That is so exciting that you got to meet B! I love her! She has been through so much in her life. She is the perfect example of a pioneer to me. So many of these saints here are going to be pioneers in Hungary. They are so strong and they have to sacrifice so much for their beliefs. I love these people here! And I am so jealous that you all got to meet her! I love her so much! I am glad that the visit went well. I just love B. When I was in Buda we would sit in the back of the chapel in sacrament and when B got up to lead the music in Church, I would do it with her and help keep her with the timing. I just grew to love her so much! She is just a great example to me!

This week has been so good and so busy! We celebrated our halfway point by working like crazy!!! We had so many programs and were literally running all over the city. We didnt even get in a lunch and we just had to grab a 'Hungarian' McDonalds paprika burger for dinner cause we were pretty busy. It was tiring but it felt so good to just be so busy doing something that feels so good! I just love being a missionary and working! Best feeling ever!

This week we went on splits with the Training sisters and it was so good! I went with Sister Kennedy. She was my trainer and it went so well! I realized that I really have come a long ways in the language and also that I still have a LONG ways to go. It was a really neat experience to go back and work with Sister Kennedy. I have learned a lot from her! We went tracting when I first got there (I went to Debrecen - such a cool city!). We were tracting and we tracted this door and this guy around 30 answered. We told him that we were missionaries and that we were doing a survey (that is what a lot of the missionaries do when we go tracting here). He told us very bluntly that he DID NOT believe in a God or anything. We told him we just wanted to ask him a few questions and then all the sudden he just changed. I cant really explain it, but he just changed. And he told us that we could come in. So we went in and just asked him the normal question....How many books he reads in a year, if he is interested in learning english, and then Sister Kennedy changed the question and asked what he thought the purpose of life was. He just stopped and looked at us and said 'Honestly, I was just thinking about that when you guys knocked on my door. I was thinking that I really need to figure out my life and what I need to be doing. I knew I needed to talk to someone about my life to help me but I didnt know who. Then you two rang my doorbell. I never let people in my door.' It was so cool!!!! He proceeded to tell us that he had a cute little 4 year old that meant everything to him! We had a super good short lesson with him and then we set up for another time to come back. I am super bummed that I wont be able to teach him but I am really glad I got to experience that! Super cool!

We had 5 investigators to church yesterday! That was really cool! A came - he is doing great and he is getting so close to the members! Members make a huge difference! Also J and K came too. This week we really started focusing on the basics with them - reading and applying the scriptures, and really praying with a sincere heart. Since they have been doing those, we have had awesome programs with them and they came to church! The basics really are the basics for a reason! The scriptures are so powerful! It was a good day at church!

I just love being a missionary. We experience so many blessings and see the Lord blessing so many people. Yesterday in church as I was looking around at the people in the ward, I just realized how great and strong these people are. They are so loving and just so willing to follow the Lord. I realized that these people here have just become like my little family that I have just been able to come to love so quickly. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE!!!! They are so amazing! i am so glad that you all got to meet B. I just cant describe in words how difficult some of the members circumstances are but how willing they are to stand in their faith. Its just amazing how much your love can grow when you serve people and put the Lord first. I love being a missionary!!!! I see so many blessings and tender mercies everyday! Thanks for all your love and support. Love you all tons!

Falslev Nővér

our halfway point paprika bugers from McDonalds. haha! Such an awesome day!

Sister Kennedy on the train. She did such a job cutting my hair! I needed it! She is so awesome!

She is an awesome cook and the lady we did the quit smoking program with. Unfortuntaly we cant meet with her anymore so we just went and gave her a Bible because she had told us that she was saving some money to be able to get one. We had an extra bible in our apartment so we got to give it to her. Such a sweet moment. I love being a missionary

Such a sweet family!

Sorry I didnt email yesterday. I forgot to tell you last week that we are having 'mini' transfers this week so our p day got changed to today. 10 weeks is a long time for a transfer and some people are leaving during the middle of the transfer because it is no longer 6 week transfers. We were a little worried about transfer calls but we are both staying together in Nyíregyháza!!!! Wahoo! We are getting one new elder here and Elder Judd is going.

