Night pictures are hard, but here is Eger at night.

My companion and I just screwin' around in the apartment. hahahaah

Sister Brady and I above the Eger lightssss..

Oh man, where do I even start this week?! This week has been filled with good programs and great experiences.

I guess I could start with our awesome investigators. This week has been hard on everyone. Literally almost everyone we teach has been sick! It's been really hard to set up with them because they are all at home resting in bed, but we did manage to meet witha  few people. We actually ended up getting a few referrals from some people we teach. That's always the best! Referrals are not an easy thing to obtain, and it's a big deal if you get one from a church member, let alone an investigator. 

One of the young boys we teach brought his friend to our program and his friend was super curious about what we do, then instead of us answering his questions, our investigator just went ahead and answered them all for us. It was super cool to see him explain our purpose as missionaries from an investigators point of view. We literally didn't say anything but sat back and listened to him talk about us and his experience with the missionaries. On top of that, this boy is just a super smart kid and he clearly knows why we're here! We are meeting with both of them today and we are SO excited. It will be good!!

We meet with another girl weekly, and her twin is actually being taught by the missionaries in Miskolc. Their parents don't know that they're being taught by the missionaries, but they both want to get baptized. Her sister actually already has a bap. date so we hope that we can give her one. Although when we met with her last week she told us about her "bucket list" and how there are things on there that she needs to do before she would get baptized. Interesting, right? Bucket lists...they get you every time. We will definitely be helping her with that, lépésre lépésről (step by step). 

We went to another basketball game, with the same group of people this week. It was super fun.

We actually went to a members house this past week, we've been helping her with her family history work. Her sons and husband are inactive, but they have been there the past two times when we have gone over so we've had a good opportunity to talk to them. The husband asked me if I played any sports and I told him that I really enjoy basketball. Turns out he loves basketball too and he knows the players on the Eger basketball team. He said that he could look up when the Eger basketball team plays and that we could go to a game sometime. Uhh, YES! Don't have to ask me twice! I'm super excited for that. 

But on another note, I didn't know how unfamiliar I am with Family History untill the Family History Consultant of the branch asked me to help her with her family history. I wish I would have asked my parents about Family History a lot more before my mission because It's super hard to teach someone who probably already knows more than me in Family History, about family History...if you know what I mean. My advice to all you: Do family history!

Last note on investigators, we met with KC. I think I  wrote about him in last weeks email. Last week we asked him to read Alma 32, he came to our program this week and told us that he wasn't able to read the assigned passage we gave him, then he pulled out this huge computer programming book and he was like, "this is why I didn't read, I have no time." Honestly, I was a little frustrated because in last program Sister Brady and I both testified how when we put God's commandments first, he will bless us in all other things. We ended up reading the chapter with him and he had a lot of good input, questions and comments. Then at the end we commited him to just read a single verse each day, and not just pay attention to what he reads, but specifically pay attention to how his studies go. I can especially testify to the truth of the message we shared, because it was not easy in college to balance school work and the things God has commanded us to do. When our workload is large we have a tendancy to put secoond things first and push the most important things to the back, at least this is what I've experienced in my life. We did not beat around the bush or anything like that, but we were straight up with KC and told him that we're talking to him like this because we love him, not because we want to condemn him or scold him but because we want to see him become closer to Heavenly Father, one verse at a time. It was a really really good program. 

My companion in Székesfehérvár, Sister Sholly was the person who found KC and they are still really good friends, during the lesson KC said, "you remind me of a certain person, Sister Whitaker." I questioned, "who?" and he said Sister Sholly. I told him we served around each other and we do have a similar personalitly. We don't sugar coat the things we teach, we are straight and direct with the people we teach. That's how it's got to be. Do it with love and the spirit does the rest!

