Chalking

Sziasztok!

This week was pretty good. I know that you all are waiting for pictures and I'm probably going to send them home today or sometime this week. So just wait a little longer! The pictures of Budapest at night are worth it! Haha.

Yesterday was a really good day for the language. I felt like I was understanding a lot more when people were speaking slowly and simply. It's really weird how understanding a language works. I can barely even notice it when I understand. I just do. Weird. Apparently, there are days when you feel on top of the world and you can understand and speak well and other days when you can't.

One weird thing was when we met with a girl named Monika on Wednesday and we were teaching her about the Restoration in the park and about halfway through our lesson some of her friends come and said that they have a class and so Monika said that she guessed that she had to go and just left. And we had scheduled that time with her. We didn't see that coming. Haha.

Angol Óra (English class) was really good this week, or at least just fun. We practiced reading and stuff as usual and then we took a break and I taught my students some English nyelvtörők (tongue twisters)! They loved them. I taught them "Sally sells seashells", "fuzzy wuzzy was a bear" and the woodchuck one. Some were actually pretty good at it. Then they taught me some Hungarian tongue twisters that were super hard for me. Haha. It was fun.

Szombaton (on Saturday) we went chalking! We went to the park and drew out the Plan of Salvation on one of the big walkways. When people walked by we would try to talk to them about our drawing and teach them about God's plan for us. It was really fun, except my vocabulary is really small and so it was hard to talk to people. The coolest thing was that I met a girl who spoke English! So I taught her about the Plan of Salvation. She was really interested so I taught her a little bit about the Restoration. It was an awesome experience. She was from Budapest and had missed her train home. It was her 26th birthday and so she said that it wasn't a coincidence that we met. I gave her a Book of Mormon and gave her some chapters to read. She said that she would on the train ride home. She was also excited to meet with missionaries in Budapest. She seemed really interested and sincere so it was great. I called a sister missionary in Budapest and told her about this girl, Éva, and gave her Éva's phone number. I hope that works out.

Sunday was pretty good. A lot of people came to church and that was awesome. I think that there were maybe a little more than 15 people there. All four of us missionaries spoke in Istentisztelet (Sacrament Meeting). I only spoke for about 7 minutes, but I think that it went pretty well.

I know that this gospel is true and that Jesus Christ has restored His church on the earth again. And I know that the Book of Mormon is scripture from God and will help us come closer to Christ and become better, happier people if we follow what God has revealed to us in it.

Thanks for everything! You all are awesome! Szervusztok!

~Anderson elder

Video - The Branch House in Eger

In this video, I give you a quick tour of the branch house (the place where members of the church meet for weekly worship services) in Eger. It's a really nice facility, especially for so few members.

Video - Chalking in Eger

Here's a video of an innovative proselyting technique we call chalking. We drew the Plan of Salvation in colored chalk on a large sidewalk in a park in Eger. As people walked by enjoying the park we talked to them about the gospel. It was great fun!

Általános Konferencia

Szervusztok mindenki!

Sorry that this blog entry is a few days late. On Monday we had greenie training in Budapest and yesterday we had interviews with President and Sister Gasser and some more training in Miskolc. 

We finally watched Általános Konferencia (General Conference) with the members. Unfortunately, not very many members showed up to the sessions, but a few did. And the Assistants just gave us DVDs that had the satellite broadcast recorded on them, so it was only in Magyarul (Hungarian). That was crazy. Even my trainer had a hard time understanding everything they said because they use really fancy language. I was lost for the entire time so I wrote letters and read Jesus the Christ. Those who did come really enjoyed it so I hope that it helped strengthen their testimonies of the Gospel.

