Ashlyn: 8+2=10

Buenos Dias! Como estaban?

I have been great! we have started to buy food and this whole past week our studies haven't been interupted! So thats over. Oh yeah we had entrevistas! (interviews) with our mission president this past miercoles. It went really good. my mission president is the best. He's a very calm type four but I'm pretty sure he has a secondary 1 he has that twinkle in his eye and his head is very round.  haha. Well my companionship is doing tons better! I've been working really hard on being more humble and loving towards my companion and its been paying off. So the lesson I learned here is: if you are having a hard time with someone just love them and it will get easier. 

 first off a shout out to all the wonderful people who have emailed me! sorry that I'm not able to email you all back immediately but I will try and get to you when I have more time specifically Grandma J thank you for your sweet helpful advice! I loved hearing from you!

Well let me explain the numbers in the subject box. we had eight Menos activos attend church yesterday!!!!! three of them we didn't even visit the week before and they just showed up on their own! and Hermano Robledo came to church! That made me so happy! hopefull he comes next week too and forever after that. We had family home evening or noche de hogar at their house on sabado  it was super powerful, and he said that he might come and when I shook his hand I told him "hasta mañana" and he said "hasta mañana" back and then he came to church! 

Anyways lets see Josimar has come twice to church now but he bolted super fast yesterday but we're visiting with him tonight so we'll see how he's really doing. Also he can rap and its really cool. They have a whole genre of rap here thats all about making the world a better place etc. 

we also had 2 investigators at church. One of them is actually the investigator we dropped because he is "unteachable" and believes that God is a martian, but he showed up with his "wife" who is a Menos Activo and his "inlaws". his "father-in-law" is a menos activo and his "mother-in-law" is our other inverstigator. She's super interested the only problem she has is living la ley de castidad, but I don't think that will be problem to have them get married they've been together for so long that it won't make much of a difference except that the won't be breaking the law of chastity. 

in total we had 10 people at church! Also we've run into a family who seems super promising, The dad and the kids sell flan on the streets at night (hey Katelyn remember our first experience with flan? I was a bit nervous to eat it the first time it was offered to me but its actually alot better in its native country and in much smaller quantities...) anyways the dad talked my companions ear off while I tried to speak to the kids. They asked me how many siblings I have and they thought that 8 was so many and asked me if I lived in an orphanage hahaha! Well we're going to give them some toys tonight, President Wagner gave us some wooden cars and jump ropes to hand out in our areas and the dad asked for a Book of Mormon and he started to read his Bible! hopefully they progress because the last family we thought was super promising turned out to be a dead end. They called us the other day to ask for money. We of course told them no because we can't and we don't actually have any money since its the end of the month. Its a huge bummer because their oldest son Mitchell was actually more promising than his parents but there's nothing we can do there because we can't teach kids alone with out a responsible adult. 

Well my Spanish is increasing by leaps and bounds! I share quite a bit in lessons and its getting easier to follow the conversation. I've started to just read the Libro De Mormon during my language study and its actually made a huge difference. I'm hoping to finish it in the next month and a half if not sooner. 

Grandma Gleason I did receive your Dear Elders, I got them yesterday actually, and mom i got the ones from you yesterday as well. I also got a Christmas letter from the Stake President, (if you read this thank you the stories were perfect for me to read at this time) I haven't gotten the package yet but its possible that I'll get it at the Zone conference that's coming up so I'll keep you posted. 

With food I haven't eaten anything weird or unexpected. There's just a lot of potatoes but I have prayed to like them and they are less gross to me now and i don't make weird faces when I eat them anymore. Also apparently my face turns super red when I speak Spanish.....and I was asked to give a talk at a baptism by Elder Juarez and my companion said that I was super red. But that's over and it went pretty well otherwise. 

Con Amor,

Hna. Naegle

                                         1. mi enemigo!

                                          2. my washing machine

                                          3. my study area

Katelyn: Week 2 in Hungary

Hello again, I hope everyone is doing well.

