I know I come home in a week, but I'm sending some of these home. We were up in Budapest this past week for zone conference and since it was my birthday, my lovely district leader, Elder Haroldsen, took us on a sight-seeing trip around Budapest. I took some shots. I hope you like them.

This past week has been awesome. So many great opportunities.

First of all, Tuesday was my birthday. I turned twenty-one. Watch out, I'm legal. That could be dangerous for any parties involved in the future. Tuesday happen to be the day that we went to Budapest for my last Zone Conference. Turned legal in Budapest. Party of my life.

No we didn't party too hard, we were sitting in our conference for six hours so we couldn't do much. However, after zone conference my district took me out on the city and we walked around Budapest for awhile. It was loads of fun!

Zone Conference was good. We talked about how to invite the spirit into our lessons. It was really good training from our mission president and his wife, our zone leaders and sister training leaders.

Thursday, we got the opportunity to go to Kecskemét for splits with the sister training leaders. That was fun. Both of our sister training leaders happen to be former companions of mine. Plus, I got to see my girl Kíra. Sister Kovács, Hungarian girl who I served with in Pápa. Her family lives in Kecskemét so I go to visit and talk with her and her family.

Got to teach some really sweet people while there. Super nice people.

Being a dying missionary is real. I probably won't send anymore emails. I'm sorry, but it's been real and I'll see you guys on the other side!

Michaela Janae Whitaker	8:43 AM (23 hours ago)
Michaela

Wow, this week has been awesome. I'm dying soon as everybody knows and I've kind of been waiting for an amazing week to finish out this transfer. This one, so far, has been that week that I've been looking for, but I still have three more weeks so we will see if any of the future weeks beat this one.

We extended a baptismal date to one of our investigators. A really cute 23 year old girl (AH). AH is really special to me, she is studying to be a personal trainer. Her and I get along really well and often talk about exercising and stuff like that. She speaks and understands English fluently so that makes talking easier. Super solid. AH first started meeting the missionaries a few years ago, just for the sake of learning English, but over time she's developed an interest for the gospel. She's been taught all the lessons and she has accepted everything, it's been pretty awesome to be part of teaching her. Honestly, I don't feel like I've done that much, because I came to Szolnok after she had been taught everything but the big three commandments (Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, and Law of the tithe), but we got those knocked out. Easily accepted them and now she's on bap. date. Her baptismal date is scheduled for the seventeeth of October. Unfortunantly, I won't get to attend but I will be there in sprit for sure! AH is also going to talk to her family about meeting with us because everyone in her family are really open to the gospel. Her dad loves her reading the Book of Mormon to him outloud and her brother has recently said that he wants to be baptized into a church but wants to know which one. Lots of good potentials, right? It will be good.

For the rest of our investigators, they are doing well. We had one investigator at church this Sunday, which is really good.

Thursday there was a special broadcast from the Budapest Stake Center that we watched. For all of you Rapid City people who know Heather Shirley and her family...yeah, they live here in Hungary. Anyways her husband, Cameron has a stake calling and they arranged for a concert pianist from America (Dan...oh crap I forgot his name.) Wow, I stink. I forgot his name. Dan Culverall, Something like that. Anyways it was really good. He spoke and played beautiful music and even though we watched it through broadcast it was still really beautiful. His messages were inspiring and I learned a lot about having faith and trusting in the Lord, from him. The spirit was felt that night.

Time is running out.

Love you all,

Whitaker Nővér

Michaela Janae Whitaker	Sep 14 (1 day ago)
to Connie, me

Well it's been another hot week here in Szolnok. What can I say. Summers last forever here, but I've heard from a few little birdies that the weather is supposed to be cooler this next week so I am highly anticipating the "cold-front." 

This week we tripled the amount of programs we had last week. That was an accomplishment in itself. 

Progressing slowly, but still progressing. 

Lesson learned this week:

Yesterday, during church, we received a call from a family who said that they were interested in meeting with us because their five year old son had questions about God and the devil. I was kind of surprised that a five year old boy would have questions such as those running through his mind. The father requested that we meet that day, in a few hours. We set up a time to meet with them at the branch house. The missionaries had a few other meetings that required their attendance but we after we finished those we met them. 

The family was really nice in the beginning. Turns out the mother's mom (the child's grandma) is really sick and her time here on the earth is coming soon. The boy was curious what would happen to his grandma and where she would go. I was very impressed that a little boy would be curious onto this subject. 

We started teaching about the plan of salvation, but we were teaching a five year old boy. YOU HAVE TO TEACH TO YOUR INVESTIGATORS NEEDS AND AT A LEVEL THAT THEY WILL UNDERSTAND. No matter how old or young, uneducated or educated, unattentive or attentive they are. I made the horrible mistake of teaching everything I knew about the plan of salvation and to a little boy who is five years old, he's not going to understand nor pay attention. 

I still feel really bad and the lesson ended up with the parents saying that what we have said was good, but it's been a lot of information for the boy and he's starting to lose interest. They left and I felt like the worst! Why would I not sit back and think about him and his needs. 

I don't know what will happen out of it. They didn't schedule with us again. We didn't even get through the whole lesson. 

I definitely learned my lesson. We shouldn't teach everything we know, and teaching according to the investigators needs is the most important. 

Oh well, no regrets, just lessons learned. We move on. 

