week 22 (December 25-31)

BÚÉK!!

How awesome is that? The Hungarians mashed the three words: "Happy New Year" into ONE word! Finally, something that's easy.

So today is "Szilveszter" (New Year's Eve) and it's looking like it's going to be pretty crazy. The direct translation for "Fireworks" in Hungarian is "Fire-games"--Oh boy! Streeting people tomorrow is going to be interesting.

Anywho, Christmas was swell! Starting on the 22nd, I was fed lunch and dinner from different members every single day up until yesterday. Good earth it was so much food. About 70% of the time in Hungary, the people feeding us will just watch us. They won't eat with us. They will seriously just sit there and watch us and immediately restock our plate the second it is close to being cleared. Woof.... I don't know why Hungarians like to do that. But they totally do.

On Christmas day, we opened presents with the Sisters in our hallway. It was loads of fun and then we went caroling with some families to an old Néni's house. When we finished she was just in tears and she just blessed us with all sorts of stuff for about a minute. It was so cute. "Oh may God bless you and all of your families and your children and your grandchildren!! And God bless you with health for your whole life!! etc. etc." Adorable.

The ward put on a Christmas program and it was so sweet! They read a Hungarian children's Christmas story and there were breaks where the choir would sing special musical numbers. I was able to participate in the choir and it was such a neat experience!

On the 24th, we had a half hour bus ride from one of our programs so we starting singing Christmas songs with the ukulele on the bus. Not too long after we started, a bunch of people on the bus joined in and started singing with us! It was so rad!

We were able to attend a civil wedding for a member in the ward here. She was getting married to an American and they both served in the Germany mission. The ceremony was held in the City Hall here. (SUCH a huge and beautiful building.) It was a cool experience to watch a Hungarian wedding ceremony. It was really different but way rad to be a part of.

We have a super golden investigator right now. He is 77 years old and it was time to teach him the Law of Chastity a couple days ago. He was super funny about it. He liked it a lot and every topic we went over he acted appalled by the fact that we even had to teach people that. He ate it up and he's continuing to progress smoothly. Next time will be the Word of Wisdom. He's gonna look great in white.

Speaking of golden investigators, the lady I helped find and teach in Sopron is getting baptized this Saturday! I wish more than anything that I could attend but it's on the other side of the country. Nonetheless, it's going to be beautiful!

I hope all of your New Year celebrations are incredible! Hey, it would be pretty rad if you read The Book of Mormon EVERY day this next year. You can start tomorrow.

Szeretettel,

 The traditional Hungarian candle calendar thing. It has a really cool meaning behind it. Each candle represents something and they light one every Sunday before Christmas. Every Hungarian dinner table has one on it with real candles.

 A very missionary Christmas.

 The Sisters gave us some "coupons"

And LOADS of ties!

 Dessert time!!

 I love these streets.

 Pretty sunset!

Alldredge Elder

Week 21 in Hungary (Dec. 17-25)

Merry Christmas!!!
In Hungary there are three days of celebration from December 24-26. So over the past couple of days we have been to several homes for meals. We had a gift exchange with the Sister Missionaries. I got some new ties. My parents gave me money so I bought a new watch.
On Christmas day I got to Skype and talk to my family! I hope everyone had a good time with their families too.
I will write more next week.

 Skyping with my family!

Week 20 (Dec.10-17)

 Proof that I made French Toast

 

Bumper cars in Christmas town that we did with the Sisters last P-day

 My dear companion baking brownies

 I think only my family and the Kaltner family will really appreciate this picture ;)

 The Kecskemét gang

 Budapest streets (it was super foggy)

 White Elephant! (I bet you can't guess which one was mine)

 I love all of my ornaments!

Kivánok boldog Karácsonyt!! (majdnem)

So yesterday I was in Budapest for our zone's Christmas conference party thing. It was a blast! We had a program at the beginning, then a nice big lunch, then we played some Christmas games. I walked away with a super old, beaten, and basically unusable acoustic guitar from the white elephant! That was fun to take through the metro and on the train. I'm not too sure what to do with it yet. BUT I figure it might have some sort of purpose somehow.

The day in Budapest was great! We took an early train with the Sisters and we were able to see some cool things around the city before the meeting started. I will be sure to send some pictures of our adventures.

