There are no pumpkins in Hungary.

Hello!

I was so excited to see so many emails in my mailbox today.  Wow!  Popular!  Today has been one interesting day, and I am really grateful to everyone that was so considerate to write me.  Every letter I get really helps boost my spirits, so thanks.

I am so excited to hear of everyone's involvement with their wards!  The church needs people that are committed to their callings and that are willing to fulfill and magnify them.  The church is nothing without it's members, so work hard and be good!  Chelsea--Good luck with the Primary program!  I hear the Primary program here last year was a play... so I look forward to that!  Oh.  And, for real.  I was thinking you should maybe get ahold of the missionaries in your area.  I know that there are Spanish speaking missionaries out in your parts--I know this because I met some.  But it is really helpful to have strong members that are willing to help missionaries.  Talk to your ward mission leader.  I bet they would love to know you are interested and willing to help.  Leah--Did you have Stake Conference yet?  I just wanted to know how that all went.  Grandma--I am so glad to hear that you got to see the Rogers!  Seeing family must be really great :)  I don't remember what that is like anymore... unfortunately.  Dad--You grew a giant pumpkin!!  I had forgotten.  Please, send me a picture!  I would love to see it.  There really aren't very many pumpkins here.  It is weird to me.  I saw my first pumpkin of the year at the store today, and there was just two of them.  I am used to seeing the huge bins that you can really have your pick.  Not so in Magyarország.  Oh!  And I would love to see how everyone carves all of their pumpkins!!  That would be fun to get pictures of.  Speaking of pictures.  RACHEL?!?!?!  Where did your hair go?!  I love it.  It is super cute.  You were always my inspiration to keep my hair long, and so now I will admit, I am tempted to cut all of mine off... but I will be strong.  Leah and Daniel.  Thanks for your helpful letters.  I really appreciate the encouragement and support you have given me and you gave me a lot of stuff to think of in the next few days.  For your efforts, I might send you some European chocolate.

Oh.  If there are any friends that haven't written me on my mission (aka.  Molly Hill Pack and Hannah Elizabeth McVey) your efforts could be rewarded with not only a letter from me, but European candy.  I just wanted to make sure I called my best friends out.

Hungary is still beautiful.  There are so many flowers that are still blossomed.  It really confuses me, but I love it.  We looked at some churches today, and they are all older than America.  You just don't get stuff like that in Utah for some reason...  We had a Zone Training in Szeged this week.  It was really great to be able to listen to our Zone Leader and here the council he had for us.  I really like the attention our Zone Leader gives us.  I really feel like he is serving me, and that he wants me to succeed.  He remembers the names of our investigators, and he will ask us about their concerns and problems, and then he follows up on it.  It makes me feel important.  I think more people in the world need to feel important.  When people feel important they want to work, and they want to do things.

Teaching has been going well.  I feel like I understand a lot, and then we have a lesson and I just stare and smile.  The other day we were streeting and talking to lots of people.  Sister Jeppson asked me where to go and I said, right.  She seemed kind of weary and told me stories about children throwing bricks and spitting at missionaries, but we still went.  The second person we talked to listened to what we said and was completely willing to give us her number.  When we called her to set up with her she was all ready with the day and time.  We met with her this morning, and oh boy, it took me a good 15 minutes to get warmed up and start understanding her.  Everyone speaks differently!  Some speak super fast, some just mumble, but I keep praying to understand.  It is coming, and I am so grateful for the Lord's willingness to help me.

Something I thought about this week.  When I was little, I really wanted to go on a mission.  I basically spent my whole life preparing for the mission.  And now that I am here, I don't want to waste a minute of it.  I only have 18 months (now that number is smaller...) to really serve and give my all.  I have wanted this for so long, and I want to deliver.  And then, I started thinking about the "big picture".  Let's say we are in the premortal existence, planning how we want to live our lives. Hopefully, we are working as hard as we wanted to before we came here.  I mean, in the grand scheme of things, we only have this earth life to give our all!  So, I challenege everyone to give their best to the Lord and give their best to themself.  I don't want to let anyone down, and I would feel so bad if I let myself down, even without knowing it!

Sorry... no pictures this week!  But, just wait for next week!  There will be something good!  Transfers are next week, so we will see how things go.

Szeretlek,

Kennedy nővér

Taking notes in a Hungarian Conference

FAMILY AND FRIENDS!  

