Autumn - Hungary - BIG SURPRISE!!!! AHHHH!!!!

Hello everyone across the ocean..... 

Well... so this week I had a fun little surprise, ehh.... well that is a dramatic understatement. More like the biggest surprise of my eternity. Katelyn just... uh.... decided to surprise me yesterday. yup.... just decided to pay me a little visit in HUNGARY... IN PERSON...LIVE. (for those that dont know....Katelyn is my soul sister best friend. we have been in daily contact with each other since we were 15 year old beehives, minus our missions..and she married a missionary that served here... which is PERFECT for me) 

So the story goes like this:

I had heard some slight rumor that they would be coming. But had no clue when, where, how.. or if the rumor was even true. I completely dismissed the rumor because I thought FOR SURE they would let me know. Im a missionary for heaven sakes... you cant just go around surprising missionaries. We have busy schedules. So I basically forgot about it, or figured it was way far in the future because I knew that I would be told about it... or would be able to sense the surprise coming. But no.... didnt sense it at all. I figured because Kyle was a Hungarian tutor for the Senior Couple serving here in Szeged that somehow they wouldbe involved in this. So I figured, well Im sure they would let me know. Well I heard nothing. So I proceeded to just live my litlte missionary life, figuring well someone would clue me in soon. Well nope.... everyone has been keeping this a secret for a long long time apparently. 

So on sunday we took a 2.5 hour bus ride to my old stomping grounds in Duna for a area conference. I got off the bus and proceeded to go mingle with all of the missionaries I had been excited to see, and talk with members... etc. Well then randomly this Elder serving in this other city said " Sister Papritz. The senior couple accidently brought back a package from Budapest that I thought was mine, but it actually had your name on it. Sorry, I kind of accidently opened it before I realized it was yours. So you can come get it off our bus." I thought...."hmm..weird... well if my name was on it, why would you open it. But whatever." so I followed him to the bus. As we approached the bus, the bus then started driving away. I said "oh, Elder. Obviously its leaving to go park... we can just get the package later." He INSISTED we get the package. and I said "uh.... should we be running after this bus then?" "yeah...we should probably run" .... ok... weird. so we start running after this random bus. We flag the driver down... I keep thinking "this kid is really persistent about the package......but whatever" so then the bus driver stops and opens the door. I didnt get on the bus with him, becuase I didnt want to be alone on a bus with an elder.... you know, mission rules. but then he was like "looking all over" for the package. and was like "oh, I cant find it" I looked right above his head and was like "Elder.... the package is right there"..... "oh, yeah weird. didnt see it... uh... ok".. so then I turned back around with the package and got off the bus. The package was completely opened, and labeled with my name....again, weird... why would he open this when obviously it was labeled with my name. It was from Katelyn and I was excited becaue I was expecting a package from her in like a week. Then I open the package and pull out this letter that on the front says "LOOK BEHIND YOU!"... I do...and no one is there (hahaha... because I was supposed to be ON THE BUS)... so I look behind, and thought... ok that is really weird. Then I open the letter and it says "if you havent realized it yet.. I am in Hungary. and if you didnt know and havnet seen me...than I just ruined the surprise"... still at this point I thought. OH NO...she is probably in Budapest and thought I would open the package in Budapest and they would be there. So i was like, weird... this is NOT working out the way they wanted it. So I turned to start walking away from the Bus...then all of the sudden this girl in this blue dress comes running down the stairs of the bus, followed by this tall dark haired guy with a camera. I realize that, uh..... oh my word... THIS IS KATELYN!!! I had like 3 seconds of like, disbelief and like..... silence... cause it hadnt hit. Then...commenced the screaming... the hugging, the yelling. The "OH MY WORD..... OH MY CRAP... WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE....WHHHHHHHHHHHAT AREEEEEEEEE YOU DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOING HEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!"..... yup. and now she is standing right beside me as I am writing this emails. 

So on that note. Im going to go hang out with my best friend on my pday.... yup. My life rocks. 