Other than that. It was a good week. My companion and I lost our keys on Monday so we were hajléktalan for the begining of the week. Not really, we stayed at a friends house. it was all good. We ended up calling our landlord and getting another set of keys from her. She was super nice and understanding. We really have no clue where they could have gone. Everything is good now though. Then we lost our phone, that was kind of a freaky story. We were at our friends looking for our keys, Sister Rankin took the phone out because we had gotten a call. She claims that she put it back in her bag, but then we looked in her bag and it was gone. We looked around, called it. Nothing. A few hours later we get a call that somebody found our phone in a window flower pot at the hivatal (city-center). The flower box was on a window, high above our heads. The guy who found it said he was watering the plants and he saw a phone standing up in this flower pot and decided to call the first number he saw. It happened to be our friends number because we were calling it all morning. Anyways, phone was returned to us. We were just kind of freaked out for the rest of the day how in the world did it get there. Weird, right?

Be responsible, kids. 

Whitaker Nővér

Michaela Janae Whitaker	8:48 AM (1 hour ago)
to Connie, me

Szolnok! Well, here I am. This place is completely different than Debrecen. Little. Quiet. Not the prettiest. Filled with cool people though. That's the point.

 Transfer day was rough! All three of us got transferred out of Debrecen (white-washed). Among the three of us we had eight bags. Only one of our elders got transferred out. The day before we went up to Budapest we all got train tickets together because if we don't get them together we can't sit next to each other.
Our two and half travel to Budapest ended up turning into a seven and a half travel. #publictransportationproblems. To make a long story short... well there's really no way to make this story short. Basically, Wednesday morning comes earlier than I would have liked. We get up at seven to catch the eight o'clock train, but then we missed our villamos to take us to the train station so we had to call a cab. A cab rolls up and puts our bags in the back, well there's still three girls that have to make it to the train station so we ended up having to call another cab for us. We all arrive at the train station, looking for our elders. No where to be found. Time got close for the train to leave, we jump on the train, elders still no where to be found. Train leaves. We try and call the elders a million times, no answer. Ends up our train goes to a city, we have to get off, catch a bus that goes to another train, which eventually goes to budapest. well.... uhhh. Because we are three girls and had eight large bags with us, when it was time to get off the train and get on the bus in Nyíregyháza we spent most of the time trying to drag all of our bags that we ended up missing the bus. Ended up staying in the Nyíregyháza train station for two and half hours while waiting for the next bus. I literally ended up sleeping on a bench like a hobo. Don't worry though! We actually ended up doing some finding in the train station. Sister Sellers and I went to the little ladies room, but here's the cool thing in Hungary in order to use the bathroom you have to pay and you pay for exactly two square of toilet paper. Well the lady who took our money saw our name tags and asked about the church, so we had a little finding moment. Got some phone numbers átadtunk them to the missionaries in Nyíregyháza. That was cool. Finally the next bus came so we jumped on that one super fast. I passed out. I was just super tired the whole time. Sellers fell asleep too. What's the advantages of being in a trio? I don't know! Our third companion, Dohm, came to the rescue and ended up talking to this lady on the bus and gave her, as a referrel, over to the Miskolc elders. Wow, bam! Even through all this bad luck we are still finding people. No big deal. So we ride the hot bus for like an hour, get off, make it the second train on time (thank goodness) and "We're off to Budapest!"  That train ride was the longest train ride of my life. I don't know why everything was so slow. The train ended up stopping twice in some random field for like thirty minutes. We didn't think we'd ever get to Budapest. When we rolled in it was three thirty in the afternoon. Everyone had already met at Keleti, grabbed something to eat and headed to their new cities before we even got there! Story of my life. It's okay. I got to say hi to a few friends that had been waiting on us.

Poor Sister Rankin had been waiting on me for a long time. I had just gotten off a train that I had been on for a good three hours, plus all the other switching over prior to that. Well I ended up turning right back around and getting a ticket for the next train to Szolnok. We jump on the train to Szolnok. All of a sudden this huge rain storm comes out of no where as were about to board the train. Rankin and I get soaked. My bags get soaked. Life can't get any better. Oh wait, but there's more. We're sitting on the train waiting for it to depart and all of a sudden train workers get on the train and say that we have to get off and go to another train, but the vágány for this train is on the other side of the train station. We get off the train, run (literally) over get on the other train. We have to stand because the train is packed and we take off for Szolnok. Luckily the train ride to Szolnok is only an hour and a half so not too long. After traveling for seven and a half hours, what's another hour and a half.

I got here to Szolnok, lookin pretty rough, but I got here.

First couple days here were good. It's only a million degrees but other than that. It's a pretty chill city. The people I've met so far are super chill and nice! They are like solid too. No games with them. They meet with us because they want to and are just super solid. Super nice though!

Church on Sunday was amazing! I don't think I've felt more welcomed in any branch before than Szolnok's. Everyone here was super nice and greeted me like they knew me! Everyone came up to me and stroked my face (my favorite.... hahahahaha). But really, there are a lot of coool members here. Guess who followed me to Szolnok. Kovács Kira, my hungarian companion I had in Pápa. She even gave me a S/O (shout out) in chruch. First S/O in Hungary. I can scratch that off my bucket list.

Oh I forgot Saturday night we went over to our MCL's (Mission correlation leader) house and had a little game night with his family and some other members. It was so fun. Played lots of games, laughed at our language barrier at times. It was a good time.

I can't really talk about our friends, down here in Szolnok, yet. I just introduced myself to the majority of them this week, but next week will be good and full of teaching and success. I can't wait.

