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
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