The good news from this week is that I am getting really good at typing on the computer!  The "Z" and "Y" button are switched, and I haven't been having problems typing thus far today.  Exciting, right?

This is me eating ice cream.  We scheduled it into our
 Pday last week, because I really wanted some!

Conference was fantastic!  Thanks to everyone that shared all of their thoughts with me!  I still haven't seen any of the Relief Society session, and we weren't able to watch the last session of conference because it started at 10 pm here.  There is a member here named Donna, she is American, and only speaks English.  She has a satelite hook-up so we could watch conference at her house.  For the first session we invited Tamás to watch conference at her house.  It was really cool.  He had a lot of questions--but not about English, so that is really great.  That whole session all I could think about was Rachel and I just wondered what she was going to do.  Ha...  But there is lots of my love coming her way as she thinks about going on a mission--and anyone that is ready and capable to serve.  Get on out here!  The water is fine!  I will admit, after the first session was over, I wondered what kind of text Dad would be sending all of the kids.  I hoped it would have the words weeping or heaven in there.  That was one of my favorite things--Dad texts!  Anyway, I realized the first step in the conversion process is to have the desire.  Desire is the first step in the conversion process.  While at the MTC I realized this, and it drove me crazy--How do I get a desire?  And, I have realized that a desire is the big picture.  What I want from this whole experience.  And, I want to be like my Heavenly Father, and I can do that by choosing what's right every day. Right?  Reading scriptures, praying, going to church.  The basics.  The church is simple because God wants us to succeed.  Doing simple, daily acts of service, will make us so happy.  We will find peace as we serve.  If service is stressing us out, maybe we are doing it wrong.

Speaking of stressed out.  Let's recap the Sunday Morning session of conference (or, the Sunday evening 6 o'clock session in Europe).  We had an investigator, Robi, and a recent convert, István, and we decided we would all go watch conference at the Bishop's house!  Longest two hours of my life.  The Bishop's son strangely reminds me a lot of Andrew and kept making really funny faces and animal noises during the whole thing.  Welp.  Guess that is what I think of Andrew--Disrupting conference, making faces, and weird noises.  I was so grateful for the brief moments when the choir would be singing, or right before the translation would start and I could hear just a little bit of English, and then the Hungarian would kick in.  I tried so hard to really be open and really take in the whole message and not just focus on individual words, but there was so much going on I couldn't really get it.  I felt so lost.  So confused.  I mean, I have been here for 4 weeks!!!  Why isn't my Hungarian perfect?!  I felt good, and I felt the spirit in my heart, but my mind really was getting me down.  It actually made me laugh.  It is so easy to get overwhelmed--if we let it.  So, I just brushed it off, and tried to listen to what the spirit was teaching me.  What did I learn in two hours of conference in a language I hardly understand?  That Heavenly Father loves me.  It was a much needed message.

Today I read in 2 Nephi 30, and I was talking to my companion about the last scriptures talking about the wolf lying down with the lamb (fancy that you saw a wolf this weekend Dad!  Fancy in only the fact that is relates to this small message), and I love the imagery of the child playing with the asp and so I read the scripture to my companion.  She informed me that a cockatrice in Hungarian is really baziliszkusz, which made me think of Harry Potter, and that made me a little more excited to study the scriptures.  Funny... but true.

We met with Feketa.  I found out her name is Ilona.  She was the one that had come to church last week, and surprised us!  We had out first lesson with her and it really really sweet.  She had so many good questions.  She is older than 65, and has the best smile!  She felt really loved and welcomed at church, and she wants to keep coming.  She told us she is Catholic, and she doesn't want to change, bu it looks to me like that is already happening.  So, I will keep all of you posted on that.  

This is me and my new Tisza bag! 

 An Elder bought it for his girlfriend...

 things didn't work out.  Ha.  Teasing. 

 He realized it wasn't her style. 

 I really like it, and I think I am a real missionary now.

Jeppson nővér had sent out a text to a bunch of random old investigators and people that I have no idea who they are about conference, and one of them texted back and said, yes, I will watch it, can we meet?  Wow!!  So, the first time meeting with this investigator (I didn't know it was going to be a 50/50 lesson, English/Hungarian.  Those lessons always make my brain work pretty hard) and I immediately love him.  His name is Antal, and he wants to serve people and help people every day.  We were able to talk about Christ's Atonement and the amazing power that comes from service.  I hope we will be able to continue to meet and share a lot of great stories together about his progress in serving and getting to know the Savior better.

