Sister Sholly, and I with (AP Carter Elder) Santa.

One of the super beautiful cathedrals in Székes.

These are pictures of The Balaton. The largest lake in Hungary. These are actually not super great pictures because we were taking them from a moving train. We went to Siófok which is a city by the Balaton and so we took pictures of it on the way there. Hopefully we can actually make a trip to the Balaton sometime soon and take good pictures from the beach.

My companion and I were walking down the street the other day (one of the main streets in Székesfehérvár and all of a sudden we hear a few motorcycles and we didn't think anything about it untill we saw this.

Missionary Christmas conference it was wonderful.

A beautiful view from Michaela's apartment

I bought myself a basketball hoop... Merry Christmas to me...

The guy in the middle is a member here in Székesfehérvár. Saturday, he left Hungary to travel to the United States, he will be working on the Carnival Cruise Ship ( I don't know where- obviously somewhere in the ocean). We were sooo excited for him. It's his first time being in America. He will do so great. He will work for the cruise ship for eight months and then come back to Hungary for a two month break, then if he liked it, he will go back for another eight months. He was a super solid guy, and he will do great things in America!

Sensational Christmas lights of Székesfehérvár

Christmas in the belváros

Funny Pictures from our Mikulás büli

Krisztián's baptism!  It was a good day (: We're so proud of him!

Happy Saint Nicholas (Mikulás) Day from the missionaries in Székesfehérvár!

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Holy cow! Things are so busy! Sorry for last week that I didn't send out a blog email. I was a little short on time, but everything is good here in Székesfehérvár! My companion and I are definitely staying busy with our investigators, while still getting in some finding.

We had a baptism this last week, it was one of the Elder's investigators, and he's probably one of the sweetest guys I've met here in Hungary. I kind of want to put him in my pocket and take him everywhere I go. It was really neat to go his baptism and feel the special spirit there.

Christmas is getting closer and closer and you can definitely tell by walking down in the belváros here in Székes. There are Christmas booths everywhere selling Christmas gifts, food, and Hungarian's personal favorite: hot wine. Yeah, that's popular here. The other day we were walking in the belváros and there are stages set up everywhere, on one of the stages there were Hungarian fok dancers. That was really cool to watch, because I had never seen them, but they were super good and most of them...actually all of them... were all younger than me. They definitely had a really good skill.

Saturday was a Hungarian Holiday. They call it Saint Nicholas (Mikulás) Day. It's essentially just a gift-giving day. The night before, children put their boots in the windowsill and if they were a good they wake up with chocolate and other treats in their boots. If they were bad, they get  sticks and onions in their boots. Funny, huh? Saturday night we had a Mikulás Büli as a branch. Elder Whiting was Mikulás and the other missionaries were well...I'll just let you look at the pictures and you can see for yourself (: Anyways it was a pretty good week.

Love you all,

Whitaker Nővér

Oh man...embarrasing moment of the week. So one of our investigators took us to this coffee shop (we drink hot chocoate) a couple weeks ago and there was a guy there who spoke English, and of course we love when we find people who can speak English. So we went back this week to try to talk to this guy more about English class. We walk up to the door and the hours on the door say Nyitás: Szombat 09-02 It was well after 2:00 . Sister Schoor and I looked at each other and we were like, "oh man, they're not open." But then we pushed on the door and it opened. There were people in there, and we were wondering if there was a mistake on the sign or something. So we sit down and the same guy, who we talked to last week, came around the corner. We asked him if they were open and he said "of course, we're open. There's people in here, isn't there?" We told him that we saw the sign on the door and it said that they're only open until two.  He said back to us, "yeah.... that's what it says..." we kind of just pushed it off to the side because it really wasn't important, but then after we drank our hot chocolate we told him we wanted to show him the sign so he follows us to the door and we show him and say "look, it says until 2:00!" Then he looks at us and says, "Yeah, we're open until 2:00, 2:00 in the morning..." Oh man, did we feel like idiots. Even above that it said that on the weekdays they're open until 24:00. I always forget that Hungary works on military time. See...like I said in last weeks email, sometimes I forget that I'm in Hungary. Is that weird. Anyway, so we kind of made fools out of ourselves with that, but we talked to him about English Class...hopefully he comes!

