Autumn - Hungary- Boldog Farsangot!

Boldog Farsangot kívánok! Happy Farsang!

This week was our celebration of Farsang! It is the "halloween" of the country. It is a celebration of winter getting chased away and spring coming. So they dress up in costumes. I dont really get it, Im sure wikipedia could shed some light on it. But that meant that there was a big party and I got to dress up in my typical get up...yup.... a NURSE! I got to sport my stethescope (dont ask why i brought that thing, hasnt even ever left my suitcase except for this) then used a blood pressure cuff I got in the MTC and then dressed up Sister Suranyi as my patient! It was quit the hit of the party. Everyone was amazed I had all of this real nurse stuff and kept asking me to take their blood pressures. It was hilarious. It was great because we had a couple of investigators come to the party and they loved it. We did all sorts of fun games, like building a "chairless" chain of people.. dont know how to explain their is a picture of it. Then people fished for smarties in a giant bowl of flour, there was Human foosball, and some thing where you eat cookies that were stuck to a window with a blindfold. It was a pretty creative set up. I was impressed. Then everyone just hung out and ate fánks... (homemade doughnuts).. that is the tradition. So it was really fun. The Elders dressed up as "tie mummys"... they had hundreds of left over ties and tied them ALL OVER their body. it was HILARIOUS... because they kept falling OFF of their bodies. So it didnt look very mummy like by the end, just looked like a bunch of ties wrapped all over their body. it was so funny.

So we got new that on March 7th Elder D. Todd Christofferson will be coming and doing a conference for our mission! It will be so AWESOME! I am so excited. I have always heard about these apostle visits from other missionaries in other missions and I am so excited to be able to have that incredible opportunity here. No big deal, just mingling with apostles over here in Europe. So that is in March.

Well today we experienced an epic fail. It is Pday and since we live only 17 km from the border of Szerbia we thought we would drive over and get an awesome picture infront of a giant sign saying WELCOME TO SZERBIA! So we set off on the adventure, ended going 30km in the wrong direction..corrected our situation. Then started approaching this prison looking place...there was no sign saying YOUVE MADE IT TO SZERBIA it just looked like a prison. So we thought, well maybe we're not there yet. so we kept driving and then approached this gate thing and this man asked for our passport and we asked "oh are we at the border" he said "obviously" (well actually, not that obvious).. so we gave him our passports but sister suranyi forgot hers, just had a copy of it. So we tried to pass it off and he would have NONE of that. Then when we told him we just wanted to take a picture in front of the sign he just scoffed at us and said "that is rediculous. if all you want to do is take a picture. I cant let you in. But if you wanted to you could leave THAT ONE (pointing at suranyi) and cross yourselves, but your going to have to leave her" it was so epic.. we felt like he was trying to tear our family apart, telling us "your only hope is to leave her behind!"... haha. so obviously we decided not to split up across country borders. instead we turned around and parked in the random parking lot and took a picture infront of this ugly european union sign. and then some random pictures infront of the prison. so dissapointing. no szerbia sign or anything! not even a szerbian flag! so I really have no proof I was at the border other than a picture that looks like a prison, that I can SAY was the Szerbian border. haha. oh well. memories.

This week was awesome because my favorite member here in Hungary, Viki, served a two day mini mission with us. She is this incredible member that got baptized in April of last year. She is 22 years old and is the most incredible member ever. She helps us with SOOO MUCH. She really would make in incredible missionary, she just cannot afford it. She and I have become such good friends. I really love her. Well this week she served with us for 2 days and I took her tracting (which was also Suranyis first time tracting) well Viki was a little tracting BEAST! We would knock a door, and Viki would take that book of Mormon and just bare her heart and soul to these people..and they would take it! Just door after door people were taking these Book of Mormons from her. She told us later, she doesnt know where that came from, but she knew that the spirit was putting words in her mouth. Then on sunday got up and shared her testimony in church about how those days gave her such a strong testimony of missionary work and that the Lord will truly place words in your mouth and calm your fears as long as you just SHARE THE GOSPEL with others. She just bore a strong testimony of the power of those two days and of missionary work in general. I was just so happy to be apart of such a strengthening, life shaping experience for her. I cant even imagine what it would be like for her if she was able to serve a full time mission, because just those two days with her were incredible. 18months of that would change a lot of peoples lives. The members here really are so incredible, holding strong in this pioneering country.