Eight weeks and I'll be on a plane back to America. I'm excited but it will definitely be hard. Gotta finish this strong. Thanks for all your support while I've been out here. Love you all

Whitaker Nővér

Facts, Miracles, Blessings.

Fun fact: I had a great week this week, and found out that my companions and I were an answer to multiple different prayers this week. Details coming soon...

Fun fact, that's not so fun: I only have one hour to email every detail of my life/feelings so I'm sorry if my emails start to become super lame or short, but I'll try to do my best to encompass all my thoughts and feelings in this little email.

Another fun fact: I come home in two months sooooo.... all the details I miss in these emails, I'll be able to talk about them to you, in person, super soon!

This week was splendid!

What can I say? I love being a missionary. There's hard times, but I can now tell anybody that the hard times outweigh the happy/joyous times. You might have a hard day, a hard couple days, a hard week, or a hard couple of weeks, but let me just tell you, something sweet is waiting for you at the end.

Let me tell you how this was manifested to me....

Missionary work is hard. You get letters from missionaries and as you read them you think that their life is perfect. They have no hard times, they only talk to nice people, everyone accepts everything they say, the investigators they are teaching are golden, the members work with them perfectly. You rarely hear of any complaints in missionaries' letters home, let's be honest.

Well, I'm here to tell you that a missionaries life is not sunshine and butterflys all the time. In fact, you experience a lot more gloomy days, rain storms, and roses with sharp thorns (both literally and figuratively) than people would think. Missionaries are told to write all the happy stuff home, and not be negative in their emails to family and friends back at home. Which is understandable, but I also believe that you need to be real with people. Take me for an example, I try to write positive things in my emails and about how my investigators' progression is going, but I won't lie and I'll say that this life is hard.

This was especially true a few weeks ago, I was having a hard time. I didn't know what I was doing out here and at times I questioned whether or not I should be out here. You get these feelings quite often as missionaries. You might be doing all you can to preach the gospel, but people aren't accepting anything you say, or they seem interested until you go back, ring their doorbell and they end up hiding behind their window curtain so that they're "not home." Things like this happen and sometimes it's hard to stay happy and cheerful about being a missionary.Well, this indeed happened a few weeks ago, and I didn't know why.

I can say that I am grateful for my mission because one of the many things that I've learned from it is "behind every storm comes a rainbow." Weeks can be hard, but I know that if you endure and do what's right, God will give you that beautiful rainbow that you deserve.

After my "storm" a few weeks ago, I saw my rainbow this week. I was waiting for it and wasn't sure if it would come but it came.

Basically what happened is that we met with two of our investigators. I talked about them, well at least one of them in my last email. Husam. The guy from Iraq. Do you remember him. Okay, well listen to this. Wednesday was his birthday and he was supposed to go to Australia to go vacation with his family. Well something came up and his family wasn't able to travel to Australia when they had planned to, so they had to post-pone his celebration, which meant that Husam had stay in Hungary for the time being, meaning that he would be away from his family during his birthday.  We couldn't let this happen so we decided to throw a little Bowling Birthday Bash for him. Before we gathered all of our friends to go bowling we met with him and watched 'The Restoration' film with him. We watched it in his native language (Arabic). Didn't understand any of it, but it sounded pretty....weird. Anyways, after the movie--before we could even say anything, Husam pipes up and says, "I love that story. Everything that was in that movie was true. If you want to know the truth, you need to ask God and he will give it to you. I love Jospeh Smith." Who says that? We didn't even ask him anything but he just said that by himself. Oh, how we love Husam. Then! This is the best part. Here is one half of my rainbow. There was a silence after we were talking about Joseph Smith and Husam all of a sudden says, "Can I tell you guys something really quickly." "Of course Husam, anything." Then he said this: "I have a lot of friends at the university and I really like them, but they're always asking me to go to the bars, clubs, or discos with them and I'm not into that stuff. I don't drink. I really like my friends but I was praying to God to send me friends who wouldn't ask me to do those things but to bring me closer to him (God), because I believe that there are two types of friends. Those who bring me closer to God and those who take me away from God. After I prayed I met you guys on the street and I knew that God sent me you guys to be my friends who would bring me closer to God. That's all I want to say." AHHHHHH'!! I just get goosebumps writing about that. I can't even tell you how happy we were when we heard that. We were practically on cloud nine (Is cloud ten a thing?) I can't even tell you how great the feeling is when you find out you have been an ANSWER to someone's REAL SINCERE prayer to God. God exists and he looks after all of his children.

