Another packed week! 

We saw a Scientology demonstration in the public square near our apartment. As we were walking past, a man stopped me and asked, "Are you Mormon missionaries?" and I said, "Yes, we are!" and we just started chatting a bit. His name was Jan, and he was from Florida. He said that he's always had really good friends who were members of the Church, and that he respects us a lot. He explained a little bit about what Scientologists believe, and said, "Our churches have quite a bit in common, you know. We have a very different view on history, but we have a lot in common. I really like the Mormons. If I wasn't a Scientologist, I'd be a Mormon!" He was super friendly, and I appreciated his kindness. We asked him about the demonstration, and apparently the Hungarian government confiscated a lot of records from the Scientologist church here in Hungary because they are a "weird church". The demonstration was in protest to this so I guess that's pretty admirable.

We got to drive Elder Engbjerg of the 70 to the airport because all of the taxis were booked. This was a huge blessing, because we had such a good time chatting as we drove! He was such a friendly person, who just radiated love. He shared with us a very special experience of how he decided to serve a mission. He was living in America when he found the Church and was baptized, and nobody in his family was a member. As he was flying home to Denmark, he remembered the admonition of so many prophets and other priesthood leaders that, "every worthy able young man should serve a mission". He kept dismissing the thoughts as his own, but they were constant and relentless. He couldn't sleep at all with his mind so occupied by the thought of serving a mission. He thought, "I'm too old. I've already been to college! I just joined the Church, I don't need to serve." but the thought persisted. Finally, he prayed, saying, "Heavenly Father, if you prompt somebody to encourage me to serve, then I promise I will serve." After that prayer, he was able to fall asleep for the rest of the flight. He said that when he woke up, he had forgotten all about his promise.

When he returned home, he attended church at the nearest meeting house, where the Bishop asked to have an interview with him to get to know him. During their interview, they talked about Elder Engbjerg's conversion, his adventures in America, and what he liked to do with his free time. In the middle of the conversation, the Bishop said, "I don't know why... but I feel the overwhelming need to ask you to serve a mission." That's when the tears came, and Elder Engbjerg remembered his promise to Heavenly Father. He told the Bishop of the promise, and they got straight to work! "The Lord heard my prayer and my promise, and he kept me to it. I am forever grateful for the things that I learned from my mission. It later helped me in many callings, including when I was a mission president in Poland. I will never forget how I felt, knowing that my prayer was heard and answered." 

I'm so lucky to have had that special experience driving with Elder Engbjerg! As we chatted, I told him that it was miraculous that I was able to return to Hungary, and also funny because I got put into the same mission as my girlfriend. When he heard that, he laughed and patted me on the shoulders and said, "You have to update me on what happens! I need to know how this story ends!" hahaha.

We had splits in Dunaújváros and I got to be with my buddy, Elder McCann. We got to go on splits a few transfers ago, and we get along really well. Elder McCann and I were able to mow a néni's lawn! I have pictures, but they're on Elder McCann's camera, so they'll have to come later.

When we got back from splits, we had an unplanned lesson over Skype with a man named Sándor who lives in Denmark. We have Skyped with him once in the past, and Elder Suggs had to check something on the computer super fast, and he noticed a message from Sándor, saying that he was in a rough spot and needed help. We called him and had a great discussion about how we can receive peace in Christ, and how the Book of Mormon helps us to do that.

Immediately after that, President Hettinger came downstairs and told us to go up to his apartment (they live right above the mission home) and get some dinner. They had to leave right away, so they said, "You guys can just stay in our apartment. Just close the door on your way out!" I'm glad they trust us! 

Right after that, we had a member visit with the Gonzales family. Jared is from Mexico, and Bettina is Hungarian. They met at BYU Hawaii, were married there, and moved to Hungary to work. They gave us a bunch of extra cake and sweets that they got from someone's wedding, so we totally scored with that visit!

English class was a huge success. Got to explain a lot about our church and what we believe in and 5 people took copies of the Book of Mormon and the 21 day reading challenge afterward!

Friday we got permission to go to a YSA event and watch 17 miracles. That movie is a tough one to get through. I was biting my tongue through half of it so that I wouldn't cry hahaha. One of the sisters in my district is in that movie too! She's the little Danish girl who jumps passed all of the rattlesnakes.