I love these people. I love this work. and time is just flying. I love you all. Minden jót!

sok szeretettel

Papritz nővér

picture - epic Szerbia fail.

Autumn- Szeged- Transfer 9!!!!

WELL HELLO!!!!

Wow this is so crazy. Time is flying sooooo fast. I remember when I first got in the country and started my FIRST TRANSFER!!! Now 8 of those have passed here in Hungary. I only have 2 more after this one. I just cant believe it. June 21st will arrive, and poof I will be home ... and this will all have seemed like a dream. One incredible dream. wow. Time is flying. Good thing the name of the game is to MAKE THE MOST OF IT!!!!

I am LOVING Szeged more and more. I just never want to leave. I love this place so much. I love the young adults we work with. I love everything about it. I love our investigators, I just really love what is going on here right now. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago how we met with Zsofi and Laci...Laci was a member and his fiance said that she wanted an Eternal Family! Well on sunday we were teaching them, and Laci's niece, Kiti...and we asked them if they wanted to be baptized on March 24th and they GLADLY ACCEPTED! With HUGE smiles on their faces!! It was so awesome. I was sooooo happy. It means we have a lot of work ahead to get ready for two baptisms that are 5 weeks away. But it really is so exciting. It just makes me so glad I came to Szeged and followed all of those little promptings to set up appointments with less actives, and then didnt give up on calling this random number on the ward list...and it just happened to lead us to Laci and Zsofi and his niece. and they want to be an eternal family. I am just so happy.

This week we had a WESTERN NIGHT! With the Young Single Adults. The senior couple, the Adams, planned a wonderful activity and it was so much fun having a seed spitting contest, dancing to cotton eye joe.. and Sister Kimbal choreographed a line dance that she taught all of the young single adults. It was really so much fun. I just wanted to let you all know, I placed second in the seed spitting contest. I was able to sport some western wear, and it was just so great to meet some of these Young Adults friends, and hang out with a few of our investigators. I loved it.

The snow is still falling here. My toes are constantly freezing. Probably doesnt help that I have developed a nice little winter case of the sinus cold. Well transfers are this week and I am going down to just ONE greenie instead of two. Sister Suranyi will be staying with me and Sister Kimball got transfered to Miskolc, a different city. and I am so excited because one of my favorite elders of all time is coming to serve here. Elder Beaumont. We served together for a while in Pest and so it will be a PARTY here in Szeged. I am really excited. This next transfer is going to be a blast.

Man well that is about it. I love my mission. OH this week I finished the book "the Great Apostacy" by James E. Talmage. and wow. I loved it with every bit of my soul. I have a testimony of the great apostacy! It REALLY happened....and that is why we needed a Restoration of all things. The Lord really thought this all out when making this perfect plan of life. I just love the restoration, and the apostacy and I am so grateful I am able to serve a mission, if not for anything other than to be able to fall in love with the gospel more and more. I love it.

Well you all have wonderful weeks. I love you all so much.

szeretlek benneteket

papritz nővér

Autumn - Szeged, Hungary - AHHH!! SNOW!!!

Hello Everyone!

Well...i TOTALLY jinxed myself this week. A few days ago I was telling my companions...haha..."well I am SO glad that this winter has been mild. I totally dodged the bad winters everyone complains about on their missions."...and then BOOM. We got dumped a FOOT AND A HALF OF SNOW.....that is 1.5 FEET in just 2 days. There hasnt been a storm this bad since 1987. It has just been FREEZING. like -15 celcius. I am just trying my best to stay warm. The roads are covered in snow..nothing is getting plowed. There are just HUGE piles of snow that people have hand shoveled everywhere. There is SO MUC SNOW. people are just trying to make their way down these little random tracks in the snow. and we are having to trudge through snow everywhere we go. Luckily this city is beautiful when it is covered in snow. AND the entire TISZA river is frozen! I have NEVER seen a frozen river. Only crossed them on the Oregon Trail Game. haha.. so it is cool to see a real big frozen river covered in ice.