Also did a lot of missionary work this week. Had 3 new awesome investigators and Sister Kramer and I talked in Hungarian all week, 6 days straight. It was awesome. Life is soooo goood. 

Well on that note...I am off to party. 

sok szeretettel

Papritz nővér

Autumn - Szeged, Hungary - The awesomeness continues

Hello my dearest loved ones,

well well, yet anther week has flown by. Life here is soooo good. I love my city, I loooooove my companion, I love my district. I love the work. I love my life. I have been contemplating a lot about reasons I served a mission. The biggest...God commanded me. The answer to serve was a little too obvious not to follow it. (see D&C 15 for my obvious answer). Since embarking on this, I have then gained other reasons to serve. Reasons I never even realized were waiting for me. I think each week till the end I would like to focus on different reasons why the Lord called me on a mission. Since, I dont know.... if I were all of you, I would be looking at this crazy girl that left her dream job, all of her friends and family, everything and went on a mission, and I would think "does she think it's worth it? Was she happy she served?" Especially those that know me very well, know this was NEVER EVER EVVVVVVVVER in my life plans. My dear friend Bailey wrote me a letter the other day, and she reminded me how ADAMENT I always was against serving a mission. She said "It's so funny cause I still remember that one night at liberty park and you were talking about how a mission would be the LAST thing you would ever do. And now look at you!" bahaha.. yup. That sums it up perfectly. This really was the LAST thing in the world I would have ever done, wanted to do, or would ever plan on....but ironically enough, it is the most important thing I have ever done in my life. But I guess it must have needed to be this way, I must have needed to HATE the idea of a mission so passionately to erase it completely from all life plans, to then realize how much it has changed my life. It is kind of great that before the mission I never imagined a mission because I truly came here with no expectations, no clue what to do, just kind of threw myself into this thinking "whelp, Heavenly Father, here I am. I showed up for this mission thing. Do with me what you will." Looking back I am so glad that was how it happened. Because I never had an opportunity to create this "perfect missionary" image for myself, or a "perfect mission" in mind. I have never been dissapointed in the way my mission has turned out beause I never dreamed of baptising X amount of people, or achieving any kind of status, or having any kind of success, beause I honestly NEVER WANTED THIS. haha. So how could you develop expectations for something you never wanted? But it worked out perfectly, because It allowed me to really come on the mission and just figure out the LORD'S expectations for me. I have been able to just turn my mission over to Him, and let it all be in His hands..because my hands have NO CLUE what to do with this foreign concept of a mission. So luckily, I can say it has all turned out the way He wanted, because this was His call... not mine. But I am so eternally blessed and happy that I responded to the call. I've never regreted it for a single milli-second. 

So on that note, Here is the first reason I was called to serve a mission: 1. Zsofi Katona. This girl has been one of the biggest reasons, if not THE reason I was called to Hungary. Zsofi was my investigator that was baptized on March 25, so almost a month ago. Well I have been truly blessed to have seen her entire conversion. From day one, first time hearing about "Eternal Families" to the day of her baptism and beyond. I am so grateful that I listened to the prompting and called her Husband (Well fiance at the time) Laci, even though his name was on the less active member "do not contact list". (p.s. NEVER LISTEN TO THOSE LISTS.. CONTACT EVERYONE!) Then going to their house, I was so surprised to realize she was not a member, and then on that first meeting feeling the spirit so strongly asking her "Would you like an eternal family?" and seeing that light in her eyes beam as she said "yes. I really do." Well, there you have it. end of story. The rest is history. From there her conversion was effortless. She accepted everything whole heartedly and entered the waters of baptism with a budding testimony of all of this. Knowing it would change her life. I was able to witness those changes in her life, and that light in her grow and grow. I saw her wedding and witnessed the formation of their little family as they combined all of their children into one happy family. Laci, her husband, has been taking the steps of repentance, meeting with the bishop and getting is own life in order. The whole family is in for the long haul, their goal is the temple. 

