Elder Mitchell Young: August 26, 2014

Dear family,

The end of the fastest 5 week transfer of my life has come! I was with Elder Hansen, a guy from my original MTC group. We got our transfer calls today- I am staying, losing Elder Hansen, and receiving Elder Hancey. My companion is going to be AP, and he has very mixed feelings, which he has voiced to me all day, haha. The group ahead of us is going home, so as of Thursday, we will officially be the oldest 5 missionaries in the mission until the end of November! Wow! The big cheese!

This last week was pretty interesting. Because there was a national holiday on Wednesday, they allowed us to email for one hour last monday, then Weds was just a Pday. Monday, we went up to another city called Tatabánya, for a baptismal interview, a 12 year old girl who's mom just got baptized last month. Since I did the Mom's interview too, I already knew them all a little, so it was pretty nice! During the interview, the girl asked me where she could get a Bible. Since I have never actually used my own Hungarian Bible (everyone has one, so I just use theirs) I gave mine to her as a gift. Free Bibles for everyone!!!

We brought the elders there back to Győr for splits, and had a really good time. We went out to ice cream with them, and the other elders here, as well as a member to get ice cream. The next day, my temporary companion and I really felt inspired to go back and visit the ice cream shop, where we met the girl and her mom. They not only offered to have us over for dinner sometime, but they are really open to religion, too.

Later, we met with "the ice cream girl" and we offered her a BoM, but she wouldn't accept it until we wrote our testimonies inside. She also offered us free ice cream for my companion's birthday on Saturday, so we came back and gave her a book complete with written testimonies!

Since my comp is leaving tomorrow, we also came back to say goodbye, and they told us to find out when he will come back for splits, and they will feed all four of us then (my new companion and the APs).
Basically, we eat a lot of ice cream...

Also, we ran out of flyers for english class. I had some money on me, so we went to the paper store to copy some flyers. AP Elder Hansen (who has 0 forint on himself) says: "6 flyers per paper... hmmmm... let's get 500 copies." So apparently each copy is like 15 forint (like 7 cents), and the whole thing totalled out to cost exactly as much money that I had in my possession. Oops. I also found out that my home card expired, so that was super fun.

..... so a couple weeks ago, we went to Sopron (like an hour away) for splits, and we were supposed to bring 2 boxes of BoMs with us, but forgot to leave them there. Luckily for us, the city of Sopron ran out of BoMs, and we had to bring them back. So we received permission to deliver the boxes and just stay there for the Pday on Wednesday. We had a great time, especially because everyon there is super great. We went on a ropes course!! I want everyone to know that I may or may not have OVERCOME MY FEAR OF HEIGHTS! The first zip line almost made me poop my pants, it was all smooth sailing after that!

Then we came home to visit an investigator family. The kids and a member put on a talent show for us to compete in. AP Elder Hansen won the show, and I think I got last place.

There is a lady here who is super golden. She started meeting with the other elders 2 weeks ago and got baptized on Saturday (that never happens, fyi). We also did her interview and she is seriously golden! Her baptism occured on Saturday, just for Hansen's birthday!
At the baptism, the Bishop comes up to us and asks, "Hey, could you both give talks in church tomorrow?" I guess... haha. Until this week, I had never given a talk in church! The streak was lost!

Later on Saturday night, a member wanted us to meet her parents who have been very anti mormon, but have started to warm up a little. There was a free concert that afternoon by a guy called "Tom Jones." I don't know if anyone has heard of him, apparently he is famous? Well, we walked with them to the concert, and talked with the parents until they learned to love Mormons! We didn't really stay for the concert itself, but we might as well have, because at home we could hear the music going all night. Then came the fireworks for flipping EVER! We were pretty tired the next day for

Our talks were great. We each used my voice recorder to capture the magic of our talks. It was all about the Book of Mormon. Church itself was great- after Sacrament meeting, we were asked to help teach the youth in Sunday School about marriage. We were also asked to teach Elder's Quorum about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We drew an adapted version of the 5 steps drawing that everyone uses, and compared the whole thing to Super Mario. It was well accepted.

Yesterday, we went tabling and we met quite a few African guys. They are super cool. There is a place where a lot of African people live, and they all love us!

We had some extra unplanned time, so we went to pop in to say hi to a couple members. As we go up to the door, some investigators (these funny 10 year old kids who the other elders meet with) showed up. This little girl showed us to her parents who have never met missionaries before, and apparently they are super open! It was way great! Maybe we will come back soon and teach them.

Last few thoughts

I. My comp and I made a new CD for the car- its our trunky mix, because all the songs are about going home.

II. Since my new companion has yet to be a zone leader, he doesn't have a licence yet. Because I don't have one either, we have no car for like a monthhhhhhhh!!!! :( And half our investigators live in far away towns! Haha.

III. You are great people.

IV. I conveniently forgot my camera everytime we did something cool, so I don't have much to show this week.

Love,

mitch

1. Gospel = Super Mario