Mi is történt múlt héten? Hmm....

Hello all!

We have had a pretty standard missionary week, insofar that we met with a lot of people, and, when we weren't meeting with people, we were looking for people to meet with :P  I had a request to tell a little bit about some of our programs, though, so here you go:

There was one program with Béla (the man we met with on the train who lived in America for a long time).  We taught him about the Plan of Salvation (if you don't know what I am talking about, check out this link

http://mormon.org/plan-of-happiness ).

 He liked it, but also told us that it sounded too good to be true and that he had some doubts about it.  We told him that that is totally understandable... and pretty common haha.  We've all had doubts.  That's kind of where learning and believing comes in.  Whenever I have had questions, I look for answers in the scriptures and from the prophets, think about it, and pray to God about it.  I was able to share with him how I have gained my testimony of the Plan of Salvation.  In a large part, I have never really questioned it.  It has always made a lot of sense to both my heart and mind.  I've studied it my whole life and felt it to be true.  In practical application, though, I guess we could say, when people I have known and loved have died, I have recieved confirmation and comfort that God DOES have a plan for us.  There is existence after death.  We will see those we love again!  I am so grateful for the peace this plan has brought into my life.  Béla really respected what we were saying and told us, that while his doubts still aren't gone, he is willing to learn about it and ask God about it himself. Which is all any of us can do, really.  We never do ask people to believe us as missionaries.  We present the information, answer their questions, and then encourage them to study the heck out of it themselves and go with the big questions of whether this is true or not to the one who knows it all (God).  It is so cool that God is willing to let each and every one know personally that we are loved by Him and that there is a purpose to our life!  We just need to take the time to learn about Him and His will for us :)

Anyways, I will try and include more details about programs in my future emails!  I don't have a lot of time tonight, though, so I will keep it at that one program :)

We did get to do a few more unusual things this past week, now that I think about it.  As missionaries in a country where the church isn't super strong or big, we often have a much more active involvement in the ward.  For instance, this past week we were kind of temporary subsitute members of the Primary Presidency, while they waited for some new callings to be made.  Sister Adams is one of the counselors to the Hungarian president, so we translated in their meeting this week.  On a different day, we went with them to visit a less-active family and their kids.  It was fun!  We also had dinner with President Smith and his wife, as they came down to Szeged for the first time and spoke in church (during which meeting, I was suprised asked to sight-read and play the piano... worked out well enough :P).  I really like the Smiths, though-- they are very nice!

Final note before I run-- in district meeting, Sister Adams shared this quote from Joseph Smith and I really liked it! "The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it."  It always makes me scratch my head when people try and tell us that we aren't Christian.  Really, Jesus Christ is the base of all we believe :)

Anyways, I love you all!  God loves you, too!  Have a great week!

Love,

Kramer Nővér aka McKenna

Life is so much better with when we LAUGH!

Hello all!

This week has been SO BUSY!!!  There are NOT enough hours in the day to do everything!  A quick recap of everything that went down:

We had a few days so full of programs and stuff that we started at 8 in the morning and didn't finish till 8 at night!  So tiring!  And it is super hard to keep going without getting studies in!  My testimony of taking the time to study the gospel and the language has been reinforced this week!  It is so much harder to teach others if I haven't taken the time to get my own Spiritual fill in that day.  And so we are making sure that we protect our studies this week!  But I guess having so many people to meet with is a good problem to have :)  (Obviously it is!)  We had some really great programs, too!  Our investigators are asking really great questions and really starting to take steps.  One of my favorite programs was with our investigator Gabriella.  We had planned to talk about Jesus Christ's gospel, but we started talking and it went in a totally different direction.  She had questions about prayer and her worth in God's eyes.  It was so cool because that was the on e day we were able to have studies normally in the morning this week and everything we had studied worked perfectly for her program.  We were able to reference all sorts of scriptures, and she commented, "Really, all of the answers ARE in the Book of Mormon!  Everytime I have a question, you always pull out another verse!  I love this book!"  It was awesome :)  I was also able to bear my testimony on divine worth (one of my favorite topics) to her.  I told her that God loves her unconditionally.  God does not only love perfect people.  NONE of us are perfect.  God loves us, imperfections/mistakes and ALL.  He loves us and just wants to help us be better and happier!  I told Gabriella if she still couldn't believe God loves her, she could believe me.  I KNOW that God loves her.  I know that God loves you, whoever is reading this!  I have felt his love for me.  And I know he feels that big-ly and perfectly about you, too!  It was a very special program :)

