A Great Week!

This was a great week this week! Because me and Elder Egan both have callings, it's been a lot different here in Békéscsaba than in other cities. Elder Goulding is the branch president here, and he is the only missionary-American-branch president here in Hungary. There were some in Eger and Kaposvár, but both of those cities just received Hungarian branch presidents!

An interesting thing about Békéscsaba - it apparently has the highest ratio of people on the list and active members! I thought that was really cool!

Another cool story - we were visiting with an investigator, and he asked us "if I knew someone who you could help, could I give a referral?" and we were like "yeah!!!!" *miracle*

Sok szeretettel!!!!

Bunker Elder

Békéscsaba!!!

Hello everyone! I'm in Békéscsaba right now!!! It was sad leaving Szolnok, of course, but I already love Békéscsaba to death! We had a Farsang buli here on Saturday, which was exciting, and a great way to meet with all the members that came! About 33 people were at church on Sunday, including the missionaries, who are me, Egan Elder, Brady Nővér, Grogan Nőver, and the Gouldingék. We had a great little district meeting the first full day of the transfers and made some really good goals for that transfer!!! We are going to be working with some prospective Melchezidek priesthood holders, as there are no active Melchezidek priesthood holders in the Branch right now! We are also going to try to use family history a lot in our missionary work this transfer, as Goulding Elder and Nővér are experts with family history!

When we were tracting, we got a let-in to an older couple who met with the missionaries quite a few years ago when they lived in a different part of town! They invited us back for lunch on Sunday and fed us fish soup and túros tészta (cottage cheese pasta), a real Hungarian meal! We are also going to bring them cookies on Friday this week!

We also had dinneres with the Gouldings and the sisters as well as two members of the ward on Sunday! Ricsi, who is about 17 years old and speaks perfect English and helps a ton with the missionary work, and Sara, who is an American professional volleyball player in Békéscsaba. It was really yummy!

I am also now the first counselor in the branch presidency, and my companion is the ward clerk! So we have a lot of stuff to do on Sunday, too!

Békéscsaba is really pretty! There are also a good number of members in Gyula and Békés, two smaller cities not too far from here! In fact, tonight, we are going to go visit a member in Gyula with Elder Goulding. I've heard that both of those cities are really pretty to, especially Gyula, which has a ton of fountains and a castle, too.

I hope that everybody has a great week!!!

Sok szeretettel!

Bunker Elder

Transfer to Békéscsaba!!!!

Hello everybody!

So this week is transfer week!!!! I am going to be leaving Szolnok, and going to Békéscsaba, and my new companion will be Egan Elder, which is great, because Egan is prounced like igen, Hungarian for "yes," so I'll be serving with Elder Yes the next nine weeks! Békéscsaba is in the southeast zone as well, so I've already met him and talked with him ant zone trainings and zone conference, and he seems like a really nice guy - I am excited to start serving with him!!!! 

Békéscsaba!!!

Unfortunately, going to Békéscsaba also means that I am going to be leaving Szolnok! I'm going to really miss being here, but I am glad that I was able to be here for such a long time!!!

My last full week here was great! We had a lot of programs, and it's been awesome to see the work here grow a ton! We had a program last night with a lady, and her friend popped in at the end, and liked what we were talking about and said that she wanted to take the lessons with her friend, too! It was awesome! We also looked up another less active lady yesterday, and she invited us in and gave us sandwiches and lecsó.


Sister Withers, who has been a greenie here, will be staying and training, and she is by far the youngest trainer that's been around my entire mission, at 4 months in the country. Last transfer, sister Adams, who greenied around me in Győr, broke the record at 6 months in Dunaújváros, and before that I have almost always seen sisters train after their year mark and elders and their year and a half mark, so this is pretty exciting! Elder Haws will be staying here as well, and be serving with Elder Baird, from my group, and Sister Smith is going up to Sopron with Sister Nybo, from my group, as well! In Békéscsaba I will be serving with Sister Rogan from Texas and Sister Brady, who is also in my group!!!!!!

Tonight we are all having dinner with the ward mission correlator and his wife, it will be rokott krumpli, so yummy!!!!!

I hope that everyone has a great week!

sok szeretettel!

Bunker Elder

Church and apartment

I thought you would be interested to see where Paul goes to church and where he lives.

This is where Paul lives

I've circled his balcony

The Church

Another View of the the Church

A View of the Street

New Companion!

This week was really great!!!! As you already all know, Elder Haws is my new companion! We have been doing great so far, we are hoping to really help the missionary work move forward here in Szolnok!

We weren't able to meet with a ton of people this week, but we have so far set up a lot of meetings for next week, so that's going to be great! We are also really excited for Christmas!!!

Also, one of our investigators has finally started reading out of the Book of Mormon, we are so happy for her!

I hope everyone has a great week!!!!

Sok szeretettel!

Bunker Elder

TRANSFERZ

Hello everyone! So we got transfer calls today! Elder Chambers is going to Erd, for a week before his departure date with another Elder from his dying Group, and I am getting his greenie, Elder Haws, that he just trained in Miskolc!!! It's going to be awesome! Sister Withers is staying here and getting Sister Smith, from our mutual greenie city, Veszprém, Sister Csolity is going to Szeged, and Sister Whittaker just finished her mission strong and is going home. So, by the time I leave Szolnok I will have been here for at least 7 months! It's so exciting to be able to serve in a place that I love, and with awesome members and progressing investigators. I've seen the work get better and better since I've gotten here, and hopefully it will keep going up.

Last week was really busy! President Szabakai has interviews with all the missionaries once a transfer now, which is a really good idea, I think, which ended up leading to a really busy Saturday! We went to Kecskemét in the morning, for a baptism, and then after that we traveled to Budapest for interviews, and then we got back home to Szolnok at night!

We also had splits in Szeged, which were great! We were able to enjoy some really good fish soup at this one restaurant that the zone leaders took us to, it was really tasty! It was catfish soup, to be specific, and there was live traditional Hungarian music there, too! Apparently there isn't always music there, so we got lucky!

There is this one guy who comes to church who is technically an investigator and we haven't really ever been able to set up with him ever, but we finally got his name and address last Sunday, and he said that he wants to start meeting with us and seemed pretty excited about it!!!!!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas season!!!!

Sok szeretettel!

Bunker Elder

Jó napot kívánok

Jó napot kívánok!!!!

This week was great! We made Thanksgiving dinner together as a district. We made chicken (it was easier than a turkey), stuffing, mashed potatoes, salad, and apple pie. I was yummy!

We also had the music night. I helped some of the members prepare piano music, and we visited a lot of members asking them to invite a friend, and the turnout was great! There were ten people who were there that weren't members, and we are planning on meeting with some of them, including someone that knew Sister Csolity, the Hungarian missionary here, from college!

Speaking of programs, this week is planned to be really busy! We are hoping that everything works out -- we are going to Szeged for splits on Tuesday and Wednesday, and on Saturday there will be the baptism in Kecskemét -- since there is an actual big new ward building there with a baptismal font, and since it was available the baptism was moved to there instead -- and also Budapest right after that for transferly interviews!

I hope that everyone has a great week!!!!!

Sok szeretettel!

Bunker Elder