Chocolate overload

Hey everybody!!!

The Christmas week was really crazy, and we didn't have much of a chance to really do emails.... Sorry! But we were able to visit some less active members with plates of cookies, and we had a great Christmas program that was really successful.

First, the Christmas program on Tuesday! It started out with the choir singing several Christmas hymns acapella with some of the members reading poetry.  The lady who we got a referral for and has been a super solid investigator, read this cool Christmas poem. I didn't understand it that well, but it was pretty. Then we did this sort of readers theater thing dealing with the nativity with some hymns and other things with the ward choir, and at the end we all shared what Christmas meant to us, and bore our testimonies about Christ. I think everyone felt the Spirit really strongly, and it was super awesome because a lot of less active members and investigators were able to come.

So this week is the first week it hasn't been super foggy. I guess Veszprém is always foggy because of its proximity to the Balaton -- at least that is what everyone tells me! I guess it got to cold and all the fog condensed into ice or something, because the day after Christmas it snowed -- finally!!!!! Apparently Hungary usually has a white Christmas, but not this year! However we will have a white New Years!

Funny story: so no one was out the morning after Christmas except for us, and we were like walking through the Belváros to get to the other elders' place, and literally no one was out. So I sang Christmas songs really loud (but not louder than beautiful!). Picture to come of empty street when I finally email at a computer capable of sending pictures!!!!!!

So when we are out and about I'm always the person who is fine without the hat and scarf. But when we get home and I take off my coat, I finally get chilly, so I sit all huddled on the couch under a thick blanket. I wonder what my companion thinks of me. Speaking of my companion, we are cousins!!!!! We even found the linking ancestor, which I'm pretty sure is our great-great-great-grandpa. I don't really remember though.....

And also speaking of my companion, we are having transfers tomorrow, already, and my companion is getting transfered already!!!! Elder Cox is going to be with Elder Baird, who is from my MTC group and my new companion is going to be Elder Dellenbach, who right now is with Elder Evans, who is also in my MTC group. I guess a lot of missionaries in my MTC group are getting changes. I know for a fact that Sister Jeppson, who was also in my MTC group will be getting a new companion, because her old comp, Sister Kovács, is just finishing out her eighteen months as this transfer finishes up. I don't know about anyone else, though.

Elder Cox has been a great companion!! He has a very strong testimony and loves Hungary and Hungarian. It has been awesome serving with him, and I wish him luck for the rest of his mission, and when he goes home in July! I also can't wait to serve with Elder Dellenbach, I've heard lots of good things about him!

Funny story: I have become really used to sounding things out since I've come to Hungary and have had to sound out words in Hungarian if I want to write down and remember them, and along with that, in the previous paragraph I kept on trying to spell "MTC" like "emptysee." Not kidding. LOLOL

So the highlight of this past week or so was talking to my family!!!!! It was fun talking to them and getting up to date. I'm not joking when I say my family travels a lot, and it hasn't changed since I left for my mission. They went to family in Washington DC for Thanksgiving, and I just found out through email that they just barely went down to Mississippi to see some more family sometime before or after Christmas. (I know they were home Christmas day bc of the Skype call!)

So the pattern seems to be we go up to Budapest for this and that between one to two times a month, maybe sometimes even three. But we only really see the three blocks between the train station and the ward house / mission home / mission office / multi purpose building.

I haven't really talked about that building, much, have I?? It's a cool building. the first two floors are a ward building, the third and fourth floors are mission offices and related stuff, and floors five and six are the mission home, and theres also a basement that connects to a garage thing. I might have gotten it a little wrong, because whenever ever I go there I don't really pay attention to the floors, I just go up and down stairs until I arrive at wherever I am trying to get to. I geuss there is only one other building in the ward quite like it. (BTW, the ward that meets there is the Buda ward. I guess if you want a seat, you have to get there really early, because there are a lot of people and not a ton of seats.)

Hopefully more than like two people will come to English class this week! From what I have heard, Veszprém has the smallest English class by far, at least compared to the other areas that missionaries here have been in. Were hoping the class numbers will rise. We give out like a million fliers every day. Also, this English teacher at the university here in Veszprém has asked us if she could promote it to her class for extra English practice. If what I hear is true, a lot of things here in Hungary with mission work tend to pick up after the holidays, because everyone isn't quite as busy. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this will be true with English class! (And in case any of you were wondering, usually more than two people show up, but there have been those weeks!!) 

If the labeling is true on all the chocolate I ate over the Christmas week, then I averaged 1000 calories of chocolate a day. I have given up trying to come back from my mission all fit and healthy and am going for coming back from my mission without having a heart attack. Its going to be a hard goal to follow through. But I think with self control, strenuous workouts, much prayer, and a TON of fasting, I might be able to do it. LOL

Speaking of eating lots of food, two stories. The first, we were eating at an investigators house, and for seconds they just gave me the serving bowl, as kind of a joke. The kept on telling me I didn't have to eat it all, and they didn't want me to get sick or throw up or anything, but if I was hungry to just go ahead and eat, but it was easy to see that János, the man we were visiting, wanted to see if I could do it. I just kept on eating and eating and somehow I did it. Everyone applauded when I finished.

Second story, I was reading Jesus the Christ when I came across this: "We believe in enjoying good food ... We believe in getting all the enjoyment out of eating that we can." It made me chuckle.

Have a great week!!!!!

Sziastok!!

Bunker Elder