So...besides the cold. This week was so busy. We had so many programs and frankly they all are kind of blurring together. The works is going really really good here. We have some incredibly promising people. I almost dont feel deserving of how well the work is going here. It has all just been handed to me. I am so grateful for it. Our one miracle woman Erica, the one who just came to church, has been doing wonderfully. She has been praying and praying and begging for an answer from the Lord and has not received one. But there have been noticeable changes in her countenance. Each week she comes and there is just a little more bounce in her step, a little bit more light in her eyes. She brought her 12 year old daughter to meet us last time. So I am so excited to meet with her this week and see where she is with getting her answer. I have never taught anyone that has sincerely prayed this hard to get an answer. I know it will come eventually, they always do.

One of the cool things we did today for Pday was visited the big giant Synagogue in the area. It was gorgeous! and the funny thing was, this man basically unlocked the synagogue for us and said "ok do whatever you want...and just let me know when you want to leave" so we had this HUGE synagogue all to ourselves! so we all took a billion pictures and just explored the place. It was so fun and beautiful. Man if I wasnt mormon, I would have totally been Jewish. Their buildings are beautiful. haha.

Well.... not much to report this week. Kind of just busy and trying to stay alive in this frost. It is SOOOOO cold. Pray that I dont freeze to death. My back has been acting up more lately...so I just hope I dont fall and break something amongst it all! Oh man life is an adventure on the mission...but so worth it.

I love you all

sok szeretettel

sister papritz

Autumn- Szeged, Hungary- life is AWESOME!!

PHEW! THIS WEEK WAS CRAZY!!

I feel like I say that everyweek...but no REALLY this week was. It was so sooooo busy. We have been blessed with tons of Miracles...I know, yet again I say hat everyweek. But I think greenie prayers are A LOT stronger than regular prayers, so since I have TWO GREENIES its double the amount of greenie prayers...therefore double the amount of miracles. First awesome miracle of the week we got 10 new investigators!! It was incredible! It nearly doubled my previous highest amount of new investigators I have ever had on the mission! It was really awesome. Investigators just basically fell from the sky (notice I said basically, not literally) So the week was super succesful. It was fun to be teaching so much, and I thought it would be a hard adjustment having now 3 people teaching and two of them super new to all of this. But they have jumped into this like CHAMPS!! gosh I am so proud of my daughters... they are amazing. They teach so incredibly well and we have so much fun. It really is going so well. I love it.

So along with greenies comes awesome GREENIE MISTAKES!! oh they are so precious, these little language mistakes. They really speak incredibly well...SO MUCH bettr than me when I was a greenie. But its the understanding that is hardest. So sometimes they just agree to things they dont understand. with a smile and a nod and an enthusiastic "IGEN!"...(yes!) So this week one man was talking to one of them about america, and the indians, and how they used to do buffalo hunts and i was listening to it all...wandering how she was going to react (cause i knew she wasnt understanding words like indians, buffalo. hunting...etc) so she kept sayign "oh szép... jo.... nagyon jo" (oh beautiful...good...really good).. then he started motioning to his head, and making this band motion around his head. she thought he was talking about indian headbands...so she said "oh az nagyon nagyon szép" (thats very very beautiful!).....then everyone in the room bust up laughing. cause he had been saying "AND then I heard that american indians used to scalp people all the time, just scalp their heads right off!"...and the motion was not a motion for a pretty indian headband...but rather in reference to indian scalping! hahaha!! it was a priceless moment. she handled it like a champ and laughed it off. but oh man, i remember those days vividly. just agreeing to everything and anything cause you have no clue what is going on. she could have never anticipated the conversation had turned to indian scalping!

Being in the Trio is going wonderfully. They both love to sing and dance...and are SUPER talented. So they will frequently bust out into random songs...and make up random songs. My favorite this week was they kept making up verses to a new version of Rhianna's song "Disturbia"... they call it "to Szerbia"... its all about us sneaking off to Szerbia (because the Szerbian border is only 17 kilometers away from where we are) it is HILARIOUS!! Its great because when we visit less actives we sing Hymns from the new hymn book and we sound pretty dang good as a Trio. it usually brings people to tears. AND... its what brought about our biggest miracles of the week this week.