Yesterday we went over to visit them and the appointment before we told her to pick a topic from the Gospel Principles book and teach it to us. Well we showed up yesterday and she had picked the "Restoration" (atta girl! my favorite topic) Well she taught us an INCREDIBLE lesson on the restoration. Incredible. She taught the lesson better than most of the members in the ward would have. Then she said two beautiful words that just blew my mind. "Bizonyságomat teszem...." or "I give my testimony...." The thing that immediately came into my mind was "wow. She HAS a testimony." she ACTUALLY has a testimony to share. When we first met she didnt. She knew very little if anything about the church and all of the sudden she has a testimony! Well.. those two words were followed by a series of even more incredibleness "... hogy ez egyház az egyetlen igaz egyház a földön." or " that this church is the only true church on the earth."... yup... that's my girl. I taught her well. haha. Really I felt like a proud mother. I couldnt believe that I was listening to her bare testiony of these things and she truly meant it. She truly said all of that with all of the incredibly sincere conviction in her heart. and I was there to witness her go from NO testimony.... to a real testiony of these things. It has been one of my greatest joys in life to see her conversion and arrival at an understanding and appreciation of the gospel in her life. MISSIONS ARE AWESOME!!!!!!!!!! 

So there you go... Reason number 1 why I am on a mission. More to come... much much more to come. 

This week we went on splits with the sisters in Kecskemet. It was so great to go to that city and split. We have been trying to help out the other sister companionships in our area, so we decided the best way was to do splits and see how the work is going. So I got to be with Sister Suranyi again for a day and night, (mother and daughter reunited!) It was really great because Sister Kramer and I were really able to help them get some new ideas on the work, help them out a bit. I was able to give Sister Suranyi some awesome motherly advice on how to keep rocking the mission. It was such a testament that splits are so worth it, because it was great to be able to go to an area and help it out even for just a day and a night. We are going on splits with the Bekescsaba sisters next week and I will be reunited with my other mission daughter, Sister Mills. We are excited. 

ALSO... this week we went to a little place called Olpusztaszer. It was this awesome Historical Park, that had this "living mural" of the history of the settlement of Hungary. Basically a 20 ft. tall mural that lined the walls of a circular room. So the mural wrapped around the entire room. It was complete with sounds, and all of these like recreated scenes, recreated huts, real dirt on the ground and narration (hard to explain, just imagine awesomness in art form). It was so cool. Then it was topped off with an authentic Hungarian Horse Show! Complete with arrow shooting, sword fighting and some kind of horseback football game. It was AWESOME!!! They were dressed in traditional hungarian HUN clothes. For those of you that dont know, Hungarians are descendents of the HUNS.... as in Atilla the Hun. They trace way  back to Mongolia, and so the Huns came from over there and made it on over to this area. They had conquered much of the area, including parts of Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, Austria.... basically if you ask any Hungarian they clame it was half of Europe. Anyway.. it was a really cool cultural experience. We also herded a herd of goats in the Hungarian country side, and took leaping pictures off of ancient Hungarian ruins. It was a DREAMY DAY. Oh man. This place is awesome. 

Well that was my week. No big deal. So good. Life is so good. I love you all. 

p.s. hit my 2 month mark left... I might barf. Its coming too soon. 

szeretlek benneteket

papritz nővér

Autumn - Szeged - Super Pday Adventure!

Sziasztok!!!

Well this week was quite an adventure, literally!! It was Hungarian Revolution day and so we had a giant Zone get together here in Szeged. We had 12 missionaries here total and we spent the morning at the Szeged Museum. It was free for the day and so we got to see incredible paintings about the 1879 flood of Szeged that destroyed the city. Then we had a wonderful lunch at the senior couples apartment and got to hang out with everyone for a while. Then we went across the river to this Adventure park! We went on this ropes course that had a big zipline! It was so fun. We were all harnessed in and flying around the trees... it was soooo fun! Then we did some awesome whipping. I am getting super good. I can crack it SO LOUD! You will all be so impressed by the many skills I have aquired since I have been here. Then we finished off the night watching Kung Fu Panda 2 and playing apples to apples with our elders. It was super fun.