We went bowling with some members and investigators. It was a fun.

This is the Belváros of Székesfehérvár. Pretty soon it will be decorated with Christmas lights and decorations. It will be a beautiful sight.

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Transfer week! AKA chaos week! Oh man, I absolutely love transfer week! People are moving everywhere and it tends to get a little hectic but hey, it's part of the mission experience!

I am happy to say that I will be staying in Székesfehérvár! I am super happy about that. It will be awesome to stay here with my investigators and this wonderful branch! On the other hand though, I am sad to have to say goodbye to Sister Schnoor. She, indeed, will be leaving, but the city she is going to is absolutely stunning. I have been there many times and she will absolutely love it! I have no doubt that her and her companion will do great work there! My new companion will be Sister Sholly, who happened to be Sister Schnoor's companion before me. They talk very often so I feel like I almost know her through Sister Schnoor but I am way excited to work with her. Sister Sholly is in the group beneath me, so I will be going senior. It will definitely make me stretch but I think it will be good for me. This week has so much in store, I can hardly wait.

As far as what's going on in Székes-lands. We had a good week this week. Our landlord came over and painted our apartment so aside from having all the windows open, freezing our butts offf, trying not to get high from the fumes, times in our apartment were fun.

We had a really unique experience, and it actually just started out with a phone call. While we were emailing last week, we got a phone call from someone who said that they heard that they could receive a DVD about happiness from us and that he was interested in receiving such a DVD. We set up a time to meet later in the week, and when we did he ended up being a super nice man. We first talked to him about what we are doing here in Hungary and what our calls as "missionaries" mean. We continued to talk to him about how our church was restored on this earth and how we believe that we can find happiness in this life. We watched the "Finding Happiness" video with him, and he really liked it. We were hoping that we could meet with him again, but at the end of our lesson he said that he wasn't really interested in meeting again but "maybe we could get together sometime later and pray together." We were a little bummed out when he said he didn't want to meet again, because he seemed to accept everything we taught him.

Then on Sunday we walk into church and guess who is sitting in the congregation? The same guy! He stayed for two of the three meetings we had, and he really like them! The speakers who spoke on Sunday did SUCH a good job. I couldn't have asked for a better sacrament meeting to take a first-time investigator to. It was such a good meeting and I felt the spirit so strong!  Sunday evening we got a text from him saying that he would like to meet with us again so we scheduled another meeting Monday (yesterday). We met with him and it went really well, he asked a lot of good questions and we had a good chat. At the end Sister Schnoor asked him if he would be baptized if he knew the church was true and he said yes. We didn't give him an exact date, but when he said "yes." Sister Schnoor and I had the widest grins on our faces. We were so happy!. We scheduled to meet with him again this week, so hopefully we can give him a more specific date.  It's truly a wonderful thing how God puts people in our path and vise-versa so they have an opportunity to accept this wonderful gospel.

I'm super grateful for the opportunity to meet with all the wonderful people here in Székesfehérvár. Everyone we meet with is super nice and willing to help these two struggling girls speak Hungarian. Oh goodness. It's so fun because we speak so much HUNglish in our lessons, especially when people English.