One line from that movie has been bouncing around in my head for the past little while. One of the pioneers said, "There were times when I felt like giving up, but then I remembered all of the times when the Lord had spared us previously, and I offered a prayer of gratitude instead."

Sometimes, I feel like giving up too. Missionary work is the hardest work I've ever been asked to do in my life! But I think of all the miracles that have led me to this point, and I know that forward is the best direction to go, and the best way that I can show my gratitude to Heavenly Father for providing this opportunity is by working hard. Next time you feel like giving up, count your blessings and be grateful instead!

Sok szeretettel,

Burnett Elder

In Hungary, cows say mú and bú. Dogs say vau-vau, horses say nyihaha, mice say cincincin, and pigs say röf-röf-röf. 

We had a lot of visitors this week including the one and only Elder Rohner (one of my companions from the MTC) who got to spend the night in our apartment. One of the best parts about being an office elder is that we have the apartment that is closest to the mission home, so we get to host a lot of elders who come through Budapest and have to stay a night.

This week, I got cleared to start driving! Driving here in Hungary is pretty much the same as in America, but the signs are different and there are some small differences in rules. The biggest thing is that it's much more chaotic, in my opinion. There are sections of the city where the lines in the road have worn off, and therefore you have no real direction. You just kind of go for it and hope that nobody is going for it in your direction at the same time lol. Also, the roads are super thin so you have to hold your breath a lot while squeezing between cars.

We had zone conferences this week and Elders Suggs, Martin, McCann, and I all sang "Lord, I would follow thee" in Hungarian a cappella. If I find a recording, I'll be sure to send it out :)

I got to have my own special part in zone conference! President Hettinger asked me to give a "funny, but hard hitting" presentation to pump people up about cleaning their apartments, because we have been having trouble with some landlords who are unhappy with the way that missionaries have been treating their apartments. So, I got up there and singed some eyebrows :). I'm grateful that I was raised in a household where we learned to do our chores. Now, I get to share that with missionaries! hahaha

The highlight of our week was yesterday when we went out to lunch with my dear friend, Rozi néni (aunt Rozi). She is the sweetest woman ever, and she loves to take the missionaries out to eat. I think that she takes 3 or 4 companionships from 2 different cities out to lunch every week! Anyways, she always takes us to this gyros place in Széll Kálmán tér. The problem is, that gyros place is pretty much the worst hahaha. They reheat the meat in the microwave and the gyros always turns out soggy. So, naturally, we suggested to Rozi néni that instead of microwaved gyros, we get microwaved chinese food instead. She was happy to switch it up a little bit and we went to a little hole in the wall chinese place on the street corner. I got soup, a main dish, and a drink for 990 forint (3.52 USD) hahahahaha. Anyways, halfway through our meal, a random woman comes up to us and asks, "Do you speak Hungarian? Can you please watch my baby while I use the bathroom?" and we were like, "Woaaaah, yes we speak Hungarian but no we definitely can't hold your baby, sorry. Maybe Rozi néni can!" and of course, Rozi néni is the sweetest person to ever live, so she took the baby and we waited. Once the mom came back, we invited her to sit and have lunch with us, which she did happily. We naturally started talking about the Church, and she was super open and accepting of everything! We invited her to Church and she said she would love to come. She was asking, "Can my son come? Are their boys his age?" and we said, "Yes of course! Please come! He would love it!" So she excitedly wrote the address of the church down and said she would be there. What a miracle! All because we didn't want soggy gyros and because I have a soft spot in my heart for reheated chinese :)

Of course, she lives in the other elders' area.... so she would meet with them. But that's okay, it's still miraculous!

In other news, someone gave me a bag of mountain dew flavored popcorn that fizzes in your mouth. Weird.

Things are going well and I love being a missionary. Lot's of crazy stuff happening and no time to explain!

I know that the Lord is leading and guiding us every single day, whether we know it or not. One of my favorite things to do is trace all of the events that lead me to a specific moment and look for the Lord's hand in that. For example, think of all the things that had to happen for us to meet Veronika (the woman in the Chinese restaurant). I know that God knows us each individually, and He is directing us always. It's so cool to have experiences like this where we can see His hand in our lives so directly. He certainly planned for us to cross paths with Veronika, and I'm so grateful to be an instrument in His hands!