Oh yeah... speaking of things aquired I wanted to mention things I can do now/things I like now that I didnt used to before my mission.

1. speak Hungarian. uh... kind of a big one.

2. I love beets.

3. My new drink of choice is Ginger Ale. Super obsessed with that.

4. I love sour stuffed cabbage. mmmm.....so delicious.

5. I can whip a bull whip

6. I can wear earrings/ am obsessed with them

7. I wear glasses now (that started in the MTC)

8. I love hungarian folk music

9. I kiss people on the cheeks when I greet them. puszi.

10. I have long hair and curl it frequently.

So... that is a little taste into the different me. haha... not really that different. Just a few tidbits.

This week Zsofi passed her baptismal interview! She is getting baptized on Sunday. We do not have a baptismal font here in Szeged...so we have been looking for a new place to hold baptisms. We have been really worried cause its the week OF the baptisms and we dont have a place!!! ahhh!!!! We were going to do it at the local Thermal bath...but they are only open for those tuesday morning. That doesnt work. So then we heard that the squash club has a pool..but its outside. and its too cold for that. So then one day we visited some less actives out of the blue. They told us that they were mormons for 7 years and are now 7th day adventists. (i guess its just that easy to switch!) .. haha. So we got on the topic of baptisms and they said "oh if you ever wanted to do a baptism, we have a font at our church!" it was the most inspired out of the blue thing any person could EVER say! as a matter of fact WE DO NEED A FONT! So the elders started on the approval of the use of the 7th day adventist church and font. It all got approved...and we are holding a baptism at the Adventists place... but its going to be a point for our team. haha. So the baptisms will be wonderful I am so excited and so s Zsofi. It is going to be wonderful

Well I love you all. Pray the baptism goes well!

Sok sok szeretettel

Papritz nővér

Autumn - Hungary- Apostles, Weddings and Miracles!

Hello Everyone!!!!

Well this week was incredible. It was one of the highlights of my entire mission!!! Elder Christofferson came and spoke to our entire mission and then to the Hungarians. It was an incredible experience because it was the largest gathering of Hungarian saints in YEARS...and it was just incredible to hear him expressing his love for them, Heavenly Father's love for them, and you could just feel that these people are so special and chosen. They are being so blessed for being pioneers in the gospel here.

The highlight was the final fireside of the night, the general fireside. Sister Suranyi and I sang in the choir, so we had like 3rd row seats... and Borsos, Péter was translating for Elder Christofferson. He is a member in Duna, where I served for 5 months and got to know his family really well. Him and his wife are incredible, fluent in english, both return missionaries and have told me several times about their attempts to move abroad to American or England but everytime were stopped, or felt like they shouldnt. So they accepted the inevitable and decided to stay in Hungary to build up the church here. Well he was translating and as Elder Christofferson starting prouncing all of these incredible apostolic blessings on the Hungarian peole, that their prayers for their children will be answered, that the Lord is aware of their sacrifices...etc....Peter Just started crying, he had tears streaming down his face as he translated. It was so touching, because I know their history...i know what they have TRULY sacrificed, and it was so incredible to know that an Apostle of the Lord was promising them blessings that they absolutely deserve. It was just a meeting that really helped me to love the Hungarians so much more. I left the meeting see them in such a different light, seeing how much they really do sacrifice. It was a definite highlight of the mission.

ALSO... this wek Zsofi and Laci (the part member family, Zsofi is getting baptized) they got MARRIED!!!!!!!!! and I got to be apart of the Hungarian wedding adventure. It was a treat. They asked me to be the wedding Photographer like 2 DAYS before the wedding. I dont even have a nice camera or anything...but they didnt care, they just wanted me to snap a bunch of pictures. It was really cool to see the traditional wedding. It takes place in this giant official building and they just have this official woman say a bunch of lovey dovey stuff, they sign a paper, light a candle of unity and thats it! boom bing... married. It was really interesting. Super cultural and awesome. Then we all went backto their apartment for the "reception" it was so much fun. so random, and so interesting... this is not america.