We were in need of just 2 appointments this week in order to make some of our number goals. So I scheduled an appointment with this man, Laci a less active member, that I have never met or heard of. But he accepted the offer to meet. We went over there and he let us in and he had Two beautiful little children with his fiance. We started getting to know them better and they are getting married on March 10th. I didnt even know he had a fiance (cause our records said he was married) so he hadnt been to church in a while. and we were NOT expecting to be meeting with any non-members. So we started talking to her about religion and she was just the sweetest girl ever. So then we started singing "lead kindly light" and he just had tears in his eyes..and she reached over and grabbed his hand. They were just holding hands crying..and when it was done he was saying "i just have always wanted an eternal family..but I have been down such a different path." I turned to her, the non-member who had only heard a few things about our church from him and asked her "Zsófi, do you want an eternal family?" and she had the biggest smile on her face and said "Yes...I really really do." Then Laci, the member, had a huge smile on his face. and also his Niece was over at their house. They both agreed to begin being taught so that they can be an eternal family together. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my mission. We had not gone in their expecting to receive two new investigators. much less an entire FAMILY that wanted to be together forever. But the Lord made it happen for us. It was incredible. I love my life.

So things are really going so so great. I love what I am doing so much. and I love you all so much. Thank you for all of your support and love. I miss you all so much.

sok szeretettel
Papritz nővér

Autumn - Szeged, Hungary - CRAZY MIRACLES!

(I am just going to post these myself....hope everyone enjoys!)

Well hello everyone.

This was probably the most NUTS weeks on my mission. For many reasons... so lets just start listing them in order of craziness/ awesomeness of miracles.

1. the BIG change that happened was well, I am DOUBLE training TWO GREENIES right now. uh, yeah. So this last week there was a change in a different city because the other trainer got sick and couldnt keep training for the rest of the transfer, So president called me and said I would be finishing off this transfer with Two greenies and training both of them. So this weekend we spent getting the apartment ready for SISTER KIMBLE! She is my new foster child. haha... its a complicated mission family history, she was going to be my ADOPTED child. But, that is too final... her real mother is still her mother, so I am settling for Foster mother. Maybe later I will progress to adoptive mother. If none of this makes sense... its cause the missionary family tree lingo is complicated. But I now have one daughter and one foster daughter living with me. We are just having a party everyday here in szeged. They both served together in the MTC so they were already companions before they came to Hungary. (sister suranyi and sister kimble) SO its great cause they are already really comfortable with each other and walk around this city singing songs and dancing, cause they both sing and dance. So basically in our apartment, or really anywhere, on the train or bus, one of them or both of them simultaneously will just start busting out in song. So its a fun little thing. haha. So I am rangling two children, and its going to be a weird adjustment teaching with 3 people, and two of them newbies. But it is a fun little challenge I am ready to explore. So here i go!

2. My back saga continued. This week I treated it with 2 massages. haha....I have never had a massage before, but uh... well it was quite interesting. my first one was well, quite exposing. haha....and I climbed up on that table with the very little I had on..and soon enough it was ALL off..and I was getting a very interesting lower back massage.... like REALLY lower back. like...bum massage. soooo that was a little awkward as a missionary. but apparently that is part of the lower back? eh? so after that awkward experience I went to a classier place, and got a really awesome massage with aroma and junk like that..and normal back rubbing, not "lower back" rubbing. sooo... i felt much less exposed and uh... violated. haha. the story is WAY better than I just wrote out. SOOOOO... look forward to being told this story in person. more details, more awkwardness. oh man... it was HILARIOUS. just basically imagine the most awkward situation a missiory could be in, and that was me. oh man the story is good. BUT the pooint of getting a massage was for it to help my back. and it did. so it was worth it. and this was all approved and perscribed by the doctor.. fyi.