Oh man...embarrasing moment of the week. So one of our investigators took us to this coffee shop (we drink hot chocoate) a couple weeks ago and there was a guy there who spoke English, and of course we love when we find people who can speak English. So we went back this week to try to talk to this guy more about English class. We walk up to the door and the hours on the door say Nyitás: Szombat 09-02 It was well after 2:00 . Sister Schoor and I looked at each other and we were like, "oh man, they're not open." But then we pushed on the door and it opened. There were people in there, and we were wondering if there was a mistake on the sign or something. So we sit down and the same guy, who we talked to last week, came around the corner. We asked him if they were open and he said "of course, we're open. There's people in here, isn't there?" We told him that we saw the sign on the door and it said that they're only open until two.  He said back to us, "yeah.... that's what it says..." we kind of just pushed it off to the side because it really wasn't important, but then after we drank our hot chocolate we told him we wanted to show him the sign so he follows us to the door and we show him and say "look, it says until 2:00!" Then he looks at us and says, "Yeah, we're open until 2:00, 2:00 in the morning..." Oh man, did we feel like idiots. Even above that it said that on the weekdays they're open until 24:00. I always forget that Hungary works on military time. See...like I said in last weeks email, sometimes I forget that I'm in Hungary. Is that weird. Anyway, so we kind of made fools out of ourselves with that, but we talked to him about English Class...hopefully he comes!

That was just a few things that happend this week. It was a good week to say the least.

I hope everything is well with you all, I love you all so much!

Oh, HAPPY THANKSGIVING  and Vigyazz a Fekete Péntekre (becareful on Black Friday--people get pretty vicious).

Szeretlek benneteket,

Whitaker Nővér

A nonmember they are teaching.

Here are some statues at the castle

 Here is us on the highest point of the castle overlooking Székesfehér

Here is Michaela and her companion sitting under an arch at the castle.

Look who did Transferology (played off of Genealogy), I took all the missionaries and put them in cities and companionship's according to what I think will happen. It took forever and they're probably all wrong, but hey...I tried. Shout out to my trainer Sister Sexton for teaching me how to do Transferology

More pictures of the castle. I told Michaela they must be big time into castles over there and indeed they are,

The courtyard of the castle

We went to Bory Vár which is a castle in Székesfehérvár. It was actually built by a man for his wife, now it's a castle.

Look who we found at Stake Conference--Elder Ehardt, one of our fellow MTC elders.

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Sziasztok Mindenki!

What's good in the United States? Not going to lie, sometimes I walk down the street with Sister Schnoor and we have to stop and say to ourselves, "woah, we're in Hungary." You'd think that being here for six months (six months, whaaa??) would be normal but every now and then it still takes me back that I'm a whole ocean away from my family and friends. Then I think of the sacrafice that Jesus Christ made for me and these people in Hungary and I think it's all worth it.