The other investigator who I don't think I've talked about yet. His name is Ugo, also from Nigeria. Long story short, for Young Single Adults a few weeks ago we went to the big stadium park to play capture the flag with our investigators and the YSA people. It was sooo fun!! We were divided into our teams and sent to opposite sides of the park just to come back and run a lot trying to protect our flag. Anyways, Sister Dohm and I were running towards our opponents side of the field and you have to keep in mind we were playing with like six of our friends from Nigeria. Okay so we saw a black guy walking on the fountain blocks (maybe you remember a picture of me on those?) Basically we thought that it was one of our friends guarding the flag, so we were trying to walk on both sides of him to ambush him, but as I got closer I realized that we did not know this guy, but we just assumed that he was one of our friends because of well... yeah. Anyways so we ended up running past him, yelling to each other in English. We ended up getting our flag in the end and as we were walking back to our side, we saw Sister Sellers talking to this guy that we originally thought was one of our Nigerian friends. Okay, this long story isn't very short, but that guy turns out to be Ugo! AND! That night Ugo had some responsibilities at his church that he attends, faithfully every sunday, but he felt prompted to go to the park that night. In his words, "I had no clue why I was there or what I was doing because I was literally alone with no one, but I just decided to park my bike and walk on the fountain blocks until I knew why I was there. Then the Asian (Hey, that's me!!) and her friend ran past me speaking English, and I just had to know what you guys were doing and what kind of organization you were with." God exists. He had no reason to be in the park at that time, but he was! He met Sister Sellers and set up with us the next day. Our first program with him was right before the bowling party for Husam (which he ended up coming to and meeting Samuel, which is one of our other Nigerian friends--they actually go to the same church, but have never talked until they both met each other at one of our events. Mormons--bringing friends together, but really though!), so we actually had to rush, but we set up with him for the next day. That program was amazing. We introduced the Book of Mormon to him through the pictures in the beginning and he loved it. We invited him to the baptism on Saturday and he was like "Yeah, I'll come. I've always wanted to be baptized, how do I become baptized?" Oh, boy we have a lot to tell you bout baptism. But oh my goodness. We <3 Ugo and all of our other friends!

God sends you miracles.

Speakin of miracles. Hamid got baptized on Saturday. Ahhh! Pictures are up on Facebook if any of you want to see them! That was awesome. Hamid is pretty much the sweetest guy alive. It was such a special day for him and for us. He was already glowing before he entered the water, but after he got out of the water he was shining. It was so great! Baptisms are special events.

This week we also had the opportunity to go up to Miskolc for zone training. Such a hot, long train ride up there, but it was worth it. President Szabadkai was up there with his wife and it was nice to talk with them.

That was the highlights of my week that I can write in an hour. I'm sure there were more, but hey, that's what a journal is for so I can just read them to you in a few months. What the flip? I have to be a regular human being in two months. Not about that!

It will be nice to be with family and friends again, but either way, family will be across the ocean no matter where I am. I love these Hungarian people and will always keep them close to my heart.

God loves you.

Whitaker Nővér

Days and Days.