Have a super duper week!

szeretettel,

Burnett Elder

Hungarian of the week: Apparently, Hungarian has contributed the words "goulash", "paprika", and "vampire" to English. Pretty cool!

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.

Chapter 52.

And so, Elder Burnett returned from his banishment, having gained new wisdom, stories, and a pretty good sunburn.

Tatabánya was incredible! I had so much fun. We met Elder Peery and Elder Emang at the South train station and then the journey began. Elder Peery and I jumped straight into planning, and we decided to go to a little village outside of Tatabánya to go tracting. When we got into T-bánya, we had just enough time to order some palacsinták (crepes) and then it was back on the train, 20 minutes later. We didn't stop by the apartment, so I had my shoulder bag and my backpack, which were both stuffed to the brim with my clothes, books, and other supplies for the whole day. We tracted up and down the dusty roads for hours. After a being in the heat for so long, we really needed water. All of the stores were closed because it was Saint Stephen's day, so we just asked for water when we tracted haha. This super nice néni gave us a 2 liter bottle of cold water for free! Such a blessing! While we were knocking doors, we ran into a woman who said, "My son goes to your church! His name is _____ (I forgot what his name was)." As we were walking away, Elder Peery told me that this guy had just recently gone inactive, so it was cool that we tracted into his mom.

Parker's friend Sora Colt - he got sent to do splits with Elder Peery in another city, so his comp took a pic with Sora Colt when she was at the office.

After more tracting, we took a break to do our studies in the courtyard of the local cathedral. About 10 minutes in, we saw a man ride by on a bike and it just so happened to be the guy whose mom we had just tracted into! We called him over to us and had a lengthy discussion about why he was leaving the church. We bore testimony and encouraged him to seek the truth through study and prayer, and promised that as he did so, he would find that the truth really is found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It was powerful! I know that God sent us to that village that day, up and down those dusty roads, just so that we could find that man and minister to the one.

We had a lesson that night with some members, and they fed us a dinner of tűros tészta. It was basically just noodles with cottage cheese type stuff. Simple, yet surprisingly delicious! We had sweet cinnamon and chocolate rice for dessert.

We fell asleep that night to the sound of fireworks and the local festival that was going on in celebration of Saint Stephen's day. This is the holiday where they parade the hand of St. István around the city. I think I've talked about it before. I was in Pest last year when this happened, and we had a great view of the fireworks back then.

The next day was fairly simple. We had a lesson in the morning and some more tracting in the heat. As we were studying in a public park, a man came up and just stopped and stared at us. I looked up, smiled, and asked, "How are you today?" And he said, "I'm just dumbfounded looking at you two. Here you are, no jobs, no work. Just sitting here. Unbelievable." Shocked by this, I replied with, "I beg your pardon?" He then said, "Why are you here? You're thieves. That's all you are. Thieves!" I asked, "What have we stolen?" and he said, "You're stealing my time and you're here to steal our money!" I replied with, "Actually, I worked very hard for several years so that I would have enough money to serve a mission. I paid for this. We don't receive any money for our service." Then he said, "You call yourselves missionaries! You have no idea what you're talking about! If you were really missionaries, you would go to Africa where they need it! Get out of our country! Go home! Stop stealing from us and go home!" 

I explained what we were doing there, what we believe in, and why our church was special. I talked a little bit about the Book of Mormon and why it's important, and finished by saying that we believe that God is our loving Heavenly Father and that he has a plan for our salvation. The man replied, "That's another thing that you've stolen! You've stolen our doctrine! That belief came from the Catholic church!" He finished by accusing us of being paid by a wealthy Jew in America, and then walked away as if he had done the country a favor. As soon as he left, we said a prayer for him and continued studying.

At least one day, he'll know what we know now!

Anyways, I'm completely out of time to email for the week, so here's a quick bullet list.

-Someone made a 30,000 USD purchase on one of our credit cards by accident (we got it all sorted out, it was an honest mistake made by... well, I have no idea who but the point is it's all good hahaha)

-We found a new investigator this week! Her name is Monika and she has accepted a Book of Mormon and a return appointment

-Elder Suggs and I are roadtripping to the West side of Hungary today to see Robi's baptism and to close down some apartments on that side of the country.

