Dear all,
You're all partaking in a social experiment I would like to entitle: "Let's Give Carle Nővér a Hungarian Keyboard, a Time Limit, and No Spell-Check and See How She Fares."
In other news: I maaaaddeee it to Huuungarrryyy! Woohoo! NAGY BULI ALL DAY E'RY, E'RY DAY (as long as you define nagy buli as a big party of constant prayer, scripture study, and missionary work, of course haha)
Our flight was pretty unremarkable and can be summarized in the wise words of one of the agents behind the American Airlines counter in Chicago (which I will now quote): "Wow. That's the most I've seen the pay phones used in the past twelve years."
We then arrived in Budapest having barely slept and probably smelling a little weird. I think President and his wife were really nice, and I'm pretty sure the AP's were, too, but I'm not really sure because I was basically a brain-dead-walking-zombie at this point and don't really remember much other than the immense amount of energy I put into not falling asleep when I blinked, which I'm sure was actually pretty hilarious for everyone else around me. I wrote in my journal that night, "I don't really remember what happened today--half of it felt like a dream and the other half actually was one, so I'll have to dog ear this page and remember to rewatch September 23rd, 2014 one day when I'm in heaven. Okay? Okay."
Anyways, there wasn't enough room in the mission home for all of us so they put us up in this snazzy hotel in Budapest and then we got up and they told us a lot of important things and and asked us all these questions and took these awesome ax-murder-esque pictures of us for our residency cards and had us talk to real Hungarian people which was both terrifying and entertaining. Favorite quote: "You don't make much sense or speak Hungarian very well, but you speak with heart, so I will take this Book of Mormon." Why, thank you, semi-kind Hungarian man.
Anyways, then we met our trainers and were assigned to an area (wooohhoo!) a meeting appropriately named, "The Sorting Hat Ceremony." My first area (*drumroll please*) is in Szeged with Moffatt Nővér! This is awesome for LOTS of reasons that I don't have time to go into today, buuut one of them is that I get to be one of the six missionaries to open a fancy-smancy brand-new branch house in Szeged! They've been renting since the 90's and this one is church-owned, so this is a Pretty Big Deal. I'm pretty stoked, not going to lie.
Moffatt Nővér is the best. Honestly. Example A: we get out of the meeting, give the zone leaders my bags to take in the car back to Szeged, and head over to the train station to catch the train to our area. We have about an hour before the train comes, so Moffatt Nővér looks at me and goes, "Want to go to the mall?" And I go "...can we do that?" And she goes, "Oh, honey, we're not in the MTC anymore--it's going to be okay." Bahahaha, the life of a zöldi (aka a greenie)
After the train ride, we arrive in Szeged. And go STRAIGHT to our first lesson. We go from the train, to the bus, to this building that's ten stories tall and take the sketchiest elevator of all the elevators to ever exist (well, excluding the Tower of Terror, of course) to the top floor and at this point I'm freaking out and we go to this door and knock on this door and THE DOOR IS OPENED and there he is--my first real investigator. And we go in. And we teach him (well, Moffatt Nővér teaches him) and it was terrifying and crazy and all in Hungarian and I DEFINITELY DID NOT understand everything---but there I was. In the top floor of a building in this tiny back room of this little apartment in Szeged, Hungary. Talking to this man who had so little, but kept his free copy of the Book of Mormon in a safe plastic case in plain sight because it was clear it was important to him. And we read with him in Nephi and he looked straight at us and said, "So the Book of Mormon...is like my own Liahona?" And I understood why. Why I was gross and tired and away from home and couldn't understand anything.
For moments like that.
Love you all, miss you all! Hope you have a fantasimagical week that blows all the other weeks away.
Tudom hogy a Mormon könyve igaz!
Szeretet mindig,
Carle Nővér
You're all partaking in a social experiment I would like to entitle: "Let's Give Carle Nővér a Hungarian Keyboard, a Time Limit, and No Spell-Check and See How She Fares."
In other news: I maaaaddeee it to Huuungarrryyy! Woohoo! NAGY BULI ALL DAY E'RY, E'RY DAY (as long as you define nagy buli as a big party of constant prayer, scripture study, and missionary work, of course haha)
Our flight was pretty unremarkable and can be summarized in the wise words of one of the agents behind the American Airlines counter in Chicago (which I will now quote): "Wow. That's the most I've seen the pay phones used in the past twelve years."
We then arrived in Budapest having barely slept and probably smelling a little weird. I think President and his wife were really nice, and I'm pretty sure the AP's were, too, but I'm not really sure because I was basically a brain-dead-walking-zombie at this point and don't really remember much other than the immense amount of energy I put into not falling asleep when I blinked, which I'm sure was actually pretty hilarious for everyone else around me. I wrote in my journal that night, "I don't really remember what happened today--half of it felt like a dream and the other half actually was one, so I'll have to dog ear this page and remember to rewatch September 23rd, 2014 one day when I'm in heaven. Okay? Okay."
Anyways, there wasn't enough room in the mission home for all of us so they put us up in this snazzy hotel in Budapest and then we got up and they told us a lot of important things and and asked us all these questions and took these awesome ax-murder-esque pictures of us for our residency cards and had us talk to real Hungarian people which was both terrifying and entertaining. Favorite quote: "You don't make much sense or speak Hungarian very well, but you speak with heart, so I will take this Book of Mormon." Why, thank you, semi-kind Hungarian man.
Anyways, then we met our trainers and were assigned to an area (wooohhoo!) a meeting appropriately named, "The Sorting Hat Ceremony." My first area (*drumroll please*) is in Szeged with Moffatt Nővér! This is awesome for LOTS of reasons that I don't have time to go into today, buuut one of them is that I get to be one of the six missionaries to open a fancy-smancy brand-new branch house in Szeged! They've been renting since the 90's and this one is church-owned, so this is a Pretty Big Deal. I'm pretty stoked, not going to lie.
Moffatt Nővér is the best. Honestly. Example A: we get out of the meeting, give the zone leaders my bags to take in the car back to Szeged, and head over to the train station to catch the train to our area. We have about an hour before the train comes, so Moffatt Nővér looks at me and goes, "Want to go to the mall?" And I go "...can we do that?" And she goes, "Oh, honey, we're not in the MTC anymore--it's going to be okay." Bahahaha, the life of a zöldi (aka a greenie)
After the train ride, we arrive in Szeged. And go STRAIGHT to our first lesson. We go from the train, to the bus, to this building that's ten stories tall and take the sketchiest elevator of all the elevators to ever exist (well, excluding the Tower of Terror, of course) to the top floor and at this point I'm freaking out and we go to this door and knock on this door and THE DOOR IS OPENED and there he is--my first real investigator. And we go in. And we teach him (well, Moffatt Nővér teaches him) and it was terrifying and crazy and all in Hungarian and I DEFINITELY DID NOT understand everything---but there I was. In the top floor of a building in this tiny back room of this little apartment in Szeged, Hungary. Talking to this man who had so little, but kept his free copy of the Book of Mormon in a safe plastic case in plain sight because it was clear it was important to him. And we read with him in Nephi and he looked straight at us and said, "So the Book of Mormon...is like my own Liahona?" And I understood why. Why I was gross and tired and away from home and couldn't understand anything.
For moments like that.
Love you all, miss you all! Hope you have a fantasimagical week that blows all the other weeks away.
Tudom hogy a Mormon könyve igaz!
Szeretet mindig,
Carle Nővér