Naegle Nover: thumb-times things get "ruff"

Tuesday, which just so happened to be Mardi Gras, which just so happens to be one of my favorite holidays, was the start to a rather sad week. The very first significant thing that happened was that as I was reaching into the cupboard for a measuring cup to make breakfast with, some random shot glass that was in there fell out and shattered. Sister Curtin walked in to see if everything was okay and when I explained she just laughed and said, "Well, it can only get better from here."

She was wrong.

That day we had several hours of finding to do so we decided to wander out into an area of kispest that we had never worked in before. We had had little success for a two or three hours when we started ringing doorbells in a neighborhood. We made our way down the first street, and took turns, as usual, talking to people. In Hungary it's really common to ring the doorbell at the gate and people will either walk all the way to the gate or have you shout up at them at the door or at a window. We approached one house, rang the doorbell, and after a little bit a girl opened the window. At the same time, a large lab-sized dog started barking very loudly. It was my turn to introduce us, so I tried to speak to the girl but the dog kept jumping up (there was a fence between us) and barking and she couldn't hear. I was trying to think about what I was saying in Hungarian, and I absent-mindedly made an attempt to climb up on the cement-bottom of the fence to try to get a little higher than the dog so she could hear me. I reached out my hand in order to brace myself against the fence and I started to speak again to the the girl but before I even knew what was happening I felt a sudden shot of pain in my hand and I couldn't speak anymore. I realized then that the dog had jumped up and was chewing my thumb. I screamed and screamed hoping that someone would help me but when I looked up at the girl she just gave me a "that's what you get" look and then I knew for sure that I was doomed. Luckily, however, the dog stopped and I was left with a very sad, bleeding thumb. At the time I was totally terrified that it would have nerv damage and I wouldn't be able to play violin anymore because there was so much blood that I couldn't see it very well and I was a little bit in shock. But I had the presence of mind to keep rotating my hand so that the blood would drip on the sidewalk and not get on my jacket or white skirt. So I don't think I was too messed up, just really spooked. The owner came out and she was very kind and wiped up the blood with a towel and they
sort of bandaged it up. My companion called the mission president and we were told to go to Buda where there is a very good doctor's office that the mission uses. It took us a long time to get there because we were so far out, and the tram broke down once, but other than that everything went really smoothly. Sister Curtin randomly had hand sanitizer with her, so we squirted that all over it and even though it hurt like the dickens, it was cold so it kind of felt good too. The owner was very cordial about the whole thing and said that she had all the papers to prove that the dog had received all his shots and the wound so far isn't infected and the bone wasn't broken. It hurt really bad the first two days, but now it's just kind of a dull throb all the time and it's not a problem unless I think about it. I am learning to appreciate thumbs now. Every-day tasks like washing hair and getting dressed are significantly slower without one. But my companion is very nice and patient and does all the dishes. So, the good news is that I don't have to do dishes, we got to go into Buda a bunch of times this past week (which is my favorite place in the whole world, except for home of course), and I got to meet a bunch of nice Hungarian doctors and nurses. Oh, and Sister Smith brought me my package that night so I got to open it a few days early.
The bad news is that we got dogged nine times this week and because of all the doctors visits we weren't able to do all the work that we should have. However, we did get to meet with a really cool investigator named Attila who is a fireman. He showed us the fire department and it was awesome. We just started meeting with him and we're really hopeful that he will progress quickly because he met with missionaries a few years ago and was just forgotten until we found him in the area book. We also meet with a super cute Chinese girl who doesn't speak Hungarian very well. So we gave her a Chinese Book of Mormon and it's funny because we're all speaking in a language that is not our mother tongue. The best news of the week is that Laci came to church. We were thinking that he wouldn't because he didn't really like church last time and he feels weird there, but we've been praying for miracles and we left for church yesterday and looked down the street and there he was, walking towards us. I looked up at the sky with a big grin and said, "Thanks!". Well, actually I didn't because we were speaking only Hungarian outside the apartment yesterday. So I actually just smiled really big and thought it in my head.

Yesterday was the best Sunday I've ever had in Hungary. For one thing, I think Laci had a good experience. He had a great conversation with a churchmember, and he really liked the talks. At one point a little girl came up to him and threw all these wooden puzzle pieces into his lap and we all started giggling because it was so funny. And then everyone was making fun of me afterwards because I kept falling asleep but I think it's good for investigators to see that we're all imperfect people just trying to do our best and they don't need to be perfect to live the gospel or be part of our church. I prayed really hard that morning to feel loved by the members and I was able to have two conversations all by myself with churchmembers and people were just extra warm and loving to me, and I knew Heavenly Father was answering my prayer.
So, we had a very poor week as far as numbers go, but we learned a lot and were really blessed in other ways. In the lessons that we did teach, I had the opportunity to lead out in a lot of them and that was a really cool experience for me to be able to actually do some real teaching in Hungarian. I realized this week that I am almost 1/4 of the way done with my mission and so even though the future can seem daunting, I know it's really only a very short time that I have to be here. We went back yesterday to the dog's house and gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon, with a pamphlet and a letter that I wrote saying thanks for being so nice and sending the immunization papers so promptly. Who knows if anything will come of it, but
if nothing else, I will always have some nice scars on my thumb to remind me of my mission and that God is always with us, even during the "ruff" days.

Much Love,

Naegle nővér