Oh yeah!!  My great success of the week.  Every week we have mission correlation meeting.  We have a paper with the names of our investigators and stuff about them, and guess what I did.  What?!  Did I fill out the entire paper on my own?  Yes, yes I did.  And!  Did I do it all in Hungarian?  Why, now that you mention it, maybe I did that too!  It really was a great week, and I am seeing a lot of growth in the things that I am doing.  Then, at the meeting, I spoke about every investigator.  I really was so happy.  Every week I keep growing and learning.  Can't wait to see where I am next week!

I love you all so much!  Best of luck to everyone this week as they face the world, and go to school, and work, and stuff!

Szeretlek,

Kennedy nővér

I made a tuna melt!

Dear Family,

Thanks for all of the fun emails!!  Grandma, your email made me laugh.  I just keep imagining someone with their head out of the window of a train and having garbage hit them.  So funny.  Tom, let me know if you get the job!  Matthew.  You guessed correctly!  I will keep my eye out for Jozsef.  I hope he taught you how to say his name right.  I don't remember the name of the school you are going to... sorry.  So, if you could let me know that, I would appreciate it!  A lot of people ask about my family and I have a little picture I show.  I talk about everyone and where they are going to school... and then I just say you live in New York and want to be a lawyer.  Meh.  Close enough, right?  And congrats on the calling.  I am so glad you get to be involved with the ward.  Leah!  Thanks for your email.  I got it.  So grateful to hear about the abundance of your garden :)  Tell the Dean's Office hi for me, and if you want, go ahead and send a note to the costume shop from me with all of my love!  Dad.  I hope you are okay.  Passing out is not the coolest feeling in the world, and I hope you don't have any problems with that.  I love getting snail mail, but I understand that it is so much easier to communicate through email.  How about this:  Just send me a snail letter once a month, then every transfer I am guaranteed to have something!  Mom.  Please.  Please.  Please.  Campaign with, Be fancy, vote Nancy!  Ha.  Or you could just put your name on your campaign material with your phone number and let people you really are interested in what they have to say or something like that.  I think you are fantastic, and you will think of some great ways to campaign... and win!

The work in Kecskemét is going.  I love meeting with some many different people.  Here are the highlights of the week!

• One of our favorite investigators in the world has moved to Budapest for the next month because her baby has cancer.  We love them so much and are really bummed that they are gone.  We went over the night before she left to help her with packing or other things, and she ended up just giving us all of her food that would go bad.  We got some potatoes, honey, and my favorite... liver.  I will be completely honest.  I have no idea how to cook without a cook book... let alone how to cook liver!  If you would be so kind as to send me some recipes, maybe something for liver, or just general recipes that you think I might like and are quick and most of all, tasty, I would love it!  The members here don't feed us, and so we have to fend for ourselves.
• We went tracting on the outskirts of town.  I have decided that I don't want a dog anymore.  They were barking so loud my ears were ringing.  The houses in this area all have a gate and then their house, and we ring the bell at the gate.  I guess a house was tucked in, and so there was the gate and a long "hallway" until another gate which was her house gate.  I don't know if I am describing it well.  We rang the bell, and the dog jumped over the gate closest to her house and came and barked at us, and then ran back and jumped over the gate again.  It was really funny.  The dog did it about 4 times until he got to tired to do it again.  The lady that came out said she was sick, but would like for us to come back when she is feeling better.  Exciting news there!  We had more people answer their gates in underwear and a t-shirt, so all is well in Hungary.
• I think I have talked about the Radulyék before, but they live in a little town outside of Kecskemét.  Super country.  We get off the bus in the middle of a field, and walk down a dirt path until we get to their house.  Maria, who is a member and was walking with us, had us pick some flowers and we were just talking at the front of the house, when I saw one of their family friends walk into the back with a saw.  What are they building, I thought.  We turned the corner.  The goat that I had seen at the last lesson in the field was now being prepared for dinner.  The saw was to take off the hooves.  It caught me so off guard!  My companion was nervous that I would feel uncomfortable by it all, but I was honestly just nervous that I might somehow get blood on my clothes.  I will send the picture we took.  
• I met up with the ol' MTC district today.  We got our residence cards.  It was so interesting seeing where everyone is now.  Experiencing some of their same frustrations with them, and also realizing that we are all in a lot of really different places.  Both mentally and physically.  They are all doing really great though, and had some fun stories to share.
• And... we made tuna melts!!  