Also last week Zsofi's daughter was really sick, in the hospital. i think I wrote about it. Well the Elders gave her a healing blessing and when we came back this week Zsofi and Laci described that after they left their niece that was in the room just started crying and was just in awe at the spirit that was in the room after the blessing and said "what was that?! how could they do that? " she was just in awe at the blessing and power of it all. Then Zsofi said that her daughter after that slept through the night, her fever completely left, she stopped crying, she didnt need to go back to the hospital. She was completely healed in everyway. It just blew me away...Zsofi has so much faith. She is so incredible.

Well this week is Revolution Day on thursady....there are like a million Hungarian national holidays. They got revolutionized from some war....not sure which one, they survived a million wars...but that means its SUPER PDAY...and we are excited to whip, and eat hungarian food and hang out with the other missionaries. It will be a great time.

Well that about sums up my week.

I love you all!!!

szeretlek titeket!!

Papritz Nővér

Sziasztok! üdvözlöm a családomnak es drága szereteteimnek

Well this week was exciting!! We had some incredible appointments with our investigators and it was all topped off by 4 days of the Disznótoros (something with meat) and Pálinka (hehe) festival!! We live across the street from the giant downtown square and so this week we saw them start to set up little wooden huts, so I knew there must be a festival coming! Sister Suranyi and I counted down the days and then on our walks home at night we would always walk through the festival. Oh man, was it a treat!!! There were people in very good.... moods (a palinka miatt)...and all sorts of delicious traditional Hungarian food. We ate delicious house sausage, and watched a sausage stuffing contest. There were some awesome traditional street musicians, and lots of Hungarian trinket shops set up and I finally made a purchase I have been waiting for my entire mission.... I baught a Hungarian whip. yup.... I know how to whip, with a bull whip. It is awesome. Sister Suranyi got one too... and she is REALLY good at whipping. She is natural, she can crack it sooooo loud. It is so fun. For morning workouts we jog down to the banks of the Tisza river (since we are neighbors with the river) and we crack our whips over looking the Tisza river on this perch thing. It is epic, the sun is rising, whips are cracking, river is flowing, Im in Hungary. It is so fun. So Im going to have some pretty good whip skills when I get back.

Other event of the week It was sister Suranyi's BIRTHDAY! Luckily the weather turned to spring THIS WEEK! So we have been able to take river walks. We took our first river walk on her birthday and it was delightful. The sun was rising over the Bridge..and I noticed the river was still largely iced over! It had been my secret little rebel dream of mine to walk on the frozen river. Well it had been too cold to adventure onto the river. But tuesday the weather was beautiful and there was a thick patch of ice still on the river and a path leading to it....so I ran out and jumped on it and walked on a frozen river! My companion thought I was nuts, but the little adrenaline junky in me needed to get fed. Walking on a frozen river did just the trick. (dont worry I tested the ice, threw a bunch of heavy rocks on it. it didnt break. totally safe) It was beautiful to top it off. I really am in such a beautiful city. For her birthday we had lunch with the Adams, the senior couple in the area, then with the Elders we did a district dinner. We made some incredible stuffed peppers for dinner (one of the elders said that he thought that REAL hungarians made them....yeah, we are that good) Then we made palacsintas filled with turo (crepes, filled with this sweet tasting cottage cheese....soooo good.) Did a bunch of little nice things for her that day, the Elders surprised her with a Hungarian flag for a present. It was a delightful birthday, and she said so herself. Its a lot of pressure to have a companion with a birthday on the mission (i know ow you feel Roddy) but I think it was better than she expected. My little baby is 22 years old, all grown up.