-I can't think of anything else. I know there's more, but I really don't have time! Sorry!

I love the Gospel and I love being here in Hungary preaching to the people. It's such a special experience and I wouldn't trade these things for anything. I'm so grateful to have a loving Father in Heaven who knows me personally, and who has sent me here to learn and to grow. I'm grateful for this wonderful life! 

Have a great week! Talk to you soon.

Szeretettel,

Burnett Elder

Hungarian word of the week is "te$$o" (pronounced teshow, and yes... spelled with dollar signs) . It's short for testvér which means brother/sibling. It's like their version of bro and it's hilarious.

I never know how to start these things out, so let's just go for it...

Things are great here in Buda! I'm so happy to be back in this city. It really is one of my favorites. There are just so many beautiful sights to see, which makes tracting so much more fun! We just go out adventure tracting in the hills and it's the best. We've been pretty tied up with different tasks, so we haven't been able to our proselyting too much, but we still have people to teach and the work is still going!

We got to visit the Southwicks this week (President Southwick is the Stake President). His family is hilarious! He is from Idaho and he married a Hungarian woman. They have 3 boys, ages 12, 9, and 6 and they speak Hungarian and English about equally. They speak the funniest Hunglish I've ever heard! It's great language practice for us.

We had a great lesson with some people from India (in English, so that was nice) and afterward, we went to a YSA activity with them. We had a waffle eating contest and I came in 1st with 11 waffles. Elder Allred still holds the record with 12. I'll let him keep the record. 11 is enough for me!

Our ward is one of the biggest in the country with around 100 people in church each week. I had an opportunity to bear my testimony and introduce myself a little bit last Sunday so that was nice. I already love it here!

I'm figuring things out here in the office but man, I never expected to deal with some of the problems we have to deal with. We're closing down several apartments throughout the country and it's our job to go and pick up all the stuff that belongs to the mission, communicate with the landlords, meet with them, and terminate our contracts. My Hungarian legal vocabulary was less than practiced before this point, so the learning curve for this particular assignment has been steep and slick. I like the fast pace though. We're always busy.

We sent home a huge group of fantastic missionaries this last week, including my trainer, Elder Jones, one of my other companions, Elder Harris, and some of my best friends in the mission including the sisters who entered the MTC with me. I've made some incredible friends on my mission, and I'm so excited to continue those relationships after the mission!

There's a missionary leadership council meeting this next week and all of the Hungarian and Romanian leadership will meet here in Buda for that. That means that Sister Colt will be here! That also means that I WON'T be here! I get to go on a little exchange for 36ish hours in a city called Tatabanya with Elder Peery until Sister Colt is back in Romania. Sometimes life puts you in some funny situations, doesn't it?

Robi's baptism will be happening on the 25th in Szombathely, and President Hettinger gave Elder Suggs and I permission to take the van and drive out there. We'll be spending the night in Sopron, so I'll get to see Elder Hudson again! It'll be so fun!

Life is great. I'm stressed out of my mind trying to do everything that needs to get done, but I'm also as happy as ever. I'm grateful to be serving with Elder Suggs, who is a great listener and a great missionary, and I'm grateful to be serving in this unique position. It's completely different from what I'm used to, but it has also been very enjoyable to work so closely with such a great group of incredible people. 

Thank you all for your love and support! Missionary life is just the best. I love it!

Sok szeretettel,

Burnett Elder

Hungarian for the week: bérleti szerződés means rental agreement. Fun to say, not to deal with.

Life is just full of surprises.

This week, we were able to meet with Robi, Elza, Krisztina, and Robi. I got to go on splits with Elder Millett and we had a lot of fun together. On Tuesday, we were supposed to have a music night with the Ommens and some of their friends, but it got cancelled. Because it was cancelled, we decided to go and visit Krisztina and invite her to dinner. We were able to meet with her in her home, with the Ommens and extend the invitation in person and she was so happy and excited to come! 