I am so grateful that I can serve a mission.  We were teaching Tamás, English is his passion, and he was explaining how he wants to find the way and spiritual peace.  I am so grateful that I do have that same way in my life, and that I can share that with everyone I meet.  We were streeting and we met a kid named Daniel.  He grew up in Israel, and when we first met him he thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses.  He had kind of been meeting with them once before, and I guess he wanted to talk.  So we did.  He kept asking us questions about what Mormons believe and Jeppson nővér and I were able to testify over and over about what we know to be true.  His cell phone wasn't working, so he didn't give us his number.  We set up an appointment to meet on Sunday, but he didn't show up.  I was let down.  I was so excited to talk to him and to help him better understand how to find answers to his questions and how the Lord really is here to help us, but he didn't come.  We were waiting on the street for him and a lady we had talked to benching walked right up to us, ready for church!  She doesn't know if she wants to meet with us, but she came to church.  Hopefully we can meet with her sometime soon!  We don't technically know her name yet because she always calls herself Mrs. Ferenc Feketa (her husband's name) but she is so nice, and when I didn't understand what she said she would say it again so I could understand.

Heavenly Father loves all of His children.  If I were to have a challenge for anyone, it would be this.  Find someone that you see, and share the love that God has for you with them!  It can be as easy as saying hi to them, or even trying to get to know them, or asking them to an institute activity, or asking them if they want to get ice cream, or even if they want to meet with the full time missionaries.  The opportunities are endless!!

I hope everyone has a fantastic week and that y'all be good!
Szeretlek,
Kennedy nővér

PS  Everyone loves my last name.  They think it is one of the easiest ones to remember and to say.  Good work Dad.

I rode a train!

Hello family and friends!

A big shout out to Tom Brinton!  Thanks for the letter.  I didn't get it when I first got here, but I did get it at our zone training last week.  Sounds like things are going great for you!  Good luck with the internship and best of luck with school.

Sounds like life in Brigham City is as peachy as always.  In church yesterday we sang, "The Spirit of God" and I couldn't help but think you would be singing that later in the day!  Hopefully you got to.  I love the power of music, and I think that song is perfect for a temple dedication.  I enjoyed the various thoughts and stories from the dedication.  It seems like it was a wonderful event.  If it is possible to get a copy of the dedication prayer, I would really love something like that.

This week has been pretty cool.  We teach a free English class every Tuesday, and it is really fun to speak English and help people learn.  We gave a spiritual thought it Hungarian, and the whole class helped me with what I was saying and they helped me get the right case ending.  Ha.  There was a class of about 10 people.  We have it divided up into beginner, intermediate, and advanced.  We teach intermediate.  There is a guy, his name is Tamás and he is an airplane engineer, in the advanced class that we had met with the week before for his first program!  We did English practice in the beginning, but then we taught about the Book of Mormon in Hungarian.  He also was really helpful and wanted to teach me some new words and helped me phrase things.  The people here are very patient and very good to me.  Anyways.  We asked him to read the 3 Nephi 11 and on Tuesday I asked him if he had read.  He told me, "Yes, and it is true."  Wow!  It was helpful that he said it in English, because I was able to immediately understand, but then it was just really cool.  We will see how meeting with him goes, but for now we seem to be at a good spot.

Zone training was good.  I rode in a train.  I learned there are some helpful signs above the window.  One has garbage being thrown out the window, and the other has someone leaning out, and just a red circle around it.  I learned that those are good things, because if it has a cross through it, it means your head would get chopped off from another train if it was passing by.  Someone told me about this, I didn't learn it from experience.

The ward here is really involved and really wants to help.  Last Monday we went to a Family Home Evening lesson at a members house and there were some investigators there.  The investigators thought I looked like another missionary that had been there, and they said something about how she spoke much better than me.  Eh.  So is life.  The investigators invited us to an FHE tonight at their home!  So that is exciting.  It is a mom and a boy, but I only remember the boy's name is Lajos.  He is really smart, and when I don't understand he speaks slower for me, but he tends to only really emphazise the words that I already understood.  But, the ward is great!  They want to be involved and included with our lessons and they have reached out to our investigators when we come to church.