That is hilarious about mom and dad getting the senior citizen discount. haha! Hey, if you guys come over here, you can ride on the trains for free!!!! and at least you got the food cheaper.

I am glad that Julie is doing better and got to go home. That just sounds so painful! I hope she heals fast!

This week has been really good. We have still been meeting with A and it has been going SO well! He is awesome! I dont know if I told you this but he is from Africa and it has just been a totally different experience teaching him because although he has lived in Europe for a long time, he is not european. He is doing so good! He said a prayer for the first time this past week and it was so simple but you really could feel the spirit so strong just from the simple words. I love being able to hear people pray for the first time. God really is so aware of us! All the ward members Love him too and have been answering all his questions and have been so helpful to come to his programs. It has helped us so much!!!

Also this week we met with K and her adorable son L. I love them!!!! i dont know if I have said very much about her, but when I came here at the beginning of the transfer they were going to stop meeting with her because she wasnt keeping her commitments. We decided to give her some 'question of the souls' that she could find out of the BOM and it has totally just changed her. We met with her and she had read almost every single one of the chapters and told us what she learned and she had TONS of questions for us. She said that everytime she meets with us and everytime she reads from the BOM she feels something but she cant describe what it is and it helps her to feel better. She is thinking about baptism and thinks she wants to be baptized. The only thing is that she is from Romania and they will be going back to Romania in a few weeks :(

This week we also got to watch some of the talks from general conference in ENGLISH! Which was a huge blessing! I love general conference! It felt so good to listen to the apostles and the prophet. While I was watching it, I realized that the most important thing that I need to be doing right now is to love the Lord with all my heart, mind and strength. It was just like an answer to a prayer that I didnt realize I had. As I have tried to focus more on loving the Lord, my love for other has grown so much. Yesterday we went streeting and talked to this lady. She was atheist and was not very friendly to us when we first started talking to her. But as we started talking to her and listening to her, I just saw this soft change come over her. By the end of us talking to her she just told us that maybe their really was a God and then she just looked at us and said that she had never met anyone like us before. She said that she could tell we were different because of something in our eyes. She said there was just like a light in them that she had never seen before. I dont know if we will be meeting with her, but I know we really did have a powerful affect on her! It was a cool experience!

This week was also Krüdi nap. I have no idea who he was and I am pretty sure a lot of Hungarians dont either but they had a little holiday anyways haha! They had some cool things for kids to do in the belváros (the center of the city pretty much) and it was fun to see some of the things there.

Tomorrow is the 1856 revolutions holiday tomorrow. They are setting up for it all over the city. It is kinda like independence day. Also tomorrow is my HALFWAY point! So crazy! Time is just flying by so fast! I love being a missionary! Hope you all have a good week. Thanks for the letters. Love you all lots.

FAlslev Nővér

So for Elder Judds last week we decided to make palacsintas at the branch house. We put pudding in them and we had just a little bit left so I was going to throw it away because no one wanted to eat it. And anyways, long story short, it somehow ended up all over his face. Dont know how that happened. He must be a messy eater. Also another funny story, if you look at my forehead you can see a big goosebump (its not the clearest in the picture). Last week when we were leaving the emailing place, it was really bright and we had been inside for a while so I was looking down at the ground while I was walking. And this big huge sign walked right in front of me and ran into me. haha! My companion was pretty worried that I got hurt but I think the only thing that got hurt was my pride. haha! I got a pretty good laugh out of it.

nyíregyháza in the fall ( i dont know if i told you this but Nyíregyháza means birch house nyír = birch, egyháza means church)

awsome rainbow we saw this week! If you look in the background on the left is our branch house. It is in an office building on the second story. The members are really hoping for an actual building sometime soon!

this is Hungarys entertainment for children. The people in the middle are manually working the ride. And the little kids are just riding in big baskets.

this is some of the other toys that they had for the kids to play with for krüdi nap.

they had a little puppet show playing about krüdi nap for the kids. it was really funny! 

Another week gone??? Already?

I cant believe how fast time goes! This week has gone by so fast! I feel like I just emailed. Weird. This week was great though! I learned a lot!

