#2 Kecskemét: Catching the Long View

This week has been absolutely crazy... But busy and awesome!




Let's start with the thing most on my mind. Yesterday was stake conference (regional conference for members of the church in Hungary) and on the way to the train station my bike tire blew out while I took a corner and I sprained my right wrist. Honestly its the worst! I've had a sprained ankle a few times but the wrist is much worse because you use your right hand for literally everything! After stake conference in Budapest we rode back to Kecskemét. It hurt so much and it was so swollen we wanted to see if it was broken.

Let me start by saying that Eastern European hospitals are terrifying! They kind of look like slaughter houses, and next to the iron maidens they have scary signs in Hungarian (it also turns out that Dracula would have spoken Hungarian, so yeah!). Okay it wasn't that bad but it was still stereotypical post soviet. They took and x-ray and it was not broken, so they prescribed some ointment to help the swelling and soften the tissues. The best part was it only cost 25$.

That is the thing that really surprises me about Hungary, everything is inexpensive. On last Monday I bought this awesome coat, its probably the warmest coat I've ever had. I love it but the best part was that in the US it would have been quite expensive but I got it for 25000 forint, which is about 95$. Food and travel are pretty in expensive too. 

On Monday we hiked to the top of the only hill in Kecskemét. Kecskemét is so flat, and this hill was made from dirt that came from when they dug a big lake. The view is so cool. 

This week we also traveled to some of the smaller towns/villages that are about 15 minutes by train. We went to Nagykőrös and Hetényegyháza. It is fun to track there (knock on doors). Every house has a dog, some louder than others. Some parts of these villages make you feel like you have traveled back in time 50 years. It's quite an experience. 

One of the people we are teaching, who has set a baptismal date, accepted our invitation to keep the word of wisdom this week. (The Word of Wisdom is the dietary commandments received by revelation through Joseph Smith the prophet and founder of our church. Learn more about it here) It was cool because for the most part I taught the whole lesson, but Elder Martin had to answer most of the questions. 

I'm learning a lot and I can understand a little bit more, but still not much. Hungarian is so difficult! I just need to remember to be patient with myself and realize that I've been here less than 2 weeks. I have a lot of time to learn and get better. 

I'm doing good. Yesterday made me very tired but I'm happy I'm here. It feels good to be working hard and to be in Europe. I love you all so much, and I cant wait to here from you next week!



From Elder Martin's Mission Blog:

Elder Morgan took a little tumble on his bike so we went to the hospital to check out his wrist. Nothing is broken, but we are being careful with it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

#11 Buda: The Nebraska Connection

Image
I've been pretty sick this week, again, I've had a couple different colds over the last several weeks. The one I have now is really really really mean! Because I am a missionary I don't have very much time to rest so I haven't gotten much better. Today I'm going to call my mom and complain to her about being sick, just kidding. All the senior couples in the office are giving me suggestions to help me get better which is kind of interesting. (Ted was drinking a fresh ginger root tea when we were on our video call with him, apparently one of the suggestions of the senior couples.) Despite being sick, this week was pretty awesome! We had an exchange with the Zone leaders in Dunaújváros this week. Elder Jameson and I worked on companionship unity and teaching lesson 4. We found a few new investigators, and taught a returning member the word of wisdom. It was probably the best day of my year so far, mainly because Elder Jameson is awesome, and I got to be outside doi
Read more

#2 Pest: Lo Kolbász! (horse sausage)

Image
Horse Sausage Yup, I bought horse sausage today! Welcome to Hungary. We did get food poisoning this week, but not from the horse sausage. We were poisoned after eating a meal we ate at a new members home this week. Fun times! It’s all part of missionary work. We ran out of food yesterday, so I dipped into my food supply from my care package and we made the Bear Creek Jambalaya from my last care package and we LOVED it. We definitely want more of that kind of thing in the next care package. I'm doing good, but it's been a crazy week, we have been just working and talking to people like crazy. It's been a little frustrating because tones of people have been "dogging" our appointments but its okay because it's just part of missionary work! Speaking of a missionary work... What's in a Missionary's Life? Here's a fun description of a day in the life of a Mormon Missionary, from my companion Elder Fales: https://drive.google.
Read more

#4 Nyíregyháza: Debrecen is a Cool City

Image
This week sort of flew by. The miracle of this week was for sure our lesson with Zoltán. He became a new investigator last week, but this week we had our first real lesson with him. We did a lot of good and taught him about the Book of Mormon and how to get a testimony of spiritual things. He is a very religious man and he said that he is a real truth seeker and wants to know if what we have is true. At the end of the lesson he was asking us about how to repent because he said that it’s hard to learn about it in the bible. We told him that he will find answers to his questions, as he reads the Book of Mormon, prays, meets with us and comes to church. I hope tomorrow’s lesson goes well. A lot of our investigator lessons fell through this week, so we did a lot of look ups and meeting with members. We shared messages about how we can use the blessings of the gospel in our lives to invite people to partake of the fruits of the gospel. I guess you could say it was the “come and see”
Read more