My companionship's phone has been one of those super dooper old Nokia phones the size of a brick and didn't even have a color screen. Luckily, the mission got a few new phones and we were the first on the list to get one! We got our new phone yesterday and we are quite happy about it! 

I'm glad school and finals is coming to an end for all of you. That always helps lift the spirits.

I'm going to kill the Hungarian word "jövöre" (it means next year) because it's what all of our investigators (except for 1 or 2) have said to us when we try to set up a time to meet. Hungarians get super stressed and crazy this time of year (like people do in America) BUT they do all try to spend a ton of time with their families which is so cool.

We are trying to meet with as many ward members as we can these next couple of weeks. It's been a lot of fun. We went with the Sisters to a little village on Saturday called "Kiskunfélegyháza" which is a crazy long name for such a small place. It was a blast and we sang some Christmas songs to these wonderful people and had quite the adventure in the rain. The last lady we met with was the sweetest Néni and I've never heard so many different terms of endearment within the space of an hour in my whole life! She was so great.

The ward here is amazing. All of us here have a different family feeding us for lunch and dinner on the 24th, 25th, and 26th!

Oh so get this: while walking through the city the other day, we overheard some people speaking English so we went over and talked to them. Turns out it was three girls from Ireland. Two of them were visiting their friend who attends a university here. We spoke with them for a little bit and they were all really really nice. THEN last night on our way back from Budapest, we were all sitting in our train car and we saw them walk past. So we ran out and invited them to sit with us and they were really surprised to see us but gladly sat with us. We were able to talk to them the whole way back and it was super great and random! What are the chances?!

One other random bit that I think is pretty funny: the ward members here have given me a nickname because they think "Alldredge" is too hard to say. So they all call me "Ollie Elder". Kind of random but I get a kick out of it!

I want to thank everyone and anyone who has sent me something for the holidays. It means a lot to me! I have enjoyed it very much.

Well, I'm not quite sure when I will be able to write another general email with the holidays and everything. BUT I hope all of your celebrations are incredible and I hope that Christ is the focus. Not just thinking about him, but trying to acquire his attributes. Learn about him--you cannot love something you do not know. A good place to start would be in The Book of Mormon.

Sok Szeretettel és boldogság,

Alldredge Elder

Week 19 (December 3-9, 2012)

Szervusztok Mindenki!

Milyen volt a hetetek?

After my final goodbye's to Sopron, I hopped on the train and met my new companion, Loveday Elder, in Budapest. After meeting up, we took about an hour and a half train ride to Kecskemét! Immediately after getting off the train, we went to the meeting house to catch the last of the WARD Christmas party. Yes, the WARD party. Not the BRANCH party! Kecskemét is a ward! Wow it was a big change to go from a church meeting with 15-20 people to now have about 50 people in church. The ward is so cool here! The people are all so nice. They are finishing building a really big, nice, and new meeting house in the city! They hope to have it done in early February and I might still be here for that! 

Random tidbit: The good thing about Sopron and Szombathely was that there weren't any strange characters in their names... So I didn't have to switch over the Hungarian keyboard. Now I have to in order to spell "Kecskemét"... Turns out that the word "kecske" means "goat" in Hungarian! Who knew!?

This city is massive. BUT we all have bus passes. And by "we" I mean us Elders and the Sisters that serve here as well. I have never served around Sisters before... There haven't ever been Sisters in my zone before! Now I'm serving with some great ones in my area!

Anywho, turns out that I moved to the nicest apartment in the mission! I thought my last one was the best, but apparently it's like number 4 on the list. Good earth this apartment is rad. Everything in the kitchen is electric. We have a working dishwasher, an ACTUAL shower (I don't have to HOLD the head!), both of our beds are queen sized, we have a big dining table and lots of couches, even shaggy carpet! Not to mention that our towel rack heats the towels while you're in the shower! It's quite the sanctuary.

On the 6th, all of Hungary celebrates when "Mikolas" comes and leaves presents in the children's shoes! He leaves candy and toys for the good children and twigs for the bad ones. Strangely familiar to me... BUT Mikolas even came and visited us, TWICE! (The Sisters delivered treats the first time and our neighbors across the hall did it the second time!) Such a fun holiday. The Christmas they celebrate here lasts 3 days long starting on the 24th and Christ is the one who actually brings the gifts! I thought that was really neat.

