Mom!  Happy Birthday!  I spent the whole day saying, Happy Birthday mom, to Sister Kimball.  We took a train to a small village just outside of Kecskemét and I thought we might make a sign and take a picture, but then we ended up talking to someone about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ... so... sorry I didn't get that one.  Hopefully you did get my birthday gift to you though!  The big envelope that had the top ripped was because I forgot to put letters in it... so... I tried again.  

I was so happy to get a letter from Mrs. Caitlin Robbins!  What a sweetheart.  It was really nice.  I will be writing you a real letter soon... and I just love you so much!  Best of luck with school... I did that once... but now I am graduated.  Ha.

Grandma asked about Christmas traditions in Hungary.  Santa comes on December 6, and he gives sticks to bad kids, and candy to good kids, but since there are no completely bad kids in Hungary, kids tend to get both. On Christmas, baby Jézus gives the children the gifts.  On Christmas eve families get together and set up their Christmas tree and then they leave it up as long as they want, or so I have heard.  They have Christmas villages in the town squares, but it is different than you would imagine.  You probably are thinking, oh, some little displays of elf shops or something.  They have booths where people work and they have vendors.  There is even a Rotary Club and a Lions Club International.  That is kinda of random.  They sell warm alcohol.  But I love walking up and down it and seeing all of the people shopping.  I conveniently was freezing one night and there was a hat stand, so I bought a hat and things improved.

We had a really great conference.  The Mission President talked about the end of the world on Friday.  Instead of offering comfort and being like, no big, that won't happen, he was saying that the planets were probably going to allign and there could be something interesting things that happen--and he said some other things that just kind of caught me off guard--but then he said, who knows and that probably nothing will happen!  We will see how Friday goes.   It just surprised me.  

Sister Smith shared with us the story of, I hear the bells on Christmas day.  Such a wonderful story.  We all sang the song and it was fun.  We played some games and then had a white elephant gift exchange.  I thought my gift was pure gold--wipe board markers!  We use them so much when we teach--and the ones at the church aren't the best quality.  But, somehow I ended up with the markers at the end of the game.  And then Sister Kimball gave me the sweater she got as a white elephant, and an elder gave me the nailpolish he had gotten.  People are so nice.  And.  A senior couple gave us gloves.  So nive!  I think they are the prettiest gloves I have ever had, so I will make sure to be super nice to every senior couple :) 

I am happy, everything is great!

Sok szeretettel,

Look how cool that fog is?!  Yesterday we had zone conference in the
big city, so we walked around and ended up at the Buda Castle.
Pretty!!!  This is me and my new hat.  I am also wearing my new boots.
And new gloves.  Turns out when you don't bring winter clothes,
you get a lot of new things!

Kennedy nővér