We had a zone training this past Saturday.  The new president has decided to do zone conferences and stuff a little differently.  Instead of having one every transfer, we will have a zone training done by our zone leader every month and then every other transfer we will have a zone conference or interview with the President.  So this was a zone training.  Velasquez Elder gave an AWESOME training!  It was full of interaction and we all just talked about how we could be better in a few areas!  I really enjoyed it :)  A new focus of the president is to make our zones more interactive and supportive.  We were actually able to spend this last PDay together as a zone, which was way fun and worked perfectly with that goal!  We went to a local ropes course (super fun!  We were strapped in and basically played on a playground hung in the trees.  Got to zip line, too!), hung out at the Adams' apartment, had a sajt night (fried cheese night), and saw the fireworks for August 20th celebrations (St. Stephen's Day- celebrating the king that brought Christianity to Hungary).  We have a good zone!  It is weird, though!  I am the second oldest sister in the zone!  (and actually tied with my MTC sisters for third oldest in the mission)  I don't feel like I have been on a mission that long still!  I guess time really does fly when you are having fun and doing something so worthwhile!

The rest of our week has been pretty crazy-- we've had funny finding stories, struggles, random German stalkers of Sister Hardy, etc.  NBD.  Basically, missions are the time for some of the most random things ever to happen haha.  But also some of the best!  I am so glad to be here :)  I hope you all are able to laugh lots this upcoming week-- through the good and bad :D

Love you all!

Love,

McKenna aka Kramer Nővér

1

Life is joyous :)

Hello all!

This week has been so awesome!

We were so busy this past week!  Basically, every single day was crazy.  We were packed full of programs or other activities, like English class, teaching Institute to the Young Adults, district meetings, etc.  Seriously, a few days this week, we left at 8am or before and were gone for the next 12 hours.  At least.  Craziness.  But GOOD craziness :D

Updates:

Our district meetings are now in Békéscsaba, which is pretty crazy!  (That is an hour and a half away by car.  And we have been encouraged to make sure we hold our district meetings weekly.  Which translates into a lot of driving for us!  But that is okay.)  Our district now consists of the four Békéscsaba elders (sisters were not put back into Békéscsaba) who are Rosen Elder (my ősi from the MTC!!!), his greenie Elder Vanderpool, Elder Olsen (I served around him in Budapest for two transfers) and his companion Elder Hansen.  And still us Szegedi's (us, the elders (Velasquez and Hatfield) and the Adamses).  We had our first district meeting last Saturday, where we talked about goals and ate palacsinta's :)

Sister Hardy and I got a new washing machine.... unfortunately, it, too, is broken.  We are pretty sure we are doomed to never have clean clothes haha.  We have had quite the adventures with our washing machine over the last month and a half or so-- we have already done our laundry at other places 4 times (one time we lugged it all the way to Szolnok to do it in the sisters' apartment there).  (Oh yeah, Hungary doesn't have laundromats, btw.)  So, we are really hoping this most recent washing machine gets fixed!  Just another adventure in the life of sister missionaries haha (following the Broken Cellphone Calamity (it kept turning off... even during calls with investigators!  Don't worry!  We got a new one!))

There has been an awesome fair right outside of our house this week, so I was able to introduce Sister Hardy to her very first Hungarian fair and fair food (see pictures)!  It was quite fun and we were able to hear some Hungarian folk music from the live band.