The "Christmas Town" they have set up here is absolutely incredible! The lights are amazing and they have little shops and booths set up everywhere. There's even a stage with performers each evening!

The Sisters had a baptism this last Saturday that took place at the public pool. That was really amazing to attend and experience!

I left Sopron having around 21 lessons taught per week. We had a total of 6 this week. There is a lot of work to do! But I'm excited to get to work and help build this place up.

Next week, I'll be in Budapest on Monday for the Zone Christmas Conference! I'm super stoked for it! My emailing will be moved to Tuesday.

This week, the Hungarian Language and I became friends. It was a strange and almost sudden thing. Yet, much appreciated.

I hope all is well with everyone else. Don't expect the Lord to be too aware of you if you're never aware of The Book of Mormon. Read it :)

Sok Szeretettel,

Alldredge Elder

 With Elder Hansen and our old district leader Elder Masters

 Mikolas!!!

 View out of my window. (There is a MALL here! Craziness!)

 Christmas Town!!

 Thanks for sending ornaments for my tree!!

Week 18 (November 26-December 3, 2012)

 Christmas yay 

 Our decorations

 Tree in the city center! (Without decorations yet)

 The "tree" and "gifts" from my family

 Morning view out of my window

 Setting up Christmas in the Szombathely Elder's apartment!

Watch this video of Cameron learning to use a whip!

BÉNA!!

Elmennem kell Sopron!! (this probably won't work in a translator)

NEM! NEM! NEM!

A.K.A. I have to leave Sopron! Dang it! We just finished up setting our 3rd baptism! This is a bummer... BUT I guess it's all just part of the missionary experience, right? I am going to be serving now in Kecskemét. It's a super big city and it's in central Hungary near Budapest. I'm sad to be leaving the West.

On the bright side, I will be leaving this place on a super great week. It was just incredible.

So in my second transfer, I tracted into a lady. Elder Hansen and I have taught her this entire transfer and this week we set up her baptism for January. She even paid tithing and fast offerings this Sunday. She is absolutely incredible. We did have a funny experience with her this week though. We taught her the word of wisdom and she was super excited about it and had no problems with it. Then she pointed out a bunch of bottles of really old alcohol on a shelf and made SURE we knew that they were JUST decoration. Good earth it was so funny. Also, while teaching her, we read little sections here and there from some lesson pamphlets. As she read, she would finish a sentence, look up, and say, "this is SO true!!" after everything. Wow she is just a miracle. The story about how she was found is a pretty incredible too. It's one of those "last door we knocked on" stories. She was truly prepared, and our job was easy, all we had to do was show her the gospel and she ate it up!

On top of that, we asked another investigator to be baptized and he said that he absolutely would. (This is the guy who had been coming to English class for forever and I was super persistent to get him to meet with us until he finally did. Since then, he asks such great questions and says, "teach this to me the next time we meet, and this other thing to me the next NEXT time we meet!") He is incredible and he was truly prepared as well!

Last Monday Elder Hansen and I were able to go whipping! It was great and Elder Hansen is a pro! He was a happy camper.

I was also able to go on splits this week back to Szombathely. I always love returning to where I started my mission. The people there are amazing!

One more incredible thing that happened this week (among the many others) happened while we were tracting. We weren't sure where to go so we just started in a direction and kept walking. Then we felt like we needed to go down a certain street. We met a woman moving wood and asked if we could help but she refused and said we couldn't because she didn't want us to get our suits dirty. She was super nice though and we were able to talk for a minute with her. We continued walking down the street, then I said, we need to take the next right turn and go down whatever street that is. On our way there, Elder Hansen stopped us and said that we needed to visit a member right then. That member just so happened to live FAR the heck away and I wasn't so sure about it... Then he said, "no we REALLY have to visit her." as we arrived at the street I thought we needed to turn on. So we stood on the corner for a second, decided to pray, and the first thing I said after the prayer was, "time to hike to Csilla's house." On the way there, Elder Hansen felt like we needed to give her a wrapped Book of Mormon. I thought it was kind of silly we were going all the way there for that reason when we could just give it to her tomorrow when we had originally planned to meet. When we got there we said, "we don't know why we're here, but here is a wrapped Book of Mormon." The next words out of her mouth was, "Oh my goodness! I had a friend ask me for one of these today but I didn't have an extra one to give her! I will give this to her right now!!" THEN on the way back, we turned back down that same street I felt like we needed to go on and it just so happened that a random lady passed us and stopped US and started asking questions about our church and things about us. Miracles all around!!