We had a pretty good week here in Székesfehérvár.
Tuesday the sister training leaders (older sisters in the mission) came to Székes and we went on splits. That was a lot of fun. We split up our programs and had a good day. I learned a lot from the STLs. It's always to go on splits with them and see how they do missionary work, because even though missionary work is pretty "standard," it's really not. Everybody has their own way of finding, and teaching. I learn a lot from everyone who I go on splits with and it's always a good time.
Then on Wednesday afternoon, we rode a train back to Budapest with the STLs because we had interviews with President Smith. Interviews were good. During my interview President told me that 70% of the missionaries in the Hungary Budapest Mission came just this year--consequently, there will be some missionaries who will need to fill some important leadership spots maybe more earlier than they had wanted to. Basically, that was just a shout out to me and my companion that we might be going senior this next transfer. Now this is just me making assumptions and I should be smart enough to know that usually when I make assumptions 99.9% of the time they're wrong, but who knows. We will see in ten days! After our interviews we went back to the train station to catch a train back to Székes...well if you remember what happened last time when we tried to get home (we ended up in the wrong town) we were super skeptical about which train we needed to get on and what if the same thing happens as last time and we don't make it back home in time. We bought our ticket and were running around the platforms asking people where this train was (people were definitely starring and laughing at us). We found the train and jumped on, only to find that all the lights were off and that neither Sister Schnoor or I knew this particular layout of a train so then we were definitely sketched out. We jumped off and stood by the train, looking like confused foreigners (woah! we were!). All of a sudden a young guy comes walking towards us and I just thought to myself, "this is the 10th guy we've asked about our train ticket, what's one more..." so I go up to him and ask him if this train will go to Székes. Turns out he was on his way to Székes too and he told us that, "yes, that is indeed the train you need to be on." Schnoor and I hop on the train again thank him for his help. We're about to take our seats and see that this man who had helped us was still walking behind us. We sat down and he asked if he could sit with us.  We were super happy that he asked, because we DID NOT want to miss our stop...plus I think he could see the fear on our faces and just wanted to make sure that we got to Székes. Turns out his name is Marcel and he is going to school to be a lawyer, and he goes to Budapest everyday for his job, so he knew the route real good. He also spoke English, probably the best of any Hungarian that I've met so far, so we ended up talking the whole train ride home about well...everything. It was so cool. We were talking just about Hungary and all of  a sudden this young guy who was sitting in the room next to us comes over and starts talking to Marcel. Schnoor and I both thought that Marcel knew this guy, who came over and started talking to him about everything we had been talking about for the past twenty minutes (eavesdropper? ha.). This other guy goes and gets his stuff and plopps down right next to me and starts talking with us. He too spoke English and he was also from Székes. His name was Debrenceni, which is actually really funny because here in Hungary if you were born in Debrecen, you call yourself a "Debrenci" so we just thought it was funny that this guy's name was Debrenci. He was quite an interesting character but we still had a good chat. They were both super nice to make sure we got off at the right stop and afterwards they helped us get on the right bus. It was super nice of them, we actually gave both of them English Class flyers and told them if they ever wanted to practice their near-to-perfect english, that we would love to have them at English Class. You really find finding opportunites everywhere. It's pretty amazing. Thursday, (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! I LOVE YOU!)  we had a program with an RC (recent-convert). It was more or less a visiting teaching program but it was super good. This RC has had a lot of struggles in her life and I think she just wanted someone to talk to. She opened up to us a lot and told us about the things that are hard for her and her family right now. It was nice because we were able to share a few scriptures with her that really applied to what she is dealing with right now, and those scriptures brought great peace and comfort to her. Thursday night we had Angol Ora. Angol ora is just a blast, we get to teach people English and teach about the gospel at the same time!

Friday we had zone training. We traveled to Dunaújváros this time. It's about an hour bus ride from Székes. Sister Schnoor greenied (that was her first city) there so she went down memory lane going back to Duna. It was a good training. We talked about getting our investigators to come to church, which is actually unbelievably hard. Especially because Hungarians work schedules can be a little crazy and rarely are they ever consistant but they change every week. Plus, they don't just work eight hours at a time, but some work twelve....even some fourteen. It's a super crazy schedule, and when they are off they are usually sleeping so they can receive enough rest to go the next night, but our zone leaders did give us other ways that maybe we can get some of our investigators to come, we will be trying those all throughout the week. After the training we all went out to lunch and I got to chat with my last companion in Pápa, Sister Kovács, along with other missionaries who I served around. It was a good time. Afterwards we hopped on a bus and came back to Székes. It made for a long, tiring day.

Saturday we had a pretty good day, We had a few programs. One of our programs was with this really cool guy who is in the Hungarian Army. His name is Bence and he's pretty legit. He speaks English really well, and we met him a few weeks ago streeting in the belváros. We have met with him only a few times before and he has taken everything we have taught about the gospel really well. Then on Saturday we met with him and he told us that he had one problem with the Book of Mormon. Sister Schnoor and I were ready to take on whatever he had. He said, "Can I show you my problem with the Book of Mormon." Glady... he opened to the very back and showed us the barcode on the last page and said, "this is my problem with this book." Then continued to explain to us how that is on all chocolate bars and cans of pop and well everything that is marketable. "It's just a way to get money out of people," he said. I actually couldn't help but giggle inside, we explained to him that it comes out of a distribution center and that the money that is used to print the Book of Mormon is from tithes from members of the chuch and it's not just a book you can find in any shop window, but he was very insistant that since it had a barcode people could take it that way. "Maybe you should talk to your boss and tell him that you need a different tracking identity for these books..." Okay Bence, we'll just call up the first presidency to get that fixed for you. We don't give The Book of Mormon out for any cost, we give it to people for free. Why should people have to pay for God's word? I'm not sure if he was convinced, but he said that he kind of felt cheated that we told him that the Book of Mormon was from God but all of a sudden he found a barcode in the back. The actual Book isn't from God, it's the words contained within the book. We will see where he goes from here. Let's see we held  Angol Ora again. Guess who came....Marcel...the lawyer who we met on the train on the way back from Budapest. It was so cool that he came! He came into our kezdő class, just because he knew us, but afterwards I talked to him and he knew everything that we taught so next time he said he will try the profi class. He's totally capable, he's a smart guy. Not too much happened on Saturday, really.