We had some funny experiences tracting.  I think my favorite was one bácsi who talked to us for about 15 minutes about all sorts of things.  He told us that he had seven lives (except they call it having seven birthdays in Hungarian, which I thought was kind of neat) and told us all sorts of crazy stories about times he almost died (like one time he dived into a river after a couple who couldn't swim).  He told us he was 88 years old and attributed that to never smoking.  He was quite pleased when he found out we didn't smoke either and encouraged us to help the youth quit smoking.  He didn't want a Book of Mormon, though (he told us to give it to someone else that was younger and more able to benefit from it), so we eventually moved on.  After we finished that 10 story shortly thereafter, we were walking away outside when we heard an old man call, "Lányok!"  (Or "girls!")  Our old bácsi friend had followed us out of the building.  When he caught up to us, he gave us a newspaper article he had found just for us-- on the dangers of smoking.  And encouraged us to give copies of it to those we meet with haha.  We thanked him kindly, and he hobbled away after wishing us well and wishing us much success.

We had awesome programs with a lot of our investigators this past week!  Livia has been on fire, coming to literally every activity!  We came out of Ward Council yesterday and she was still in the branch house, talking to some members!  It is so great to see her open up to members :)  Our other investigators are doing pretty well.  We have investigators praying about God's existence, the Book of Mormon, baptism, and lots of other stuff.  It is so cool that we teach them all of this stuff, but then, they can each go to God and ask Him if the things they are learning are true or not.  I am so glad that they don't just have to take our word for it!  Prayer is real :)

I gave a talk yesterday (which due to all the craziness, I did NOT have a lot of time to prepare for, but still went great!) on God's love for us.  I used some quotes from President Uchtdorf's talk on the subject and I recommend you check it all out (follow this link).  I was able to share in Family Home Evening tonight one of the greatest life lessons I've learned and I shared that our worth does not change in God's eyes, no matter what we've done.  (Of course, my second lesson was "Come what may and love it!"  I think that might be my personal slogan for life :P)

I saved the BEST news for last!!!  Our much much beloved investigator Evelin decided this past week... that she wants to be baptized!!!!  (Which, btw, please don't post this email on my Facebook or blog for one week, as Evelin has some individuals she wants to be the first to tell the news to.  And I wouldn't want to wreck that!  But forwarding this as an email is fine and updating Facebook/my blog next week would be better.  Thanks!)  Anyways, this is how it went down.  Evelin went to the YSA Conference this past week and she, in her own words, met all the right people at the right time who were able to answer her questions and address her concerns.  We met with her a few days after the conference, during which program, she just GLOWED about all of the amazing activities they had had (they had religious classes every day interspersed with meals, service activities, games, firesides, dances, testimony meetings, etc.).  After sharing details from every single day of the conference and telling us about all of the amazing people she had met from all over Europe (the conference was for Eastern European Young Adults, with additional attendees from countries like the United States, Mexico, England, etc.), she paused and said, "Okay girls.  I have news.  I have decided to get baptized."  To which announcement, we initially just stared at her, and then, grinning, hugged the heck out of her.  She is getting baptized on October 13th!!!  I couldn't be happier for her :)  It was SUCH a special experience to hear her testimony about this gospel and our Heavenly Father this past week in our programs.  I remember finding her four months ago and it has been an absolute privilege to meet with her and see her devour the gospel in the time since then.  She has been such an amazing example to me of truly taking the time to learn and think about the gospel.  (She always says, "There is a hurricane in my head!  I need to think for a moment!")  And I love that she makes sure she understands each principle.  And studies it.  And I have just seen her grow and gain confidence and happiness as she has learned about God's love and plan for her.  I love this girl!  And it is just really special that I have been here for every step she has taken up to this point!  I have been really privileged to meet so many stellar people on my mission.  I have been really humbled by their examples and I am just grateful I have been able to serve in small part the people of this country, members and investigators alike.

Anyways, I am STILL loving my mission.  Imagine that?

Love you all!

McKenna aka Kramer Nővér

P.S. Shout out to my amazing mother!  It was her birthday this past week :) :)  Don't worry, I sent her her own birthday present, but someone give her a hug for me, 'kay?  Thanks :)

P.P.S. Included some other pictures of our P-Day today spent with our district at the ruins of a mansion outside of Békéscsaba.

1

I can't even think of a clever title. I am TOO HOT!!!!

Hello All!!

