyone. guess what I am in TAIWAN!!


Man there are miracles here in Taiwan. really there are. so much has happened since I arrived I don't know where to start.

ok well last Tuesday at 2 in the morning we woke up at the MTC for the last time. we loaded our things on the bus and left the MTC. that was about it for the MTC. ok. so I really do not know where to start.

ok. so some not so great experiences. when we where on the bus headed to the airport, I was looking at my passport and my visa. and guess what. according to my visa I am about 90 years old. the year on my birthday was wrong, it said 1922 instead of 1992. so that was a great way to start out my day. I was so scared that they would deny my visa. but of course I was so tired that i couldn't worry about it too much. after that the flights were nice. they were long but I slept most of the time.

ok so skipping to Taiwan. so when i arrived. they did not accept my visa, at that time. they told me to go get it fixed at the visa office. it didnt take long. so i did make it here.

the weather here is nice. i dont think it is that hot. but it is humid. I am sweating so much.

......there is so much to say i dont know what to do!!!!!!

ok so the first night we headed to the mission home. I got some rest. In the morning we ran to the freedom memorial/plaza. It is so beautiful, I LOVE IT!! ok then we had some amazing breakfast. then headed back to the mission home to start orientation.

I was the first to get ready and head up to the office. When i got there I met sister Calvert, Elder Calverts wife, he is the mission nurse. when she saw me she was so happy. they have been waiting for me for a while. Every one, tells me how excited they are that i am here and how amazing Amy is. even some members in the ward know her and are so happy that i get to see her.

so now onto my trainer. My trainer is Elder Adam. He is really cool. He is from California, Fullerton. we are getting along really well. he is the oldest in his family and the fist to go on a mission. he likes music, and he likeS to joke. a lot. he is really cool.

the second day in my area which is: Banqiao. we went to an old folks home for a ward service activity. I got to massage some nice old Lady's shoulders as they all clapped along to some music. I met the bishop and some other ward members. then we went to dinner with the bishop. he is really nice. everyone here is very nice. they all are very helpful.

ok well there really is so much i could say. I will maybe tell you later. but that is about it for now. the food is AMAZING and the people are AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE IT HERE!!!

I am so happy to be here. during sacrament meeting, I could not stop smiling. i just had this huge smile on my face that I could not get rid of. I love the work here in Taiwan.

I love talking to every one on the street and attempting to invite them to come unto Christ.
I love it here and I love you all.
I will tell you more later. don't worry that is the bulk of it all.

Love you all.

Elder Alden Papritz.

Yang Zhang lao.

Alden - MTC - July 17, 2011

Hey Family and Friends.


Ok so this week has been a little more exciting.

this last friday we had our in-field orintation, this was all about finding, planning, baptizing, and working with the members. it was so crazy. I am so pumped to get out into the field, but of course i am so scared. I cant believe i leave in only 7 days. one of the main things that i learned was that you cant be afraid to talk to everyone, that is one of the only way that we will get investigators.

Also this last thursday we got our travel plans. we are flying from saltlake at 7:30 am to detroit, then from detroit to Taiwan. 23 hours of travel. it is going to be such a long day. but i cant wait to get there.

So I have hit the wall here at the MTC. I want to get out. I love it here and i am still learning a lot, but honestly I am getting sick of doing the same things every day. i feel like it's ground hogs day. i want to get to Taiwan!!!! well almost out of here.

well i cant think of anything else the MTC is still very nice. im ready to go.


Love you all. next time i email will be in TAIWAN!!!!.
Elder Alden Papritz.

Yang Zhang lao.

Alden - MTC - July 5, 2011

Hey Family


So this week has been great. mainly because it was the Fourth of July!!!! YAY!!! Well we had a great celebration this week. First on Saturday morning there was a hot air balloon launch, you could see it fairly well from the MTC. It brings back so many memories of going to the balloon launch in Albany. then that night we had an amazing fireside celebration for the Holiday. The focus was mainly on all of the blessings that have come from the bringing forth of this country. Mainly the restoration of the gospel. The spirit is so strong here. I know i have been blessed to live in this country where we have this great privilege to worship our God.

Afterword we got to see the fireworks at BYU. we had to stay in the MTC but it was still great.

Then on Sunday we had a great fireside. Sister Jenny Oaks Baker came and performed for us. She is the daughter of Elder Oaks, and an AMAZING violinist. She went to Juliard to study music and she performs with many symphonies. She was just amazing. The spirit was great, and the music was phenomenal. she also had her three daughters play, they were no older then 9. They were also great. They played I am a child of God. Very cute.

Well as for the rest of the week. we learned a lot and taught. we finally committed one of our investigators to be baptized. He said that he would. We cant believe it took us a whole month. Good thing we are still in the MTC.