Hey everyone!
I'm sorry that I haven't been the best on writing. Things got a little turnt and I haven't had a lot of time the last couple emailing sessions, but I'm here now and ready to tell you all about how exciting my last couple weeks have been.
First of all, since last email, Sister Sellers and I picked up another companion, Sister Dohm. Which makes Sister Sellers and Sister Dohm sister training leaders and I'm just kind of this awkward third person in their companion of leadership, but we've found a way to make everything work out and have been goin good ever since. Unfortnantly I have not taken near as many pictures as I should. You can say that I'm failing as a photographer of the great lands of Hungary, and I will not have any pictures next week, because I gave my camera to one of the members here in Debrecen who is going to a European Area Youth Conference in Romania and I thought he'd want to take a few pictures, as he doesn't have a camera. Sooo, next week I might be able to swipe a few of my companions pictures, if they take some. In general, we don't take a lot of pictures, but we'll try harder this week.
Okay, so I am in Debrecen, which is another college city (just like Szeged- I miss that place so much!) which means there are TONS of young people here and not just young but there is such a diversity of people in this city. People literally from all over the world come here to go to college.
So that being said, most of our investigators (99.4% of them) are foreign young kids who have come over for school, but let me tell you, they are the most legit people ever. Let me tell you about our little diverse group of friends.
Yael.. Yael is pretty much the sweetest girl ever. Yael is from Israel and has been studying in Debrecen for a few years now. By the way, she has been the BYU's deal in Jerusalem, how cool. She is studying to be a doctor (i forgot what branch) and loves it. Her first language is Hebrew so unfortantly we can't get any materials in her mother language, but of course, she speaks English so we can still teach her and give her english materials and she understands them pretty well. All of the foreign people that come to the University of Debrecen have three language choices that they can learn by, Hungarian, English, or German. The majority of the foreign students learn through english, obviously. Anyways, she is the sweetest. We didn't even street into her or tract into her. She actually went on to mormon.org and requested a Book of Mormon and asked to meet with the missionaries in Debrecen. This was all on her own. That was the first sign that she was legit. The second was when we actually met her. We taught her the first half of The Plan of Salvation, after we had talked about everything we asked her if she had any questions and she had a few questions, which we answered accordingly, then we asked if she had liked everything that we had taught up until now and she said "Yeah, I really like this and I can't wait to learn more about what happens after our life here in on earth." I was pretty much fel van dobva (on cloud nine). I had never had someone tell me that they couldn't wait to learn more about what I'm called to teach. Usually it's more of a "Yeah, I like this, it sounds nice," or something along those lines, but she was more than excited for our next program with her.
Before we met with her for the second time she had gone home to have her brother help her study for one of her big exams. I guess Israel is just a three hour flight so she just hopped on the plane and went back to Israel. Some days go by and we get a call from Yael and she says that she had just thought about us and wanted to call us to see how we were doing. Can I say adorable. That moment when your investigators daily contact you (RR, and now Yael). Then she asked us if we wanted her to bring us back anything from Israel. How sweet is this girl? Too sweet! We told her that we weren't picky and that we'd accept anything she brought back for us, only if we could pay her and she said "I only accept hugs as a method of payment." Oh my gosh, what a sweetie.
Yael eventually came back and got to meet with her again, she ended up bringing us back some crazy Israelian food and some good chocolate too.
Her next meeting we planned to teach her the second half of the Plan of Salvation and thought that would be good, based on her excitement about the first half, but then we got in there and started to review the first half again and she had some really good questions that we answered and before we knew it, time was up so we only got to earth life again, but we can move on next time, with a sure knowledge that she really understands the first part. Oh Yael is so great.
Husam- Oh my goodness there is not a more precious man on this earth than Husam. Husam is from Iraq and is studying at the Debrecen University to be a doctor. We met Husam on the street while talking about Hungarian class. Oh, I guess I haven't talked about that. In addition to English class, we also teach Hungarian class because so many foreign people are here to study, but they don't know how to speak Hungarian so we try to help them to at least get the conversation starters/basic questions down so they can get around Hungary. Husam accepted our Hungarian class flyer and we started talking to him, on the street, about why we are here and our purpose as missionaries. From the very beginning he was interested and asked us to explain more about our work, but we were on our way to a program so we got his number and told him that we would love to explain our calling as missionaries if he would like to meet sometime. A few day later we called him and set up a program with him at the branch house. It was neat to see his reaction when we told him what we are doing here in Hungary. He was very impressed by our desire to be here and our discipline of not wimping out and going home because our families and homes are missed to us. We gave Husam an arabic Book of Mormon and had him read Moroni 10 3-5 to us. That was so cool, even though it was in this super strange language that he was reading right to left, upside down, sideways I still felt the spirit and it was a good experience. Husam is very interested and loves to meet with us. This Wednesday is his twenty-fifth birthday and we are going to watch the restoration film with him in Arabic, that will be good. Then we are going to take him out for dinner. It will be good. Husam is just the cutest middle eastern guy ever, that's all you need to know.
Kevin, Usman, David, Samuel- Okay, these are obviously four different people, but they all came from Africa. I think all four of them came from Nigeria. No, I think that's wrong. I don't know. The point is that they all are from Africa and they are probably the sickest dudes I know. No doubt. They all come to our Hungarian class but they also come to all of our branch programs like Family Home Evening, Game night, Young Single Adults. It's so fun. When I first got to Debrecen, Sister Sellers told me about all of these people and at first I thought they weren't too interested in the gospel, more to hang out with the missionaries, but I met them a few weeks ago and we talked and they all are super religious and are open to talk about God. That's cool. Kevin actually came to church on Sunday, so that was really cool! I think they all are really legit, we just haven't been able to set up with them yet. Actually, this week we've set up with Kevin and Samuel. Usman is the elders, which they have met with him already but it's a working process. Works moving in Africa, I hear so it's not surprising that they are open to hearing the gospel message.
Lol, so did I mention that we have a new mission president and he's Hungarian? Probably the coolest guy ever. He's doing great things with this mission. A few weeks ago I got the "opportunity" to go to MLC, which is mission leadership council. It's like when all of the zone leaders and sister training leaders and have a meeting with our mission president. At first I was not very excited to go to this meeting. Three hours of training, in Hungarian, but it turned out to be a SUPER good meeting! I actually ended up taking some notes and I felt spiritually renewed after the meeting. Wow, that was super cliche, but it was true. I don't know how else to describe it. The point is that we had a really good meeting and I love our new president. He get's mad respect from me.
Oh did I mention we have a baptism this Saturday. Well, it's not "our" baptism, it's the elders, but we are so excited. Oh my goodness. I didn't write about our man boy, Hamid. Hamid is from Iran. He was actually a soilder in the army. It's a long story how he ended up in Debrecen Hungary. I won't explain all of it, but the important information about him is that he was in Sweedan, met with the missionaries there, got taught all of the lessons, had a bap date, then had to come to Hungary. Eventually he got hooked up with the elders here in Debrecen, they reviewed everything with him and extended a bap date, he accepted, and he will be meg lesz keresztelkedve (he will be baptized) on Saturday. We're so excited for him, he's such a great guy and so ready!
Some more great news, you all remember RR, our baptism down in Szeged. I was informed this week that 1. he invited one of his friends to church, he came, and loved it so much so he asked to meet with the missionaries. After their second program with him, he asked how he could be baptized so now he is on bap date down in Szeged (way to go RR being a missionary). 2. The elders down in Szeged acutally met RR's cousin on the street and invited him to church, the same day that RR brought his friend to church so RR got to church and was way surprised to see his cousin sitting in the chapel. haha. Now his cousin is meeting with the elders as well as his friend being on bap. date with them. 3. RR got the priesthood yesterday! Wooo! Everything is going great. Szeged is a land of miracles, I'm convinced.
This is pretty much my life these days. I love it. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but unfortnantly in two short months I will have to trade back reality for this life of happiness. I dread that day, but it is going to come whether I want it to or not. Just know that things are going super well here in Debrecen. I love it. Transfers are in two weeks so we will see what happens with that, but I'm sure everything will be fine.
Much Love,
Whitaker Nővér

Blog Email- Debrecen Dayzzzz

The weather is hot and I'm melting as I'm typing this email.
Yep, the hot weather has returned and you can say that I'm anything but happy about it. We're just looking for streets with enough trees, but also people, so that we can still do missionary work without just melting into a puddle.

