The Very Hungary Missionary

Wow.

Sorry about last week's béna email. My companion and I were just like way sick and I didn't feel like writing anything about our week because we literally just stayed in bed and just about died. I almost took a picture of us laying in our beds, just to send that.

This week, we were finally starting to feel normal again and it was a great feeling! Sometimes you have hard days on your mission and other times you just have seven hard days on your mission, but we come out on top, nonetheless!

Sister Layton and I agreed that since we have a baptism coming up (this Saturday--RR is getting baptized!) Satan just decided to throw a bunch of curve balls at us, just to try to ruin and damper our spirits about our efforts we've put forth in Szeged so far. At least that's how I've seen it. The last couple of weeks have been hard for us, BUT RR is getting baptized this Saturday!! We are soooo excited for this! RR asked Sister Layton and I to speak... oh gosh!! I will be talking about Baptism and Sister Layton will be talking about the Holy Ghost. Hűha! Jaj nekünk! It will be interesting. I better start preparing now!

I can't even tell you all how great it's been to see the change that's happened within RR from the beginning of the transfer all the way to the end, leading to his baptism. Sister Layton and I often reminise about what RR was like when we first met with him. He wouldn't even look at us when we would talk to him, he'd always look down at the ground and seemed a little nervous, but now we are LITERALLY best friends with him. Everytime we meet with him, he just walks in with this huge smile on his face, we joke, we laugh, we talk. It's just a great time! When we go over to his house, his family all greets us, just as if we were one of their own. They are just all so friendly with us, and well yeah. This is our friendship now.

RR had his interview with Elder Whiting this last week and we talked to Elder Whiting about how it went, as we were a little nervous for it. Honestly, I don't know why we worry about RR so much, every time we do, we just get all worked up but then in the end we're like "Wow, that went so smoothly, why were we worrying?" The same thing happened after his interview. We talked to Elder Whiting and he said that they sat down, Elder Whiting saidt he opening prayer and after he was done he just looked up at RR and tears were just streaming down his face. Then after Elder Whiting asked him the last question in the interview he answered it with a shaky voice. Sister Layton and I just looked at each other because we have never seen him cry, but that was just so neat to hear that he felt the spirit and that he knows that this is the right decision. He told us mulitiple times that this isn't a joke and that he wanted to know "for sure" that this is the path God wants him to go down. He told us that he doesn't want a "maybe" or a "possibly, it would be good" kind of answer but he wanted a "straight-forward yes" and he got it! We had no doubt about it! It's just so neat to see this in him. We are so proud of him! Next week we will have pictures at his baptism and it will be so great!

Totally different subject but sad story. I think I told ya'll a few weeks ago how Sister Layton and I literally saw a car get hit by another car, causing it to flip over, right in front of our eyes. That was tramatic. Then we were in Új Szeged last week, tracting, and we saw a car get hit, while backing out of the driveway, onto a main road. It wasn't as bad as the first accident. We were saying to each other, "geez, how many accidents are we going to see while serving in Szeged together?" We definitely didn't want to see anymore! But then Monday morning we go on a run with the Elders, and we're running one of our usual routes and we see a car accident, although it already happened before we got there. We're just running past it and all of a sudden I look over and I see this black bag on the ground, I had to do a double take because at first I thought I was just seeing stuff. I said to myself, "hmm, why is that bag in a shape of a body," but then I ended up saying something to the rest of the crew and we all came to the conclusion that it was definitely a body bag, with a real body in it. Oh my tragic! Why do we see all of this? I feel like, well... I don't even know... I don't want to see things like that anymore! I don't even know why I included that in this email. Sorry 'bout that!

On a more positive note, okay.... not so positve. We lost the other companionship of elders this week. They both ended up going to Pest, so now there are just four of us down here in Szeged, but I became the "official, unofficial district lord" That's fun, so now I lead district meetings, with zero authority... haha. We had a really fun district meeting the other day though, as we just sat around a table. Each of us giving a twenty minute training about any subject we wanted, while somehow relating it to recognizing the spirit. I talked about obedience and how important it is to be obedient so the spirit can be with you. It's way important. Haha, I promise, my training was better than that, but well yeah... we all had a really good time!

Friday, Sister Layton needed to buy fries from McDonalds because she has this weird thing that they celebrate FryDay on Friday, by going and eating fries. Well, we had eaten a lot that day. We went out to eat after our District meeting, lead by yours truly, district Úr (lord). We ate palacsintas, then had fries, then we had icecream. I bought thirty deca's of little gumi, fruit snack things, then Sister Layton bought Kalács (that chimney looking bread stuff). We decided that it wasn't just #FryDay but #FatFriday.

Then the next morning we woke up super sick #SickSaturday #SugarhangoverSaturday, and it was just sucky! We definitely learned our lesson!

The missionaries this week decided that it would be a good idea to get together with the members and meet with them personally, because it's always nice to get to know them on a personal basis. We, as missionaries, always say how great it is to have the members support us in our work and stuff, but we too also need to do our part and make the members feel loved and needed. It's been a way neat experience to meet with all the members and get to know them on a personal level. Hear their conversion stories, because most of the members in Szeged.... okay, every member in Szeged are first generation members. They are the ones who made that first contact with the missionaries, so it's way cool to hear their conversion stories and how they have grown and developed over the years, being members.

Sunday and Monday was an official Hungarian holiday. Pünkösdi uhh.... haha. something to do with that. Anways, everything was close so we couldn't do much. We couldn't shop for our groceries or email or anything so the elders and us just hung out all day. The Szegedi days and wine festival is going on right now, so we walked around the city, hittin up all the stands. It was way fun. The branch had a little közös program too. One of the members made a crap load of spaghetti. Actually the program was mainly directed towards the young men and women/ YSA but they talked about missionary work and how they can particpate in it and all that stuff, then they had a dinner for us. We ate really well. It was so good!

Thursday, after Angol Óra we scheduled a találkozás with TG and his dad. TG is the teenager who we meet with, who has read the Book of Mormon, faster than I ever have. He would really like to be baptized, but his dad wants him to experience things more "worldy" things before TG makes such a big decision in his life. We thought it would be good, at least, for TG and his dad to meet with the Branch President. We scheduled that meeting and it was a little.... awkward.... and we hope that we didn't upset TG's dad but we really meant for it to just be a "get to know you" type deal, but it kind of backfired, but hopefully everything will turn out well with that.

Okay, I'm super sorry this email was ALL OVER! But this was my week, and next week is TRANFERS. it will be a waaaay sad week, but all is well!

I love you all so much!! xoxox

Whitaker Nővér

Michaela Janae Whitaker