Week 11: Good News

June 18, 2013

HELLO!

Boy, do I have news for you all! My instincts were right once again and.... I am being transfered...again!!!!!! I guess I'm just a one-and-doner. But that's okay with me for the time being. However, somehow every transfer call seems to be a hit in the stomach and things always happen that I would NEVER guess. For example... I would have guessed that I could go anywhere in the country except the one place that I'm going and the one place that Ive been raving to everyone about. .... IM GOING BACK TO THE CITY!!! I really really really really cant even tell you exactly how stoked I am and how at peace I was when President Smith called to tell me. It's crazy to realize again and again how much God really does know each of us and what would be the perfect place for us and who the perfect companions on. AND!!!! I am in a trio again!! WOOHOOO! haha. except that its kind of really different. So, Sister Fresh (from the MTC, the other district) is the cutest person ever and we had actually talked about living together back at BYU when we get home or something in forever when all of our friends are married haha. Anyway, she and I are kind of co-senior, but not officially. Officially, we have a senior companion, Sister Behunin, who I also have a funny story with. So, she is one of the three Sister Training Leaders and so she'll be going on splits multiple days in the week and so President was saying that she'll be gone like 4 out of 7 days every week at least plus with other meetings and so most of the time it'll just be Sister Fresh and I most of the time. But its such a good combination for me of being on our own and in charge, but still having someone there to help us sometimes and someone that i can come home to and ask language questions to and stuff. PLUS, Sister Fresh is super cute and motivating AND there are so many missionaries in the Buda ward. Its going to be crazy! All of the office elders, APs, like three senior couples, President, the Buda elders and the three Buda sisters. Buda is just my home and I love being in the city cirlce. This time I won't be Kispest and the ghetto though, Ill actually be in city center!

Anyway, Sister Behunin goes home after next transfer and I actually went on splits with her this week and we were talking about how badly we wish we could be companions and how much it sucks that she's going home so soon because then we wouldnt have the chance to. and...yeah, we're companions now. haha I feel like that keeps happening. So now I'll have been in three cities and have had 6 companions.. in just three transfers! Isnt that crazy!

Hm, I had a bunch of stuff to write to you all about, but I'm honestly still kind of in shock about transfer calls and don't feel like writing it all. Mostly, its SUPER hot here and we just sit in our own sweat.. and maybe everyone elses around us.. all day every day and I feel like I'm melting and dying right now. Also, hungarian food reallyyy does not sit well with me and it tends to make me sick. But, it tastes good at least (:

Over all, this week was really good! Except Sunday, that was a low point for reasons that really shouldn't be important. But, just things that I found out about going on back at home with some people and yeah, I have refound my motivation to want to be out here and stay out here. It is really sad though, because The last couple transfers I have become really good friends with some missionaries and they're all really old in the mission and have died, are dying tomorrow or dying really soon. That's one reallyyy hard part, but it's okay. There are so many good missionaries in this mission and I really love it!

I hope you all have a GREAT week! And I'll be writing to you all next week from Buda! Love you all!

Sister Butterfield

Week 10: Quarterly Interview in Buda

10 June 2013

Sziasztok!

I have something for you all to look up! President Smith's wife frequently updates a website for the mission: hungaryldsmission.org Check it out! If you go back to April, I'm in a couple pictures on there and there are other missionaries in them that I've talked about! (:

Hmm…for this week...it has gone overall a bit better than last week. Mostly I'm just really ready from things to change up a bit and for next transfer, which starts next week! In other words, I'll be online next Tuesday instead of Monday to email! I won't be surprised if I get transferred again, but at the same time, I won't be surprised if I stay just one more (but, that'll probably be the most from what was implied this weekend in my quarterly interview with President). Who knows though! We have 3 new sisters coming in and a bunch of elders…6, I think, and two senior couples! President says that he wants sister missionaries in every city where there are elders a.s.a.p.! So that's really exciting!

We're going on splits starting tonight with two of the three Sister Training Leaders. I'll be with Sister Behunin and Sister Perkins will be with Sister Fox. I'm actually really excited now! I was pretty worried and not looking forward to it last month when they told me about it, but maybe it'll be a fun change for a day and I'll get to know another sister! I am a little bit nervous because I feel like it might play a role in what happens next transfer with me, but hey, what can you do! And either way, it's all done with according to God's will in the end anyway!

Today we spent most of our P-day in Nyíreghaza to get some suits made! Our comp item is going to be these really sick women suits! The elders who serve in Ny. almost all get suits made by this lady and they are super cool and European and the lining on the inside is the Hungarian flag! So we're the first sisters to try it out too, but with pencil skirts! I'm excited to see them!