This past week has been really great. We had some discouraging times, but we had some awesome moments that made up for it. Last week we tracted into an investigator named Lászlo. He let us in and my companion talked to him about the church and some other things and at one point she turned to me and asked me to bear my testimony about the church. I understood what she said but at the time I was still super groggy thanks to jet-lag and I sort of panicked and just said what I felt the most comfortable with saying and bore my testimony about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. Right afterwards I realized that she hadn't even brought up the Book of Mormon and I felt really stupid but it turned out well. He was really interested in the Book of Mormon specifically and he told us he would meet with us again. We met with him this past week and it was a cool program (that's what they call lessons here). It was a little frustrating because he had all these questions that I knew the answers to, just not in Hungarian. It's a little hard to be so silent in lessons, but sometimes I just try to speak anyway and it's good because it motivates me to learn Hungarian. Lászlo stayed afterwards for English class (we teach a lot of lessons in the branch house). At the end of English class a ward member gives a spiritual message and my companion told me that the message this week talked a lot about  some of the things he was asking, so that was good. We are meeting with him again tonight and I am looking forward to seeing what happens with him. Another cool thing that happened this week was that we went to a member's house for dinner. I've never been fed by members before so it was a cool new-missionary expereience for me. The woman's name is Zsuzsa and she has three kids. Her daughter and husband are inactive and we are going to start working with them to try and help them reactivate. Zsuzsa was so nice to us and it was so wonderful to be in her home for a little bit. It was like a little slice of heaven. Before we left she made me put on a sweater she grabbed out of a back room because she said I would be too cold. And she was right. It was freezing and I was grateful for the extra layer. It is icy cold here right now and word on the street is that it is going to get even colder. I am becoming more Hungarian by wearing tights and a scarf all the time. Two things I don't normally like wearing, but I need the layers because we're outside so much. 

Yesterday was an awesome day. I was able to hold some short conversations with a few people at church and that was a huge blessing for me. My companion has been having a really hard time lately. She has a lot of responsibility on her shoulders right now with white-washing a new area and training me at the same time. We have to find a lot because we don't have very many investigators and we've gotten a lot of rejection. I feel bad because I can't really help that much with everything. Anyway, she got a blessing that helped her a lot and we just went out and tracted again yesterday with renewed hope. We went to the top of an apartment building and started at the top. We got no let-ins and a couple of people were really rude to us. Finally though we knocked on a door where the lady told us no and we asked her if she knew anybody that would want to listen to us and she told us to go to her neighbor. So we did, and the nicest, kindest old lady let us in and listened to our message. She couldn't believe that we were only twenty years old and so wise and she kept saying she hoped we would get wonderful husbands who were strong like us and she told my companion that she had strong faith. I said the prayer at the end, and afterwards she told me that I spoke beautifully and chewed my companion out for not having me speak more. She was so kind to us and told us to deformalize her because were her children and told us that of course we could come back and she wouldn't take the Book of Mormon we tried to give her because she wanted us to share it with other people. It was pretty amazing and I know it helped my companion a lot. The whole experience was a huge tender mercy from Heavenly Father and it gave us the strength to keep working.

So the bottom line is, I am healthy, I am happy, and the work is hard but good. 

Please pray for me to be able to progress in Hungarian and stay awake during my studies, I've really struggled with jet-lag but it's getting a ton better. I just need to be able to be alert during language study because I only get one hour a day and if I doze off then it's gone and I need those minutes of practice. 

I love you all a lot. I am proud of all the good things you're doing. 

Take care! Rember that miracles are real!

Love, 

Naegle nővér

Ashlyn: Week Five

Today we went to get our visas and I got to see the beautiful Hermanas Warburton, Newbold, Taylor, Huchendorf, and Ford! YAY!  So last night we slept over at the offices and it was so weird to speak in English for almost an entire day... it was actually rather hard at first but don't worry family I'm still fluent in English.

despues de our visas I had a little chat with my sister training leader. So as some of you know we haven't had any food in our house for the past five weeks. I don't know why but we would never go grocery shopping on our Pdays. Because of that we've had to interrupt our morning studies and take an hour to go comprar comida so we weren't starving until 3pm when we get lunch. I've brought it up a few times with my companion and she always tells me that we'll go buy food the next pday but it never happens. So I talked to my sister training leader about it and she talked to my companion about it. So we'll see if we buy food today or not... right now it looks like not because we don't have much time left in our Pday but we'll see. 