Sunday we had stake conference. Stake conference was so cool. Right now there is only one stake in Hungary, but we are working hard to establish a second stake. As it is now though, there is one and we all traveled up to Pest to go. We met as a district (with the elders) and our investigators (total seven) and headed up to Pest. When we got there and got to the stake building there were people EVERYONE. There were seventy missionaries and their investigators there and a couple hundred members there. It's safe to say that it was full. There were some A.M.A.Z.I.N.G talks there. I wish I would have take notes, all I did though was write a few quotes that I liked. Here a just a few:

"Truth both saves and condems." Those who apply and act on the truth they receive they can receive many blessings and open many doors. On the other hand those who reject the truth or go against it, it can cause a number of consequences.

"An attitude of gratitude prepares the heart to receive the truth." If we are grateful for the things we have and experience we are much more willing to receive truth into our lives.

On Sunday they just called a new stake presidency for the Budapest Hungary Stake. One of the speakers were talking about the newly called presidency and he just happen to notice the beautiful flower arrangement on the pulpit. He reached down and picked one of the roses out of the arrangment. Continuing his talk he said, "Look at this rose, it's healthy, it's beautiful. This rose has no flaw. Right?" I'm not a florist, but hey what he was saying sounded right. Then he said, "Now, if we put this rose under a microscope you know what it would look like..." he paused a moment and then said, "It would be hideous." It was so funny, because previously he was talking about the newly called presidency and after he made the statement about the rose being ugly under the microscope, he turned around and looked at the newly called presidency (by the way, the new stake president is American. He served his mission here in Hungary, and came back and married a Hungarian women. He's been a bishop in Budapest for a while now, but now he's the stake president. Cool, huh?) and said, "You know where this is going." He went on to compare the macro image of the beautiful rose to our macro image of the newly called stake presidency. Sometimes we expect people who are called to the stake presidency to be perfect, but really, they have faults too and we don't know everything about them but they too have struggles in their life. We cannot hold them to an unrealistic standard and expect them to be faultless in their work. Then he went on to tell us not to do the same to ourselves, he said, "Don't put yourself under the microscope, your best is enough." That was comforiting to me, because being a missionary is hard but I know as long as I do my best that everything will work out and God knows that I put all my heart into his work.

It was just such a good day to see everybody. I saw a bunch of people from the other cities where I served. It was so good to be able to actually talk to them and understand them. Plus I got to catch up with a lot of other missionaries I served around. It was like a huge reunion. Everyone was everywhere and we just had a blast talking to everyone. I got to see the Shirleys again, I love that family so much! It was a good day!

Well, that was my week. Crazy like usual, but I'm not complaining one bit! I hope everything is well with all of you! I love you all so much!

Szeretlek titeket.

Whitaker Nővér

In Hungary as in a lot of countries instead of celebrating Halloween they celebrate the Day of the Dead to honor those that have passed.

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Wow, this week was exhausting! Sister Schnoor and I finished the week with twenty-one programs. It's safe to say that we were running everywhere this week and I absolutely LOVED it. It made for a long week but meeting with our investigators and seeing them progress towards baptism makes it all worth it.