At dinner, Krisztina really opened up about a ton of stuff. She's going through a lot of really tough trials right now, and as she was talking, my heart just broke for her. She feels very lonely, and is grateful for our friendship, but she is worried that after we leave, she will be alone again. We talked about how while we will eventually leave, the Savior will always be there for her. We're trying to help her to see that as she turns to Christ, He will reach out and help her to feel peace, comfort, and happiness, no matter what trials we may be going through. She asked for a priesthood blessing, and I was privileged to be the one who offered that blessing. As we laid our hands on her head, there was a power present that I know could only come from God. His words; His message, came through my mouth, through my Hungarian, and pierced each one of our hearts. I'll be honest, I was expecting to just start speaking and have all of the Hungarian I would ever need just given to me, but it didn't work like that at all. Thoughts came to my head, and the Lord left it up to me to communicate those thoughts and messages that the Lord wanted Krisztina to hear. It was incredible. Afterward, Krisztina just said, "I can just feel it in my heart. I feel it right here!"

When we got home, I sent President Hettinger a text about our experience. His response was interesting. He said, "Very cool!" and then about a minute later, he said, "Elder Burnett, would you give me a call?"

I thought, "Uh-oh, I'm in trouble for something!"

I called President and he gave me some very interesting news. I was to pack my bags that night, and move to Budapest the next morning after District Meeting to start my training as an office secretary! What the.... That was some of the most unexpected news I've ever gotten, but I was incredibly excited. Elder Hudson will be in a trio with the other two Sopron elders until he gets assigned a new companion. 

After District Meeting, I went all by myself to Budapest with all of my bags. Luckily, I made friends with the kid that was on the train with me, and he helped me get all of my stuff off of the train on time. I'll be on the Buda side of the river this time, which is pretty exciting! Apparently, Buda is the older side (I always thought it was the newer side). After I arrived, the office elders met me at the train station and we got to work!

Training has been great! It kind of feels like everything is on fire and it's my job to put those fires out. As soon as we get one fire extinguished, there are 3 more and an explosion somewhere else that we need to figure out. It's fast paced, which is great, and we're incredibly busy. I get to deal with fun things like:

-Talking with Landlords, finding and closing apartments, rental agreements, and pretty much anything to do with housing

-Making sure that referrals are assigned and contacted

-Booking all trains and flights for every Romanian missionary (they have to do all of their booking online, and a lot of it falls onto my plate)

-Creating different mission documents

-Keeping  a history of the mission

-Anything President asks me to do

-Preaching the gospel!

And the list just goes on and on (those are just some of the main ones).

I'm very sad to be leaving Sopron, especially when the work was going so well, but I can't wait to serve in this new position. I learned so much in the 4 weeks that I was in Sopron. I think most importantly, I learned how to be humble and really work hard because I wanted to consecrate my time to the Lord, not just because it was my duty. I learned how to love the people and my companions so much more, and I learned that as I humbly tried my best, I was capable of doing some things that I didn't think I could do.

This is going to be crazy, but I'm looking forward to a great experience in the office.

Sok szeretettel,

Burnett Elder

Hungarian word of the week: kabala, which means "superstitious." Just a good word to know!

Every week just keeps getting better and better! Can you believe that? I'm just so excited about this work, and so happy to be here in Hungary, serving the people I love, doing work that I love, with people I love.

I'll start with the bad: It's getting hot. REALLY hot. All the time. You know when you get out of the shower and the air is so humid you could drink it? That's what it's like here, but always. Anyways, with the weather getting hotter, it's even more important now to make sure that we are staying hydrated. One day, as we were rushing out of our apartment, I quickly threw a water bottle into my shoulder bag. As we were stopped at a stoplight on our bikes, I felt something dribble down my leg. I knew exactly what had happened, and my heart sunk. The lid on the water bottle had popped open in my bag and dumped all of the water in my bag! The casualties include a pass along copy of the Book of Mormon, 2 pamphlets about tithes and fast offerings, a General Conference edition Liahona, my white hand book, my daily planner, and my Preach My Gospel. Luckily, my passport and my proof of residency were in a "water proof" pouch (definitely not water proof btw) and only got a little wet. Fun stuff!

Other than that our week was great. We've been working on talking with everybody, just like I said last week. I had a few fun, bold moments where I just went for it and talked with people I normally wouldn't have talked with. We got some phone numbers and potential investigators from it, so that's awesome!