We are teaching a mom, her name is Szilvi, and her son Gordon.  I haven't technically been in a lesson with them yet, but we are meeting this Tuesday.  Her son is almost two, I think, and he has cancer.  They are in Pest a lot getting that taken care of, but every weekend they come back to Kecskemét, and so we walk to church together.  From what I understand, she really likes church, and I think it is because the members pay attention to her.  Members are so important in missionary work.  We are meeting with a girl named Csilla, and she is meeting with us as well as the Jehovah's Witnesses.  She lives kind of in "no man's land" and she technically doesn't have any missionaries in her city, but whenever she is in Kecskemét we try to meet with her.  She says she feels better when she meets with us, but she when she came to church she didn't feel like people reached out to her, unlike when she as the Jehovah's Witness's church and they really loved her.  So.  What to do?  It is important that each of us make the commitment to welcome and be kind to the people in church that we don't recognize.  It is our responsibility to welcome and to love those who are coming to church.  So, to any person reading this, make a new friend this week!  Find someone that is sitting alone and reach out to them, and love them.  You might be the best influence in their accepting the gospel.

I know that God is my Heavenly Father.  He loves me and is mindful of me and every situation that I am in.  I was studying accountability before I came to email, and I have always known that I am accountable to the Lord, but our relationship with Heavenly Father is personal.  We need to account to Him what we have been doing, what has been going on, and be honest in our report.  He can only help us and strengthen us when we want to be accountable for our actions.  I mean, if I don't feel accountable for something, I probably won't do it.  But I really do receive strength from prayer.  It is the best!!

Szeretlek,

Kennedy nővér

This is a cup tower my companion loves to teach about the establishment of God's church.  My favorite is when we talk about Christ's time and when the apostles died, and we take them out from the bottom and the whole tower falls.  We then rebuild it, and talk about how it is the same church that Christ established.  Good times, right?

Me and a pizza!   Hungarians think corn is super American, and so they put it on pizza.  I won't lie, I really like it.

I still love you!  Also.  So weird, the time just seems to go by so fast.  I have been out for a solid 3 months now.  Wowza!

Greetings from Kecskemét!

This is my MTC district at the map.

Well family and friends, I made it to Hungary.  I am currently serving in Kecskemét. In other news, the only word that hasn't been "mispelled" is Kecskemét, so I think this is the real deal.

It has been awhile since I have written, so I will try to catch everyone up in the best way that I can.  The MTC was fantastic.  I absolutely loved it.  Getting all packed and leaving was a lot less stressful than I thought it would be.  I packed everything that I wanted, and I made it under weight!  Only by a couple of pounds, but it was still a victory.  Did Tom get my packages?  Hopefully you understand what to do with all of the odds and ends I sent home.  Oh, and Mom, please forward this email onto those people I listed in that package.  I met so many great people in the MTC and I want to keep them involved with my új life. 

Jakey Jake at the airport.  He is moving to London.

The airport was good.  The phone cards weren't all that helpful.  I called Mom, and then I called Rachel while Dad drove home, and then I went to call Matthew and it said I was out of time...  So that was really quite dreadful.  Luckily, Elder Miller had purchased another card and he let me have it, so I could call the parents again and talk to both of them.  I am sorry I didn't get everyone called.  Please know that I love you, and that I desperately wanted to talk to all of you.  Hopefully you know there is someone in Hungary that loves you.  Oh!  But, I did see Jake Hillyard in the airport.  That probably means nothing to my family, but to my friends from Logan that might be of some interest.  I will send the picture we took. 

We landed!  I felt so sick.  Just nauseated and motion sick.  But the mission president and his wife told me to just lay down and rest and the Carpenter's (They are the awesome couple from Perry) got me some ginger ale.  It was delicious and I felt a lot better.  My first meal in Hungary was taco salad.  My second meal in Hungary was cold cereal, and my third meal in Hungary was a burrito from some Mexican food place.  (Don't worry, the Elder's did make a Hungarian meal for my companion and I on Saturday, so I have had one Hungarian meal.  Ha.)

Anyways, my companion is Jeppson nővér.  She grew up in Maryland, went to SVU, and her family is now living in Colorado.  She has been on her mission for a year.  She's really nice and reminds me a lot of Jami Butler.  We've taught a handful of programs already to so many different people.  Old people, young people, less actives.  It has been pretty cool.  Jeppson nővér is really cool at letting me say a couple of things every lesson, and then after our program we will talk about what was said, and thus far I have kind of understand the general theme of it all.  Ha... she did tell me all of the things one of our investigator had said, and I honestly had no idea any of that had happened... so that was funny.

