Szervusztok Mindenki!
Another grand week this week! I've discovered that I don't get nervous teaching lessons, but the bike ride TO the lesson is the scary part! There usually aren't "walking signals" so you just have to cross on a cross-walk and hope for your life that the cars will stop for you. They usually get pretty darn close, too. Nonetheless, I have enjoyed being able to experience biking in Europe.
Speaking about bikes, I haven't been able to get pictures of it yet, (I hope to soon thuogh) but there is a really cool thing in the city. It's a miniature road way for kids to ride bikes and other little things with wheeles. It has stop signs, round-abouts, cross walks, intersections, even real working stop lights!! It's awesome! A great way for kids to practice the ways of the road I pressume.
This week I bought a "Tisza" bag. Most missionaries have them. Tisza is a famous Hungarian company and they make some sweet bags and shoes. I will attach some pictures of it! They have all sorts of styles and colors. I love it so far!
This week I tried "Bird Milk"... it was actually pretty good! I'm not sure if they have it in the US or not but it's really popular here!
Along with trying new things, last night, at a members house for dinner, I tried chicken liver. It wasn't too bad! I've heard some horror stories about eating any kind of chicken in Hungary but I've already gotten past the liver! So that's good!
I was able to go on splits with one of my zone leaders this week which was awesome! He was really cool and we were able to get a lot of good finds while tracting. There was one particular door we knocked on, and the lady said no. We later saw her at the store and she approached us and started asking my zone leader a bunch of questions. I had no idea what was going on but when she left he told me she thought we were doing something bad and she demanded to see our passports, he said "no, we don't have to show you" and she said "if you don't show me your passports and ID I am going to call the police" and he said "Okay, do it." I thought it was pretty funny and I got a big kick out of that. Nothing came from it, but I find these crazy things amussing that we run into here.
The mission president and his wife came to our branch meeting yesterday! One of the branch members knows English perfectly so she translated in sacrament meeting for everyone. It was a cool experience! I love the branch here. It's one of the bigger branches in the mission. The people are all very nice and close. They love missionaries and so it's been great to get to know them! I had to introduce myself in sacrament yesterday and share my testimony. The other new missionary and I recieved a lot of great compliments on our Hungarian.
I ate dinner at 3 different family's houses this week. I really like trying all of this new food! It's pretty interesting but I love it nonetheless! Oh one of the families calls new missionaries "goldens" not "greenies" I find it interesting but I really like their explaination for it. They say, "new missionaries truly are golden, they have a unique passion and excitement."
I get a kick out of the fact that Hungarians know their language is really really hard and they all tell me that it's the hardest language in the world. Most new people I talk to have no idea why I would ever want to TRY to learn how to speak Hungarian! It just blows them away but it also gives an advantage because they figure if some 19 year old kid is trying to learn and speak the hardest language in the world, his message must be important.
Next Monday is Hungary's REALLY big Holiday. It's pretty much their independence day. Apparently they celebrate it abnormally big in Szombathely. I'm really excited for that! But it means I won't be able to email on Monday next week. It'll be later in the week. There will be big parades, celebrations, fireworks, and all sorts of neat things! I hope to see some cool firework shows from my roof!
Now for my favorite part of this week! So I was on splits with the other trainer in my district. He was teaching me the ways of getting "let in." The other new missionary and I have been told not to expect one of those lessons (that we hear stories about in the MTC) where you meet somene for the first time, teach them, and they want to get baptized during that first visit. We were told "that just doesn't happen here." I haven't thought much of it and decided that it was possible if we found the right person. Which we DID! So anyway, we were tracting, we did the little survey thing to get them talking, we were invited in and in 2 and half hours we managed to teach this guy the Plan of Salvation, The Gospel of Christ, the Book of Mormon, the Restoration, all about church and the priesthood, and (oddly enough) the Law of Chastity! Toward the middle I felt like I should ask this guy to be baptized. So after he asked all of his questions I just blurted out "mikor kész vagy, meg fogsz keresztelkedni?" which means "when you're ready, will you be baptized?" I looked over to my companion and the look he had on his face was priceless... Words cannot explain it. BUT, the new investigator immediately answered "yes, of course." We then learned that he actually used to be a Catholic Deacon. But he left the Catholic church because he felt like "something was missing and it wasn't correct" Incredible, right?? Before we left he said "thank you so much for this opportunity." Wow. It was amazing!!
Well, things are going great for me here! It's crazy to think that school starts soon for most of you!
Read the Book of Mormon today. I've promised loads of people this week that reading it will make them happy. The same promise goes to you, too.
Szeretettel,
Alldredge Elder