We had really good programs this week, and we managed to get a few referrals from some of the members and even from other investigators. One of the recently baptized members suggested that we start meeting with her boyfriend and we ended up having two really good programs with him this week. It went really well, and one of them she was able to be there and give her own testimony of the gospel. I really could feel the spirit strongly and I hope that her boyfriend will feel the sweet influence and spirit she brings to our programs. One of our new investigators that we met last week, while emailing, wanted to set up with us so we had a program with him at this really rendes (classy) hot chocolate place. He is pretty much the nicest guy ever, he speaks english pretty well, but he wants to practice it, as he is trying to find a better job where he can speak english more so when he learned that we teach english he was jumping up and down over the opportunity to meet with us. We meet him in the belváros (downtown) and he says he would like to invite us out for hot chocolate, we accepted his invitation and we started walking with him. I'm not joking when I say this guy must have said hi to twenty people on this ten minute walk to kaféház. He knows everyone! We get to the coffee house and of course he knows all the people working there.We had a really good program with him, and afterwards he asks us if he can do anything to help us and told us how if we would like sometime he can give us a tour of Székesfehérvár and tell us all the history of the buildings (sidenote: Székesfehérvár used to the capital city of Hungary before Budapest). There is a lot of neat history in this town. He randomly asked us if we wanted to learn how to folk dance because he knows of a good place to take folk dancing lessons. We thought that was super funny. All in all, he was super nice and we set up with him again in the same week. We met at the branch house on Sunday and he surprised us and brought us hot chocolate from McDonalds (mekizni- to go to McDonalds--funny hungarian word). That lesson went well too. We are excited and we think he has a lot of potential in the gospel, so cross your fingers!

Oh goodness, funny story for the week, we call this guy out of the area book who met with the missionaries a few months ago but then stopped because of his crazy schedule, so I call him and I ask him if we could meet with him and to my surprise he says, "yes, when would be good for you?" We set up a specific time and he says, "great, I'll be there." The day comes when we scheduled with him and about an hour before we were supposed to meet with him he calls us and says, "Hey, to tell you the truth, I am actually in Jerusalem for work and I won't be back until the middle of November but you were too sweet to say no to, but then I realized that it wouldn't be possible to meet, so maybe we can meet when I get back..." HAHA. I almost died laughing! I cracked a little giggle and said, "Yes, call us when you get back to Hungary. :P "

Thursday, we had the senior couple from Budapest, the Broadheads, come to Székes to teach our members, and investigators about family history. We scheduled it when we have Angol Ora on Thursdays and turns out a lot of our English Class came to it too and found it really interesting. That was really neat. They did such a good job and I was surprised at how intrigued and interested everyone was about it. Afterwards, some people even went up to the Broadheads and asked them additonal questions about Family History.

I can't really think of anything else, we just had a crazy busy week with all of our programs and all of them went really well.

This coming week will be very busy. We have splits coming up tomorrow, then on Wednesday we will go up to Budapest for interviews with President, and then on Friday we will have zone training in Dunaújváros. Again, we will be running all around the place, but it will be great.

This email is kind of everywhere and my thoughts are kind of scattered everywhere, sorry about that.

I love you all!

Whitaker Nővér

We couldn't dress up for Halloween so we just were "matching missionaries" or twins....I guess?

This is Andréa, our investigator who came to church on Sunday.

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Hellooooo from Székesfehérvár!

This week was filled with unfortunate events for us...don't worry though, nothing too bad.

The first unfortunate event was that we lost Sister Cropper (don't worry, we know exactly where she's at). Transfers were this week and now she is serving in Debrecen, which is clear on the other side of the country. We are no longer in a tri-companionship but now it is just Schnoor Nővér and me. It was the craziest thing when we lost Sister Cropper, because both Sister Schnoor and I have been in tri-companionships for a majority of our missions and at first when it was only us two we would occasionally turn around, looking for our other companion. Then we realized, "Oh wait, it's just us now...weird!"

