So the title of this email might look depressing, but it makes sense because Tatabánya literally means the mine of Tata (another city nearby). And that's really a sweet name because mines are full of gold, silver, and platinum investigators. They are just difficult to find at times. Not so sweet because mining jobs don't pay well and people are always complaining about working conditions (although they have a point because minimum wage here is about a dollar an hour).
On to other things, this week went pretty well. We had our training on Monday and President Interviews on Thursday so that cut into our working time a little. We met a really cool man on the train ride back from Budapest though, he was English and Spanish teacher so gave us some tips for our English Class. Also, apparently Pulitzer (as in the Pulitzer prize) was Hungarian. Fun fact.
Our best day was probably Friday. We had lessons set up almost all day, and they all went pretty well. I did my first 1st vision recitation in a lesson, all the reciting in the MTC paid off. Most of our investigators are good, the main problems we have are coming to church due to work, strong Catholic families opposing joining our church, and then just not wanting to read. I guess that's just missionary work though.
We had one cool experience Saturday tabling. A women walked up to us with questions about the Book of Mormon. At first it seemed like she just wanted to be confrontational, she kept asking why we weren't handing out Bible's, but after an hour of talking to her she walked away with a Book of Mormon and a commitment to read 3 Nephi 11. She spoke English which was awesome, so the other Elder that's only been here a transfer more that me and I got to talk to her. It felt really good for both of us to just be able to say what we wanted to say.
Friday morning we went and visited an awesome ward member. She lives in a beautiful little village outside the city, and made us an awesome meal with stuff straight from her garden. It was incredible. We actually get fed a decent amount by members/investigators here which I was not expecting. It's awesome though.
That's about it, I think I just figured out how to send pictures so I'll send a bunch after this.
Love you all
Parkinson Elder
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| Our last zone picture at the MTC |
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| Our district with the MTC branch presidency |
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| Cousin Picture |
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| Classic map picture. Red eye included. |
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| My comp and I at the Turul, a mystical bird that lead the Hungarians during the wanderings (back in the old days before they settled down in Hungary). It overlooks all of Tatabánya. |
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| Looking down on Tatabánya |
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| And that was just he main course. Best meal ever! This is the one I talked about in my email, homegrown. |
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| Eva, who made the above meal and her home |
