A Chicken Strippin' Week...‏

This weeks email goes out to my homie Amberlee and our middle school days... back in the day we were walking to Chandler Barney's house when we came up with some weird riddle that we proceed to write in each others year books ever year. It went something along the lines of "chunky dunkin',  finger lickin',  chicken strippin', good." This past week I received an email from AmberLee telling me to have a chunky dunkin, finger lickin, chicken stripping good week... So that's what I did!

On Wednesday, my companion and I went tracting out in újszeged. On our walk from the bus stop we passed this little chicken fast food place. That had a cool sign so we stopped and took a picture, and then I realized that they had a big chicken mascot thing out by the road. So I had Sister Dohm stand by it and take a picture, and then I went to do the same. However, when I put my arm around it, it started to move and for a second I thought there was a human inside the costume, but then I realized that it was just falling over. So the first thing I think to do is grab its arm to stop it from falling... bad idea, it just ripped the chicken's arm out of the socket. So there I am standing in front of this restaurant after having knocked their chicken mannequin over and I look up and all the workers inside are just glaring at me. While keeping eye contact with them I hurried and picked up the chicken! When I finally looked back at the chicken I saw that I had accidentally knocked the whole chicken costume off, so there stood a woman mannequin with a chicken head and breasts, and a chicken costume down around its feet. My companion happened to snap a picture right when I realized what had happened, needless to say, the picture is priceless. Oh, and did I mention that this chicken I stripped was out on the main road in the town with millions of cars driving by watching! Hahhah it was fun, we chose a new walking path to get to our tracting area though, cause the workers were not too happy with me!

So obviously I am not your typical sister missionary, but that's what keeps things exciting! As far as missionary work for the week goes, we met with our usual investigators! We finally got to meet with András the man we found while he was out in his yard and we talked to him about the plan of salvation a little! It was good, but we didn't have much time! We took a member with us and it turns out they knew each other, so that was crazy, but I would say definitely not a coincidence! We also met with Klaudia again, we started at the very beginning of the lessons, with the restoration, so we can make sure she has been taught everything and is ready for her baptism!

Thursday the sister training leaders came and went on splits with us! That was fun, we just did finding the whole time, cause we didn't have too many programs this week!

Friday in district meeting I got to share the spiritual thought. I gave it on a talk called missionary work and the Atonement by Elder Holland! It talks about how missionary work is hard, because it is supposed to be! We are out here bringing people their salvation, it is crazy of us to assume that I wouldn't be one of the hardest things that we ever do! Christ himself asked while in the garden if there was an easier way, but there wasn't for him. Luckily for us, we have His Atonement to rely on during the hard times, so it is much easier for us and we can always receive comfort from Him in the hard times, but I think it really helps during the hard times, to have that perspective of why it is hard. My mom always had a plaque growing up with a picture of Jesus that said " I never said it would be easy, i only said it would be worth it". I think that describes missionary work pretty well! It certainly isn't easy to talk to hundreds of people in a day, and be lucky if just one will listen to what you have to say, but I know the WHY behind it and I know that what I am doing right now is bringing salvation to others and while growing closer to Christ myself! Missions are seriously the greatest thing ever!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sok Szeretettel,

LeBaron Nővér

 hahah van of the year! Pékség!

WK#5 Hungary=Pig Festival...SAY WHAAAAT?

Here are some pictures from the sunset over the Tisza when we went whipping

One month down...how crazy is that? I love it here and have had some pretty great memories already! This week was pretty memorable itself...

Monday: I learned how to whip. Whipping is a pretty big traditional thing here in Hungary even though people now days dont really actually do it anymore. But whatever cause it was super cool, it literally sounds like a gun shot, and I only hit myself

Tuesday: We were at the immigration office most of the day...basically they dont like us and send us on pig chases trying to figure out  what we need to do, but we might figure it out someday, hopefully before they kick me out of the country!

Wednesday: I GOT MY FIRST BAP DATE! Her name is Klaudia, she is turnign 8 next month! She is super cute and the sweetest little girl I have ever met! Neither of her parents are members, but her 12 year old brother was baptized 2 years ago and their mom is super supportive! Klaudia loves the gospel and is super excited to get baptized! She is so cute, I am super excited for her!  