Monday and Tuesday we spent the majority of our time packing Sister Cropper and getting her ready for her excursion to Debrecen.  Packing is always stressful, especially as a missionary, because you literally have to fit ALL of your belongings in three suitcases. Anyway, we got her all packed up and headed up to Budapest Wednesday afternoon. We arrived at the mission home and everybody met their new companions (only two other companionships were effected). Soon after, Sister Schnoor and I headed back to the train station so that we could return to Székesfehérvár. This is where our second unforunate event happened. We got our tickets, got on the train and prepared for our hour and a half train ride home. Funny thing though, by the time the train took off it was starting to get dark (It get's dark here at four--it's crazy!).As we wer sitting in the train we were joking about how funny it would be if we missed our stop because we literally couldn't see anything, and we had only traveled from Budapest to Székes one other time before this time. Little did we know that our little joke would actually turn into reality. Every train station we looked out the window to look for a sign as to which train station it was and everytime we looked out we didn't see any sign, so we just stayed on the train. Finally we approached a bigger train station and we said "Oh, this must be Székes.." we ask the lady sitting across from us if this next stop is Székes and she says, " We stopped in Székes a while ago, you girls should have gotten off the train then. We are now in Veszprém and if you better get off at this stop, because if you don't you won't make it back to Székes tonight." I have never moved so fast, to get off a bus in my life. Schnoor and I ran to the door and jumped off the train. We had no clue what we were going to do, but we did know that we needed to get off that train! It was dark and we had no clue where we were,but luckily there are elders in Veszprém so we immediately called the elders and asked them what we should do, and if they knew of a bus or train that would return back to Székes tonight. Eventually, we managed to get a ticket on the way back to Budapest (in the direction of Székes) and we hopped on that bus. We were sitting on the train back and we actually asked someone on the train if this train was indeed going to stop in Székes. We asked this older man and he said, "yes, this train will stop Székes." Phew! Okay, so we are sitting next to the man and we rode the train for about thirty minutes and he all of a sudden turns to us and says, "The next stop will be Székes." We thanked him for his help and got up and walked to the end of the train car so that we could quickly exit. Just about as the train is about to stop at the "Székes Stop," the same old man who told us that this is Székes runs up to us and says, "This isn't Székes, it's the next one." Oh my goodness. Sister Schoor and I couldn't believe it. We almost got off on the wrong stop AGAIN! Luckily we waited and did get off on the right stop, which was Székes. When we arrived in Székes I almost got down and kissed the ground...not really, but I felt like it. I was so happy to be back in the RIGHT town. Hűha! We had to wait awhile at the train station for a bus to come pick us to take us back to our apartment, but we finally made it home and everything was good!

Can you believe that all of that happened just on Wednesday? It was a crazy day and it probably wouldn't surprise you if I said that Sister Schnoor and I had a very good night's sleep that night (:

Thursday was a good day, we did our studies in the morning and then we went out and did some streeting. We passed out English Class flyers and talked to some people asking them what brought happiness into their lives. It's always interesting to hear what people say. A lot of people here in Hungary say their families. I would say that that is the most popular answer, but I would say that the second most popular answer would be "pénz," which is money. Hungarians work so hard. I have never seen people work so hard as the magyarok do. It's sad because for all the work they do, the salary that they get doesn't seem like enough. Luckily, I have been able to talk to people not just about money and it's importance in their life, but also God and the role he plays in their life. It's been a truly humbling experience for me to talk to people about God and how they can find him in their lives. Thursday we did a lot of talking to people on the street, it was good.
Thursday night, we had English Class. It was a lot of fun. I made a Jeopardy game. I don't know if I told you all already, but we teach the kezdő English Class, which means their beginners. Although I have to say, our kezdő class is very intelligent. They are very smart and they speak English very well. Anywho, we played the Jeopardy game. Darn, I should have taken a picture of it, because it was a blast and we had a good time. We unfortunately only got through half of the game. I didn't know that it would take so long, but nonetheless it was good. We will probably continue it later this week. After English class we usually have a few people (investigators and members) who stay and we usually talk about a gospel topic. We call it "beszélgetés" which means "conversation." It's really good because it's just an open conversation where we bring up a topic and talk about it for an hour. It's really good.