Okayyy, so the rest of this email is just going to be full of random fun crap that we did/ran into this week. 

hahahahahaha, so last P-day my companion and I are walking in the Plaza (mall) and we see this arcade came (similar to the claw machine that you see in every Wal-Mart), one of the prizes in the machine were small speakers, which my companion has been wanting to get since the beginning of the transfer. We walk over to this machine and put some money it it. You would have thought we were starting a rap battle in the middle of Compton. Before we know it there are like ten teenagers/young adults surrounding us in a circle just watching us play this arcade game. It was waaaayyy too funny. Sister Brady and I joked around that we are going to go up to the Plaza again and play the machine, and while one of us is playing the machine the other one is going to be handing out pass along cards. But really, we are planning on doing this! 

If anybody is curious about how well my Hungarian is coming. We received a call from one of our new converts. I answered the phone and she started talking about maybe meeting up later in the week. Then she said that she would be going to her work place to clean and to tidy things up, she asked us if we would help her so of course we said that we would gladly help her. Right before her program my companion and I get changed into reg. clothes (so we could clean) and we get to the branch house, meet up with her talk for a little bit and then start walking to her work place. She had a big trash bag filled with stuffed animals (she works at a hospital for kids), plus she had her bike and backpack so she had her hands full. We helped her carry some things up there. We get up there to the entrance of her work place and she turns to us and says "'Thank you, you guys have a good day" gives us puszi (kisses) and sends us on our way. I was like, what the...."  I thought we were helping her clean and stuff. Ends up all she wanted us to help her with is just carry the stuff up to her workpalce, which we were happy to do for her, but we were just expecting more. Welcome to my life, trying to speak/understand the language. 

Okay, probably the biggest thing that happened this week. Friday night my companion and I were walking on the street and we see these people walking towards us. We thought we heard them speak English and as we got closer, it became apparent that it was definitely English. We stopped them and turns out that there is the Paraolympic Judo World Cup going on here in Eger Hungary! How craaaazy is that!?! Anyways so come to find out, they were Americans, all but one of them are participants in the paraolympic Judo cup, the other one was the coach. We talked to them for a while. They told us to come to their matches, but we didn't know where it was so they told us to just go up to the Hotel where they were staying and ask the Hotel Receptionist because they had just arrived Wednesday and they didn't really know where they were either, so that's exactly what we did Saturday. We walked up to the Hotel and asked the hotel receptionist where this match was, turns out we got there super late, too late. All the matches had already ended. We ended up going back to the hotel that night and trying to find them, just to tell them that we tried going to their match, but we were late. Long story short, we ended up finally finding them and talking to them for a good hour and a half. It was SOOO fun! We planned a dinner appointment with them tonight and Sister Brady and I are beyond STOKED! They will leave Thursday so we just thought it would be a good idea to get together with them one last time. Plus Sister Brady's cousin is serving a mission in the Chicago area and some of them are from Chicago and have expressed interest in meeting with the missionaries (even though they are not us (: ) in Chicago. BOOM, that's how we do missionary work here in Eger! 

That was my week in a nutshell. Things are just great here, and I LOVE my mission! I wouldn't trade it for anyyyything! We do work and live it up at the same time, and it's great.Love you guys! 

Szeretlek,

Whitaker Nővér

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Guess what, I can play two hymns on the piano! God be with you 'till we meet again and Nearer my God to thee. Just thought I'd send you a picture of me playing the piano because before my mission you would have never saw me in front of a piano!

My companion and I definitely bought ice cream bars when it was heavily snowing. The Hungarians looked at us like we were crazy! Pretty accurate assumption, no?

One of the cool statues in Dobó Tér. Honestly, I just took a picture of it, I can't tell you what the significance about it is...let me get back to you on that one.

Main Walking Street in Eger: Szechényi Út.

One of my friends in Székes gave me this box of chocolates for a going away present.

This is like the "main square" but directly translated it's the "thrower's square," in Eger. Super pretty statues and church

Hello Everyone, 

This email will be pretty short because my companion and I have six programs today, yes six...on our P-Day, but I'm not complaining because it's an opportunity to serve our brothers and sisters and hey, that's why we're out here, no? 