Well not much has happened this week. Josimar one of our menos activos attended church! and another menos activo family and their non member madre who's one of our investigadores, but our other investigadores didn't who had attended last time and seemed so promising! 

Well we have so many people we need to visit there is so much work to be done here! Pray that we find those who are ready to hear the gospel and to ACT on what they learn so that their faith can grow! 

Well I love you all sorry this was so short!

Hermana Naegle

PS: pictures! 1. tiny baby bird eggs! 2. pigs. also if you zoom in the center of the photograph there's a man's face behind the pig skins. 3. Marlen and Marlon. Marlen is nine and one of our investigators. Marlon is 7 and really smart! he's more interested than Marlen and hopefully he'll be the one to reactivate his family, who are less actives, in the future. they're way fun to teach and Marlon always gives us big hugs when we get there! 

Katelyn: Hello from Hungary.

Hello everyone,

How are you?? 

I am doing great!! Right now I am sitting in this super dinky computer lab in Pest (which is the Pest half of Budapest) emailing and trying to type with a HUngarian keyboard. íi may give up in a second so if zou see a "z" it might actuallz be a "y". 

So.....I don't even know where to begin. First of all, I am really happy and really having a wonderful time here. I feel extremely comfortable in Hungary and I know it's probably because of all of your prayers. It's like a little bubble of calm around me wherever I go. Everything is so surreal. People keep asking me if I'm experiencing culture shock but I don't think I am. Sometimes I experience sensory overload but most of the time I am feel really normal and then people start talking and I listen for a bit and then am surprised that I don't understand what they're saying. And then they realize that I don't understand what they're saying and they're surprised too and I get a little embarassed for leading them on like that.

BUt before I get into all that....let's rewind and go back to where I left you last...in the MTC. 

We woke up at around 3 and turned in our keys and headed to the airport. We were all a bunch of nerves. The first flight was good. I sat next to a really nice man from Draper. He showed me all the pictures on his i-Pad and they were really cool. His wife runs these huge 50 or 100 mile races so they're really into running. I hope I run into him someday in Utah and ask him to come to church because I could tell he was nervous that I was going to bring up the gospel so I didn't. I just hope he can now say that he has met a nice Mormon missionary before. 

We switched planes in Cincinnati and took the opportunity to grab some lunch. I got Subway and while we ate these nice college kids started talking to us and about what we were doing and we found out that they were heading to Spain to do a study abroad. I asked them if we could practice bearing our testimonies to them in Hungarian and it was a really good experience. On the next flight I sat next to a Catholic priest who is from Uganda. He was flying into Amsterdam to take another flight back to Uganda to visit his family. He was very nice and we had a pleasant conversation. I couldn't really sleep very well during any of the flights, but I did sleep for a few hours on this one because it was a 8 hour flight. They fed us two or three meals and I ate like a maniac each time because I hadn't known that they were going to feed us and I was scared that I wouldn't be able to eat for a while. I think I was in major survival mode. Anyway, I felt like a was doing pretty well with everything up until we landed in Amsterdam. Airports and all the unknowns and confusion and stress about remembering everything adn not knowing what to expect really gets to me usuallz so ÍI was happz that I had done okay. The airport in Amsterdam was really nice and it was cool to be in Europe for the first time but we waited there long enough for panic to start to set in. I was a very stressed out, very tired missionary around some other very srtessed out missionaries and íi just started to realize how crazy everything I was about to do was and I started freaking out and thinking that I wasn't going to be able to do it. But little by little things started to turn around. Some of the missionaries got up the guts to go try to speak to some of the Hungarians who were waiting to get on the plane and they weren't super friendly but they were polite and thez were so confused as to whz we would trz to learn íHungarian. íI got mz companion to go with me to start talking with them too and when íi asked them what their names were thez said, "Ádám, Ádám and Gábor" and then I just wanted to burst out laughing because those were the names of the "Hungarians" we had practiced teaching in the MTC. AFter that we weren't as scared to talk with the Hungarians while we were waiting to board the plane. We met a super nice family and Sister Dinehart and I made friends with these two really friendly and nice íHungarian ladies who helped us with the language a little bit and one of them told me my pronunciation was really good. AFter the flight I gave her a pass-along-card because it was the best thing I had to give to say thank you and I bore a tiny testimony. Since then, I've been totally fine. Being here is like being in America except people are a little more....sultry and they speak Hungarian. Every day I have one or two moments where I get a little overwhelmed but then I remember how to use faith and I'm okay. To be honest, I keep waiting for something really bad to happen because I can't believe that it's so great here. I will have to tell you more about what happened when we got here later, but I'm afraid I'm going to run out of time.  