                                                                                      LeBaron, Nover w/ Klaudia & her Family

Thursday: We met with Zsolt again. He decided that he doesnt want to get baptized until next summer, so we are just trying to still help him along and learn more about the gospel! It is kind of rough, but hopefully with time he will have the courage & faith to make the decision to be baptized even though he knows that his parents dont agree with it. After Zsolt's program and Angolora we went and met with this super sophisticated family and when we arrived they had made dinner for us! It was cut up steak in some sort of tomatoe sauce served over rice... a little interesting, but it was good! We talked to

them about having a living prophet and that was super cool!

 Dohm & LeBaron, Nover's  BUS RIDE

 

Friday: We had lunch at a members house today out in a little village outside of Szeged, so we got to take a nice little bus ride out there! They were super nice and had a cute little kitten! Friday was Elder Tillamin-dicks birthday so we made him a chocolate cake and took it to his litttle birthday dinner at the branch house. While we were there something really unexpected happened... I GOT ASKED ON A DATE! That's not even the best part of it though! So I was just sitting there and one of the elders investigators who is 18 came up to me and asked me if I was going to play soccer tomorrow. The kid is super sweet, but he has been acting a little weird lately and on Thursday he asked me and my companion if he could meet with us sometime just to get to know us better. Anyways I told him I would be at soccer and then he asked "Would you by chance like to go to the pig festival with me tomorrow?" Luckily my companion was there so I told him he would have to ask her! Needless to say, I was definitely not expecting that one though! I think the best part is just the fact that it was to a PIG FESTIVAL!!

Saturday: Sister Dohm & I swung by the pig festival... it is basically the equivalent of our Peach Days in Hurricane except they slaughter pigs at it hahah

THE PIG FESTIVALLLLLL 

Sunday: We had a district dinner and took some pictures... we are a little bit disfunctional though as I'm sure you will be able to see hahah 

This super legit swing at the park by our house!

Anyways, I hope that everything is going great with you guys! I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sok Szeretettel,

LeBaron Nővér

Halloween és Halóttak Napja

Bummer there isnt halloween here, but we carved some pumpkins last P-day with the elders so that was fun! 

 (Elder Wilcox and Márk a little boy/ recent convert in our ward whose sister we are currently teaching!)

​

Tuesday we had greenie training, so that was super fun, we took a little trip up to Budapest!

In one of my trainers first areas she served with Sister Kovács a native from here in Hungary and she got married on Friday, so we got special permission to go to the wedding up in Kecskemét (AKA goat town in English)! It was super fun and Sister Kovács was super pretty in her wedding dress! She is super sassy and her wedding was not your typical wedding, but it was definitely a blast!

Our mission president was at the wedding also, so him and his wife drove us home to Szeged and Saturday morning they made our distric some breakfast and we had a little program with them! It was super sweet of them and the food was delicious! Saturday we had another wedding in our branch so we got to go to their reception, it was fun!

Last night we had a really cool experience while we were tracting! This week in District meeting we were talking about involving the Lord in your planning and letting him know where you will be throughout the day so that he can put people in your path. So last night as we were walking down the road that I had chosen to tract, a man was outside in his yard and he yelled hello to us from across the street, which let me be the first to say that that normally does not happen in Hungary. The people here are very kind, but they are also very reserved to themselves. So we jump on the opportunity to talk to this man and we went up to his gate and introduced ourselves as missionaries. He invited us inside his home to get warm and when we sat down at the table he told us that he would listen to whatever we had to say! AKA another miracle, because that never happens! We ended up teaching him the whole restoration and when we got to the Book of Mormon he told us he actually had one that he had recieved years ago, and it ended up being one of the super old translations into Hungarian from 1991. It was super neat! He was the sweetest guy that I have probably ever met! He brought us out some water and two chocolate candy bars for me and my companion. As we got talking he told us that his wife had passed away, and yesterday was Halóttak Napja (day of the dead) so it was something that had obviously been on his mind before we came. We told him that we believe that God has created a plan for us so we can return to live with him and our families for forever! He wanted to know more so we scheduled to meet with him again! It was a super awesome experience and a definitely testimony builder to me of planning with the Lord and relying on Him, not just on our own ideas!

One cool thing about Halóttak Napja is that everybody takes flowers to the cemetery and they light candles all around the burials, so it is super pretty! Last night Sister Dohm and I went to the cemetery to look at it! It was a really neat experience!

That was basically our week in a wrap, I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sok Szeretettel,

LeBaron Nővér

 Sis Dohm and I trying something new again in Hungary!