We went to Budapest for interviews. It took ALL day long but it was good. It was nice to catch up on a few things on the train. In my interview, President told me that Hungary is 14 melkezidek priesthood holders away from getting another stake. That will make 2 stakes in Hungary - which means that we can have a temple! So exciting! The work really is going forward! He also talked about in his last presidents seminar, they were saying that the missionaries need to focus more on finding new people and teaching new people and that the members need to do more of the Less active work rather than the missionaries. So some of the things changed in our mission and we are focusing pretty much only on finding and teaching new people and encouraging the members to reach out to the Less Actives! We need the members!!!! They also talked about how NOW is the time that the field is white. Baptisms in Europe have been going up and that now is not the time 'to plant seeds'. It is just such an exciting time to be part of the work! This weekend we had 14 baptisms in the missions! So exciting!

We also went to Miskolc this week for training. We got there a little early so we got to walk along the walking street...it is the longest one in Europe. It was pretty cool! Miskolc is a super old city and they have some really cool builidngs and castles there!

Things with A are going super well! He is loving church and the members have been awesome teaching him and helping him! Members make a huge difference! He is really excited to get baptized! We have had some good programs with him.

Also, unfortunately, one of our super solid investigators this week dissapeared and we had been trying to call her, go to her house and we were pretty worried something happened to her. Yesterday we decided to go to this random part of the city for some reason and we found her on the street. We found out she has just had some crazy things going on in her life and she needed a break right now. It was really sad but I just realized that God really does know where His children are and what they need. I really dont think it was just coincedence that we found her on this random street.

This week I've really come to realize how much the Lord really is involved with His work, with His missionaries, and with me individually. Yesterday, I just experienced a huge tender mercy and I just know that it was the Lord kindly telling me that He is watching over me and cares about me, even when I am not perfect. I was just feeling super overwhelmed yesterday with a lot of things that have happened this week here and I just felt like there was no way that I could be a missionary with all the things that we do. I was kinda having my typical, dramatic 'oh no, its the end of the world' freak out haha! And then our phone rang. It was one of the members here and he asked us if he could talk to us about some things. It was just the answer to my prayer! I realized that the Lord really does know me personally and He knows exactly what we need when the moment comes. Something I realized from this experience was how easily I sometimes forget the blessings and the miracles that God has done for me in my life when I start going through a hard time. Sometimes I am blinded by how hard my current trials are that I forget to remember every other time that the Lord has ALWAYS helped me through my trials when I turn to Him and allow Him to help me. I know it was just a small little thing for me, but it really was a personal answer to my prayer. And I think that is why the simple and small miracles can be sometimes more powerful than the big miracles - they continally remind us that the Lord really is involved in the details of our lives and He knows what is really hard for us and when we need some extra strength and help.

The Lord is involved in our lives! He knows us personally and speaks to us invdividually. I love being a missionary and seeing the tender mercies of the Lord so much in both my life and the people we teach lives. I LOVE THIS GOSPEL!!!! What a blessing! I just have been given so much! The Lord is just so merciful! I love you all lots! Thanks for all your letters! Love you guys!

Falslev Nővér

sister rupard and I on our hike last week up Tokaj! Such a good hike!

Szia Family!!!

It sounds like everyone is doing good. I hope Julie is doing okay! She is in my prayers! That is really so sad!

We had such a good week this week! We saw so many little miracles each day when we were streeting and it was amazing! There are just a couple that I really want to share.

R. We were walking along the street hurrying to get home and Sister Rupard was on the phone. I noticed this lady for some reason - nothing out of the ordinary with her - and I thought maybe I should street her. Then I thought no, it would be awkward because I would have to do it by myself, it was getting dark, we were in a hurry home, and I thought maybe my companion would be a little annoyed if I stopped and talked to her. But then at the last minute, just as she was passing by, I stopped her and started talking with her. I found out that she was already a member just inactive and so we kept talking and all the sudden I just got this overwhelming love for her as I was talking to her. I was able to bear my testimony on how much Heavenly Father loved her no matter what and she just started sobbing and said that she had been feeling that she needed to come back to church. And then all of the sudden, she just said she really had to leave and left before I could ask her last name or get her phone number. I was so sad! But I know that Heavenly Father knew exactly who she is and she is being closely watched over. It was super cool!