3. My wallet got stolen this week, from the MISSION HOME! yeah my wallet was sitting in my bag, and I was in a room with a bunch of missionaries and went upstairs to go talk to someone and then by the time I came back down all of the missionaries had left the room and it was GONE! ... no, none of the missionaries took it...but there were other random people in the building that might have seen it. It just stinks, cause if I had known they were leaving the room I would have never left it. But all my cards, a few little memerobilia things from the mission was in there (like my medical bracelet from my surgery in the MTC) and all of my bank cards, drivers license. my christmas money. haha... so yeah. it kind of stunk. but oh well. atleast my passport and important documents werent in there. hallelujah. it just added to the craziness of this week.

4. really hilaiours. This week I got a package, and it said it was from Mom. BUT i wasnt expecting one...so it was a pleasent surprise. On the outside of the package was a mailing slip with all of these items listed "robe, gloves, socks, candy"... which was weird cause I thought well, I already gotten all of those things in my last christmas package. Then I looked at the package closer and It said that it was from some random mailing station in america and it was "damaged postage"...weird. so I opened it up...and there were USED socks wrapped in some tissue and this Footsie Pajama onesie...i was so confused, but excited that perhaps my mom forgot she had sent me a ONESIE.....well then I pulled it out and tried it on... it was a ONESIE meant for an 8 YEAR OLD! IT WAS SO SMALL! ... then I knew something was up. Obviously my mom would not have sent me unmatching USED socks and a childs footsie pajama onesie. haha... so in analyzing the situation I realized that, the PACKAGE SLIP had fallen off the original box and they just attached it to some random old things that were lost in the mail station, things that looked like a robe and socks...and sent it to me. It was hilarious. and random.

5. 1 awesome miracle of the week. There is this man in this city that was for a little while Phone stalking us. We had met him on the street and he said he was interestd in the gospel. So we exchanged numbers...well then he proceeded to call us daily. Begging us to go to his place, or he could come to OUR place. and he really wanted to know our address. uh...creepy. So I kept telling him "if you want to learn about the gospel, you can meet with the elders" and he would say "oh I dont have time for that..but if you want to meet we can"... uh... no thanks. So.. we have been dodging this guy for a couple of weeks. Well then the other day we walked up to our apartment building and you have to enter this code in on the outside of our apartment building to get in. Well for the life of me, the stinkin machine wouldnt work. I would put in numbers and it would act all scrambled. I tried 5 times and it just wouldnt put in ANY NUMBERS... just straight up broken. So we turned around and RIGHT THERE parked in traffic was this CREEPY STALKER DUDE!!! He was watching us in front of the building and started waving at us!, ...so that was creepy. Then we walked around to the other side to put in the code and enter in. Then twenty minutes later, we got curious and walked back to the other machine to put our number in and it worked PERFECTLY. 20 minutes before it was seriously confused and jumbled and not working..and 20 minutes later worked perfectly. The reason being (my little theory), God must have confounded the machine. haha! he JUMBLED all the numbers so that the CREEPY man wouldnt know we lived there! hahaha! awesome!!! because since he saw us walk away, he could just assume we were trying to visit someone.. not living there. but now HE HAS NO CLUE! so the Lord really protected us. awesome!

6. Final most awesome miracle. We were really close to meeting mission standard this week, all we needed was ONE PERSON at church. So sister suranyi must have prayed really hard...because on sunday in walks in this woman named Erika. She had been living across the street from the church and had been attending a bunch of churches looking for the truth. She had been looking for "my family, my home, my friends".. as she told me. Then on that day decided she would finally investigate the church right across the street. MIRACLE!! So we met with her, she loved church, had many of her questions answered in church...and then in meeting with her later she just talked over and over again about how her and her husband have been looking for the correct path for them and that in every other church they just felt sadness and felt like they were surrounded by people that didnt live what they teach. so SUNDAY she had found her path... she was a little shocked that we could so confidently testify that she had been prepared for this, and here it was right in front of her. the VERY THING she had been searching for! .. so she was excited to go home and tell her husband that she had found it. We are excited to see where this goes. I havent found someone this prepared in a long time. I am excited. and I love these miracles.

well that was my week! ridiculous and nuts and awesome all at once. I have 2 children now! ahhhhhhhhhh!!! ok pray that I survive all of this.

I love you all so much.

sok sok szeretettel

papritz nover (i am not on a hungarian keyboard, hence no fancy dots)

Autumn - Szeged, Hungary - I am sooo spoiled.

