Week 47

Hey friends and family!

I am so grateful for the opportunity to write you all this week. I am hoping that all is well at home and that all of you are doing good! It is crazy to me how fast this summer has been flying by! I still cannot believe it! I am now safely in Győr and doing great. I am super happy to have this opportunity to be here in this city at this time with Elder Watson. He is a super great guy. He is from Brigham City and just got here to Hungary in May. So I am his second companion in the country and also for some reason I got called to be as the district leader. So... No pressure there right? Ha.

Wednesday: Today was transfers! So I carried my two suitcases with me all the way to the mission home to drop off Shoop there so he could pick up his greenie and stuff. Then, as luck would have it, the zone leaders live in Győr too, and they offered to take my stuff to the city for me and then when I get to the city, they will bring my stuff over to the apartment. So wahoo!!! Then we went to the train station to meet with everyone else. There, I met Elder Watson! He is a super cool guy and really has a fire about him. I am super excited for this transfer! Then we went to lunch with everyone else at the mall, then caught a train to Győr. As soon as we got back, we had a program at the branch house with some of our little kid investigators. They are just about 10 years old, and I guess we play soccer with them and teach them about the gospel the other half of the lesson. So it works out good. And listen to this. We have bikes in this city!!! Like talk about craziness! I would have never thought that bikes were so nice! But... The bikes have zero shocks, and it bruised my bottom pretty good for the first few days. Hahaha:)

Thursday: This was our first full day together in the city, and we went to work! We tabled outside and tried to talk to as many people as we could, and then we ended up going to English class later that night. This was the first time for me teaching the majority of English class, but I think it went pretty well:) It does help that Elder Watson can speak the language pretty decent and the people are able to understand him. So that helped a lot:)

Friday: We went tabling again, and when we got to our tabling spot, this girl was there handing out English class fliers. Well, awkward, we started to hand ours out too. And ours is free;) Hahaha, but we got to know her and stuff and she seemed really cool but she said she does not have time to meet. So, that was a bummer. Then we went out to eat with the other elders so we could all get to know each other and eat out:) It was super good, and like usual, the rain just randomly pours down in Hungary, so we were lucky to be under cover when it started. Ha. Then we went back to the branch house and met with a girl named K. She is super cool. We talked about what she read and how it was. We discussed 3 Nephi 27 the whole time with her and then we talked a little about why we go to church. She is a super nice and legit girl. In her 20's. We could all really feel the spirit in that lesson and it was very apparent to her as well. Then we had a youth night, and we played games and had a ton of fun. It was great to get to know the youth of the ward and to play around:) Here is a funny story for you. I do not know how many of you remember my plane ride over to Hungary, but I met a Hungarian missionary who was coming home from her mission in Utah. Well, turns out, she lives in Győr!! And she is super cool! Ha, we joke all the time about how poorly I talked on the plane and stuff and now we are super good friends and she is a big help to the missionaries in this city.

Saturday: We woke up in the morning and got ready to go to sport day with everyone. Well turns out, that one of the bikes had a flat tire. Lame. So we had to walk to the branch house. Then we played soccer with everyone, members, investigators and all. It was super fun and the most intense and fun game of soccer I have ever played:) Then we went to the branch house to clean. I guess like once a month or something the branch deep cleans the branch house. So that is what we helped them do. It was super fun, but I got put in charge of wiping down the walls... yay. Ha. Then we went and grabbed our bikes from home and took them to the repair shop to get fixed. Funny story, the bike guy told us they would be done in a couple days, and then we saw him later this night tabling and he gave us his number and told us he would like to meet and learn more about us:) So, bonus to a flat tire!!! Then we went to another program, but we were like 30 minutes early to this one. And so we had a little time to go and talk to some old grandmas on the bench. They were super nice and they said they would tell everyone they know about our free English class and about our church:) Then we went to this program, which, in simple terms, was an interesting program. They are named the H family, and they have a 4 year old daughter. The parents want the daughter to grow up in the church, but they themselves do not want it just quite yet... so. That is the situation there. Then we went and ate food at the W families house(same girl i met on the plane). We went and shared a spiritual messege and they fed us food:) So that was super great of them. And then like I mentioned earlier, we went tabling. It was super fun hahaha. Between the drunks, the Jehovahs Witnesses trying to prove us wrong and us totally walking away with a win, it was a super good night:)

Sunday: We woke up and went to church. But, surprise to me, there was an American man from Draper Utah there. He was there on behalf of his company and was staying in Győr for a little. So I ended up translating the whole 3 hour block of church for him. That was rough. But I think it went ok:) Then we came home and went tracting a couple hours on some family houses. Then we came home and had a super good weekly planning session and set some fun and good goals for this transfer. We are both the same kind of mind set and we are looking forward to what we plan to accomplish this transfer:)

Well, I hope everything at home is going good. I can tell you right now that it is here. I love this city already and I have failed to take pictures this last week, so I will work on that next week:) I am also super grateful for the chance to learn and grow with Elder Watson. He has such a good missionary attitude about the work and the life as a missionary. I am looking forward to learning more from him. As I am setting goals this transfer, I would like to say how important they are. I have learned that goals help us procede to success. Without goals, it would be a lot harder to measure how far we have come and how far we have to go. I am super grateful for this chance to be in a new place, and to learn from more people. Love you all!!!
Nichols Elder