Also this week, I got to go on splits with one of the older sisters here. It was an AMAZING experience! We taught A - the guy from Sudan and we had an awesome lesson. We taught him the first part of the plan of salvation and everything went so well. And guess what??? He is getting baptized on DEC 14th!!!! We are so excited! He came to the saturday morning and priesthood session of conference and loved them both! I think the saturday morning session was just perfect for him! He really liked it. We are really excited!

Also another miracle we saw when we were on splits. We decided to go visit this older neni that Sister Oberhansley taught when she was here. We went and taught her a little lesson and of course she made us treats and then just as we were about to leave she gave us 10 eggs in a sack. We really did not want eggs of all things because we still had quite a few hours before we were going home and we didnt want them to break in our bags. But we took them. And then we had about 30 minutes until our next program started. We decided to go tracting and try and get a let in. The first csengő (bell) we rang was this other cute néni and she told us that she already believed in Christ. We said great, so do we and we have a message about Him! So she let us in and as we were talking to her, we found out she had gone shopping that morning and the store had run out of eggs. She was so sad because that meant she was going to have to get up early the next morning and get bundled up and go out in the cold to get eggs and she really didnt want to do that. Well, what would you know....we came to the rescue and gave her our eggs!!! What a random thing to have! She was shocked and asked us 'now what church are you from?' How did you know this was exactly what I just prayed for? You guys are my angels' It was so cool!

Now comes the sad part of our week. Saturday night we had general conference and it was awesome! It was only in Hungarian so it was really hard to understand but I could get some things out of it. A came and he loved it! And sunday morning we spent all morning calling our investigators to make last minute reminders to them about it. A lot of them were supposed to come - and we were especially excited about one investigator because she has a really hard time coming on sundays to church. We have been working with her for 2 weeks to prepare for conference and so she set the time aside and was so excited to come. We had everything all set up and were so excited for conference! And then we went to the branch house a little before  2 when they were supposed to be showing the sessions and NO ONE and NOTHING was there. No computer, no projector, no members. It was only us and the elders, one of the elders investigators, and one member. We found out that I guess some things had happened earlier that morning and some of the members got offended so they just decided to cancel general conference. We were so sad!!! We worked so hard to get our investigators to come! And some of the other members who had no other access to watch it also came but werent able to. It was honestly heartbreaking to me. It was a pretty hard Sunday. But I learned a lot from the experience. It made me think about what my testimony is really rooted in. The people in the church or the Lord? Anyways, we had to call and cancel with all of our investigators.

But on the other hand, we got to go HIKING today! It was so much fun! We went with some of the other missionaries from Debrecen and some senior couples and it was the coolest hike ever! It took a lot longer than we thought but it was so worth it! Hungary is beautiful and we couldnt have asked for a prettier day to go hiking!

Thanks for all your letters and support. I appreciate all that you guys do for me! Love you all a ton!

Falslev Nővér

me with this cute recent convert in our branch. We ate icecream and cookies first and then had LOADS of meat and sandwiches. Then she gave us BAGS of Chocolate! She is the sweetest! I love her! 

This is me in front of the Kossuth Lájos statue. I did a report on him before I came to hungary

Our view from the top of the hike.

Our group at the top of the hike.

This week has been amazing! We have seen so many miracles! We have worked so hard and we are definitely so exhausted but the Lord definitely blessed us this week. Here are some highlights:

Monday: We went to the zoo. It was AWESOME! We went with the elders here and one of the members. Hungarian zoos are very different than the ones in America. There isnt near as much of the safety precaution and the animals were so intereactive! Usually when you go to the zoo you just see all the animals just sleeping. This zoo was awesome though! We saw some monkeys wrestling around with each other for a while, a cute baby monkey, we saw some white tigers that are almost extinct (there were so close to us that we could have just reached out and pet them and touched them through the fence), They had a super cool jungle that had rope bridges you could cross and that was super cool! But my favorite part was when we were over by the gorillas. We were watching the gorillas (and by this time there was pretty much no one in the park) and this guy opens up the cage for the lemurs and walks in. And then he tells us to come in with him. So we all followed him in and we got to feed the lemurs with him!!! It was so cool! The lemurs knew it was feeding time so they just came right up to us and would just jump all over us. It was so cool! Lemurs are now my favorite animal! The guy took care of the lemurs so he let us go in. That was so cool!