Okay, i'll be fo' real with you all right now. Today is a mini transfer call day, but this "mini transfer call" is actually a big transfer call day and almost everyone will be affected. Annndddd.... I just received my transfer call. Sellers and I will be staying together but we are getting another sister. Sister Dohm. Sister Dohm is a group below us. Sellers and Dohm will be Sister Training Leaders and I'm just kind of on the side, but it's whatever. It wil be good. We can do good work here in Debrecen.
Let's see, what happened this week. A lot happened. We all went to Miskolc Friday to meet our new mission President. President Szabadkai is really cool. He spoke only hungarian to us, and introduced himself and his family to us and kind of layed down a plan of what he wants to do in the mission It was good.
I think it's important to mention we met with this girl named Yael, she is from Israel. We just met with her, she accepted everything we taught her , and she said that she was so excited to learn more.
My emailing time is getting cut short today. I have to go, I actually have so much more to say, but I can't write it. I will write it next week when I have more time.
Love you all
Sister Whitaker

Sunday was probably one of the coolest blocks of finding that I've done during the course of my mission. There is this HUGE indoor/outdoor soccer stadium in this HUGE park not too far from our house. It's literally like a family friendly park with sections of nice soft grass to picnic on or play soccer. Then there's a huge fountain that have concrete blocks in the middle of it so that you can walk out in the fountain. The water is far enough way so you don't get soaked but you do get some misty water hitting you at times. Anyways, there were TONS of people in this park on Sunday night and most of them were families. Oh, not to mention there is a track around this park, like with actual track turf, that young fit/old and not so fit are running on. It's a big one two that goes up and down hills and has beautiful scenary. I can not wait to run on the track. It will be a nightly workout. I got to get that good bod before I go home in exactly THREE months today, whhaaaat?! Just kidding, my bod is already a loss cause. Anyways, I took our sign that said 'We are happy because we are Mormon, ask us why we are happy.' and walked around the park with it. We also took Michael with us who is a really solid Asian member here in Debrecen. Michael is just a story in himself, he's so great. Anyways Sellers, Michael and I walked around the park and literally had people come up to us asking us what our sign was about, or why we are truly happy. Then I took the sign and walked in the fountain and I literally had people waiting for me at the end to ask me what this was about. My favorite was this really cute couple, who asked to take a picture with me, they were sooo nice. Let's just say the best finding method ever was just discovered and we will do it again. 

Success is found when being a missionary, but having a good time while doing it as well.

Michaela Janae Whitaker
This is Demi. Demi is from a providence in China (freak, I forgot the name) but he came to Hungary about two years ago to study
Economics. When he got to Hungary, he spoke very little English rather broken english. Which he still only speaks very broken English. He met the missionaries here in Debrecen about a year and a half ago and started taking lessons from them. A year ago he was baptized, but honestly I'm not sure how much he understood, originally, from the missionaries who first taught him. We are still teaching him but the language barrier makes it hard.
Okay, jump back eight months ago.... Sister Whitaker was serving in Szekesfehervar with Sister Sholly who also served in Debrecen and Sister Sholly would always talk about this little Asian dude in Debrecen. It was my dream from Szekes that I would sometime meet this Demi kid and then eight months later I get transferred to Debrecen. God is real.
Anyways, Demi had not been going to church for a good few months, and I was really concerned about it because the sister missionaries who served here before my companion and I did everything they could to get Demi to come to church, but nothing worked.
The week before I received my transfer call, that I would be coming to Debrecen to serve. My companions and I came to Debrecen for splits with the Sister Training leaders and the STL's set it up that I would be able to finally meet this infamous Demi guy. When I walked in and saw him for the first time I just felt God's love for him and how much God wants him to come to church so the lesson was all focused around how important church attendance is. I made him promise me that he would go to church the next Sunday. It was actually really cute because I will go to church wherever you go to church and I told him that I would be in Szeged, which is kind of far away and then he said he'd come to Szeged for his last Sunday, because in a week he would be going back to China for the summer. Anyways, I had faith in him that he would follow through and go to church, so we went back home to Szeged and then the following Sunday, I got a call from the Debrecen sisters that Demi went to church for all three hours. Now if you know anything about Demi is pretty much has the attention span of a four year old and can not sit still to save his life so the fact that he went to all three hours was a milestone!
I was excited for him to come down to Szeged for his last Sunday, but guess who came up to him... yep, me! He came to church this last Sunday and I translated for him and it was just wayy good. I was so happy that he came because he hadn't gone for a few months up until that point. That was like my miracle that I experienced this week.
Unfortunantly, Demi left us today. Right now he's on his way back to China and will be there until September 9th, but then will come back to Debrecen. That's one of the reasons why I'm hoping and praying that I will die in Debrecen. Die, meaning that I will finish my mission here. Before he left we made him this little picture collage and the goal behind it was that he would always see these pictures and remember to do the things that we want him to do... and not just us but Heavenly Father. It's a really cute collage and we were way satisfied with it. Here is a picture of it and with him holding it.
We love Demi!!

Michaela Janae Whitaker

Debrecen. What can I say about Debrecen. It's pretty much the coolest, most youngest city that I've served it. It has a nice, active night life. I've only been here since Friday but I have met a lot of cool young people here.

What/Who do I even start with? First of all when I got here I met the two cutest girls. One being our investigator, the other being the Elders. The funny thing is that they had just met, while waiting for us, and they already acted like best friends. They could have fooled me. It does my heart good when two people, who at one time were total strangers, make so good of friends and just act so tight from the first time they meet.  I don't have the ability to open myself up so quickly and make friends but these two girls were just way open and then were best friends the next minute.