This week has been soooo long!  And HOT!!  We are currently in the middle of ANOTHER extreme heat wave here.  I think the temperature today is around 38 or 39 degrees Celsius (which translates to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit).  Sister Hardy claims that we basically are serving in South America at this point.  We sure do sweat a lot!  (Gross, I know!)  We have been doing a lot of tracting in 10-stories to avoid the sun.  And drinking a TON of water.

Other than that, our week has been pretty eventful.  Our washing machine broke.  And we got a new elder in our district!

Nealy Elder went home this past Wednesday.  We spent our last PDay with him taking pictures around our much beloved city of Szeged (see attached), and then getting filled to bursting at one last meal at Géza's.  He truly outdid himself this time, with the dinner consisting of NINE courses (two soups, three main courses, salad, two desserts, and watermelon) and taking over three hours to eat!  I kind of wanted to die at the end, but as usual, it was all absolutely delicious!  (I just request that you all take it a little easier on your own missionaries!)  It was a lot of fun serving around Elder Nealy!  He is one of the nicest and most giving people I have ever been around :)  I am so lucky to have made so many friends on my mission!

Elder Velasquez, despite being a zone leader, was selected to train, so he went up to Budapest on Wednesday to collect his new little "child".  The greenie is named Elder Hatfield.  He is from Provo, Utah, is way taller than the rest of us, is a stellar soccer player (we played soccer for PDay today!!!  It was SO hot!  But SO fun!), and a great missionary :)  Sister Hardy and I have decided we are his cousin and aunt, respectively, and have been trying to make him feel welcome in our little district in the beautiful city of Szeged in the foreign country of Hungary.

We had a lot of awesome programs with investigators this past week!  Too many to write about, so I will just focus on one: We have meeting for a few weeks with a fifteen year old girl named Livia.  Her parents are from China, but she has grown up in Hungary and speaks Hungarian perfectly.  She was a referral from a member, as she was interested in practicing English with us and learning a little more about our church.  Her English turned out to be awesome, so it has been fun to talk to her, and she has just been swallowing up the gospel!  She has been reading tons from the Book of Mormon!  She prayed for the first time in her life in one of her programs!  She has been feeling really good meeting with us :)  We invited her to church this past week, as she has been doing so good, but she wasn't really sure, as she has never been to church before.  We showed up yesterday at church, though, and she was already there!  She stayed for ALL three hours and really liked it! She even stayed afterwards and talked with her new friends she had made that day!  It has been so cool to see her testimony and confidence grow!  I can't say I know how it will all end (we've talked a bit about baptism-- SHE brought it up after reading 2 Nephi 31), but I love the growth we've been a part of!  We see miracles all the time, big and small!

Anyways, I am SO hot in this email place (no air-conditioning), so I am going to end with that this week.  I hope you all have much cooler weeks than I do!  Appreciate what you have!  (Air conditioning!  And other blessings!)

Love you all!

Kramer Nővér aka McKenna

P.S. A lot of people have been emailing me about the Olympics.  I heard Hungary creamed USA in water polo!  I have to admit, I cheered a bit about that :)  What can I say?  I love this country :)

Keep on keepin' on!

Hello All!!

So this week has been pretty interesting :)  I don't have a ton of time to write, so to quickly go through the craziness that was this past week:

We went to the zoo last Monday!  Apparently there is a zoo here (which I had no idea existed until one of our investigators who worked there told us about it) and it was actually quite nice.  We saw lions, and tigers.... but no bears (oh well!).  It was fun!

It was Sister Adams' birthday last Tuesday and we got together and got her a cake, flowers (Hungarian bouquets are the craziest!!  Ours had a bamboo curly rod in it), and a picture with notes from each of us.  Sister Adams is like a mom to us out here and it was fun to give a little back to her :)

More randomness: Sister Hardy got a ticket this last week.  Kinda lame.  We were on the vilamos and the ticket checkers came by... and she had accidentally brought her pass from last month instead of her current one.  It was pouring rain, so we missed our stop, then huddled under an umbrella while we got a ticket.  We thought the fine was going to be about ten thousand forint (which is approximately 50 dollars), but when we went to the office the next day (conveniently located next door to our branch house) with the right pass, the fine turned out to be only 800 forint!  Miracle!