Oh!  So, on Friday we went to teach a part member family.  We were really excited to go and we knew they lived in a little town that we would travel to by bus, and we were so excited to street and tract after our lesson.  We wanted to contact people that were less likely to see us everyday.  The daughter we were teaching met us at the bus station, and it was so cool.  She was so happy!  People here think it is the strangest thing when I smile and wish them a good day, and so when I saw this girl just smiling and waving I got so excited!  The gospel really makes people happy.  It is the best.  Anyway, we got on the bus and we headed out to Szentkirály.  We got off the bus.  We were literally standing in the midst of fields.  And then we walked a dirt path, road, thing for 5 minutes or so.  We realized we probably weren't going to have much success tracting or streeting... Their house was the only one that we saw the whole time.  I learned a lot of words for animals while we were out there.  They had goats, dogs, cats, chickens, a goose, and a bird that I thought was maybe a turkey, but my companion and I aren't really sure on that one.

We went tracting on Saturday.  We got into a classy 10 story!  At least, that is what my companion called it.  It took us a long time to have someone let us into a building, but a man I had given a free English flyer to just opened the door when he saw us walk up the steps.  Tracting is way fun!  I definitely can see how people get depressed.  No one let us in, and only 3/30 apartments listened at all...  That is actually super depressing when I put it like that... but I loved it!  One large man opened his door and he was only wearing his boxers.  He saw who we were and just said, thanks, and closed the door.  Not an uncommon thing come to find out.  My favorite thing that happened.  We rang the bell and were just waiting outside of this apartment.  We can hear people talking, and there was some sort of bird or something and we wanted to see what it was, so we were just waiting for them to open the door.  My companion whispered to me, they think we're the Jehovah's Witnesses.  They didn't come to the door, so we rang again.  He let out this big ol, jaj!!  He never came to the door... but his sigh of despair was just what I wanted to hear.

Church was really great.  The ward here is phenominal.  I sat next to Istvan, a recent convert, and when we sang the hymns he used his finger to help me follow along.  I was asked to bear my testimony, and I was terrified, but I said what I could, and I cried.  So, I sat down, and a little boy came up to me and showed me his collection of buses and trains he has made out of paper, and then a lady gave me a tissue.  The language is really hard.  But, I have never really felt hopeless or alone.  It has been pretty nice.  I am so grateful for my companion, she helps me out a lot, and the people in the ward were very patient with me.  Some people I understand pretty well, but some people sound like they have a marshmallow in their mouth.  One day... I will understand them!

So.  That is most of my letter I think.  Feel free to give me suggestions on what I should write about.  I am sure once things aren't so "new" I will write my letters a little bit differently, but for now this is what you get.  Leah!  Thanks for the great email.  It was really fun to read.  I really like having a physical letter, but we only check mail at the mission home at every transfer, and I don't have the address to our apartment, so I can't give you that either.  Best of luck with all of your stake choir stuff.  Exciting.  I sang in the choir yesterday.  That was fun.  My P-Day is on Monday.  Grandma, I loved your email too.  Thanks for the love and encouragement.  Parents.  You both wrote basically the same letter, which was funny to me.  Sounds like you are keeping the ol BC safe for me.  Good.  I hope everyone enjoyed a nice peach this weekend (or whenever Peach Days was) for me.  I had some peach juice, which was delicious.

The church is true!!  I love it with all of my heart, and I am so grateful to serve the Lord, literally, everyday.

Szeretlek,

Kennedy nővér 

Pictures?!  Cool.  

.

My very first tordulrodni.  YUM.

These are pictures at the main square

Perkins nővér and I at Gellérthegy.

Sister Kennedy has Arrived

      Following your missionary’s arrival, President Smith conducted a brief interview and welcomed her to the Mission.  The missionaries had dinner with President and Sister Smith and were then taken on a brief tour of Budapest – seeing Hero’s Square, Gellert Hill (where the country was dedicated for the preaching of the Gospel), and other landmarks.

            Today, Sister Kennedy went “streeting” and contacted a number of individuals.  She then returned for some brief training. Companionship and city assignments were made.  The missionaries have departed to their new area of service, with their companions, and will immediately begin service.

