Monday, January 20, 2014

Speaking some mighty fine "Hunglish"



January 20, 2014

Alrighty ladies and gents, be prepared for a new era to begin with Elder Magda and Elder Flake! 

Kewl intro, right? Yeah, I thought so too (not being prideful or anything). 

This week has been an interesting week to say the least. But that's normal for transfer weeks for several reasons: departing from old companions and going with your new one, new area, people going home, new missionaries coming into the field which means you're getting older and older, weather changes from cold to colder, clouds that used to hold in the rain are now just letting it all fall.....there may be more, but that's all that could come to my head. It was kind of a sad thing seeing Elder Gaytán leave because we got a long so well and we're now like best buds (I think......)! Plus we really got the work sky rocketing here and all the investigators we're super bummed to hear that we were being split up. Also, on Sunday he told the branch that he was sure that he would be staying and that he was looking forward to be serving around them for another transfer. But unfortunately that didn't happen. The branch was telling me yesterday 'We thought he was going to stay! He said he felt like he was' Well, that's transfers for yeah. Who can predict them, ha ha. However I have been really enjoying these first few days with Elder Flake. He and I have been getting along super well. He is also from Arizona and was born in the same city as Elder Gaytán. He is 19, just a little youngster, and has 4 younger siblings. He is already rocking the language for his age in the mission and we are already speaking some great Hunglish (English and Hungarian mixed together). Probably one of the greatest creations of all time ha ha. 
 
Here's a photo of me and my trainer.  "Dad" training his "Son."
I basically have one main story that I want to share with you. It's one of those 'Are you serious?!?!' ones, included with a face palm somewhere in the midst of it. On Wednesday, transfer day, when all the missionaries switch companions at the Keleti train station in Budapest, we woke up at 5:45 so we could meet Elder Herd, the senior elder here, at 6:30 outside of his car to drive us to the train station that took off at 7:00. Well, we woke up at 5:45, buuuuttttt right as I turned off the alarm, my head hit my pillow and I was out again until we got a call at 6:30 from Elder Herd asking where we were. Completely dazed and still trying to gather what in the world was going on, I just told him that we would take the later train that left at 9 because we knew we wouldn't be able to make it. That's not the main part of the story. So we got up then and just got ready and got on our train at 9. We arrived in Budapest at 11 and met all the missionaries that were getting transferred. It wasn't until the time that we were about to leave that I realiiizzzeeedddd.......I didn't have my keys to the apartment and branch house........To skip the part about me panicking and trying to figure out where they could be, I lost them. Basically I checked everywhere that I was, where we went to lunch, where ever I took a step, everywhere! I checked the train station and asked if they found keys from the train that we took. They said for us to call them back later that night after they had done their cleaning checks later that afternoon.

 So, we went back to Eger, starting it off with a wonderful adventure of how to get into our apartment and what to do to get into the branch house when we need to meet with people. Luckily our land lord had a spare key to our apartment, so we've been using that for the past few days. However, we did call the train station back and they said they found some keys on the train, but we had to go up to Budapest in order to get them. So we got permission from President to take time out of our day and get them the next day. We went up there, went up to the desk, assuming that all was good and we were home free.........they weren't our keys. Super bummed, we decided to just look around some of the stores nearby because we had a 2 hour wait till our next train back. We stumbled across a really kewl soccer store that had authentic stuff and I ended up getting an Arsenal jersey, being the Arsenal fan that I am. So, to some up this huge fiasco of a mess, we lost our keys and are still kind of looking for them and while we went back to Budapest to find our keys, which weren't there, I got myself a shirt. We are currently looking for a key copy place to make a copy of our apartment key and are going to be contacting some people within the church here to see if we can get a key. You can all face palm now, I'll allow it. I've basically been kicking myself these past few days for this dumb move that I have made. Oh well, what can you do?

Outside of that story, the work is still picking up here. There really hasn't been a point for a very long time now and it has been such a sight to see. We are finding people left and right and most of them have been from them coming to us! That is the weirdest part of it all! Throughout my entire mission, at least most of it, most of the investigators that I have found was through our efforts, as in going up to people and being the one to start the conversation. But recently it's been people walking up to us that are starting something and that have been interested. That's when you know that they are going to be great people to teach, because they actually have that desire to learn more about us. With something that you quoted from Dallin H. Oaks, where he said that strengthening people's faith in God is the most important thing we can do is something so true! In the world that we are now living in, faith in God is something that people need. Sure we would like for people to be a part of the Restored Church, but if we are at least helping people come closer to Christ by some means, than we have been fulfilling a part of our responsibility as Christians. It is, sometimes, hard for people to understand that we are to be examples and help people to grow their own testimonies of Christ. It's something that I have been so glad to experience while I've been out here and I'm looking forward to the day when I come home and be the same example towards the people around me. 
This is a photo from Pec.  How I loved this area! 

 Alrighty ya'll, I'm going to have to close it for this week. I'm sorry, I don't have any pictures for this week, but I promise I will have some more for you next week. Maybe I'll include some throwback pictures to spice things up. Have a tremendous week and don't forget to stay say to yourself before you walk out the door 'Did I think to pray today?' 

Love you! 
Blakesters 

No comments:

Post a Comment