Hungarians Celebrating "Halottak Napja"   

 

(Sorry, missing eight additional Pic's to go along with this post that never downloaded properly)

LEBRON SISTA?

So turns out nobody in Hungary can pronounce my name, even though like hi, its not that crazy of a name... but anyways the members insisted that I give myself a nickname so that they dont have to call me just "sista". So the other missionaries have gifted me with the name of LEBRON, and the members love it, so Lebron it is!

Best news ever, the sun FINALLY came out! It has been overcast since the day we arrived so I was starting to think that perhaps the sun just didnt exist in Hungary! But now it is sunny!!! Szeged was super pretty even when it was overcast, but now that it is sunny it just got like 21 million times better in my books!

This week has been alot of finding again. We had 4 programs scheduled that all fell through at the last moment, so that was a bummer. Luckily we were able to reschedule with them for this week though! Other than that we have been meeting with this guy name Zsolt! He is literally one of the sweetest guys that I have ever met! Everytime we meet he brings us some homegrown fruits or vegetables from his garden, he is so great! The sisters here before us taught him most of the lessons and he wants to be baptized, but his family is very against it unfortunately. They tell him that our church is a cult and he should have nothing to do with us. Luckily though he has a pretty strong testimony already, so I think he just needs some time! Right now he is praying about picking a baptismal date, so I'm excited to see what happens with him!

Besides the work, Sister Dohm and I have been keeping things pretty real here in Szeged! Last night we tricked our lovely elders into making a deal with us... the deal was that we would make them brownies if they would simply provide just some flour, sugar, cocoa, butter, and eggs, so in otherwords all of the ingredients! Luckily they love us, so they played along with our mischevious scheming and brought the ingredients over to our place! Half way through the process I had the random urge to just smear some batter all over my companions forehead...It eventually turned in to my companion having my name written on her forehead in chocolate brownie batter, and of course she had to return the favor... so enjoy our weirdness with these lovely pictures!

 

~~ Making wishes and flying planes down
     10 stories~~

Elder Paul (Sister Paul and her lovely earrings)

20th B-Day

My Mother sent a B-day Care Pkg so my Companions & I 
Celebrated My Big 20th Birthday a little early in the MTC .

I'm pictured here with Sister Gordon On my actual birthday, Oct. 6, 2015.We actually Flew into Germany around 8:00 AM and then around 10am we were off to Hungary where we spent the rest of the day in the Mission Home in Budapest!

OCT.19, 2015:

"Fish soup...don't eat it even if someone pays you 20 million dollars"                 First things first, last pday the elders in our zone convinced us to go get some fish soup with them...let me just say that I love fish and it was still the worst thing that I have ever eaten. It is basically just chunks of the fish belly in water that is spiced with paprika even though the elders tried to convince us that it was no such thing. Anyways, if you are ever given the opportunity to try it I would advise saving your money!

Other then some very disturbing food, this week has been great! We have done alot of tabling and tracting and we finally found one investigator! We have only taught him one lesson so far, but he seems to be doing really well! Other than that we got "nénisag-ed" like 20 times this week, which is basically when a little old lady just sits there and tells you all about her life for like an hour and never even lets you say anything, so that is always fun!

It has rained every day since i got here in Szeged, so that obviously means a lot of hot cocoa while we watch the infamous District videos at night for training! Also they dont have Halloween, so thats a bummer, but they do have some cool day of the dead thing, so we still found some creepy masks to be weird in!

As far as the actual work goes, it has been pretty slow, but we have been giving out alot of BOM's and getting some phone numbers so hopefully it will start picking up soon! Regardless though, we have been working hard and having fun, so that's all that really matters!

 Sister Dohm, Me, Elder Paul

Elder Oakes,  Elder Wilcox,  and

                                Elder Tillamin-dick

 Just drinking some "bird milk". Im not sure why they call it that, but it tastes pretty good, so its whatevs!

  Last night I forgot my bus ticket, and of course it was the one time that they checked... and it only cost like 40 bucks so that so that was fun haha

Funny story real quick... Yesterday when we were tracting, we knocked on this door and as soon as we knocked a man from inside knocked at us and then proceeded to tell us that nobody was home...I cant say that Ive ever seen that one before!

 

Some pictures from Buda my second day in the country!

​

This is my bedroom hahah





Some weird snail thing we found...why not take a picture with it?​