We got to go to Győr for splits and I was with Elder Pulsipher, who is in Elder Jones' MTC group. We had way too much fun together. We tracted in some of the nicest neighborhoods I've ever seen, streeted everyone, and played beach soccer with some of the young single adults.

When we walked into the chapel yesterday, I saw 3 people who I wasn't expecting to see. It was a family from Pest, who I befriended almost a year and a half ago when I served there! Zsuzsa was so excited to see me, and even more excited that I actually spoke Hungarian now hahaha. They explained that every Summer, they rent a little house near Sopron and they invited us over for lunch. We went and it was seriously the coolest house I've ever seen. It was all stone, and felt like a castle. I wish I had pictures, but I actually left my camera at home that day. Sorry! It was still so fun to see some of the members with whom I served over a year ago!

We had some fantastic lessons this week as well! The highlights were Robi's lesson, in which we taught the rest of the commandments and helped him to prepare for his baptismal interview. He is all ready to go, and anxiously awaiting his baptism! We are still not sure when the baptism will be, because we need to reserve the swimming pool at the hotel next door. We're so excited!

Cool story time. We met two new investigators this week, Krisztina and Zsolt. Krisztina works for a tour company giving tours of this big palace thingy nearby, and she does them in English and Hungarian. One day, she was feeling super exhausted, so she asked the lady at the front desk if she would clear her day of English tours and decline any requests for them that day. Toward the end of her shift, Krisztina came back to the front desk to see what her next assignment was. To her surprise, there was an English tour scheduled. Puzzled, she asked the front desk lady why she had accepted an English tour, and why she hadn't canceled it. The front desk lady explained that no matter what she did, she just couldn't get that tour to cancel. It wouldn't delete off of the system.

Most tours have 40 to 50 people in them, but this one only had 3, so Krisztina bit the bullet and prepped herself for another English tour. Turns out, 2 of those people were the Ommens, a senior missionary couple serving here in Sopron. Because of the small group, they were able to spend a lot of time getting to know each other. Krisztina was intrigued by them, and asked why they were dressed so nicely, and what they were doing here. Long story short, they exchanged contact info and have become really good friends. 

Krisztina and Zsolt came to church a few weeks ago and loved it! They were so shocked by the fact that a 20 year old led the meeting, another 20 year old played the piano, another 20 year old spoke, and another 20 year old led the music. They thought, "What kind of church is directed by young people? This is crazy!"

We were able to go over to their house for lunch, and it was one of the most powerful and memorable experiences of my mission so far. We talked about everything under the sun. Krisztina speaks English, but she understands Hungarian much better, and prefers to speak that. Zsolt only speaks Hungarian and German. This put me in the position of translator, which was super fun hahaha.

At the end of the meeting, we extended an invitation for them to be baptized. They didn't accept, but they said that perhaps in the future they would take that step and make that covenant. I encouraged them to remember the feelings that they were feeling, and promised that this Gospel is what they are searching for. Elder Hudson testified that God loved them, and that he sent us here to share this message with them. Krisztina was crying (happy crying of course) and Zsolt actually shouted "Praise God for this miracle!" It was so powerful.

I am so grateful to be taking part in this wonderful work. It is such a privilege to be here in Hungary, and to be experiencing the things that I'm experiencing and growing in the ways that I'm growing. Every day is just getting better and better! I know without a doubt that God lives and that He loves each of us personally. I know that He guides us through a living prophet, and I'm so grateful for that guidance! Where would we be in this life without the gospel? Where would we be without the Book of Mormon? We would be lost. We would experience life, but we would not live it. I am grateful for my Savior, Jesus Christ, who loves me enough to guide me step by step through this life, so that I can actually live it! He knows which path leads to happiness. We have every reason to be happy. We know what lies in store for us in the end if we just follow Jesus Christ, make and keep covenants, and endure to the end of it all!

I love you all and wish you the best week ever! Endure the heat!

Szeretettel,

Burnett Elder

Hungarian of the week: This isn't really Hungarian at all, but it made me laugh super hard. While we were at the store, we found a bottle of ketchup that says, "Unlimited Edition". I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, but I couldn't stop laughing about it!