I was assigned to serve in kispest, which is close to Pest but a little more run-down. I honestly really love it. Sometimes I feel a little bit like I'm back living in down-town Baton Rouge again. Luckily smoking has never bothered me because everyone smokes here. Our apartment is in a big communist ten-story. It's old....just like Provo with slightly different toilets. Oh, and there is only one thing that bothers me about HUngary: the stoves are totally stupid. You have to light them with a match and get the gas just right. 

I love my trainer. Her name is Sister Broadhead. She is really fun and relaxed and patient. (Super awesome type 2). Yesterday I had to introduce myself in Sacrament Meeting and she helped me with my intro ahead of time so I could practice and so it went really well. Everyone was probably disappointed to find out that I can't actually speak as well as I made it sound. The women in the ward are SO nice to me. I've only met people once or twice but I hope to get to know them more soon. That is the hardest thing about not being able to speak. I just want to get to know people so badly, in the ward and especially when we're streeting and tracting. People are so great and I want to learn about them and share what I love with them because I know it can help them but it's challenging to do that when I can only say a few things. I understand a lot more than I thought I would though...or at least íi think I do. So that's good. 

We are re-opening an area where there hasn't been sisters for a month, and the area book is no help so we started out with zero investigators and we've been tracting a ton. It's really scary for me but I still really like it and I try to do some new scary things every day. So I greet people sometimes and ask them if we can do a survey and then they start talking really fast and my companion takes over. But we've been able to teach some lessons and I got to bear my testimony once about the Book of Mormon and we're going to teach that guy again and I'm really excited. 

Heavenly Father has helped me a lot. I have been able to do a lot of hard things that I would never have been able to do before. I can see now why I had to go through some of the hard things that I went through in my life before my mission and even in the MTC because it is all helping me so much now. Even though things are good, I still need your prayers to help me continue to progress and have a good attitude. Thank you for your prayers and love.

Dad, you have to come here sometime. The food is amazing. You would die.

I love you all!! Have a great week! I will prabably email around the same time next week. Always on Mondays for sure. 

Sok szeretettel, 

Naegle növér

Katelyn is flying to Hungary TODAY!

We got to talk to Katelyn on the phone for about a half hour today.  She sounds great and is really excited for tomorrow when she will finally be in Budapest.  She spoke a little Hungarian to us all on speaker phone and it is amazing to us how much she has learned in such a short period of time.  We also got to speak with some of her fellow Hungary-bound missionary friends and they seem to all be great pals.  There are 9 of them flying together: 3 sisters and 6 elders.  Their flight is 18 hours so she has a long night ahead of her.  Can't wait to get that first email!  

Ashlyn: Week four? I think...I've lost track

Hola, Mi familia y mi amigos!

Esta semana fue muy bueno! So we had a menos activo family attend church on Sunday! la familia Deniz, they're super sweet and Hna. Deniz makes the best tamales. However they only came for the first hour and then they left :( we're going to try and get them to stay for the full block.