Hello everyone!!

This week was awesome! The work is going so good. It was a really successful week. I think the Lord is REALLY spoiling me here in Szeged. The city is beautiful, my companion is awesome, the work comes pretty effortlessly, the members are wonderful, and we just happen to find new investigators everyweek! So things are going so great.

The biggest hit of the week was english class!! We had been advertising for hours and hours and passing out flyers and putting flyers in mailboxes. We had invested a lot of work in it. Whelp, it all really paid off. We had almost 40 people in the beginners class that I taught!! It was awesome! and over 20 of them said they wanted to meet personally! So.. WOO HOO!! So that will keep us busy for a while meeting with all of them. So i am super excited about that.

The craziest thing of the week is that I have been having a lot of back pain. I have always had this little dull ache from all my years in the hospital doing 12 hour shifts, but last week it turned into this spinal pain. Compressing sharpness... blah blah...no need for the details. Needless to say it hurts! So after finally deciding to talk to the area doctor, and calling the senior couple in our area (one who is a physical therapist), and talking to President. I got approved to go to a Hungarian Thermal Bath!!! wooo hoooo!!! The physical therapist said it would help loosen my muscles....YES! I had seen the pictures of the "Bath Houses" in all of the websites that I looked up before the mission. I always thought It would be soooo cool to go to one,but because of mission rules knew it would never be possible. Well this week, all of my dreams came true. It was AWESOME! So with some approval, dont you all worry. I was able to soak my horribly aching back in some wonderful hungarian mineral baths, and sit in lemon flavored steam saunas, and lay in a "bed" in this other mineral bath that had JETS shooting all over my back. OH and it was all in this beautiful European architectured (sp?) building, with giant domed ceilings. Basically, it was awesome. and it helped the back. So i guess I will just have to make regular Medicinal visits to the Thermal Baths! wow life is so rough here. In between being a missionary and teaching a bunch of people, I have to go to a thermal bath. hmm.. rough. The most hilarious part was that, obviously I didnt pack a swimsuit for my mission. never imagined in million years I would need one. So I had to wear shorts and a T shirt and basically everyone looked at my like I was from MARS!!! The rooms would go silent when I walked in, and they would stare at me like I had 5 legs... cause apparently (from what I observed) bikinis and speedos are the norm. guess I was overdressed. It was hilarious and awesome. also...it was a bunch of like 60 year olds there. I was surrounded by a bunch of hilarious retired Hungarians bathing..and then me, in my clothes. priceless.

Dont worry besides going to thermal baths... the missionary life is going awesome. I am loving ever second of this place. My passion for the Book of Mormon is THROUGH THE ROOF! I love that book. I love giving it to people. I love knowing that it is sitting on peoples shelves, on their night stand, their kitchen table. I love giving them the opportuity to find true happiness in this life. Who knew it could be found in a book?! and we give it away FREE!! Eternal happness...FREE!!!! It has become my greatest passion on the mission, (besides sharing the message of the Restoration. Jézus Krisztus eredeti egyháza vissza lett állítva!) I love giving it to people, knowing that even if they never meet with us, or get baptized, the reminder will always be on their shelf. Years down the road they can look on their shelf, start reading and be reminded there is soooo much more to this life than they ever imagined.

Well you all have a wonderful week. I love you all.

sok sok szeretettel

Papritz nővér

Autumn - Szeged, Hungary- life is AWESOME!

SZIA SZERETETEIM!!

this week was wonderful. a looong week but wonderful. We had a 7 day work week because of the holidays on the weekend, and we worked our little bunz off. We were able to get a lot of appointments, and had 6 new investigators this week. It was a great way to start off the new area. It made me really excited for the rest of this transfer. I am moooooooost excited for the new start to our English class. We have been investing A LOT of time in advertising for that and on thursday it starts again. so pray that we will find TONS and TONS of new people for it. I am so excited for it.

