November 26, 2012
A Thanksgiving Email!
It's so weird to think that
Thanksgiving has already come and gone. Even weirder is that I have already
heard Christmas music played while I was shopping today. 'Have Yourself, a Merry
Little Christmas...' is going to be played over and over again for quite some
time, ha ha. Oh well, it'll be interesting having that played while being in a
different country AND as a missionary. Oh, and just for a heads up, the day
after Thanksgiving marks my year mark of getting my mission call!! Elhiszetek?!
(Can you believe it?) I still remember that
day like it was yesterday. I am pretty sure that was one of the most exciting
nights of my life, especially finding out that I was going to Hungary to serve
for 2 years and speak Hungarian. Now look where I'm at! I'm in Hungary, serving
as a full-time missionary, speaking Hungarian.....well, trying to speak
Hungarian at least, ha ha.
Speaking of missionary calls,
Heather turned in her mission papers last week?!?! How ironic it is that she
turns in her papers almost around the exact same time as I did!!! I am so
excited to hear where she will be sent, you have no idea!! I guess most of the
excitement comes from maybe a possibility that she could be sent here. I'm
basically crossing all my fingers, toes and eyes that she will be sent here.
How cool would that be if she came and served here AND we got to serve in the
same city for a time?! For me that would probably one of the greatest gifts in
the world. If either of us served in Budapest or Kecskemét, we could visit the
graves of our grandparents in Budapest and possibly granddad’s farm that he was
born in south of Kecskemét! Or, just in general, just serving in Hungary
together!! (As you can tell I will be quite thrilled if she comes to serve
here. :))
Oh, and another by the way thing, I
visited granddad’s house that he has here in Pécs. He sent me directions to get
to a house that he has here in Pécs and, I'm pretty sure, according to the directions
that he gave me, I found the house and I got some great pictures of me in front
of it and around it. It was so awesome to just be there, knowing that I could
actually visit and know that someone in my family actually has it. Today we are
actually hoping to go to another computer place that is here in Pécs and send
some pictures to our families (this other place is really expensive, so we are
doing our emails at our main email place first then going there afterwards to
send the pictures for a short time). If it all works out, you will be able to
see some of the stuff that we have done so far while I have been here in Pécs.
I bet mom is thrilled to hear that. :)
So for some missionary news, this
week Elder Christensen and I planned to have a baptism date this Saturday for
the two little girls that we have been teaching, but unfortunately they have
school on Saturday (uhhh, what?) and so we have to move it for next week
Saturday. The sad news about that is that next Monday we get transfer calls
(can you believe it's already been six weeks since I've been here?!) and it is
most likely that Elder Christensen will be transferred somewhere else because
he has been here for 4 (which is almost a half year) and will miss the
baptisms. When we heard the news, of course we said 'Why yes of course that's
fine'. But inside, I knew Elder Christensen was thinking, because he told me
after the program, 'WWWWHHHHHYYY MEEE?!?!' I feel so bad for him. This same
thing happened to him before he came to Pécs and he was hoping that it wouldn't
happen again. The only possibility that he has is he stays for another, which
is unlikely, or is transferred to somewhere that is not to far and can still be
able to come. We are crossing our fingers for both possibilities, because we
would also like to stay another transfer together.
Another bit of news about transfers,
I might be going senior companion this next transfer! Some of you may be
thinking 'Well that's great, right?' Ha! Let me explain. In this mission,
normally people go senior in their 7th or 8th or, in rare occasions, their 6th
transfer. I'm going in my 5th right now, but our mission president has let us
know that because of how many missionaries that are young in the mission and
how many are coming in at the same time, younger missionaries are going to be
going senior much younger than they think. And, from the looks of things, I
might be going senior. In a condensed sentence about my feelings right
now, I'm kind of nervous. Of course I know that I can do it, especially when I
am dependent on the Lord, but at the same time, it's going to be hard. I'm
still working on my language skills and am not that great at the language and
to be companioned with someone that is younger than me is just a scary thought.
But, this is still a theory of mine and it doesn't mean that I for sure will be
next transfer, but it has been hinted and noted to me that this may be so for
me next transfer. We'll see what happens next week with transfers, right?
:D
Now, I’ll tell you about our
Thanksgiving dinner. First off, I am really glad that all of you had a good
Thanksgiving and that the food was plentiful and delicious. Oh, and just a
little side note, with my new taste in food and vegetables, I'm pretty sure I
would have enjoyed all of the food that was there than in the past thanksgivings.
:) Anyways, back to my Thanksgiving. Both companionships were invited to this family’s
house of parents and 1 boy. We told them that they didn't need to do this for
us, because we know that some of the families here are kind of struggling, but
they insisted to have us over. We came to their apartment, which was very
small, and they sat us down at their table. We had a 5 course meal. The first
course was a turkey soup, which wasn't bad, except that the bones from the
turkey were still in there and other innards of the turkey. Fortunately, I
didn't have to eat any of the innards. The second course was this casserole
which they called Mexicoi. In it was basically rice, carrots, corn, peas with
sour cream and cheese on the top. It was actually really good! I loved it so
much that they gave me the other helping, ha ha! Our third course was straight
up pumpkin. Since they didn't know how to make pumpkin pie, they just cooked a
pumpkin and served it to us. Probably one of the weirdest things I have tasted
on my mission, but I ate all of my serving. :) Then we had a sort of chocolate
pie, which was absolutely delicious! And our last serving was the brownies that
Elder Christensen and I had made. That's right, we made brownies! Ha ha, we
used the recipe that is on the October
stake newsletter for Citrus Heights that I got from President Telford and
they turned out really good, except it took a knife to get them out of the pan.
We put oil on the bottom of the pan thinking that it would help with getting them
out later, but I guess it didn't work. But they still tasted delicious. That
was my first Thanksgiving here in Hungary. I wonder what next years will hold
:)
This past Saturday we had a Zone
Training with our Zone Leaders and they basically told us what they talked
about with Elder Richards from the 70 in their Zone Council. We talked about
things that Elder Richards saw that needed to be re adjusted in the
mission and that we need to always be looking to the White Handbook with all
the things that we do. We pointed out some changes that we needed to make and
have made it our goal that we are going to make this mission an 'Exactly
Obedient' mission. After the meeting I just felt this wave of excitement run
all through me. Of course being exactly obedient is hard, but I just thought to
myself 'Well if we have the Savior on our side and are doing everything with
all our heart, might, mind and strength, then of course this is achievable! We
are his missionaries! We can do this!' I really hope that all of the
missionaries in the mission feel the same way as I do. Of course it will be
hard, but if we do it with an open heart than it won't be.
Alrighty then all you boys and girls
out there that is all I have for ya'll this week. But stay tuned for next week
and you'll find out what's happen to this guy *makes pointing gesture to self*
next week.
Remélem, hogy mindkinek lesz egy
csodálatos hete. :) (I hope that everyone
will have an Awesome Week)
Sok szeretettel, (Lots of love)
Magda Elder