Michaela Janae Whitaker

Oh goodness, so much happened this week. It was a really busy week, we were running to and from everywhere. It was good though, it kept our minds off transfers... not really... but it was still good.

Probably the biggest thing that happened this week is we met with one of our investigators who showed a sincere interest in the gospel since the beginning , and in one of our programs with him he told us that he would like to quit smoking, and that he would "like to be free from this huge burden." The cool thing is that we hadn't even taught nor mentioned the Word of Wisdom yet, but he was ready to stop smoking. As missionaries we have a program to help people stop smoking, there are fifteen steps in this program and we talk to them about these fifteen neccessary steps to do everyday and if they do them everyday successfully they can become a non-smoker in a week. We started last Saturday and he agreed to do the fifteen steps. As missionaries we've been emphasizing the importance of daily contact, so we have been calling every night plus visiting him literally every other day to see how he's doing and he's doing super good! PLUS, he came to church on Sunday, like he said he would! We asked him how the program was going and he said that he had wanted to smoke many times but that he said a prayer and did the neccesary steps when he feels such an urge to smoke and he didn't smoke a cigarette! We are soo proud of him!! Sister Layton and I decided to give up something as well, to help our investigator to have friend support. Sister Layton gave up pékség and I gave up chewing gum. It's a good week.

This week is transfer week, I guess that's a pretty big thing. My companion and I are staying in Szeged! We're super happy about that. We're getting two new elders here in Szeged that will be exciting too. Our week is pretty full.

Oh and my companion and I, we got two new baptism dates this past week so that's exciting. They will be in May and we are super excited for it. It's so cool to see people progress from the very first program with them to extending a bap date and them accepting it. Greatest thing ever! We will continue teaching these people and hopefully their progression will keep going forward.

I didn't write too much compared to what happened this week, but this next week will be good and hopefully I'll have more good news to write next week.

Thanks for everything
Love you all
Whitaker Nővér

We found this huge wafer thing in Coop and I just needed to take a picture with it. It's literally just a big piece of wafer!

Another  picture that was an option to put on our flyers, but we chose the more serious ones. I just really liked this funny one.

Companionship picture... my favorite.

St. Patricks day picture.... which means nothing to Hungarians but we have real American pride and celebrate our American holidays.

We had a baptism this past Saturday. It was a really special day and we all felt the spirit really strongly.

We make smoothies... a lot! Smoothie mustaches (:

Last Thursday was my year mark and my companions four month mark. Time goes by so freaking fast!

District picture minus our zone leaders. Every Sunday afternoon we go on a "river walk" and go streeting to the tisza river, sit, talk, ponder life, and then go home. It's pretty good!

An eagle and a bear

These poor seals were in like two feet of water and they couldn't swim, but instead they flopped everywhere they went. it was super sad!

This otter was adorable! Totally showing off for us. Too cute!

Some kind of pretty bird!

Red panda! They're super cuteee!

We were super close to the giraffes, I almost could reach out and touch them! It was so cool!

The Lions were...uhh...special lions (I forgot their name) but they were super light-colored but still pretty!

We were super close to the giraffes, I almost could reach out and touch them! It was so cool!

The Lions were...uhh...special lions (I forgot their name) but they were super light-colored but still pretty!

We went out to eat at this little retro hamburger place before we went to the zoo.  It was dang good.

This week in a nutshell: Pretty dang good.

One more week and then there's a transfer, all of us are trying to work as hard as we can to leave Szeged better than we found it. Unfortunantly we will be losing at least two people out of our cute little district. Our Zone Leader, Elder Neely, will be heading home in ten days, and one of the elders out of the other elder companionship willl probably end up bouncing after this transfer. It's kind of sad to think about, but they are needed somewhere else. My companion and I don't know if we will stay together,  I will most likely stay in Szeged seeing how I just got here like two weeks ago, but Sister Layton might leave. We hope not though, we have become best of friends and have helped each other through so much, it would really suck if we got seperated but we will just see.

Sister Layton and I's week was pretty busy, we had at least two programs everyday which is actually a big deal. Our programs went really well. We are teaching this family who the dad is really really interested in the gospel and wants us to come back whenever and as soon as we can because he just loves listening and learning about the gospel. We visited them twice this past week and it went really well, we are going to meet with them this week again and the way it's going now we hope that we can bap. challenge him and his family this upcoming week or soon after. They are just that excited about the gospel and it's just awesome to see that! 