Okay, well that was Thursday night when I rolled in. Oh speaking of rolling in. I literally rolled in, as I was pushing my bags at the train station (two bags but rolling them on their four weels, upright.) I tripped over them and made this horrid screeching sound that sounded wayyy ugly and everybody and their dogs (literally) looked at me. There was a nice man behind me, however, who helped me pick up my bags (not me...thanks) but then later we happen to go to the same villamos bench, I looked over at this guy and he was biting his lip trying not to burst out laughing, remembering just a few minutes ago this chinese girl was laying fast flat on the cement... haha.  I would have laughed my butt off too. We ended up talking to him, while waiting for the villamos. It was a good conversation. He definintely knew the missionaries and wasn't really interested in meeting but we still had a good conversation.
We got home, I put all of my bags into the house and we headed straight to the branch house because we had a program with Demi. Demi is from a providence in China (freak, I forgot the name) but he came to Hungary about two years ago to study Economics. When he got to Hungary, he spoke very little English rather broken english. Which he still only speaks very broken English. He met the missionaries here in Debrecen about a year and a half ago and started taking lessons from them. A year ago he was baptized, but honestly I'm not sure how much he understood, originally, from the missionaries who first taught him. We are still teaching him but the language barrier makes it hard.
Okay, jump back eight months ago.... Sister Whitaker was serving in Szekesfehervar with Sister Sholly who also served in Debrecen and Sister Sholly would always talk about this little Asian dude in Debrecen. It was my dream from Szekes that I would sometime meet this Demi kid and then eight months later I get transferred to Debrecen. God is real. Anyways, Demi had not been going to church for a good few months, and I was really concerned about it because the sister missionaries who served here before my companion and I did everything they could to get Demi to come to church, but nothing worked. The week before I received my transfer call, that I would be coming to Debrecen to serve. My companions and I came to Debrecen for splits with the Sister Training leaders and the STL's set it up that I would be able to finally meet this infamous Demi guy. When I walked in and saw him for the first time I just felt God's love for him and how much God wants him to come to church so the lesson was all focused around how important church attendance is. I made him promise me that he would go to church the next Sunday. It was actually really cute because I will go to church wherever you go to church and I told him that I would be in Szeged, which is kind of far away and then he said he'd come to Szeged for his last Sunday, because in a week he would be going back to China for the summer. Anyways, I had faith in him that he would follow through and go to church, so we went back home to Szeged and then the following Sunday, I got a call from the Debrecen sisters that Demi went to church for all three hours. Now if you know anything about Demi is pretty much has the attention span of a four year old and can not sit still to save his life so the fact that he went to all three hours was a milestone! I was excited for him to come down to Szeged for his last Sunday, but guess who came up to him... yep, me! He came to church this last Sunday and I translated for him and it was just wayy good. I was so happy that he came because he hadn't gone for a few months up until that point. That was like my miracle that I experienced this week.  Unfortunantly, Demi left us today. Right now he's on his way back to China and will be there until September 9th, but then will come back to Debrecen. That's one of the reasons why I'm hoping and praying that I will die in Debrecen. Die, meaning that I will finish my mission here. Before he left we made him this little picture collage and the goal behind it was that he would always see these pictures and remember to do the things that we want him to do... and not just us but Heavenly Father. It's a really cute collage and we were way satisfied with it. Here is a picture of it and with him holding it.
We love Demi!!

There are a lot of activities that go on here in Debrecen. We have Angol Ora (english class) we have this thing called Magyar Ora (Hungarian class). Because a lot of people come to Debrecen to study, a lot of them don't speak Hungarian which makes living in Hungary a little bit harder. We teach Hungarian class, and even though we don't know Hungarian perfectly, at least we can teach them the basics. Hopefully that will help them out a little. We had this guy named usma, that is from Nigeria come. He was soooo legit. After Magyar Ora we hold Sport nap where I FINALLY get to play basketball again. Oh man, basketball was soo missed to me, and usma came and brought his little brother Najgib (African names are so freakin awesome) plus we had some members and another investigator, Matthew, who lived in the USA and played ball in America so we had a dang good game going on. It was a lot of fun. It was nice to play competitive ball, plus Usman and his brother Najgib were really really fun to play with and they were intense and good. I was the only girl playing, but I felt like I was standing my ground pretty good with all the boys. We had a good time. After Sport nap I talked to Usman about his life in Nigeria and stuff and his family. It was way interesting to talk to him about his life and family in Nigeria. He seemed pretty intrested in our church. Unfortunantly he will only be here for one more semester and then he'll go back to Nigera. We had a good conversation with him and we are hoping he will come back to Magyar Ora and Sport nap this week. All we can do is wait.

I got to meet the whole branch on Sunday and that was great. The branch is super nice here and everyone was too kind to me. I felt very welcomed. Fun fact, the guy who was the branch president's counselor in Papa when I served there has since been married and now lives in Debrecen so I got to meet up with him and catch up with him on Sunday, and now he's a conselor in the Debrecen branch presidency, so that's way cool! The branch is just way cool. That's all you need to know.