This week we had some wonderful progress with our investigators. Zsofi's little girl was in the hospital with Salmonella poisoning (from some bad chicken she was fed at her dads house) she was in the hospital for a week! the crazy thing about Hungarian hospitals is that the flu is going crazy here, so they do not allow ANYBODY into the hospital to visit. So this 2.5 year old child was left ALL ALONE in the hospital for an entire week. No visitors, her mom wasnt there, nothing. She was all alone. It was horrible. Zsofi was super upset by the whole thing because she just knew her daughter was in the hospital not sleeping, hardly eating and she couldnt do anything! So we organized for the Elder to come over and give her daughter a blessing when she got out of the hospital, and Zsofi said that she felt a lot of peace as she prayed and that she continued to read and pray everyday through all of it because she felt so much peace from it. It was so great to see her not giving up faith in such a hard situation. She gave up smoking completely, has been reading the book of mormon all on her own everyday and even came to church on sunday with her sick little girl! (most hungarian moms would NEVER leave the house if their kid even had a cough) She really is so golden. Her and Laci are getting married on Saturday and we are so excited to go! She even started introducing the gospel to her family and is going to be giving a book of mormon to her dad soon. so prepared. so awesome

Also Erika, the woman who just showed up out of nowhere to church one day looking for her "spiritual home, family and friends". Well she was really sick for a couple of weeks and we werent able to meet with her. She canceled a few times, which is always a worry that they are about to drop us. Well this week she was finally able to meet and said that she was still just searching and searching for the answer. She knew that she felt good when she was with us, but felt like she was still not getting an answer. I thought maybe she wasnt praying right, so at the end of the lesson I asked her to offer the closing prayer and she offered an incredible prayer! She said "please please let me know if the Book of Mormon is true. Let me know if this is where I am supposed to be. Show me if this is my spiritual home, please help to to know if this is the straight and narrow path I am supposed to be on!" It was the most heartfelt, sincere, pleading prayer I have ever heard an investigator offer. So definitely she is doing it all right. It is just a matter of time before that answer comes. I promised her she would receive an answer in church if she came to fast and testimony meeting. She showed up, and was beaming the whole time and cried during several of the testimonies. When it was all done she asked when we could meet this week, I asked her how the meeting went and she just smiled at me and said "It was wonderful. It was an incredible meeting."......sooo... I hope that means "I got my answer!"...We will see on tuesday. I am excited.

Well that sums up the week. Palinka festival, ice walking, incredible investigators, a little birthday party. All a week in the life of a missionary. OH....and this week we get a little visit from Elder D. Todd Christofferson... an apostle!! woohoo! We are all super excited.

I love you all!

sok sok szeretettel

Papritz nővér

Autumn - Hungary - Cabbage Fields Forever!

Hello Family and Friends!!!

Well this week was pretty normalish. Nothing earth shattering or ground breaking, no random parties that we had to go to. haha. I seriously sometimes think you all must think my mission involves going to parties, seeing musicals, and traveling. but trust me, its so much more awesome than that. I get to do MISSIONARY WORK! ... and see musicals and party. which reminds me, in march we are going to see West Side Story. haha! awesome!

This week we met with our wonderful investigator Maria. She is the one that loves to teach us how to cook. I have learned how to make stuffed peppers, Gyulas soup, langos or fried bread, and this week we learned how to make stuffed cabbage! It was quite the experience. I have never been a cabbage person. It just smells bad and tastes weirdly sour. But this week she surprised us with all of the stuffed cabbage supplies and we prepared the stuffing and started rolling it in these huge pickled cabbage leaves. Then they cooked for a while, and we came back later that day and she gave us a huge tupperware full of stuffed cabbage. So i heated some up, and bravely tried it for the first time. and it was GOOD!!! I had to ignore the horse stable/farm animal smell that I assume accompanies all cooked cabbage. but I was very pleasently surprise. mm... soo salty and good. So maybe Im going to be a cabbage eater from now on. and now I KNOW HOW to make stuffed cabbage. Im becoming quite a little hungarian cook. Sister Suranyi and I have made it a goal to learn how to cook several new hungarian dishes this transfer and we are on a roll so far. I baught some hungarian cookbooks today and am excited to try out new recipies. The best part of the meeting with Maria that as we did our lesson with her we were talking about goals in life and she said "Spritually Im already in America, I want to see where Joseph Smith lived, I want to know what kind of person he was, I want to see what kind of life he lived, Im already there" (i dont REALLY understand what it means to be spiritually in America...uh.... but sounded positive to me!) She really is just loving all of the things we are teaching her and is slowly but surely understanding how important it all is.