Well Thats about it. A lot of reminders of my family. Love you All. Have a great week.

Elder Alden Papritz.

Yang zhanglao

Autumn- Pest, Hungary - July 2, 2011

Hello my dear family and friends!!!

Well this might be a short one cause I feel like I just barely wrote you all.

Well LÁSZLÓ got baptized!! woo hoo!!! It was a mad dash to the finish line..and we were shopping for baptismal clothes up until the last day. (buying white underwear and white undershirt for a man was a little weird)... we werent sure if he had anyway so we just got some JUST incase. but Sister Roderick saved the day and had two EXTRA LARGE suits that were PERFECT for our László, so she brought them from Duna and everything went awesome.

EXCEPT! (theres always a hitch with a baptism, something HAS to go wrong... like in my brothers letter last week. they ended up doing his baptism in Michigan lake. Luckily we didnt have to move it to the Danube). Well mine was that we started filling the font at 915 am..and it was filling just fine and baptism is at 11. I go to check on it at 955 and it was still pretty low in the font. I thought " hmm... thats weird, must fill slow." but I KNEW that i started it on time. Well I go back to check it at 1015... 45 MINUTES before the baptism..and its STILL at the same level. then I KNEW something was wrong. It wasnt filling. but there wasnt a hole in the font. so I looked and realized... uh.....i left the drain WIDE OPEN... haha. so as the font was filling, it was also EMPTYING. uh... DUH... whoops. so I plugged the drain and then just prayed that it would fill on time. and then BOOM at 1125 when he walked into the font, it was full and piping hot and perfect.

the baptism was awesome. just he was so prepared and the spirit was strong. and it was AWESOME!! Funny thing was he always teases me that I dont talk alot.. well cause I dont, I dont know a lot of hungarian, but I atleast always try to be funny. But he always just looks at me and says in his low gruffly voice "PAPRITZ..." and Im always like " yes thats my name? what?! WHAT?! ... what do you want to say?" he just laughs and says " Papritz sister...youre an angel". haha... i think its really entertaining to him that Im always begging him to speak whats on his mind when he just walks up to me and says " PAPRITZ" with his hungarian accent. Its so funny. "papritz youre an angel" or "papritz...your hair looks good today" or "papritz...you look like.... laura bush..bahaha".. thats his celebrity look a like for me. My companion got Penelope Cruize and Salma Hayek and I got... uh laura bush. I told him I prefer Sandra Bullock...but whatever. I love him. I felt really guided to Him and it just is so special to be apart of his life. Missionary work is THE BEST!!!

well I included the pictures in a seperate email for your viewing pleasure.

I love this work. I love these people and I love my family and my friends and life is just so so so good.

LOVE YOU ALL!!

sister p

Alden - MTC - June 28, 2011

hey family. so this week has been crazy.


This last week was the Mission president seminar. wich means that alot of the General authorities were her. Acualy all of the first presidency and 11 of the Twelve. that is so amazing. the sad news is that we didnt get to see alot of them. at a devotional we saw elders: Holland, Oaks, Ballerd, Nelson, Scott, Anderson, and Elder Bednar Spoke. it was amazing. As soon as they entered the spirit filled the room. it was thick you could feel it in the air. it was amazing to see them. Elder Bednar spoke about becomeing a Preach my Gospel Missionary. he gave us 5 points.

1. the missionry must know that he is serving and representing Jesus christ
2. must be worthy.and the other ones i cant remember. sorry. well those two were my favorite. anyways. i will need to find my notes. ok besides that. we have some knew missionaries in our zone. YAY!!
it is so great to have these missionaries here. they are so excited and ready to go. it is also nice to just see knew faces. besides that that is about it. Alot of Teaching and learning.

Sad knews today was our last day at the temple. it is closing for the rest of July. however we get to help clean it on the 19th yay.
well that is about it. only 28 more days in the MTC. almost to taiwan. so excited!! well Love you all.

Enjoy the good weather.
Your Missionary
Elder Alden Papritz
Yang Zhang lao.

Autumn- Pest, Hungary - June 28, 2011

HELLO ALL!!!