We had a tons of programs this week.  Our investigators are doing great :)

We went on blitzes to Szolnok this past week.  For those of you wondering, "Wait, Szolnok, I haven't heard that one before?" (and for the rest of you that can't tell Hungarian names apart, don't worry :P), it is because sisters were put into Szolnok for the first time ever!  I don't know if you remember me talking about how the Békéscsaba sisters were having a hard time, but they actually got emergency transferred a couple of weeks ago.  The new assignment for one of them was to open Szolnok with a different sister.  They had been there for just a week when we showed up with muffins, measuring cups, and extra hands to help expand the work!  It was a lot of fun and we were able to help them :)

That day was my year mark as a missionary (WEIRD).  I got to talk to my group that night on a group phone chat, which was a lot of fun.  I was really struck by how completely DIFFERENT our missions have been from each other, but how we have all learned such important lessons, like relying on God and doing our best. I love my mission!  This is seriously the best thing I have ever done!  (If you are a boy or girl ages 19 or 21, you should definitely think about it!)

We had an awesome multi-branch activity on Saturday.  It kind of reminded me of Memorial Day Picnics in my homeward.  We had the branches from Szeged, Szolnok, Békéscsaba, and Kecskemét come to Szeged.  We split into groups and went around to different game stations (I helped Sister Adams translate at one) where we played various group games, like the water balloon toss, sponge passing, group knot tying, etc. etc.  After that, we had lunch (in true Hungarian style-- soup and bread) and then free time.  I got to play soccer for only the second time here in Hungary (weird, I know) and all of the boys were astonished that I could play (soccer is played mainly by boys here).  I had a lot of fun playing people one on two, or two on three and generally tired myself out and had loads of fun (I was literally grinning as I ran around like a crazy person).  I gained a lot of respect from the teenage boy population who told me I was a very good footballer haha.  The theme of the activity was "It's Better to Look Up" (see this talk by Elder Cook) and at the end, we let off a ton of balloons (to represent letting go of our worries and cares).  It was great!

K gotta run.  Bye!!!

LOVE,

McKenna aka Kramer Nővér

P.S. Also I use the word fun to describe everything I think haha. Which is funny because that word doesn't exist in Hungarian.  How do I survive?

Learn from the past. Look to the future. Live for today!!!!

Dear family and friends,

Definitely had a funny experience coming into the email place today.  We walked in and this black man started speaking French to us.  I was understandably a little confused.  He switched to English when we told him we were from America (and he started calling us Beyonce haha).  But his English was super bad, so the conversation was a little hard.  He was super excited when he learned we were Christian.  ("I like Jesus!  Jesus good!  You talk to Jesus?")  The question we finally got to, though, was "When can we pray together?"  And I was a little suspicious of his intentions (Is he trying to ask us out?) because stuff like that happens.  However, he called his other French friend over, who explained they were Christian and wanted an opportunity to go to church.  So we gave them the address and time.  Chatted for a little bit (they are soccer players from Paris apparently!).  And finished with high fives haha.

Anyways, our week was great!  Crazy, but great :)

We had Zone Conference this past Thursday, where we had the opportunity to meet with our new president!  He gave an inspiring training, encouraging us to rise to the challenge of being better missionaries!  He cited the Alamo.  For those of you unfamiliar with the story, the soldiers at the Alamo were fighting of Santa Ana's army to buy time for the American army in Texas to get bigger and more prepared.  It came to the point where the leader of the Alamo knew they would all die if they didn't leave, but looked in his heart and decided that he was willing to die to give the American army a chance and to defend freedom.  He called his men together and told them what he decided, then drew a line in the sand.  He asked them if they were willing to fight with him, and every single person except for one stepped across the line.  President Smith said that we need to draw the line in our own lives and really commit ourselves to the missionary cause!  It was neat :)  I was also able to interview with him for a little bit, and I really like him.  He seems reasonable, with a great sense of humor and dedication to helping us be the best missionaries we can be.  Good combination!