Friday was Halloween. It's kind of weird, because Hungary doesn't celebrate Halloween. Nonetheless the branch threw a Halloween party and we went for a while. It was a blast. Almost sixty people were in attendance which is a record for this branch. Mostly it was kids, but there were some adults there too. The costumes were good. We had ghosts, zombies, angels, vampires, witches, etc. We played a lot of games and had a good time together.

Many of you were wondering if Hungarians celebrate Halloween. Hungarians don't celebrate Halloween, instead they have "halottak napjat," which translates into " The day of the dead," or the "Day of remembrance." It's a sentimental kind of holiday that lasts two days November 1st and 2nd. Basically, the Hungarians buy tons and tons of flowers, candles, decorations, etc and they all go to the cemetaries and put everything they bought on their relatives' graves. It's pretty much the coolest thing ever. Saturday night (Nov. 1st) the Elders and us went to one of the cemetaries in Székes and it was stunning to see, especially when it got dark, because normally I would be freaked out walking through a cemetary at night but with all the lights and flowers and candles and such, it was lite up so bright and you just stood in awe of the beauty of it all. It was so cool, and I'm kind of bummed that I won't be here next year for it, but I was only to see it once. So there's an interesting Hungarian Holiday you can all tell your friends about (;

Sunday was an awesome day. I say that because one of the investigators we teach who has MS and is in a wheelchair came to church on Sunday. Yeah, that's right. There are no flight of stairs or awkward angles that can keep her from coming to church. We have great elders and branch members who helped get Andréa to church. We were so happy to hear that she wanted to come and that she didn't fear anything but just wanted to get to church. The whole church experience was really great for her. Funny story, when the men were passing the sacrament, Andréa leaned over to Sister Schnoor and asked "Tojás lesz?" which means "Will it be eggs?" Schoor just snickered and said, "no, it will be bread and water", and Andréa says "Oh...that's good too." Too funny! Andréa stayed for all three meetings and everybody was very friendly with her. I was very impressed. Then at the end of Relief Society (the last meeting), we scheduled to meet with Andréa and to bring one of the members with us, so it was definitely a good experience! I was so happy to see her and the look on her face was just beaming with happiness.

Monday (yesterday) was a bit crazy. The Library is closed the first Monday of the month so we didn't have too much time to email yesterday, that's why I am emailing right now. We met with a few people yesterday. With one of our RCLA's we've been talking about Christlike Attributes with her, and every week when we meet with her we give her a new Christlike Attribute to strengthen in her life. We too have been doing it with her, so far we've done faith and hope, this week it's charity and love. I love Moroni 7 in the Book of Mormon when it talks about how necessary faith, hope and charity are together. If you don't have one, you don't have the others. It's good to develop and then strengthen all three so that we can have a good relationship with God, and also with each other. If you think about a relationship, a lot of it is based on faith(fulness), hope (motivation) and of course love and charity, and when we don't have one in the relationship, it's hard to have the other two. I like to think of faith, hope and charity as a tripod, each leg representing one of the attributes, if we take one of the legs away, what good is a tripod. It's not. It's good for nothing, but when we have all three legs or all three attributes we are able to stand and to use it for the purpose it was made for. We too gain reach our full potential through faith, hope and charity.

Last night was a bit crazy, Sister Schnoor and I were just sitting in our apartment getting ready to plan for the next day and all of a sudden our power goes out. We were sitting in the dark! Neither of us could find our flashlights so we were sitting in the dark for a good hour.

It's been a crazy week, but I wouldn't have traded any of the experiences we went through this week for anything. It was hard at the time, but now we just look back at it and laugh our heads off. That's what you have to do out here. Things get rough, but you just have to make the best of it. I trust God and know that things happen for a reason, and through everything we will learn and grow and become stronger and better people.
Don't you ever forget that either.

I love you all, thanks for being so supportive and great!

Szeretlek benneteket!

Whitaker Nővér