Hno. Robledo didn't come to church again so we went over to his house  after church. Earlier that week I had been reading in Mosiah and I read Mosiah 5:15 and I felt that Hno. Robledo needed to hear it. So I talked to my companion and we decided to share it with him. Anyways the Spirit was SO strong! I told him that the gift of eternal life in the celestial kingdom is the greatest of all the gifts of God. I asked him and his family if they wanted this gift and I asked them if they wanted to be sealed to God and become like Him. And then I talked about how no one is perfect, but that's what enduring to the end is about. We just keep trying and repenting and recommitting ourselves to God. and then I asked them to think about what it is they feel they aren't doing that they should be doing. And I talked about how you don't have to suddenly become perfect, you can pick one simple thing each day to work on.  Anyways they responded really well to my lesson Hna. Robledo told me it was ''muy bonita'' and that the Spirit was really strong. So hopefully Ho. Robldo attends next Sunday. Its strange that he's inactive because one of his sons is super active with his wife and daughter (his daughter is the cutest little girl I ave ever seen and she is also the hairiest little girl I have ever seen! she has hair on her forehead and on her ears and its really long) and his other son is the ward mission leader. Apparently he doesn't get along with Hna. Gina which is really sad because they're both such great people. 

I don't remember if I talked about this last time but an inactive lady in our ward lost her mother and grandson really recently. Anyways we've been visiting her and she wants to attend the temple so that she can do the temple work for her family members! We taught her and her son (who isn't a member and is now our new investigator!) the other day and they came to church on Sunday and stayed for the entire time. She went to the temple preparation class and her son went with us to the gospel principles class. We had two investigators attend church ! the other was Rafael who has committed to baptism on the 15 of February! he's like the smartest person I have ever met. Anyways we have agreed that he will help me with my Spanish and I will teach him English. haha he's super proper, refined and very very very polite. I don't think he has ever been mean or rude in his entire life.

the family ramirez valderrama dind't attend church which we were really bummed about because they seemed so awesome. one of the Hermanas in the ward is her neighbor and we were talking to her and she said that sister ramirez valderrama is ''difficult'' I didn't understand everything but I got the impression that sister ramirez has been rather snooty and upity towads this Hermana which was weird because she was so nice to us when we taught them. So we'll see how it progresses with them. 

In church they were teaching in primary about missionaries and preach my gosple and they had all the missionaries come in. and they had the kids choose two missionaries to share their testimonies and they chose me both times (the first was with the younger primary kids and the second was with the older ones during different hours) haha I'm not sure if I shared exactly what they wanted me too but I don't think the kids were listening anyways so oh well. Last Sunday we actually taught the young women. It was really awesome I felt a little silly because some of them were 17 and I'm not that much older then them but It was really fun and the young women in our ward are awesome and there is this sweet girl who's investigating with her boyfriend or her boyfriend is a member or something but she's come twice and asked for a personal progress book and seems super interested. She doesn't live in our area and I'm a bit jealous of the Elders because she is very ready to learn about the gospel. 

Well I don't remember much else from this week. It went by super fast. Oh all the new missionaries met with Preident Wagner and it was really fun to see some of the other American Sisters! Yay for District F! you hermanas are so amazing! 

I love you all! Have an amazing week!

Hna Naegle

Katelyn: Week 8 Which is really week 9 because this is it!!

Well, I started packing last night and even though I am so sad to leave this happy little place with nice teachers to help with Hungarian and awesome devotionals every week and great friends, I am jumping to leave!!! I don't like suspense and I just want to get there and see how hard it is really going to be. I think the first week will be killer but after a few weeks hopefully I will be able to adjust. I know that I can't speak well at all, but I have a lot of faith that the Savior will help me as I try to do what is right and just open my mouth.

Just a note on Consecration Week- In my last email I probably made it sound like we could speak English anytime we tried to speak Hungarian. Allow me to clarify. We don't speak English at all unless we absolutely have to or we are translating for our companions or ourselves when we speak to the other missionaries who aren't learning Hungarian. Obviously we have certain leadership meetings and Sacrament meeting that are in English so we've had a few small breaks but it has been very hard. I have made several mistakes and spoken English, but in general I am proud of how diligent I've been with it and I know that Heavenly Father has blessed me to be able to do this. Before it started I was sure that I wouldn't be able to but after I got the blessing I felt so much better and it's been amazing. I have gotten so much better at Hungarian because of it and even though I am very excited to be finished and have a few days to speak English before we leave, I am extremely grateful that we chose to have a full Speak Your Language week because the reality is, we will be in Hungary in a few days and we need to be able to survive. 