Tonight we're planning on going to the city center that is all decked out for Christmas. They have a HUGE tree and all sorts of cool little stands and things. I'm excited!

Hey, read the Book of Mormon today. You know you want to.

Sok SOK Szeretettel,

Alldredge Elder

Week 17 in Hungary (Nov. 19-26)

 adventures of last rainy P-day

 cheese'n

 Thanksgiving Dinner at the Flammers

 Pig Jello

 Roasting some marshmallows

Jó Napot Kivánok!!
Megszentségtelenithetetlenségkedéseitekért!
(This is the longest word in Hungarian! My English Class taught it to me this week.)

I hope all of your Thanksgiving celebrations were a blast and a half! Thursday was actually one of the most incredible days of my mission! Which is good because it helped my homesickness be at a minimal for the Holiday. It started with some great lessons with some great investigators. The last lesson of the afternoon was capped off with an immediate "yes" to the question of baptism. AND we had two random people come to our English class wanting to learn about the gospel and attend church. AND it all ended with a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with our Advanced English Class where Elder Hansen and I sang "I Feel My Savior's Love" in Hungarian with the uke. SO, it was pretty great despite being on the other side of the oceans from my family.

If you know me, you know my fascination and abnormal love for priesthood blessings. We were able to give three this week! I had never given the actually blessing before this week. (I only did the oil anointing.) But this week, I did two out of the three actual blessings! It's incredible because you seriously just move your mouth and the Hungarian words flow out. I can't describe it better.

On the subject of language, I guess I haven't really talked about the progress lately. It's strange because I feel a whole lot more comfortable speaking than I do understanding. I have no problem expressing myself... but when it comes to understanding I feel I'm not the sharpest. BUT that's okay. It will come. Slowly--but surely.

After emailing today, I'm going to decorate our apartment and we're going to wrap up some copies of the Book of Mormon. Then we're going to try something new for tracting and we call it "The Christmas Survey"! I'm really excited about it. We're going to ask people about their Christmas traditions and what they like about the season and what they think the true meaning is. I think people will be pretty open to it and at the end we will say, here is a free gift since you did our survey for us (Book of Mormon)! AND we will be able to learn a lot about the different, special Hungarian traditions!

For some strange reason, the heaters in our apartment ceased to produce heat. So it's pretty chilly. In the warmest room, on the warmest day, at 2:00 in the afternoon, it was a bitter 62 degrees. Yay for wearing coats in the apartment! I have enjoyed roasting marshmallows over the warm stove at night. (picture of such events will be attached)

This week I tried "Pig Jello" which is pig skin, fat and other nasty stuff all mixed up and made into jello... with giant chunks of meat and fat in it. They scoop it out and put it on bread. I tried it of course and actually liked it! It wasn't too bad if you didn't think about what it was. I'll attach a picture of it but if you tend to be queasy, I wouldn't look at it.

The work here in Sopron is going crazy. It's almost too much! We are on the go all day everyday. But I love it. I would not have it any other way.

The miracles are pouring in and we have no room to obtain them! I love it!

The city is being decorated with beautiful lights and other fun things! I'll be sure to take some pictures of it in the days to come.

Today, the Flammers are taking Elder Hansen and I to a really pretty park and we will finally be able to go whipping! I'll be sure to send pictures of that as well.

As the Holidays commence, make them better and brighter with reading from The Book of Mormon.

Sok, SOK Szeretettel,
Alldredge Elder

letter from Sister Flammer

(This letter was sent to Cameron's mom from the senior missionary couple also serving with Cameron in Hungary.)