This week has been really good, I think I am getting used to life in a new city, new companion, new branch, in other words...new everything. Eger is super beautiful and the people here and really great. I've heard during my mission that people on the east are more open than the people on the west and now that I'm in the east, I see what they are saying. I feel like a lot more people are willing to stop and talk to us. Maybe that's why we got six new investigators that week. To some missionaries who are serving, who knows in the world, six new investigators might be average or even a daily goal, but here in Hungary, it's kind of a big deal. 

We've had some pretty good lessons this week, we meet with a lot of people who are really close to a bap date. They believe in what we are saying they are just waiting to receive an answer for themselves, which we believe is not our job, but through their efforts they can find out for themselves that what we're saying is true. We can talk to them for hours on hours, but until they find out for themself the truth, we are just noise to them. 

We teach a young boy, he is fourteen years old and he is super cool. Honestly, his story is super close to Joseph Smith's. His family is religious but none of them belong to the same religion, they have all joined different churches, well he has been meeting with the missionaries and they have taught him everything up to the Gospel Of Jesus Christ, but ever since he has learned about the Book of Mormon he has had a huge desire to know whether it is true, so hopefully he receives his answer soon! 

I honestly don't know too much about our other investigators, I've only met with them once or twice and I don't know too much about how well they're progressing gospel wise, but I will definitely write more, later about them!! 

Oohhh, you all would never believe it, so when I was in Székesfehérvár, we had a member in the branch that used to be Hare Krisna and he took us to one of their festivals while I was out there, well my companion and I, here in Eger stopped a guy on the street the other day, and he said that he was Hare Krisna and that there would be a festival going on, on Sunday. He actually lives in Amsterdam but was born here in Eger. He was just here visiting his family, but he invited us to this festival. The only problem was that he had to fly back to Amsterdam on Sunday, right before it started so he wouldn't be there. My companion and I, Sunday morning...okay, actually, I should say, I thought Sunday morning, well if that guy who invited us isn't even going to be there, why should we go, we won't know anybody. To my surprise, Sunday morning we get a phone call, from the guy who we met on the street reminding us that the Hare Krisna festival would be later that day. He also said that, he had already told all of his friends that we would be coming and that they'd be expecting us. Oh boy, now I felt like I needed to go, because they were expecting us, so my companion and I walked to the address he gave us and we were greeted at the door by people who spoke almost perfect English. They were super nice and had told us that, our friend had told them that we would be coming. Again... I want to emphasize, here are Hare Krisna people, who have never seen us in their life, but were the sweetest towards us. We weren't even with a friend, but we just walked up as Mormon Missionaries and they welcomed us in with loving arms. They were SUPER nice and everyone who spoke English came up and said hi to us and shook our hands and the people who only spoke Hungarian still came up to us, not knowing we knew Hungarian, and would just smile and wave. It was super nice and we felt VERY welcomed. This is how our church should be! When you see somebody you don't know. GO SAY HI AND BE NICE!!! I can't even emphasize that enough! It makes a world of difference!! I promise!! Anyways so they take us to a room where they are having a "lecture" and we sit in the back. After the lecture was finished they started to play music and dance. We were thoroughly enjoying ourselves, all of a sudden a man walks in front of us, I look at him and he looks at me... in my mind I said, "that guy looks awfully familiar," and I could tell by the expression on his face that he was saying the same thing. Come to find out, I met this really really cool guy, at the Hare Krisna Festival in Székesfehérvár who was from Miskolc. I talked to him a bit there and he said, well if you're ever in Miskolc maybe we will see each other (not very likely, Miskolc is pretty big) and we can meet. Well come to find out, this was the same guy! I couldn't believe it! Not going to lie, I was probably a little more excited than I should have been, but I was just like, Woah, what are the chances of seeing him again?? We exchanged information and hopefully I can stay in contact with him, even though I might not serve in Miskolc. It was just a really neat experience to reconnect with him!! We had another program to be at so we had to leave, but they made sure we didn't go hungry, they gave us food on our way out and let me tell you how delicious it was, FINCSI MINCSI! That's like yummy in my tummy (little kids use it). It was dang good and it was all vegetarian. Haha!! But yeah, we called the guy we met on the street and he was super happy we had a good time and just so glad that we went! We definitely were too! It was so cool!!
Overall, I feel myself well here in Eger (I said that how they say it in Hungarian- I like Eger, in English). It hasn't been too hard of a transition, plus with having the Browns here again, it's just like my greenie transfer, except I can speak a little better (at least, I think...?) 