Sunday was probably one of the coolest blocks of finding that I've done during the course of my mission. There is this HUGE indoor/outdoor soccer stadium in this HUGE park not too far from our house. It's literally like a family friendly park with sections of nice soft grass to picnic on or play soccer. Then there's a huge fountain that have concrete blocks in the middle of it so that you can walk out in the fountain. The water is far enough way so you don't get soaked but you do get some misty water hitting you at times. Anyways, there were TONS of people in this park on Sunday night and most of them were families. Oh, not to mention there is a track around this park, like with actual track turf, that young fit/old and not so fit are running on. It's a big one two that goes up and down hills and has beautiful scenary. I can not wait to run on the track. It will be a nightly workout. I got to get that good bod before I go home in exactly THREE months today, whhaaaat?! Just kidding, my bod is already a loss cause. Anyways, I took our sign that said 'We are happy because we are Mormon, ask us why we are happy.' and walked around the park with it. We also took Michael with us who is a really solid Asian member here in Debrecen. Michael is just a story in himself, he's so great. Anyways Sellers, Michael and I walked around the park and literally had people come up to us asking us what our sign was about, or why we are truly happy. Then I took the sign and walked in the fountain and I literally had people waiting for me at the end to ask me what this was about. My favorite was this really cute couple, who asked to take a picture with me, they were sooo nice. Let's just say the best finding method ever was just discovered and we will do it again.
Success is found when being a missionary, but having a good time while doing it as well.

Wow, I feel like I have a billion other things to write about this week and I've only been here for a few days.
I'm not going to lie I would be lying if I said that I don't miss Szeged and I may or may not cry a little every night because I miss it so much (well...that last part may be a little lie) but I do. There is a little part of my heart that is definitely there and will stay there until I go back to pick it up, after my mission.
But now I am in Debrecen and these people deserve my 100% best and I'm determined to give them just that.

I hope you had a good week and Happy Fourth of July!!

Sister Whitaker.

I got to see my girl, Kovacs, before I left Szeged. It's hard to believe that a year ago we were companions in Papa... Time passes by so quickly.

The New Debrecen District...featuring the only Newbie...me.

This week we had zone conference in Budapest and I got to see my girl, Sister Layton and our friend Sister Jeppson. 

What a crazy week!

First of all, I'm being transferred to Debrecen this week. I have to leave Szeged, but I kind of expected it. We are the only trio of sisters in the mission and one of the native Hungarian sisters is going home this week so President decided to take me out of the trio and put me in her place, in Debrecen.

I'm excited, but leaving Szeged will not be easy. Being in an area for nine weeks and leaving is hard enough, but Szeged has been my home for the past fifteen weeks and I feel like I will leave part of my heart here when I leave. I had my first baptism here in Szeged. The members here in Szeged have adopted the missionaries into their own families. It's just heart-breaking to leave them.

I've just got to accept the fact that it's my time to leave and that there are people in Debrecen who need me to find them and teach them.

This week though was pretty jammed pack.

Monday we went out fishing with Gabor and his dad. There is a special bug called the mayfly that comes out of the Tisza river after hatching from underwater. It only happens one week a during the whole year. and the ugly mayflies just fly all over. The fish literally jump out of the water catching these ugly things. It's the best week to fish on the Tisza. Well we went out fishing and I caught two huge fish! We were doing spinning and fly-fishing. That was the first time that I did either and I caught one with both styles. It was way fun! The bugs and fish were both jumpin like crazy!! We had a really good time with Gabor and his dad too.

Tuesday we set off early in the morning for Budapest because we had zone conference. President's last zone conference before he goes home. It was a good time though. The main topic and thing I got out of it was the importance of becoming better everyday.

After zone conference my companions and I went to Debrecen, which is on the way east side of the country, for splits. We actually sat on the train by this younger dude and had a good missionary moment. By the end we ended up taking a selfie with this guy and he put it on Facebook. hahaha!  Anways, we got to stay for a day and teach some people in Debrecen. That was way fun, we got to see how the STL's (sister training leaders) taught and learned a lot from them. Now look at me, I'm going back to Debrecen to finish where I left off with those people earlier this week. It will be interesting, but I am excited.

Wednesday and Thursday morning we were in Debrecen.

As we were heading home we had another missionary moment where we talked to a lady who was heading back to Germany from visiting her family here in Hungary but it all started when she hiccuped and I thought there was a small animal sitting behind me. I look behind me and she says in her cute hungarian accent, "I'm sorry... excuse me."  Anyways she started asking about our church and that was cool.  We shared our testiomonies and hopefully she gets hooked up with some missionaries in Germany. One could only hope.

Yeah so Thursday evening we came home had a few programs . They were all good. We met with LZ again, who we had on bap date last transfer but she didn't want to meet anymore. It was a good meeting with her, we brought a member who she is pretty familiar with. The program went good, but she still hasn't come to church, so that's what we're working on.

RR is way solid if any of you are wondering. Now with me and Layton gone is way sad but we know that he will stay strong. No doubt.

Friday and Saturday were just kind of chill days. We did some finding, but didn't see a lot of success out of it, to be honest. Sometimes you get them and sometimes you dont.

Sunday, Kovács came down to Szeged. Sister Kovács was my companion  my second transfer in Pápa. She spoke in our branch about her mission and how members can get involved in missionary work. It was way good. Gee, I love her so much.

Wow, my email is like way all over the place. I'm just not really thinkin' straight. Having to leave is on my mind, and it sucks, but this is the missionary life for ya. No, it doesn't suck. We just have to move when it's time.

I'll take lots of pictures of Debrecen, my new city, next week and it will be good (:

Love ya'll

Whitaker Nővér

Michaela Janae Whitaker

March 1879, The Tisza river flooded and ended up flooding the whole city of Szeged. It was pretty devastating. Now there's this statue thing by the Tisza, here in Szeged to remind the people of the flood, but not so much of the flood but of the rebuilding up of Szeged. This is just a cool picture of it. It's way big... and fun to climb on (:

Chalking in Széchenyi Tér. My companion is a real artist.