Also, we have a new bap date this week! It'll be in July and we are soo excited for her! She is beyond ready and well, it’s a long story, but we are stoked! She's (not my favorite, because we're still not supposed to have favorites), but she would be one of mine in Debrecen!

We spent a lot of time with President this weekend! We were in Buda on Friday for interviews and it was soo good to be back! It really felt like I was "home" in Buda as soon as I stepped off the train! It has such a different feeling to it and even though it’s more harsh and busy, I love it now! Also, the river is flooding because of all the rain in Hungary and the surrounding countries! It’s crazy; the water is almost up to parliament! Then, the next day, President and Sister Smith came up and took us missionaries out to dinner at a really good restaurant and then they slept in a hotel and came to our branch and spoke on Sunday! They are so cute!

To answer some frequent questions:

I will try to tell you all more about investigators, it’s just hard because we’re not supposed to release too much confidential information or anything, plus work is kinda slow here. We have a lot of programs, but we haven’t really been getting any new, solid investigators and we're actually in the process of weeding out a lot of people that aren’t really serious about the church just practicing English or being friends with us. It’s pretty hard to do to people, but we just running into a lack of commitment or real interest to make any changes or anything.

We do see the elders a ton. We live right by the branch house, and the elders live quite a few blocks away, but only a couple minutes if they catch the streetcar thing. We table at the branch house a lot with them though and we always end up running into each other in between programs at the branch house and things.

Hope you have a good week! Tell me about the real world! I wish I could be there for Father's day with everyone! Love you all!

Sister Butterfield

Week 9: It's Been a Really Tough Week.

3 June 2013

Hellooo,

I hope you've all been having a good week in good ol' America; it's definitely very missed right now. I can't think of too much to tell you all about this week. Hmm. We were working towards super standard, and we had everything going according to plan! Then guess what happened?! On Sunday, it was pouring and church was empty. if only one more investigator had showed up to sacrament meeting, we would have gotten super standard... at least we got standard, but it’s hard to push yourself so hard and not reach a goal because of someone else’s actions, but oh well, there’s always this week...

Speaking of rain, it’s been raining SO much lately. The weather is awful and cold, but I actually prefer it to a ton of heat.

I think you'll all get a kick out of something I had to eat today (well, if you know that I don't like pudding or jello or pie or anything of the sort...). This member had us over and…actually, first of all, we met her on the bus to her house since she was out doing errands and she sat down and started talking to my companion... about me…and was like "oh, your companion, she’s a greenie, right? Or actually, she’s probably not really a greenie right, just blonde! Ha!" and I just sat there deciding to not do anything about it. Then.... we went to her super nice house and we read a book with her and gave her a little lesson thing and then she fed us this nastyyyy cake thing that she had made. Mostly it was like she threw a bunch of stuff into the tin, like some crackers and then some broken up chocolate crackers and then some strawberry jello and some pineapple chunks and some chestnut cream on top of that and some old strawberries on top of that. She gave us huge pieces and I was literally PRAYING that I could keep it down and not throw it up. Then, to top it all off, as we left, she turned to me and was like "Hey, you speak Hungarian really well! And you read beautifully." Ha, the irony. I wonder if she realized later all the things she had been saying to my companion about me and that I understood everything. Joyyy.

Hmm, I can’t even remember anything else that happened last week, honestly. It was a really rough week for me. I finally had a bad week on my mission, but I guess I saw it coming. Meh. Still haven’t broken down and cried though. Today actually made it better though... and then it got worse again. But for a while it was really fun…we had district meeting moved to our p-day and then had a district p-day. We had a sajt night, or a cheese night. We breaded and fried cheese sticks and then put pancake batter on some candy bars and fried those. Then we went outside of the branch house here in Debrecen and I whipped for the first time! One of my elders here got a memory card for me, so I can upload pictures of it now!

I've gotten really close to the YSA (Young Single Adults) here and some of our investigators, so in some ways I am really in love with this city! I have no idea what’s happening next transfer, but Sister Perkins will probably leave. We shall see! I have interviews with president on Friday and then we have a Zone conference with the west zone next week, so the rest of the transfer will probably fly by.

I wish I could think of some funny stories to tell you all, but i can’t at the moment. I have been learning so much though! Its amazing how much I DIDNT understand the scriptures before my mission or how many basic things I didn’t fully understand until I started thinking about how in the world I’d teach them to someone else. I have learned SO much about the church, it's crazy. Even if lately, I've mostly just been wanting to come home and not deal with dumb things that have been happening, I'm really just amazed at how I possibly could have gone to church for 19 years and seminary for 5 and done everything and STILL not completely understand things that I’ve been learning and teaching other people. Everything just fits together so perfectly.