I hope you guys feel yourselves well...wherever you are! I love you all so much and will talk to you soon!

Sok Szeretettel,

Whitaker Nővér

Michaela Janae Whitaker

The first picture is of a theatre and the second is of the Bazilika here in Eger. The dark picture doesn't do it justice.

 A last picture of the gang in my old territory.

First pictures of my new city Eger Hungary and yes that is a "walk thru" McDonald's

President TIBI!! Love this guy and miss him!! Pretty much the coolest guy in Hungary, hands down. No competition.

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Hello from Eger!

Yeah, I'm not in Székes anymore, pity on me... No, It's great here in Eger, but my last night in Székes the branch/some people that we taught and met, threw a goodbye party for me. It was a lot of fun, we just got together and had a good time. Unfortunantly, I was not thinking and I didn't get a picture with half the people I wanted to!! Gosh, I'm still bitter about that, I don't know what I was thinking. Hopefully I can meet up with those people again and get a picture! 

Can I tell you how weird it was to leave from the Keleti train station again, and not only that, I was heading east. The whole train ride, which was the longest two and a half hours of my life ( I was used to the short hour train ride from Székes) I was saying to myself. I am going the wrong way! I need to be going the opposite direction!! It just felt really weird the whole time!! We made it though! When we got off the train I was greeted by Elder Brown. Oh man, it was good to see that man's face again. I served with the Browns in Sopron, my greenie city, and then they moved to Eger and now I'm serving with them again. Round two with the Browns. heeck yeaaa! I'm stoked! Elder Brown took us to our apartment and we dropped my bags off. Then we headed off to the Browns house to have dinner. Sister Brown cooks as well as she did in Sopron. The elders and us got together there and had a good dinner and chat with the Browns. 

My companion's name is Sister Brady. This transfer is her second, so she's pretty fresh in the country. I kind of have to step it up, because as she speaks really well, she still is gettin the hang of the Hungarian language so I have to step up and talk a lot and actually know what these people are saying to me, but it's a good opportunity for me. The Elders who are serving with us are Elder Waldvogal (he goes home next transfer) and he received a new greenie and his name is Elder Winegar. They are both from Utah and are really cool. It will be a good transfer! I have a good feelin' about it. 

Coming into a new area is pretty weird, because you come in but know nobody. Well... actually, my last companion was Sister Sholly and before Sister Sholly went to Székes, she was here in Eger so she knew the majority of the people we are teaching so she filled me in good before I arrived, but still... for the most part. I don't know any of these people. I'm sure there won't be a problem getting to know them quickly though.. Haha. 

We got in on Wednesday, had Angol Óra (English Class) on Thursday. There I met a few people. Then on Friday we had Játék Est (Game night) there I met even more people. There are a few young people around here, which is cool. I'm excited to get to meet everyone. 

Sunday we had church, I think attendance was about twenty, including six missionaries. Elder Brown in the Branch President here. It's safe to say that he has more responsibilities here in Eger than he did in Sopron but he handles them well, especially for not being fluent in Hungarian (just like the rest of us) but he does a really great job. We had a branch fast this last Sunday that as members and missionaries we can find families and priesthood leaders to teach. It was really cool, because we all got together Saturday afternoon and started it together and then after church on Sunday we ended it together with a big "potluck." It was super cool and I hope it will be successful!. 

It's a new week this week, last week I was sick for most of the time, that was not fun. I spent a lot of the time trying to rest and recooperate, my poor companion was stuck inside, but this week we will make it stellar. No doubt about it!

I hope everything is going well for you all back at home (Especially you Patriot fans--that makes me sick!) I love you all and wish you the best week.

Whitaker Nővér