So I get asked a lot.. what do I do as the mission nurse? hmm.... wellll.... to be honest. not a lot. Im really just a normal missionary, teaching, preaching and knocking doors, but I am a resource for the Mission President's wife, So I get calls from Elders with medical questions just during my normal days.SOOO.... that means that I get calls from 19 year old boys, far away from their mommies.... so the calls have gone a little something like this:

1. "uh sister Papritz, is it a problem if my eyeballs are REALLY REALLY COLD" (asking in the dead of summer) "Elder, why are your eyeballs cold? what did you do to them?" " uh.. well theyre just cold" " Elder, you did something....what did you do?" " well, you see I got sunburned really really bad on my face today cause we were outside all day and then I have had cold corn on my face for like 2 hours... and now my eyeballs are really really really cold!" " Are you having vision problems?" " No theyre just cold..." ".. ok well, they will warm back up, stop touching your cold eyeballs and wear sunscreen next time"

2. "Sister Papritz, I am having kidney problems" "Oh really how do you know?" " well I am having a lot of pain in my kidney region?" " oh yea.... where's that?" "Im having alot of pain in my hips like where my kidneys would be..." "Elder, Your kidneys are not in your hips..." " uh.. theyre not? are you sure?" "100%... im a nurse" " oh ... well then maybe I just ate some bad food....ok... bye"

3. "Sister Papritz, Ive been having some really bad chest pain." " Elder, well have you had this before? any previous heart problems... (Etc etc .. assessed for a little bit)" " Well, no previous, problems, except I got this pain before like a few times" " Is it preceeded by something?" "uh.. what does that mean?" "Did you do something different that you dont normally do before the pain started, like eat a REALLY big meal?" " yea actually I had a HUGE LUNCH... like the biggest lunch ever. AND i was also like bending over, kind of like standing on my head and that kind of made it hurt a lot" " Ok... Elder....dont eat big meals like that. It will stop, its just heart burn. and also, stop standing on your head."

You know things like that.... a little different than my Trauma days (which I miss A LOT... and I dream about big juicy traumas a lot) but still entertaining and a little break in the typical missionary day. So no Im not out here doing field examinations, setting up health stations in the middle of Budapest.. just answering phonecalls from Elders. But I dont mind, my nursing skills will all come back when Im home. I love what Im doing so much here.

This Week we have been CRAZILY getting ready for Lászlós baptism since HE bumped his baptism date up a month, and so that left us 2 weeks to plan/teach/organize EVERYTHING!!! So we spent a lot of this week meeting with him basically everyday so that we can teach Him everything. I love it though, because he starts off every lesson telling us what he read, all the cross references, all the indepth doctrine...etc etc. I have always wondered how he studies so well, how he can remember SOOOO much. We found out last night that he was actually a LAWYER in Romania before he came to Hungary, he had a college degree (super rare). He loves to study and learn and worked as a lawyer for a big company had "the life." But he loved money so much that he started stealing from the company and counterfitting money.. etc etc. He went to jail for 2 years for all of that, lost His license, his wife devoriced Him, he started drinking and smoking.....etc etc. But he told us, now he's Poor and he's just a "working man" and he knows the Lord prepared Him to meet us. OUR MIRACLE MAN!!! So this Saturday is THE BIG DAY, I am excited for it alot. Pray we get everything together. Its going to be nuts until then.

Other awesome events this week:

1. we had to find a new place to live cause our land lady went NUTS on us and has been coming into our apartment when we are gone. So we found a new place ACROSS THE STREET from the branch house, which means coming to our programs will only take like 0.2 seconds to get here instead of the 45 MINUTE commute we have been making on bus, metro, walking etc. and the best part....the apartment has a BIDET!!! ...i dont even know how that works (or really what its for..seems a little unnecessary), but its fancy.

2. Sister Roderick and I wrote a song together last transfer. Its called "you are special" (based off that book about the wooden man and the dots) (she wrote the lyrics and I kind of threw together a piano part) and the song made its world DEBUT in Her zone conference this week. It was really cool, I've never written a song before... much less PERFORMED a song Ive co-written. So it was a really fun experience.

3. I had my first experience with Hungarian birthday candles. Uh... theyre CRAZY. We were at a members house and she pulled out this one candle and an Elder held it while I lit the candle. Everyone was saying, you might want to move your hand.. i thought that was weird, why would I need to move my hand. Then I lit it and all the sudden a THREE FOOT flame BURST out of the candle (well REALLY a firework)...we put it on the cake and this firework candle just spewed and spewed. It was crazy and it was indoors and i was TOTALLY not expecting a three foot firework flame to come shooting out. and I thought the house was going to burn down. Hungarians are so crazy. firework birthday candles. jaj.

Welp thats about it for the week. Lots of great amazing things going on here in Pest. This really is a land of miracles. I love it. I love the mission and I loved something I read today in my studies (talking about a really hard hike)

" The final exertion is more than worth the effort because once the climber is on top, the views are breathtaking. The only way to see the views is to make the climb."

Im so grateful for the climb Im making, the climb my siblings are making and the sacrifice my parents are making in all 4 of us being gone at once. But... I know the view will be breathtaking in the end and we can look back at all we've done, but first we make the climb.

I love you all!!!!!

Remember: im writing on SATURDAY this week.

Sok Sok Szeretettel,

Papritz Nővér