Monday, September 4, 2017

I'm here in Veszprém now and things are going great! It's super pretty here and I'm really glad to be outside of Budapest for a bit. It's so green here and there are so many beautiful buildings and rolling hills. We have a pretty good sized branch here. There were 37 people at church! Everyone is so nice! We got 3 dinner appointments for this week within 5 minutes of walking in the door. It was fast Sunday so I got up and bore my testimony and introduced myself a little bit. I just know it's going to be a great transfer!

My new companion is Elder Biesinger by the way. He's awesome and we get along super well. He's really funny and he's a great cook! I'm so blessed to be here serving with him! He's also great at asking questions and he's always interested in learning more about what interests me, which I find very nice.

Our apartment is great! Much nicer than the apartment in Pest, in my opinion. I didn't take any pictures this week, since everything was kind of scattered everywhere after the move, but I'll be sure to have some pictures next week. We have a working washing machine so no more hand washing all of our dishes! Also, the shower doesn't have a shower curtain, which is kind of interesting. I was pretty worried about it, but Elder Biesinger very kindly said, "Don't worry about it so much. Water will get out, but that's why the towel is there."

Sometimes I find myself feeling overly critical of myself and feeling frustrated at my imperfections. I get pretty stressed out when things don't go right, and as I was taking a shower, the thought came into my mind, "Don't worry about it so much. Water will get out, but that's why the towel is there. Don't worry about everything so much. You're going to make mistakes, but that's why the Savior is there." I never thought that I would be comparing the Savior to a towel, but there you go. It definitely brought me peace.

So we don't have any investigators right now, but we set a goal in faith to find at least one person to teach this week. When we went out, we just kind of went to a random street and started tracting. A lot of the people here have already been tracted into, but we're going to give them all another opportunity, just in case. The first day, the last door we tracted into was a middle aged woman who was super excited to see us. Her name is Udit and she is a teacher at some sort of school (I didn't really understand all that well, to be honest). She said that she used to have missionaries over, but she hasn't seen them in a long time. She let us in and we talked on her porch, surrounded by a beautiful garden. We talked about her beliefs and we were able to teach her about the Restoration and give her a Book of Mormon. She was just incredibly nice, and brought us a ton of fruit and drinks. Everytime I stopped eating her grapes, even for a minute, she would say, "Go ahead, eat the grapes! Eat them!" it was super funny. She insisted on giving us something in exchange for the book, but we assured her that we had plenty of them and that it was truly free. She wouldn't have it that way though, so she gave us two jars of jam made from home grown fruit. Before we left, she asked us, "So do you usually come back?" We misunderstood and thought she was asking if we usually go back to a city that we have already served in, but she said, "Like, do you come back to people's houses to talk with them?" and we just looked at eachother and had this moment of nonverbal communication where we both telepathically said, "Is this really happening?" Then we told her we would love to come back and she said she would call us after she talks with her husband. It was one of the most pleasant lessons I've ever had and she may become a new investigator!

I'm just loving it here. It's different, for sure, but it's great. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve a mission. It has changed me in ways I didn't think were possible! I'm so grateful for the gospel in my life. I just feel so blessed. Thank you all for your love and support! 

Sok szeretettel,

Burnett Elder

Hungarian word of the week: "vörösáfonya" means "cranberry" but directly translates to "red blueberry"

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