A- we met A monday night. He is from Sudan but he is a doctor here in Hungary. He is super cool! We taught him twice this week and both lessons went really well. He came to church yesterday and he loved it and was asking all sorts of questions. The members were really nice to him as well! And he said he wants to come again next week!

Z and A - this is a cute older couple that we met a few weeks ago on the street and we went over there to teach them a restoration lesson. It went really well! We found out that they had had the missionaries over at the house 10 years before and A just thanked us so much for what we do. He said that it was from the missionaries that he learned how to really pray to Heavenly Father and he said he had prayed with his own words ever since he met the missionaries. So I learned that even though not everyone we meet with will get baptized, you really still can bring them closer to God and teach them things. It was a really awesome lesson though and they want to come to general conference so hopefully they will come! They are really cool!

J and K-as of right now they are still on baptisimal date for Oct. 19th. We went to teach them this week and K decided to come back home. They were supposed to be at church yesterday with their daughter too but they make it. We were super bummed! We had a super good program with them this week so hopefully they will still keep progressing!

This week the elders found the best burger place here! Hamburgers in Hungary are not from cow, they are from pig and they are just nothing like American Hamburgers. None of the meat really is here. But they found this place and it is the best! One of the elders told them about fry sauce and they tried it and loved it so now they are going to sell fry sauce there too. They are going to name it after the elder - 'andrew sauce' haha!

Also this week, I quit smoking!!!! WAHOO!!!! She did so good and she didnt smoke even once! It was a super good program! And we are actually starting to teach her the gospel now. It was such a good week working with her! And I came to all of her programs and saw the program work so we are hoping that she will decide to try it again soon.

It has just been the best week ever. We have seen so many blessings from choosing to work so hard and be obedient. This week I really came to know how important the spirit really is and how important it is to follow even when you can fully understand why at first. On tuesday, both Sister Rupard and I woke up a little sick. Well Sister Rupard was pretty sick but we had a lot of programs so we decided to try it. Well every single one of our programs canceled on us so we tracted and streeted in the rain quite a bit. It was a really long day and we wanted to just go home and rest a little bit. But we had one more program that night that we decided we were going to. We had met him the week tracting and when we first met him he was very friendly, asked a lot of good questions and seemed really interested in the gospel. So we came back the next week and we felt like we needed to bring a member with us so we did. And as we went into the apartment, something just seemed really wrong. We said a prayer and the man started to ask us some questions and he kept trying to ask a question but for some reason he was not physically able to ask us. It was super weird. Then all of the sudden, I just knew that we needed to leave right then. I dont know how to speak very good Hungarian or anything, but I just got up and was able to have a full conversation with him without even really thinking of what to say and told him we needed to leave. The spirit really is in this work and really does let us know when we are in a place that we need to leave. Coming home from this program, we found one of pass along cards on the ground, in the mud and at that moment, that is kinda how I felt. We were wet, sick, and I felt like we had been pretty trampled on that day. But I learned so much going through such a hard day. It is amazing how much we can learn from our trials if we allow ourselves to be taught by them. I love being a missionary even when it is hard!

I am super excited for general conference this week but unfortunately we dont get to watch it in english because we only have one satelite here and it will be for it in Hungarian. So make sure you all take good notes for me and send me some of your favorite talks! :) I would sure appreciate it! :)

love you all!

falslev nővér

the aquarium! So cool! It had quite a few fish and some cool sharks it in. 

 on the rope bridge in the rainforest.

the lemur on top of my head. They were everywhere!!!!!

the LEMURS!!!!! So Cool!

At the lions cage. They were so active. Especially the male. He was roaring and it was so loud! I got a really cool video of it and how loud he was roaring but i cant send it.