Dear Sister Alldredge,

 I hope I don't make you too homesick for your son. He is such a great missionary. It is so great to watch the work go forth as they obey the rules and find new people. It is so fun to see how excited they get about most days. We are fixing Thanksgiving Dinner on Thanksgiving night. We invited our English Class and the Elders when they get through with their English classes. They are going to sing a song with you-know-who on the uke. They sound really good singing together.

Sister Flammer

P.S. The attached pictures are at a district meeting at our house. The last one is today. The Elders (Elder Alldredge and Hansen) invited us to their place for dinner today. They are the best. My husband and I spoke in Papa, which is about two hours away, so it was really nice not to have to make dinner today.

Week 16 (Nov. 12-19, 2012)

 My "American" food!

 I just had to ring it!

 My new name tag!

 It is my last name in Hungarian so all of them can say it correctly now!

Boldog Hálaadás Mindenki!!

(Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!)

I just wanted to start off by saying that an investigator's mom made me some ACTUAL Chocolate Chip Muffins this week!! If you know me, I'm sure you're aware of my deep burning love for Chocolate Chip Muffins. That was definitely the "worldly high" of my week.

The Zone Conference in Budapest this week was FANtastic! Wow it was so incredible. It was 6 hours straight without a break but dang it was so good. I guess I can count that among my many spiritual highs for the week.

In Budapest, I was able to pick up my new name tag! "Alldredge" is written in Hungarian so all of these wonderful people can have an easier time trying to pronounce it. It's pretty rad looking! It's spelled: "ALDREDZS" and ALL of the Hungarians have been able to say it perfectly!

Elder Hansen and I started meeting with a new investigator this week. He's an "eternal" from English Class. (That means he's been constantly attending for over a year) He's a super stellar guy, so I decided to be really annoying as to constantly ask when we could meet with him so we could teach him about the church. We were finally able to and he LOVED it! Wow it was incredible! He has such great questions and he's so sincere. It's been amazing. Yay for being annoying!

Another cool experience we had was while tracting. We passed by a house that we had dropped off a copy of The Book of Mormon to a week earlier. After finishing the rest of the street, we passed by it again. We both stopped. We looked at the house, then at each other, then back at the house, then we rang the doorbell. The same lady answered the door and let us right in. She had The Book of Mormon next to her and she said she has been reading it since we gave it to her. We were able to teach her the first lesson and she loved it! She invited us back for this week and it was really quite incredible!

Things are super great for us here. And as luck would have it, it's raining on Monday. AGAIN. Oh well.I hope all of your Thanksgivings are rad and I hope the time spent with family is special.

READ from The Book of Mormon, PONDER what you READ, PRAY about what you PONDER, and LISTEN for your ANSWER.

Sok Szeretettel,

Alldredge (Aldredzs) Elder

Week 15 in Hungary (Nov. 5-12, 2012)

 It's Abrok Elder and I saying goodbye at the train station.

 tracting around this beautiful city

 sunset

Szia szia szervusz hallo! (Now THAT sounds more like a Hungarian "hello"... I don't think I'll ever know why they have to say it so many times. The same goes for their "goodbyes")

Today is "Amercan Day" at a store called "Lidle"!! They're supposed to be selling peanut butter!! FINALLY! This is the only store that ever has it and it's super rare! I think they're going to be selling Marshmallows as well... it's gonna be a great week!

I was able to go on splits and return to good ol' Szombathely this week! It was slammin'! It was so great to see all of the incredible people I met when I served there. They were all super surprised to see me but it was a great time!

There's a cute little member family we meet with every week and they love making the missionaries favorite Hungarian meals. I told them my was "Lángos" and they got all excited and sure enough the next week they made us some giant Lángos that were about the size of my whole face! They were super stellar and they made me eat SO much of them, I thought I was going to die BUT it was grand nonetheless.

The Lord really put me into my place this week. We're teaching two pretty new and fresh investigators, we gave them both reading assignments in The Book of Mormon. When I asked them if they read, I was expecting the typical answer of, "No, I didn't have time." or "I was only able to read a tiny tiny bit." BUT NO! This week they both said yes. AND then they said, "I prayed about it after I read and asked if it was true or not... When I prayed I felt really warm inside, what does that mean?" Good earth! I'm sure Elder Hansen's face and my own were pretty priceless! It was unreal. Especially since it happened twice this week! Things happen when you have faith. Really.

