Wednesday, May 23, 2012

May 23, 2012

Week 1:
Funny story: The FIRST person I met in my district as we were all getting settled and oriented said "Hey... aren't you a hypnotist!?" I guess some friends of his had told him about me... Pretty interesting way to start out my mission. It's been a weird thing not hypnotizing people... but I'm still going strong! It's probably been the biggest adjustment to not be defined by that, because up until Wednesday, that's who I WAS. Hypnosis was my life but now Jesus Christ and his gospel is my life. Besides that, the food has been great and I've been eating a lot. I tried for four days straight to successfully crack a bananna in half across my forehead and I FINALLY got it. The language has been extremely difficult. We had to teach an entire lesson to a Hungarian investigator on Friday (two days after being here) and it had to be entirely in Hungarian. All I really knew how to do was pray and share my testimony (but sometimes that's all it takes, right?) Anywho, since then, I've been able to pick up the language a little better. Our name tags are BACKWARD. It's so weird. So mine says "ALLDREDGE ELDER" and that's how my district has to address each other. People keep thinking our tags are messed up or that our last name is "Elder." And what it says after my name is "AZ UTOLSO NAPOK SZENTJEINEK JEZUS KRISZTUS EGYHAZA" (with a bunch of little accents over most of the letters that I don't know how to enter into this message). The other interesting thing is that Hungarian doesn't have Q, W, or X. But it's been fun to learn. Another interesting fact is that actually no one really "learns" Hungarian. Even if someone were to move Hungary, they wouldn't learn the language. It's only if you're born there or you're an LDS missionary that you would learn it. My disctrict consists of 6 companionships and 1 sister missionary from Australia. So 13 of us total and we are all getting along pretty well. I like my companion, Becker Elder and we have found a lot of common ground in disliking the same things/behaviors. So, it's been good there! Tomorrow we are challenging our investigator to be baptized, it's going to be interesting! I really like both my teachers and everything really is going just swell. My expected departure date is July 30th! If the weeks go by as fast as this one did, I'll be in Hungary in no time! I miss you all and I want you to know you are in my prayers.