Also, our new companion came just in time. The Lord knows our needs and there is no way I would have been able to make it through Consecration week without her. 

Well, I have to run! Thank you for your prayers! The next time I email I will be in HUNGARY! 

Jordan- thank you for taking care of my hermit crabs. I was so happy to hear that they are still alive. It means a lot to me that you are watching over them! 

Much Love, 

Naegle Nővér

Ashlyn: Week three!

HOLA! Feliz Año!

First I have to thank everyone for their prayers. This week I have seen my Spanish improve so much! Especiall my brother Jared, hey buddy keep praying! You have such strong faith!  I managed to have an entire conversation by myself with one of our menos activos yesterday while my companion was on the phone. I had to ask him to talk slower and repeat a lot but I did it!

We don't have a lot of progressing investigators but we have a ton of menos activos! We spent most of this week trying to track them all down and update the ward list. We couldn't find any of the menos actvios in Jardines de nuevo Mexico not a single one! My companion says that the earth just swallows them up to annoy us. haha. 

We had a pretty intense conversation/lesson with Luis Baltazaar, one of our investigators. We invited him to come to church on Sunday but he didn't show.  In fact none of our investigators showed up that we invited, but the menos activo family Almeida  did! Anyways Luis Baltazaar asked us an intense question. I didn't really know exactly what it was but apparently we answered it better than any other missionaries who had visited him and I shared a lot during that lesson. He says that he knows the church is true and that he has faith and all that but Hna. Leija and I were talking about it after the lesson and we both felt that he doesn't have faith and that he's scared of trusting God because he's so independent. His wife is a member and his daughter is a member. He's also scared because he doesn't want his children to serve missions and leave him. 

Well last night we visited Hno. Robledo. I love this family they are so sweet and Hno. Robledo thinks that I'm really funny and laughs a lot at my Spanish. He's really nice but he needs to get off his bum and go to church. I think that he has a lot of feelings of guilt about something, I don't know what it is but I think it has made him scared to face God and then the fact that he's been inactive for a while has added to his guilt and its just easier to sleep through church then face up to his guilt and attend. I talked a lot about faith and that the first step is scary because we don't know what's going to happen, but as we trust and follow through then our faith grows and it gets easier and easier each time. I also talked about praying and that the moments when we feel least like praying are the times when we need to fall on our knees and pray until we feel like praying. I think he really needs to talk things out with God. I didn't invite him to and I wish I would have! Next time! 

Well those are the two people who stand out most in my mind right  now.. OH yeah I remember! we taught this lady and like six little girls from the neighborhood and two of the girls were super intelligent (they live in our neighborhood and we walk past them all the time playing out in the street) anyways we hear them reciting the five principles of the gospel faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. It's awesome! And they say hi to us all the time. They pretty much adore us; its so cute! Another of the girls ran up to my companion and yelled ''mi maestra'' really loud and gave her a huge hug... I was a little bummed because all she said to me was ''hi'' but that's OK. 

Well Dad, be jealous because about twenty steps outside of our door is a tortilla shop where they make the best fresh tortillas ever and we'll buy them in the morning when they're warm and fresh and we eat them with our eggs and hotdogs which they call sanchichas (I may have spelled that wrong but that's how it sounds). Oh I forgot our cell phone got stolen on Monday and I'm pretty sure it was the kid that we contacted in the street and then followed onto the bus. Anyways We had a reference for some Elders in a different district but whose area is right next to ours and since we didn't have a phone we had to go over to their district where we ran into this really sweet lady who we had talked to last Sunday but who's in the other ward and she fed us the most delicious tacos I have ever had! I'm pretty sure I'm going to get parasites from them because I wasn't able to take that medication you sent me mom and it didn't look too sanitary but they were worth it! Oh my goodness they were SOOOO good. Anyways we had some tostatas that were divine and this dish that I dont' remember if they told us the name of it but it was weird eggy stuff covered in mole picante.  Iit was alright but the mole was a little too strong and a bit overpowering.  Well..It was a good week our ward is now at 8 am and we have to get up at 5:30 in the morning to get there on time and I may or may not have fallen asleep during ward council... I was rather embarrassed but our bishop is super nice! and the only person who gave me a hard time was Elder Juarez but he was mostly just teasing me.