There was actually a lot of crazy things that happened this week. A lot of coincidences (that weren't really coincidences). And loads of being "in the right place at the right time" thanks to the direction of the Spirit. I won't go into detail about all of them but this week, for some reason, was full of them!

Hansen Elder and I have wanted to go "whipping" every P-day since we've been together but EVERY single P-day it has either snowed or rained on us. Which bites because the rest of the week is beautiful BUT it's okay. It'll motivate us to vacuum and mop the apartment today.

This week is going to be Zone Conference in Budapest!! It's a 3 hour long drive so it'll be quite the day! I'm excited for it. It'll be my first one!

Anywho, as always, things are incredible for me on this side of the oceans. I hope you not only read The Book of Mormon, but you pray about it too. The feeling of the Spirit will warm you up as winter approaches. 

Sok Szeretettel,

Alldredge Elder

Week 14 in Hungary (Oct.29-Nov.5)

Szervusztok rendesek emberek!

Hogy vagytok?

It's raining like crazy today. It rained all last night and since all of our windows are at an angle in our apartment, it was quite loud throughout the night, yet soothing at the same time.

I forgot my camera cord so I'll have to send double pictures next week... Sorry!

I gotta start off with a funny story that happened this week:

So Elder Hansen and I visited this really old Néni who is in her 90's. Before we left she gave us some chocolate bars. Later that night, Elder Hansen decided to eat some of his. He took one bite and immediately spit it out and started yelling about how disgusting it was. Then his eyes got real big and he said, "I THINK THERE'S ALCOHOL IN THESE THINGS!" We checked the package and sure enough, it was made with 40% rum. Pretty hilarious. Especially because the lady is a long-time member. So that was quite the adventure.

I sure missed American Halloween this week but celebrating the "Day of the Dead" on November 1st was pretty cool! We walked around a candle lit cemetery and it was really interesting. One investigator was telling us how some kids try to go trick or treating here but most people just yell, "This isn't America!"

This week was mostly spent meeting with members so they could get to know Elder Hansen. It's been really cool and we have been starting off our lessons by singing a hymn to them. Anytime that we're not in programs we're out tracting. We went tracting in some super interesting places lately. One place was a complete ghetto but the architecture was just fascinating. I love walking around these old streets. It's super pretty!

The other evening we were tracting and we had gone for three hours straight without anyone even talking to us for more than a second. (Which is unusual for us.) We decided that we wouldn't go back for dinner until we gave away just ONE Book of Mormon to someone. After getting yelled at and kicked out of 2 places, we came across a lady who was super excited and happy to see us. She happily took a Book of Mormon and said she was going to read it for sure. She told us to come back and visit her. It was really awesome and I'm glad we didn't give up and just go to dinner... or else we would've missed out on her. 

That's about the extent of my week. Just working, working, working. I love it though!! I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm super bummed I forgot my camera cord... But like I said, I'll send more pictures in the week to come.

The best way you can help yourself today is by reading the Book of Mormon. After that, go help someone else.

Sok SOK Szeretettel,

Alldredge Elder

Week 13 (Oct. 22-29)

 At a castle tour

 A castle in Sopron

 our first snow today! With our newest convert

 At her baptism

Szervusztok csodálatos emberek!

Good earth it snowed here for the first time today! Elder Hansen (my new companion) is from California, so he's kind of freaking out right now!

On Saturday, we had another beautiful baptism for the Sopron branch. It was in the hotel pool again and it went perfect! It's incredible to see these kind of things happening in real life.

Last P-Day, I was able to go on a rad castle tour of a really old castle in Sopron. It's on this huge mountain side and the inside of it was so cool! It was a blast to walk through it.

Yesterday I gave my first talk! I was the last speaker and I had planned on speaking for 15 minutes (which I knew would already be a stretch for me) and then the Branch President told me to fill the rest of the time and there were 20 minutes left!! As I was giving my final remarks and sharing my testimony I was thinking, "Oh no oh no oh no! DON'T look at the clock... There's no way this has been more than 12 minutes! I have nothing left to say and I'm almost out of things to testify about in Hungarian!! AHH!" but after I said "Amen" I looked over at the clock and saw that I ended perfectly on time!! The Lord really does look out for his missionaries. I could not have done it without Him.