            Your missionary is excited to “invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ, and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.”  We know she will be successful as she serves the Lord with her heart, might, mind and strength.  We appreciate your prayers for your missionary and for the missionary work in Hungary.  

Best personal regards,

HUNGARY BUDAPEST MISSION

PRESIDENT LOWELL V. SMITH

Caroline's last MTC words:

     The MTC means so much to me. Whenever I told anyone that's here that I came in June, and that I've been here for 12 weeks their jaws drop. Every Spanish Elder says, "I would die!" and most everyone else just says, "wow". I am so grateful that one of my teachers told me-- "There is a reason  you are in the MTC for 12 weeks and it's not to learn that language-- you'll do that in Hungary." So. It became my objective to figure out while I was here.

     Little things no one told me: bring a water bottle, bring a pair of flats you don't really care for, and bring cough drops!! Ha. I eventually got all of these things, so that was good. 

     I really think it's important to always have a positive attitude and love everything. Once I get in the field things will not be easier to love, so I really tried to love my companion, love the food, love the gate, love gym time, love the Elders that can't talk without yelling. I know as we make loving a pattern now in our lives, it will bless us so much more when we move on to the next phase in our lives.

    I am so grateful for the peace I have felt at the MTC> Everyday I am blessed to be apart o the 2,400-2,700 missionaries that are here. The positive energy of love and excitement is unreal. I <3 it.

   Jesus Christ is my Savior. the Book of Mormon is God's word. Faith happens when we work. There is no way to truly believe what we have been taught unless we try our faith and work for what we want.

   Szeretlek,

      Kennedy nővér

i leave in 5 days

We have our cute district-- Me, Perkins nover, Decker elder,
Miller elder, and D'Angina elder

What a week!

 

This week has really been quite remarkable.  First off.  I spoke Hungarian, for an entire week!  The only times that I didn't speak Hungary was when I was at the doctor's office, which was a relief.  Because of my experience speaking the lanugage, I feel closer to God, and I feel that I have a stronger love and desire to be with the people of Hungary.  It is amazing, isn't it?  There were some really cool moments where I would be speaking Hungarian and I didn't have to think about every single thing that I was saying, but instead it was all just flowing together and it just worked.  Sometimes I sat in silence because every word I had ever learned had left my brain and all I could really say was igen, yes.  But those times were only a little bit and they became less and less everyday.

 

Me and my companion, Perkins nover.

I will be in Hungary in less than a week!  We got our travel plans, and we leave on Monday, September 10!  I am super excited.  We are taking the direct flight to Paris, and then one more flight to Hungary... Seems a little familiar, doesn't it?  Ha!  But, the great news is that we will have good company when we fly.  There is a senior sister that is serving in Hungary that will be flying with our district, and the French missionaries will be flying with us to Paris!  So, I will be spending a long time with Sister Lexi Bracken from Perry!  I see her a lot actually, we have class on the same floor, and so that will be kind of fun to talk to people that aren't going to Hungary.

 

Speaking of going to Hungary, I leave next week and I am freaking out!  I love the MTC.  I know, it sounds so bizarre and not real at all, but I really love it!  It is quiet, the spirit is so strong here, people are nice.  When I went to the doctor we rode in a van.  First.  I haven't been in a moving vehicle since June.  HJonestyly, one of the weirdest sensations i have ever felt in my entire life.  It was so lame that I felt so weird... but, eh... so is life.  The doctor's office was really nice and there was so music playing, real nice gentle stuff.  I started freaking out!  I didn't know what to do.  I couldn't not listen, and they kept playing really soft stuff that I love, like Adele.  It was so weird.  And when we were outside waiting everything was so loud and I felt like a fish out of water.  The world is so loud.  There is so much going on!  And so, that is kind of why I am a little scared.  Going back into the world.  Terrified.  Excited.  Blessed.  So many feelings....

 

Anyways.  The computers are freaking out at I have a haircut at 11, so I  have to go!  Expect a phone call on Monday between 3 & 4!!!

I love you!!  Always and forever

Then there is just me and Elder Perrenoud.  He is funny, right?! 
He knows how to say hi, how are you, and yes, in Hungarian.  What a champ.

Kennedy nover

And, my best friend!!  Hermana Johnson.  Aren't we the cutest?!