We also have been meeting with Zsofi and Laci, our engaged couple (and zsofi is getting baptized), and they came to church this sunday! It was awesome. It was the first time she had been to church and she just beamed! We went to their house after church and she said "I just felt so good. I felt so much peace, it was a wonderful experience". she just LOVED it. She really is a miracle to me. She was a smoker and two weeks ago we challenged her to stop smoking and offered her help and stuff and she said "If I decided to do it, I will do it" and when we went back on sunday she said "I havent smoked at all." I asked if she felt like if God had helped her and she said "Absolutely. I dont even have the desire to smoke anymore. He took away my desire to smoke." It is so awesome. You can almost see a physical change in their life, the more we have been going over there the cleaner and cleaner their apartment gets, the more light you see in their eyes, the more you can see that the gospel is just really changing their lives. It is so awesome.

We are also teaching this 18 year old girl named Nikoletta, or Nik for short. She has been investigating for a long time and was always just taught by the elders. But when we came, the elders had dropped her, and so we picked her back up again because she is best friends with one of the members and was starting to open back up to the church. It is really incredible because she is such an analytical brain, so scientific...and whenever we meet with her I feel like I am teaching myself, if I had been an investigator. It is such a surreal experience to be teaching myself essentially. Its really incredible because I feel like there have been certain experiences, or weaknesses or struggles with my testimony that I overcame that prepared me to teach her. I feel like there is so much that we talk about that I experienced in my life just so that I could tell her about those experiences. It is really such an awesome thing, to know you are placed in cities and missions for a reason. I just really hope that she starts seeing that she actually does have a testimony of all of these things. She says she knows she needs to get baptized, she is just scared to do it. So, I hope it will all come around for her.

Well the hilarious/horrifying event of the week happened in church. There is this "special" woman in the ward. She isnt a member, but comes every week. She always says AMEN really loud after everything. and even after special musical numbers ends with a huge AMEN! So its so great to have someone with so much spirit and livelyness in the branch. But on Sunday I sat behind her during sacrament meeting. Well as the sacrament was getting passed around, the bread was all layed on the trays nicely. I took my one little piece. Saw the other people take their one piece. Then the tray was placed in front of her, and she DOVE at the tray and grabbed and entire HANDFUL of bread! Like, not a few pieces (like sometimes we accidently hope will happen on fast sunday to make up for our hunger), she took an entire HANDFUL and then held the whole pile of bread near her chest and ate it like popcorn! She was just popping the bread in her mouth throughout the rest of sacrament meeting. Then as the water came by she grabbed a little cup and DRAINED IT, like threw her head back and slurped up the water. I didnt know what to do, I just sat their with my jaw dropped! I just kept imagining she didnt realize what was going on. For all she knew these cute little boys brought around the mid church snacks for everyone to eat, she must have thought "thats stupid why are people taking only one. Im hungry!" or like "why dont they start passing out different snacks everyweek, its always bread and water!" Oh man. I coudlnt help but laugh during it all thinking of all of the interesting sacrament stories I have to tell from my mission. Like the one time our FEMALE investigator got up and started passing the sacrament herself to people, or when one of the members children in the middle of the sacrament started CLIMBING a window in the middle of sacrament! haha... oh man. Mission stories are the best. These things are real, they arent made up!

Well obviously., I love this stuff. I love being here and I am really just trying to cherish the little precious time I have left. These last few months are going to fly and I just am blessed to be along for the ride.

I love you all

sok szeretettel

Papritz nővér

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!

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Papritz nővér

picture - epic Szerbia fail.