During the week, while Elder Hansen and I were eating lunch that some members made us, they kept trying to feed us more and more and more. Finally, I used the expression: "I'm full as the noon-day bus." and they thought it was the funniest thing they had ever heard. Then Elder Hansen used the expression: "I'm full as a Tesco at Christmas." and they laughed even more. They had never heard those before and they thought it was hilarious beyond belief. Oh man, it was so funny to watch.

Oh speaking of Elder Hansen, he's my new companion. I picked him up in Budapest on Wednesday and we've been working super hard together ever since. He's a really sharp guy and we're having a grand time so far already! It's really been great. We've been wanting to go out and tract since tracting hasn't been done here for 3 transfers. After all of our programs and lessons and everything, the only tracting time we were able to get in was 25 minutes yesterday afternoon. In that 25 minutes, we talked to two people. Both of those people gladly took a Book of Mormon and all of our pamphlets! They even gave us their phone numbers. It was incredible and it made us really excited for doing more in this coming week.

Also in this week, we were teaching an investigator who knows English, German, and Hungarian. I'm her English teacher so I was speaking in English, Elder Hansen taught his part all in Hungarian, and Elder Flammer was there and he served his first mission to Germany so he testified to her in German! It was so dang cool.

This week is the "Day of the Dead" which is kind of like Halloween. I think they celebrate Halloween as well but this Day of the Dead thing happens on November 1st and all of the Hungarians have told us that we HAVE to be at a certain cemetery at a certain time so the Flammers are going to take us to that! I'm excited!

Well, I hope you are all doing super stellar. Don't worry about me, I'm well taken care of out here. These people are incredible beyond belief and I feel so blessed to be serving here in Hungary.

Well, as always, just please read The Book of Mormon. I can't give you a better suggestion.

Sok Szeretettel,

Alldredge Elder

Week 12 in Hungary (Oct. 15-22)

Jó napot kivánok!!

Mi újság?

Today was transfer calls!! Elder Ábrók is (sadly) leaving me and going to the South East part of the country and he's going to be a branch president down there!! (There isn't any priesthood in the branch besides the missionaries.) I'm really excited for him because it's something he wanted to experience on his mission, at the same time, I'm bummed he's leaving me.

I am going to pick up my new companion in Budapest on Wednesday! His name is Elder Hansen. I don't know him and I've never met him so it'll be an adventure! 

This Saturday we are having another baptism!! It's been so incredible to see this investigator progress all the way up to baptism! I am hoping that I will be able to announce some more baptisms in this transfer!

Last P-day we went to a giant sheep field that some investigators told us about and we just walked around the field among the sheep. Then we explored a forest area that was a little further. It was super pretty but my camera sadly died.... On our way back, the huge herd of sheep was completely blocking a road and a bunch of cars were beginning to line up. We were able to watch the Shepherd and his dog round them all back up and bring them back to the field. (something you don't get to see everyday!)

I have to speak next Sunday!! It'll be my first official and planned talk since I've been here. I'm excited for it! It's going to be on Prophets. We'll see how it goes!

This week we put on a fall party for our branch. It went super well and we had a lot of investigators come attend as well! Elder Flammer, Elder Ábrók, and I put on a funny skit for everyone. Then we were all able to enjoy Sister Flammer's delicious dinner she made! It was a great success and lots of fun!

A big group of Hungarians from all over the country went to the Frieberg temple this week. While waiting for the session to start, a temple worker came in and said there would be a slight delay before the session began. Then a couple minutes later, in walks President Monson and he meets everyone there and they all got to shake his hand!! Pretty rad!

This week, I learned the important difference between the two words "mosni" (to wash) and "fosni" (slang for: to diarrhea). So after finishing a meal I accidentally said, "Azt finom volt! De most, fosnom kell." which means: "That was delicious! But I need to diarrhea now." Well, it's all part of the mission experience, right?

Anywho, I hope everyone is really doing swell. You're in my prayers.

Hey, pray to God and ask him a question--He will be able to answer you through the scriptures. Read The Book of Mormon.

Sok Szeretettel,

Alldredge Elder