We had zone training this past week, it was the first time I didn't have to go anywhere to go to zone training because everyone comes here to szeged. Oh heck, that Thursday was also my year mark! I entered the MTC a year ago. That is crazy to think about and now I only have six more months left...uhh but zone training was super good. It was Elder Neely's last zone training, super sad, but Elder Neely and Elder Whiting did really good!

Sister Layton and I did that flyer finding. We went out Wednesday and put out the flyers saying that we would be tracting in the area on Friday and Sunday. We weren't too sure how successful it was going to be. Friday we saw some success from it, we talked to a few people and they were super nice. We even gave out a few Books of Mormon, but no let ins. Sunday, on the other hand, wasn't too successful. Everybody definitely knew that we were coming and gave us a swift, "No thank you" or looked through their peep hole and didn't answer the door. It's okay though, we tried and that's all that matters. You can't get them all.

On Saturday we had a baptism for one of our investigators. She was suuuuper nervous and scared all the way up to it, but it turned out to be super super good! She really had nothing to worry about it. A lot of people came and it was just a great success. You could tell almost immediately after she came out of the water that she had definitely been "reborn" and the happiness was evident by her face and tears. Then on Sunday she got the gift of the Holy Ghost, truly a good experience! Now she is a member and doing super well! Just keeping her strong with MEMBER SUPPORT is what we need now. The members, in general, stay, the missionaries don't. It's hard to get our investigators converted to the gospel, instead of the missionaries, but I'm sure this lady will stay strong and be a huge contribution to our branch here in Szeged.

For our P-Day activity today we went to the zoo, here in Szeged. We were there for two hours and I was pretty much zoo-ed out by the end. I was so tired of walking, but it was soooo fun!!!! Totally worth it!!  The zoo was like divided into continents and there were animals from Antartica, Africa, Asia, America's. Crazy cool stuff!! That's just a random side note.

Anyways, everything is super good here in Szeged. I'm enjoying myself here and I hope I stay here through next transfer. Holy cow, Easter is coming up soon. Time is going by too dang fast!

I hope everything is well for all you back at home

Love you guys,

Whitaker Nővér

Michaela Janae Whitaker

We looks so hot at 5:30 in the morning.... public transportation.

Sister Jeppson, Me, Sister Layton (my companion)

Me and Sister Scheer-- Mission nurse who is going home in eight days. I served with her in Pápa, coolest lady ever!

"Family pictures"---district pictures

The Hungary Budapest Mission is trying a new tracting method. We go into a building (apartment) and leave flyers that say that Sister Whitaker and Sister Layton will be back at a specific time to talk to people about our church and that if the residents who live in that building have time, we'd love to talk to them a few minutes about the church. Well we are supposed to submit a picture of our companionship so we can put it on the flyer so they know what we look like. Here are Sister Layton and I's options. We thought we would bring them cookies and a Book of Mormon. haha.. too funny!

Wow, it's been tooooooo longgggg!!

I'm super sorry for negleting my blog emails the last couple of weeks. It's just been a hectic couple weeks.

I think all you know that I was serving in Eger. It was such a great city. I loved it. My companion and I had a good transfer, even though it was super short!

Now I'm in Szeged which is like this craaazy city that's huge. It has a college and there are a bunch of people from all different countries here. There's always people to talk to on the streets, no matter what time you're out. I can't really say much about it because I haven't been here this long, but so far I really like it!

We had Zone Conference the other day in Budapest and we the First Councelor of the Area Presidency come and talk with us and it was really good!! He had a special way of speaking to us and he kept it alive and interesting. It was a six hour training but it was super good!!

I will write more next week when I get my Szeged legs on everything here.

Love you guys so much

Whitaker Nővér

We went on a river walk and walked to the river on Sunday with the Elders... it was good!!

This is the entrance to our brand new (literally) branch house. It's suuuper nice and fancy!!!

The second pictures is the "mario wall" just this random brick wall painted like a mario videogame (:

Michaela just got transferred to the city of Szeged on the southern border next to Serbia.The first picture is of the University of Szeged.

Second picture is just a random street, we were walking towards a pretty church thing.. haha