Anyways I love you all and I will send some pictures in a sec... Oh and we busted our kitchen sink again.. This time we completely destroyed the faucet... We're going to have to buy a new one. this time it was a combined effort but I did start it so it was kinda of my fault... again. I'm going to have to ground my self from cleaning in the kitchen... its being held together by packing tape which isn't going to last long. 

love, 

Hermana Naegle

                                         LIMES!  Josh you asked about fruit trees.  Here's some limes and we saw a banana tree.  I have a picture of it.  These lime trees are everywhere and in one town they have a ton of lemon trees with the biggest lemons I have ever seen, like bigger than Dad's fist.

                                          My breakfast one morning.  YAY for leftover pizza
                                          and pasta. Spicy Spicy for  breakfast.

                                         A pretty butterfly that we saw the other day.

                                         The banana tree that I talked about.

                                          Pigs feet and to the right is an entire pigs' head cut in half, brains, eyes, hair and all.  Their meat places are gross.  The meat just hangs out in the open and some of it is a strange orange/yellow color and there are flies buzzing around everywhere.

And our busted faucet that we repaired with packing tape.

Katelyn: Week 7

Wow, what a week. I even brought my journal with me to the computer lab so I wouldn't forget anything. We've had a lot of changes around here. The Albanian missionaries are gone! I miss them so much more than I thought I would, but it's okay because they were so excited to leave and get  into the field. I am really good friends with some of the sisters and it was cool to watch them get ready and experience all their emotions with them. They were nervous but ready to share the gospel with the Albanian people. We said goodbye Monday night and exchanged some letters and they left us a huge pile of boxes to ship home for them. It was so funny because everyone was stressed about making weight for the plane so they were trying to get rid of a ton of things. (I am starting to feel the urge pack now so that I'll be ready to go.) After we said goodbye I was saying the prayer for our companionship prayer and I totally started crying when I thanked Heavenly Father for our fellow missionaries. They were so, so nice to us and we all helped each other through everything and I am so grateful that I got to meet them and learn from them. Some of them go to BYU and I am so excited to meet up with them when I return and maybe even be roommates!

Anyway, the very next day our new companion arrived. She was here for seven weeks earlier in 2013, but she had to go home and now she is back to finish up and depart with us to Hungary. She is really great and I am super grateful that she is here. We are able to help each other a lot with Hungarian and it is a huge relief to have her. It's nice because she really motivates me and I feel like if I don't know something I can ask her and together we can figure a lot of things out. Sister Erlandsson and I were worried about how it would be to have a 3rd companion, but it's been totally fine. 

We started "consecration week" last night. That means that we can only speak Hungarian for a week. We can speak English only if we try to say it in Hungarian first. It is very difficult. I started freaking out on Tuesday night and I thought maybe I should ask for a priesthood blessing, but I wasn't sure. But then I read in Alma (7:23) that the Lord wants us to ask for the things that we stand in need of so I went ahead and asked two of the elders if they would give me a blessing. Theyagreed and were very nice and one of the elders told me that he had had an impression the day before that I would ask him for a blessing. It was really neat. After the blessing I felt a huge sense of peace and I have been fine ever since. Speaking Hungarian is really, really, really hard, but I am having fun with it now whereas before it was terrifying. I have a testimony that priesthood blessings are a powerful gift that Heavenly Father has given us. The elder who gave me my blessing doesn't speak English incredibly well because he's from Austria, but he just listened to the spirit and went slowly and I know that everything he said was from Heavenly Father because it was exactly what I needed to hear and there is no way Elder Höferl could have known what I was going through.I am so excited to go to Hungary. I know it will be challenging, but I know that the Savior will help me. I hope you all have a wonderful week. Pray for me to be able to improve at Hungarian. I love you!
Naegle nővér

                                          Sister Naegle and Sister Singer:  best of MTC friends