Thursday, June 7, 2012

"If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday." -Pearl Buck - Monday, April 23, 2012

Hello Family!

We have had an awesome week over here in good ol' Hungary!

Sister Papritz and I were able to go on splits with the sisters (Sister Hudspeth (my ősi from the MTC) and Sister Suranyi (Sister Papritz's greenie (and last companion))) in another city over (Kecskemét) this past week.  It was so great to be able to help them out!  Sister Papritz and I are really in such an awesome position to help out these young companionships!  We were able to help them with their work and the language.  As sisters here in Hungary, we really have an interesting position.  There are only 16 sisters total, so often young missionaries get put together.

We were able to meet with two of the people I streeted in last week's crazy push to talk to 300 people.  Both of these ladies are SO cool!  One, Evelin, is 20 years old.  She is studying American culture at a university here in Szeged and knew a little bit about our church (even that we are called Latter-Day Saints!).  She is super interested in the gospel teachings, too, and is excited to read her Book of Mormon!  The other woman is named Zsuzsa and is really curious about our religion.  It has been neat this past week to see additional growth and contact with some of the people we talked to.  It is added testimony to me that it is so important that we are always looking for prepared people (for example, Evelin was one of the LAST people we talked to that week!).  We don't know where they all are necessarily, but if we work our hardest, God will put them in our path!

One of the coolest moments this week involved a girl named Zsofi who was baptized the week before I came to Szeged (Papritz Nővér found this super prepared woman a couple of months ago and since then Zsofi accepted all of the lessons, married her boyfriend, and was baptized.  She is sooo AWESOME!).  We had her pick any topic she wanted out of the Gospel Principles manual (the book we use to teach one of the Sunday School classes) to teach us for the next lesson.  She picked the "Restoration of Jesus Christ's Church" (good topic!) and taught it to us yesterday.  I was awed.  She had read through the book, looked up things online and in scriptures, and taught us an AMAZING lesson.  (It was seriously better than many of the actual teachers here!)  My mind was blown to think that she hadn't even heard of any of this a couple months ago and now she was teaching the missionaries :)  The greatest part came at the end when she said, "Szeretném bizonyságomat tenni..."  (or "I would like to share my testimony..."  She then bore the sweetest testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel and the happiness it brings into lives.  I haven't even known this woman for her whole conversion, but I can see the light that the gospel has brought to her and her life.  We are bringers of light!  Obviously, though, she and God did most of the work on this!  I just feel humbled to be part of the process of helping amazing people like Zsofi!

Today, for P-Day, the elders and we dressed up in preppy clothes and took pictures around scenic Szeged (our district has a lot of fun together, can't you tell?).  Last week, our district went to this really cool place called Ópusztaszer.  It is this super cool park about Hungarian history.  We saw this horse show with Hungarians riding around on horses shooting arrows at things dressed in traditional Hun costume.  We saw an awesome panorama mural painting of the Hungarian conquering entrance into the Carpathian Basin (Hungarian history = pretty bloody and violent actually).  But it was super cool to learn more of the culture of these people we serve everyday!  I loved it!!

We have a district goal this week to SYL (speak your language) all week together.  Feel free to pray for us :P  (It is like I tell my English class every week-- God can help us with anything and everything, including learning another language!)  It is going to be great!

Anyways, I'm going to run :)  Sister Papritz and I found Tikka Masala in the grocery store today and are going to have an Indian FEAST tonight for dinner (complete with naan bread!).

Szeretlek benneteket!
Kramer Nővér aka McKenna

P.S. Sister Papritz and I discussed ideal care packages and came up with some items that should not have been neglected in my package-suggestion list last week (which consisted of mac'n'cheese, Burt's Bee's chapstick (the cooling-refreshing one!), Oreos, whatever).  (And, basically, that means we just had a drool-worthy conversation about all of the American food we sometimes miss.)   But for all you eager package-senders out there (:P), some additional items that you can feel free to include: Girl Scout Cookies, chocolate chips, peanut butter, Twizzlers, salsa, tortillas, Ranch dressing mix packets, CAKE MIXES (especially brownie ones).  (And obviously, we like to eat, but we like to have fun and dress well too!  Oh, and stationary would be great!  They don't have that here weirdly enough.)

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