Our district meeting was super good today too, about the Atonement and how to correctly use it in our lives. I don't know how to explain it all, but it helped a lot. I loved when Elder Moses explained how instead of asking for God to get us out of certain situations or help us not have to deal with things, to realize that God has put us in certain situations and given us certain things because he needs and wants us to experience certain things and we should be praying for strength to get us through instead of just asking to get out of them.

I hope you all have a better week than I did! Love you all!

Sister Butterfield

Week 8: Four Months In

27 May 2013

Hey!

I have a hard time coming up with things to write about, and then I never have a ton of time left to write a ton. But, hmm, I’ll try. Haha

This week has been alright. I kind of feel like I need to sleep for 5 days straight and then maybe I can keep being a missionary. Instead, we're actually doing the opposite and going hard for Super Standard this next week. I'll let you know how that goes. We're doing kind of a consecration week of 7 days of SYL (speak your language) and a ton of work hours and things. Last week we got Standard again, so we're up-ing it this week. We might just go home and go to bed early tonight to prepare. Haha

Hmm…Interesting things that happened this week... I tried chicken liver or some kind of liver... Just a tiny bite... it wasn’t too bad until the aftertaste. Yuck. Also, we have an investigator and she’s psycho. Like actually. I don’t even want to go into detail because she makes us so annoyed. But, a couple weeks ago, when I first taught her, she complimented my hair and then when we went back to her house a couple days later she had dyed her hair…and then she said it was because she had seen mine. merp. I’ll take it as a compliment though Haha. We had to drop her off bap date yesterday, unfortunately. Maybe I’ll be able to tell you more about it later, but we’ll see. Haha I can’t get into it right now without getting annoyed again. And it would take way too much time. Hahah

Sometimes my sneezes come out really loud like Dad's. It happened one day this week and my companion was just like Whoa. And then it reminded me of when Dad sneezes and Pookie is sleeping in a ball and gets scared and then I laughed for like 10 minutes by myself. Haha

This week has been really high and really low, I don’t even know how to describe it. Most of it was just really bleh for no particular reason and then one day was just so good and I decided I really love Debrecen and Hungary and I actually really want to stay here for another transfer. But, at the same time I’d love to go open a new area. So pretty much I'll be fine doing either, or anything, but I really love everyone here and I LOVE the YSA and the people in the ward even though there are some definite crazies that I can’t even describe. Our investigators are SO intense some of them, but it’s just so different from the ones in Kispest. But I love them!

Time is flying by like crazy. I hit my fourth month mark on my mission AND my 2 month mark in the country this last week. I can't believe that I have just over a year left. A year and a half always sounded like so long, but I'm almost a third of the way through.

Anyway, I can’t think of anything else to say…so…ask questions. Have a good week! Love you all!

Week 7 Day 119 I call myself "vaj-mező" nővér (literally butter-field)

21 May 2013

Sziasztok!

Sorry I didn't email anyone yesterday! It was a holiday here (Pentecost, in English, I think?)

To answer some questions: "Debrecen is good! Yeah, there’s just one branch in the whole city and it’s pretty small. I guess it’s set up to be the stake center in a long time when they make the East Stake. But, the West will become a stake first. By the looks of it, it'll probably (hopefully) be really soon."

Hmm…This week I've actually been reading a lot about President Hinckley after hearing about President Monson's wife (which we were shocked to find out about, it’s weird not being part of the world and using the internet and watching TV). And, I found this little thing that was released in the Ensign/Liahona in 2008 about President Hinckley when he passed away and it’s been really cool to read and it just made me miss him. I feel like he was my prophet, even he was the third prophet since I was born.

Hmm, it’s super different to be in a…duo (?) instead of a trio. We have gotten really close and we get along really well, which is really really nice. It’d be awful to have to live, work and literally be with someone 24/7 when you don’t get along and can’t have fun, because the mission work is already hard and scary enough. Luckily I got lucky again this transfer. We've also been working on like giving me more responsibility, because we're pretty sure that I'll go senior next transfer or sometime really soon. Sooo, this week I made all of the phone calls and set up all of the programs for the week! Craziness! Don't ask me how I did it. Haha. Actually, it wasn't even bad at all, so that's good. Also, I have started leading the way to get to programs and stuff because Sister Perkins will probably leave next transfer and I'll have to know my way around. I lead our entire program this morning and planned it all by myself. Yikes. Haha but it went well. Hmm...yeah, and mostly I just get to talk a lot more in programs and people actually listen to me and a get lots of comments on my Hungarian, which I think is funny because I can't take those compliments seriously and usually I think people are just trying to make me feel good and that my Hungarian is actually awful. But, who knows. Haha it’s a nice gesture.