The work is going kind of slow and it’s getting hard to meet with our investigators who are interested. People are always so busy! Haha. I had a funny experience on Péntek (Friday). We decided to order pizza and eat it as a district and no one wanted to order it so they gave me the phone to order it. That was kind of scary since I can’t understand what people say. Haha. So Lindsay elder wrote on a white board everything that I needed to say in Hungarian. I call the pizza place and this is what I say, „Jó napot, four pizzát szeretnék rendelni.” I said “four” in English and everyone busted out laughing. I didn’t even realize it so I was confused. Haha. Then the lady replied and said something, but I couldn’t understand it at all. After asking her to repeat what she said a few times I just gave the phone to Lindsay elder. It was pretty funny.

Then yesterday I called Mózes and tried to set up an appointment to meet again, but he wasn’t sure so we are just going to call him back later. But I understood what he was basically saying! It was pretty cool. He speaks really fast though so I just caught a few phrases and words.

After Angol Óra (English Class) the other district shared a message about General Conference and prophets and one man from my class finally came to the message! He was pretty interested, but couldn’t come to General Conference because he was going to Slovakia to work in the markets there. The economy is struggling here so people are having a really hard time finding jobs. Hopefully we can meet with him and he will be interested.

Oh about mailing me stuff; I’ll usually get it sooner than once every 6 weeks. Maybe twice or three times. But mailboxes in apartment complexes are pieces of junk so I’d rather have letters and packages just go to Budapest and play it safe.

Thanks for everything! I love you all and I’m going to be sending pictures home soon so everyone will be able to see the awesomeness of Hungary!

Sok szeretettel,

Anderson elder

Settled In

Szervusztok!

Hogy vagytok? Jól vagyok. Szeretek missziónáriusi munkát! Ok that's enough Hungarian for now. I said, "How are you all? I'm well. I love missionary work!" This week has been pretty good and has gone by really fast of course. "Every day is a week and every week is a day". The "newness" of Hungary has worn off and I'm used to just about everything. I noticed yesterday that I can't remember what it's like to understand other people's conversations as they walk by. Sometimes it is hard to pay attention when we are teaching people. Haha. That sounds really bad, but it really is hard when it is mostly gibberish to me! Apparently it takes most missionaries here at least 6 months before they can understand most of what people say. My trainer is fluent in Hungarian. Some Hungarians say that he sounds like a Hungarian—so I have a good example to learn from. 

One of the people we are teaching, Mózes (Moses in English), is so awesome. (Trevor you should pay attention to this!) He's 19 years old and last year he placed 14th in the world for Roman Greco wrestling! And last week we taught him about the Word of Wisdom and he said, "Of course!" He is great. I can't wait to teach him more.

This coming Sunday (April 19th) we are playing General Conference in the Branch House and then on May 1st we get to watch it in English. So I've got a while before I get to enjoy it.

Unfortunately I haven't had any crazy or funny experiences. That is kind of disappointing, but I did have a cool experience on Friday. I was on companion exchanges with Erickson elder. We walked passed a house and I felt really strongly that we should talk to them. Then Erickson elder started to slow down so I asked him if he felt anything. He said that he also felt that we should go back and talk to them. I know that was the Spirit of God. So we stopped and, long story short, they are members of our church but haven't been active for about seven years. They we're kind of interested in attending again. I don't know what God has planned for them, but I do know that he wanted us to talk to them that day. It was crazy that we both felt so strongly that we should talk to them as we walked by. 

This is kind of short, but I need to go soon. Köszönöm szépen mindent! Thanks for everything! I love you all! Oh, so you all know, the mission home in Budapest doesn't forward letters to us in the other cities. We usually pick them up when we go into Budapest, which is about once or twice every 6 weeks. So email would be better since I check it every week. Sziasztok!

~Anderson elder

Hello from Eger

Sziasztok mindenki!

Hungary is pretty awesome to say the least. The flight was seven and a half hours from New York to Austria. That was LONG to say the least. But we talked to an old Albanian man who spoke horribly broken English for hours. It was weird and awesome at the same time. And it was strange hearing and seeing everything in German. Getting off the airplane in Budapest was really weird because everyone was speaking in Hungarian and everything was written in Hungarian! Haha. Who would have guessed? Sorry if y's and z's are switched. The keyboards are different here of course. 