One of the things I love the most in this city is all of the rendes people (classy, successful, cool... no real good translation for rendes). There are 2 big universities here and one is a medical school. So there are people from many different countries in this city studying medicine. A lot of them already speak english really well and it is just such a different feel in this city than in Duna. Duna was a factory city, lower class, much much harder hit with the economy. I love duna, but it was hard to see so many people really struggling. Szeged is a beautiful city with young succesful people that are well dressed and just really going somewhere in life. So we are REALLY hoping that these people are going to be coming to our english class!!! I just really feel at home here in this place. The people on the streets here are so cool. I love talking to them. Just today we were walking on the streets and a group of young medical students were all talking about their "neurology final exams"... they were talking about the brain and all of the material from the course... and I was just so pleasently happily surprised to have heard a fun little medical conversation on the streets. So much intelligence in this city. Its such a refreshing change of pace. I love it.

It makes the work a little challenging because intelligence and faith dont always go hand in hand (to some people) but I know the Lord is ready to work miracles in Szeged. One man we met on the streets his name was Ferenc. He spoke amazing english and immediately started talking about all of the trips to hawaii he had made in his life. He was really interested in the Book of Mormon and we met with him the very next day. It was an INCREDIBLE lesson. He just ATE IT UP...he just LOVED everything we were saying. He too is very intelligent, but that was the brilliance about it. He saw the LOGIC in the restoration of the gospel. It was so great. He is Catholic and when he asked us if they have those three things (priesthood authority, revelation and power) in his church. He handled it so well when we said no.. and he just said "hmm that makes sense". We are so excited to meet with him next week. We are really finding some great people here.

Along with the great awesome people are always the crazies. One man we met on the street was sober the night we met him...but very VERY drunk when he met with us the next day. It was embarassing because the elders were there and some ward members were at the branch house too and this TOTALLY drunk man shows up. haha. People were like "so this is your appointment?" hmm.... yup. By the end of the program he was telling us "well i can just hang out with you all day" "I think im going to call you ALL THE TIME... that would make me happy." haha.. etc etc. Just some really obvious hitting on us. My poor little companion got up and started packing up her stuff when he heard him say "i love you" to me.... she didnt understand he was explaing the difference between "i love you" in hungarian and in English. After all of his creepiness we finally just exscorted him out the door and then endured 20 minutes of jabbing from the members and Elders "woo hoo... finding some GREAT folks there"... he he...we gave him a book of mormon to read when he was sober.

So some fun awesomeness that I forgot to tell about. 2 weeks ago Sister Mills and I... my last companion. Taught a training in Zone Conference on Joy and Happiness. It was really fun to teach during zone conference and I was loving the topic. I was telling all the Elders to be positive in the work, that happiness is largely a choice. etc. Then I told them to love their companions no matter what...went off on a shpeel about that then said " A mission is like marriage. These things will teach you how to be a better husband. So if there is NO LOVE at home. MAKE LOVE at home.."..... uh... then it sunk in that I had just told all of the elders and my mission president and all of the senior couples in the room to make love....at home. and... it was so awkward. Then I started embarassingly laughing. Luckily I dont think president caught on, but all of the Elders were DYING. I couldnt live it down. People still talk about it. dang it. make love at home... oh dear. yup. So not only do I say embarassing things in Hungarian ... still doing it in english.

Last funny/weird story of the week. This random man called us this week and said "i want to meet. We meet like 3 months ago and I am ready to meet again." So we met at this random location downtown and he had brought a friend. What a surprise! He was a really nice younger, rendes, man. His friend seemed so nice. Then they started leading us to our meeting location. I still had no idea why we were meeting or who they were. Other than they had met with the missionaries before and they were interested in God. Well they lead us through the city straight to the JEHOVAH WITNESS LAIR!!!! They were J DUBS!! Hence why they were being so secretive about the details. They lead us down into their lair..and pulled out all of these articles about mormons that had been written in the ealry 90's and wanted us to explain them to them. None of it was offensive, and they didnt argue..I would have left if they had. It was really interesting. Then just as their church was ending we were leaving and we had our tags on, and we got so many stares and I swear we were going to get stoned right then and there. We made it out alive and are visiting the LAIR again next week. oh goodie. fun times with the J dubs.

well everyone. I love you all. Life is so good here in Szeged. Its so weird how everything fell into place for me to be here. I love every second of it.

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