The word was really nice this week! We keep getting invited to eat at people’s houses and things like that, which I guess isn’t super normal here. I feel like I'll probably be here in Debrecen for a while, because I actually feel part of the group here and I've been getting along with people here super well. Everyone’s so cute and nice!

Ha! So funny story! Guess what I did yesterday! I told my companion that everyone would get a kick out of it back home, but…I CUT MY COMPANIONS HAIR! What! She’s a licensed cosmetologist (I don’t know how to spell that still) and she SRILL let me cut her hair! Also, I guess she really actually liked him, because she wants me to do it again, closer to transfers but shorter next time so that it stays healthy longer. Yikes. I would not just give anyone scissors and tell them to cut my hair if they’d never done it before. Hahaha but, at least she walked me through steps.

Another funny story, here I introduce myself a lot of time as "vaj-mező" nővér (literally butter-field) because people have a really hard time saying and remembering my name and people who speak a little bit of English love it because it helps them remember it. And people who don’t speak English, it’s just easier and they think it’s hilarious and always ask what a butter field is anyway and what it looks like. Haha

It’s been a looong week, but it’s been good! We got standard! We also put someone on bap date and we're setting another date this week, when the lady gets back to us, so the work is moving along here. It’s weird because Debrecen is a huge melting pot! Here's how I explained it to someone else: " it’s the second biggest in the country (I was just serving in the biggest), but it’s so much different than Budapest. people are so much nicer here and it’s like a huge melting pot and half the people we actually teach in English right now and we always run into people from everywhere like china, England, the USA, Israel, Nigeria." It’s a really interesting change and we meet such cool people here, sometimes it’s funny when we try to speak to them in Hungarian and they’re just like uhhh, do you speak English? Haha. Most of them are either refugees or they’re here for college.

Okay, my time’s about up, but tell me about real life! I love you all!

vaj-mező nővér

Week 6: Day 111: My transfer to Debrecen

13 May 2013

Hey!

Skyping yesterday almost feels like a dream! Weird! So I kind of explained to family yesterday what Debrecen is like, but no one else has really heard what it’s like. I seriously feel like I'm in a completely different country right now! It's SO different from Kispest. I'm pretty sure I moved from like the most rundown Sisters' apartment to the nicest one in the mission; so that's great for me! Not so great for Sister Messinger who swapped spots with me. haha :/ Also, people here are sooo nice, comparatively. Still not the same as Latins or even Americans, but hey, seems like heaven to me! I think this is the longest time I've gone without being yelled at! :) It makes me appreciate it so much more! Also, the work here is much different! They aren't used to going tracting or knocking on doors or anything. It's mostly just tabling, streeting and programs. Weird! It's a college city, so there are actually a lot of people from other countries because it’s a really good college! There are a lot of medical students and things! Also, everyone here rides bikes and it’s so much prettier out here than the cramped, busy city. Also, the houses here are actually (almost) like houses in the US. There are some really big nice houses here! I've heard that this is the second biggest city in Hungary and that it's the wealthiest area. Who knows if that’s actually true! Not me, because I don't have Google! Haha! No fact checking for me!

My first full day here, I actually got sick. So when we got home this Thursday, my head was killing me and my whole body was shaking and I ended up throwing up a couple times, but I felt much better the next morning! It's cool that it only lasted the short amount of time that we were at our apartment; anyway, it didn’t affect our work at all, which was good! The ward here is actually a branch and is super small (but I think big compared to the rest of the country), but the missionaries are actually a part of the ward here and are needed! Weird! Haha I helped translate a temple recommend interview at church on Sunday! So weird! I’ve never been a part of someone else’s interview with a bishop...

Hmm other than that... tonight Sister Perkins and I are walking through the cemetery with our elders! And my comp is sooo great! We get along really well! She's a cosmetologist. I don’t know how to spell that........ So we're going to the branch house soon, so that she can cut some people’s hair today. Also, I have a sister missionary tan. Yuck. Haha and my feet have really weird tan lines! I'll have more time to write next time, ask questions so I know what to tell you all about! But, this city is a big change. Luckily, Sister Perkins and I are like already best friends and have talked about our entire lives--not quite our entire lives--but almost. She’s great!

Fill me in on the funeral tomorrow and everything you're all up to! I want to hear it all! I can't believe I've been out so long! During next transfer, I'll hit my 6 month mark! orultseg! Craziness!

I hope you all have a really good week!

Love you all,

Butterfield nover