Alright, buckle up, because this email is about road trips! (Ugh, I hate myself for that one, but I saw the opportunity and had to take it so forgive me) Also it's going to be super long, so I'm way sorry. You don't have to read it all.

Okay wait, before we move on... You'll never guess who just walked into the office to talk with us. President Szabadkai! He is here visiting because Sister Szabadkai has a training here in Buda. He is very happy and it was so fun to talk with him for a bit :)

Last Saturday, we left for Pápa immediately after emailing. We got to Pápa and met some of the sisters from Veszprém, because they had the keys to the apartment. We went through the apartment and cleaned it of all missionary stuff, loaded it all into the van, and took off to Szombathely. In Szombathely, we met up with all of the Sopron missionaries and most of the members (and even an investigator) and a lot of the Szombathely members as well. It was a ton of fun to see the members of two of the cities I had served in previously! Horváth Csaba from Szombathely was especially excited to see me and was sure to save me a seat right next to him.

The baptismal program was wonderful. Elder Hudson gave his first talk and he did such a good job! Everyone was impressed with him. We had a few other talks, a special musical number, took some pictures, and then got to witness the ordinance. Everyone in that room felt the Spirit, I just know it. It was so powerful. I couldn't help but feel like there were angels, ancestors, and friends on the other side of the veil present as we all crowded around the font to watch Robi step into the waters of baptism. As he went under the water, his past life was laid to rest. He came up a new man, with a new purpose. He had taken a huge step on the path bag to his Heavenly Father. I am so grateful to have been there and to have had the opportunity to witness such a beautiful moment in his life!

In the pictures, you'll notice that Robi doesn't smile. It's not because he is unhappy, I promise. A lot of Hungarians just refuse to smile in pictures, which I think is kind of hilarious because they all seem so mad hahaha. 

After the ordinance, we sang hymns, heard a beautiful testimony from Robi, ate a lot of food, took more pictures, and then parted ways. We needed to go close an apartment in Sopron, so we took the other elders with us in the van. About an hour or so into our drive, the GPS led us off onto a suspiciously small, dirt road. We drove down it for about a mile or so, when we saw two men in camo, wearing orange vests. They were sitting on stools and had a big, canopy tent set up right beside them. My only thought was, "What a strange place to camp!" 

Suddenly, Elder Millett shouted, "STOP THE CAR THIS IS THE AUSTRIAN BORDER!!" so Elder Suggs jammed on the breaks. The two men got up and walked over to us and confirmed that it was indeed the Austrian border. The soldiers were really nice and actually helped guide Elder Suggs as he turned around hahaha. 

Anyways, we made it to Sopron, had dinner at an italian place (I talked to the waitress as we were checking out and she gave us her number and agreed to meet next week!), got all of the mission stuff out of the other apartment and then went to sleep. The next morning, we drove back to Budapest and made it back in time for Church. As soon as we pulled in, I realized that I left my bag in Sopron. No camera, no passport, no scriptures. RIP.

On Wednesday of this week, we went to the east of Hungary and got to visit Eger, where we had dinner with a senior couple and some other missionaries, closed down another apartment, and collected more stuff. We spent the night in Eger and left the next morning for Miskolc (pronounced me-shkole-ts). Same thing in Miskolc: we met the elders, collected stuff from the apartment, had lunch, and then headed off to Nyíregyháza, where we met up with Elder Gilson and Elder Wrathall. It was great to see Elder Gilson again and we had a good time chatting. After cleaning up Nyíregyháza, we made our way back to Budapest just in time to have a training meeting over Zoom (basically it's just a big skype conference call) with missionaries from like 6 different countries. They just gave us some training on a new referral management program that I get to work a lot with. Sora De Waal (Corinne's trainee) and her companion, Sora Madsen, were in the Zoom call along with Sora Hettinger. At one point, they answered a question and forgot to mute their mic again, so we could all hear them giggling and talking. I sent them a quick text that said, "Hey, you're not muted btw" and then they all laughed really hard and muted themselves again. Pretty funny.

This email is too long, so I'm going to do a bullet list:

-Had splits with Elder Spencer, one of the AP's

-There was a huge YSA party that was Italian themed (the Church is taking them all to the Rome temple open house! So jealous!). We got to go for an hour and I saw some of the YSA from some of the cities I served in earlier. There was a noise complaint at 11 that night by one of the neighbors, so that shut the party down lol.

-We got to host Elder Rohner (my mtc comp) and his companion because they didn't have a train home after a doctor's appointment

-A Mongolian man came and asked us to tell "Mr. President Nelson Brother President Sir" (it's funnier in Hungarian) that the BYU pathways program should be made available in 35 new languages. We told him we would do our best to tell President Nelson, but said that we probably wouldn't be able to. He encouraged us to try anyways.

And just so much more. I'm so glad to be here. It's the best.

Have a great week! 

Sok szeretettel,

Burnett Elder

Hungarian of the week: To say "I'd like to get off in Budapest" you would say "Budapesten szeretnék leszállni" which, when translated literally, means "Budapest-on like-would-I off-get-to"

Whack.