When we got to the mission home the Assistants to the President took each of us out to go and talk to people. That was really neat! Except that whenever they said something it was gibberish. Haha. But the AP's understood everything so it was ok. It was fun talking to people. Two people gave us their phone numbers too! Hungarians are much more willing to learn about Christ than I had thought. That night we took a little tour of the city and I took some pictures of the amazingness of Budapest! It is so pretty!

The next day we went on a slow five mile jog around Budapest! That was really cool. I have a bunch of pictures from the run. And then we got our trainers. My trainer is named Lindsay Elder and he is pretty cool. My first area is Eger! It's a city about a hour east of Budapest. Eger is really pretty too.

During two days of the week a car rally was held in Eger. That was really cool. I've been able to teach a little when we meet with people, but I can barely understand anything at all when Hungarians speak. It's probably the most frustrating thing in the entire world! But I know that if I work hard the language will come. I just have to be patient, which is sort of hard right now. Haha. For some reason it was really weird hearing small children speak Hungarian. I thought, "What?! Even the babies speak Hungarian?!" Haha. Also, the dogs really do understand more Hungarian than I do! Haha. Our teachers in the MTC told us about that, and it's true!

We have a few people who we are currently teaching. Csilla comes to church a lot, which is awesome, but she struggles with reading the Book of Mormon and she loses faith in God easily when life gets hard. But she is awesome.

I had to teach English the first day I got to Eger and that was making me super nervous! But my trainer had pity for me and let me teach the profi (pro/advanced) class so I got to speak English and they did too. Only two people came to the profi class. We read a story and I corrected their mistakes in pronunciation and helped them with any questions that they had. I thought that they might have been bored, but they said that they enjoyed it and it helped them out a lot.

Church was interesting. Oh! We have General Conference next week. We didn't go back into Budapest to watch it there. We'll just get a copy and play it in the Branch House next week or sometime soon. And I'll be listening to it in English in one ear and Hungarian in the other. Haha. There's no way that I could understand it in Hungarian already. So church was interesting. We had our fast and testimony meeting. Only about 12 people came not including us missionaries (there are four of us in Eger). One of our investigators, Csilla, came! But we'll have to work on the rest a bit more and try to help them understand how important it really is. We only have two priesthood holders, but they are pretty cool. With so few people at church I bore about a ten minute testimony. In Hungarian of course. That was hard, but they understood most of what I said! It was a good meeting overall, I felt the Spirit there and that is what counts. And we don't have three meetings here we only have two. There aren't enough people to give callings for that. And Erikson Elder (from the other companionship) taught the Sunday School class. 

Tudom hogy Jézus Krisztus él és szeret minket. Tudom hogy Joseph Smith lefordította a Mormon Könyvét és Joseph Smith által Jézus Krisztus vissaálította az evangéliumét. That says, "I know that Jesus Christ lives and loves us. I know that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon and that Jesus Christ restored His Gospel through Joseph Smith."

Thanks for everything! I love you all! Sok szeretettel (with much love)!

Anderson Elder

Itt vagyok!

Szervusztok!

I made it here safely! It is amazing! The country is nagyon (very) beautiful! Here's a picture with me with President and Sister Gasser. I'll send some really cool pictures when my card fills up. I'm not sure where I'm going to be serving first in Magyarország (Hungary) yet. Yesterday I went out with one of the APs (Assistants to the President) and we got two phone numbers. And one family--a dad, mom, and baby in a stroller--went out of there way to get away from us when we made eye contact with them. They were so anxious to flee that they went off-roading with their stroller! It was really funny, but sad that people dislike us that much. Nem tudom miért. I don't know why. It was fun talking in Hungarian. But hard! Ok, see you all later! Love ya!

~Anderson Elder

Video - At the Vienna Airport

Here is a video I took on 1 April 2009 during the flight from Provo to Budapest. My travel group and I are waiting at the airport in Vienna for our flight to Budapest.