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