BUDA IS THE BEST PLACE EVER!!!!!

Szia Family!

It sounds like you are all doing great back at home! You will probably have a busy with with Jason and Shelece's wedding. I love them both so much and am so excited to get another great sister n law!!! I'm sure it will be a great day! I got their wedding announcement and it looked really nice! I am going to carry it around with me all that day and take pictures of where I go on their wedding day. You will have to make sure to send me pictures of the wedding. Especially at the temple....people would love to see what weddings look like at the temple here because the temples are pretty far away for everyone. In Hungary also, you have to get married civilly first before the state will recognize it. So members have to get married in the temple and civilly. So its 2 wedding days! How would you like to do that?

This week has been pretty good. I love my companions and we have just been having so much fun together. I am really going to miss them if we get transferred. I think I am the one leaving....we aren't sure. I hope we stay together but I am pretty sure I am leaving. We have 3 new sister missionaries coming in next transfer. They want to try and open 2 new areas to sisters. I guess we will see what happens!

So our investigators are doing good. We had a really good program with one of our progressing investigators and his family this past week. The program started out a little rough....his mom got pretty angry with him when we were explaining to them that when he got baptized he would be a member for the LDS church and not catholic. She didn't like that very much because they were born catholic and wanted to stay catholic. But sister Behunin just calmly told her  that we are not taking away what he already believes. We are just adding more. We told her more of what we believed in and by the end of the program she said she wants to really get baptized but she needs helps quitting smoking and drinking coffee. She is totally supportive of him getting baptized now. And she is going to talk to his dad to make sure he approves also. It was a really great program.

We also met with another one of our investigators again. She is the greatest and so patient with Fresh and I learning the language. She was watching me try and talk to some of the members yesterday and I still had no idea what they were saying but I was trying really hard to understand and afterwards I went to talk to her. she told me she just thought it was really funny to watch us try and speak to the investigators (mainly I think because I have also learned a lot of sign language with my little Hungarian i have learned haha!). She is so funny and she is also learning English so its nice because we can both practice helping each other learn a different language. I think that is something that has actually made us grow closer...she sees we struggle with things and she thinks it is awesome that we don't give up even when it is so hard. She is such an awesome investigator.

We got quite a few new other investigators but we may be handing off a few of them to the elders....we'll see what happens. Sister Behunin is leaving pretty much every day this week - tonight she leaves to debrecen, comes back late tomorrow. Then wednesday she has to do some training for all the missionaries all morning and then right after that she leaves to szölnök (this is her birthday and we wont even get to see her!) and then she gets back late thursday night. So Fresh and I are going to have a great time teaching our programs together haha! It will be really good for us but it will be really hard as well. So we should have some good stories!

So this week has also been a little crazy because the Duna river has been flooding and it is really bad. Hungary declared a state of emergency and has been sandbagging like crazy. On our way home from meeting with one of our investigators and his family, we had to walk for forever because they were closing down metro stops because of the water. It has covered up roads and its getting really close to flooding parliament too. On Saturday we all got to go to Margit siget to sandbag. The ward rented a big bus for us all to go on and all the missionaries and people in the ward came to help. I am so incredibly sore but it was such a good experience! I am so grateful you guys taught me how to work! I never thought I would miss it so much but it feels good to work hard and be sore. We did that pretty much the whole day on Saturday. It was an awesome experience for me because this random lady came up and asked me to help fill the bags. She only spoke Hungarian and as we were working together I found out that she had 3 teenagers and her husband had just died a few years ago. She started asking me all sorts of questions about our church and what we were doing here and where my family was. She thought it was amazing that a bunch of young people would come out and sandbag all day. Her son that was 18 tried to get his friends to come but they wouldn't. She was also impressed that we left our families and saved our own money to come out and serve. She started asking me all sorts of questions and everyone around us was also Hungarians and so they started asking me questions. Somehow I ended up as the only missionary working with the Hungarians....everyone else was working on the next pile over so I could still see them but I couldn't just get one of the older and wiser missionaries to speak and answer all their questions for me. I was surprised by how much I could answer. I couldn't answer all their questions but I did my best. And I know the lady recognized that. We became like immediate best friends and she said she wanted to find out more about our church. Unfortunately she lives out in Kispest so we cant meet with her though. She was just awesome and before she left she made sure to find me and wanted to get a picture with me. It was a really big tender mercy for me and helped me to know that I am making a difference. Actions speak louder than words! As soon as we got back to our apartment, it DOWNPOURED! For a long time! Our street was pretty filled with water. So we are pretty sure that our sandbagging didn't really do all that much for the island...it is probably underwater by now. It was about 3 inches away from flooding with we were sandbagging. But we weren't there as missionaries to save the island from going underwater. We were there to serve and work and teach people even while we were doing service. It was such a great experience! And if I stay in Buda, I will get to go back and help with the cleanup :) that will be fun! It is crazy how much it has flooded. Boats couldn't go under the bridges. The road we had traveled on just the day before was completely submerged and today they have started to close down the main metro stations. It is crazy!

Well I hope you are all doing great. I love you all lots! I hope Jason and Shelece have the best day they have ever had on Friday. I love them so much and am so happy they are getting married in the temple. I wish I could be there! But I know that this is where I need to be right now. I love you all so much. I was reading this morning President Monsons talk in the Priesthood session and he was talking about how a mission is a family ordeal, not just mine and it is so true. I could not be the missionary that I am without the support of such a wonderful family. You are all such amazing examples to me and have taught me so much. I love you all!!!

Falslev Nővér

Me in front of some cool graffiti in the park by our apartment.

this is pork rine...the butt of pig. at least that was what we thought it was...we still arent sure. We went out to eat and they made all the food in this wagon thing. It was a good experience! haha! 

flood....this is where the train had to stop. You can see all the road signs and the water covering the road. This is the road that you can no longer see anymore. The water rose over 3 feet in one night. 

The road i am standing on no longer exists....it is underwater now! 

'Mormon helping hands' These were the vests that we got to wear when we went to go do service. So cool! I wish we could have kept them!

The lady that I met while sandbagging. She is awesome!

Some of our group looking at how high the water was. 

Sandbagging in action! There was so many people! We got a lot of work done. We were exhausted!

This was how high the river was when we left. They have an outside running area outside this fence. That is how high the river is. It is probably all under water now though from all the rain we got later that day. 

This is what we do while we wait for our investigator to be done with baptisimal interview. We were there for over 3 and a half hours. SO LONG!!!! We were so bored!

A sign the elders made for Sister Behunins birthday since she wont be here on wednesday. They are so nice! Funny poster if you can read it.

This is what the elders got sister b for her birthday. She is TERRIFIED of E.T. Pretty funny! She ran away when she opened the box and found it in there.