After Zone Conference, we actually went on splits.  I came back to Szeged with Sister Hudspeth (we decided we basically count as companions at this point since we've been on splits so many times!) and Sister Hardy went to Kecskemét.  It was great!  We had a ton of programs with new investigators here in Szeged (met with the train guy who came to church!), which was awesome!  Sister Hardy was able to spread her wings in a different area, which was such a confidence booster for her.  We were so happy to be reunited, though!  We really are a perfect pair :)

Other exciting news:  Had a Pioneer Fireside on Saturday and the speaker (the bishop from a nearby city) talked about pioneers.  During his talk, he mentioned my great-great-grandpa Hill who was the first missionary called to serve in Hungary speaking the Hungarian language!  It was so cool because I was translating for Sister Adams and when he mentioned "Elder Hill", I started and told her, "He's talking about my Great-great grandpa!"  She was so excited and thought I should raise my hand and tell everyone right there, but I refrained :P  People found out afterwards and for a few minutes, I was a sort of celebrity of the Hungarians!  (It was fun, though!  He talked about Grandpa Hill for awhile and quoted stuff from his journal-- including a quote I found very comforting in the MTC "If the dogs and horses can understand this language, I can too!" or something to that effect haha.)  On Sunday, Sister Hardy gave her first talk in church and ROCKED it!  I am so proud of my daughter :)  She is an amazing missionary!

Anyways, I have to run, but I LOVE YOU ALL!

Love,

McKenna aka Kramer Nővér

P.S. I hit my YEAR MARK on my mission on FRIDAY!  Time is FLYING!!!!

This will be short, sorry!

Hello family and friends!

Due to a series of weird events, I only have a couple of minutes to tell you all about my packed and great week!  Gah!

To summarize very very quickly:

Monday I was in Budapest for Greenie Training for Sister Hardy.  I was able to meet the President for just a moment and then we had a short training with him and our greenies (they had a full day of getting residency permits and trainings... our part was just at the end).  He seems great!   He emphasized the white handbook and really striving to be great missionaries :)  I will have more of an opportunity to meet him this Thursday at Zone Conference.

We went on splits again this past week.  Sister Hardy had an awesome experience leading an older sister around Szeged and through programs.  I am so glad we were able to do this because it was such a big confidence builder for her :)  She really is an amazing missionary!  Sometimes we just need reminders of how capable we are (especially after being totally culture shocked in a new country).  We have been able to work very hard and well this week together.  We actually got standard!

We had to teach the YSA Institute class this past Thursday.  It was on (surprise, surprise) missionary work!  We talked about how we need to let our lights shine, both through example and words.  We talked about how we can share the gospel with everyone.  And then we role played (which they surprisingly liked)!  I had been really nervous because I didn't have a lot of time to prepare for the class, but it went great, with everyone participating, learning, and having a great time!

Saturday, we did service at a dog shelter.  We were able to play with the little dogs (our investigator, Evelin, got into her head I was deathly afraid of dogs, so she made sure I got the assignment to play with the dogs haha... I didn't mind!  They were little and cute!) and clean up the park for their adoption fair the next day.  It is always so great to do service!  I defintely encourage you all to find someway to help someone this week!  It really makes the week so much better :)

We had a ton of investigators come to church this last Sunday!  Including!!.... that random man we met on a train Sister Hardy's very first day with me!  I am pretty sure I wrote about it, but we were able to talk with a Hungarian man recently returned from America who had some limited contact with the missionaries before (like playing basketball with the missionaries).  He had expressed interest in coming to church on the train, but we didn't hear or see him since.  However, he had given us his phone number, so I called and invited him to church.  He told us he would come, but, honestly, I didn't really think he would.  We got to church on Sunday with another investigator and the elders told us there was a man waiting for us.  It turned out to be the train man!  He had read the chapter we advised from the Book of Mormon and came to church.  He told us he will come again next week and set up a time to meet during the week!  It was pretty neat :)

Basically, we see a lot of little miracles everyday!  God really does watch over us personally!  (Honestly, there have been moments this past week where it has all just simply worked out and I skip around singing, "God loves us!" haha)  But look for His help in your life!  I promise it is there :)

I have to run!  But have an amazing week!

I love you all!

Kramer Nővér aka McKenna