Week 27: Conference, Cold, and Traveling

October 7, 2013

You know you're a missionary when you're out streeting home in the dark and its freezing cold, because it's not 9pm yet, and you get slightly excited because there's finally someone walking your way that you can talk to. And then they look up and see you and immediately turn and cross the street to the other side. Then repeat. haha

Another story for you... I tried pig tail today. The taste wasn't too bad actually, but the texture was interesting and you could tell that it was a tail, especially when you got down to the wiggly cartilidge (idk how to spell that! sorry!). yum! haha

Things are still going out here. It's pretty cold! It's crazy how within two months the weather went from above 40 degrees to below 0 on a couple days. Luckily the past couple days haven't been that cold. This month has/should be an interesting one, we're traveling around a ton, it seems. We have district meeting every other in Veszprem, but when it's not here, it's in Székesfehérvár, so we travel there. Plus, we were in Duna a couple weeks ago and again this week for Zone trainings. We'll also beup to Buda three or four times for interviews, stake conference, Zone Conference and we'll be up there on splits on Friday! Weird! Never done that before, splits in another city!

Also, we're teaching two families now! We started teachign both of them last week! Also weird for me, I haven't ever taught little kids out here yet, usually just YSA or adults. We're pretty excited about it! (:

You might be interested to know that we are teaching an NBA players wife's halfbrother...tonight again actually. It's a super crazy story and that's a really random fact, but I figured someone might appreciate it. haha (:

I Hope you all watched conference! It was so good, I thought! I was able to watch the first three sessions and the Priesthood session, all in English! (: My favorite talks, I think, were President Uchtdork's in the Priesthood session, Elder Scott's and Elder Holland's. I can't wait to read them. It's interesting how we get answers or strength in the weirdest ways through the Holy Ghost. Gotta love it!

Random, but if anyone has any cool English idioms or jokes or tongue twisters, please send them over here. I've been teachign the same class forever and I seem to ahve gone through most of my materials. Anything interesting would really be appreciated! (:

I don't have too much time to write a ton, but I love you all and I'll try to send a few pictures before i get off.

Love,
Sister Butterfield

Week 26: Horse Kolbász

September 30, 2013

Hey!

Sorry, I didn't send a mass email last week! We kind of ran out of time, but I sent most of you individual emails anyway, so hopeful that was good enough! I can't really even think of that much to tell you all. I know I said I'd tell more about trying the horse. That seems like so long ago, since it was last transfer and I've already been in this transfer for like a month. Anyway, they have this stuff here called kolbász, which is pretty much just like…sausage, I guess. But they have ló (horse) kolbász and different kinds of meat in it. So the elders bought a stick of the horse kolbász and cut it up and we all tried it and took some pictures. It really didn't taste that much different than the other normal kind.

As for the work, we're trying to get it going more here. It's hard sometimes when I feel like I'm not really sure what to do or what the right thing to do is. I feel like I'm still so young in the mission, I can't believe that it's already been over 8 months! It's weird to have so much time behind me, yet there's still so much time in front of me. I'm trying to figure out how to really love each moment of my mission, rather than just feel like I'm enduring through it, just pushing to the end. I don't want to look back and think about all the time I spent just wishing that I was doing other things or at home where so many things seem to be happening and changing there. That's just what I've been working on lately, because I want to be able to enjoy this time while I have it, instead of wasting it all, selfishly thinking about all the other easier things I could be doing. I know that all of the struggles we experience here will be to our benefit in the long run; it's just hard to keep that perspective when we're going through them.

I just wanted to thanks to you all for writing me so consistently and being supportive! (: I'm trying to figure how I'm going to get things to you all for Christmas, because mail and packages usually tend to get lost if you send them too close to the season. I'm thinking I might just send some smaller things in little envelopes and bring things home with me when I come in... 9 months. Weird. It'll be a little late for Christmas, but... maybe it'll be a combination of birthdays and Christmas? haha I'm working on it. Also, people used to ask how long it takes for things to get here, the packages have gotten here within like 2 or three weeks and I got a letter last week from exactly a week before. So, mail takes about a week, packages about 2 or 3!

Hm… other than that--We haven't done too much RCLA stuff this week and most of our investigators have been flaking out on us. So, ya know, the normal missionary cycle here. But, we are trying to do a lot with the ward and things and build those relationships. They've struggled a lot in the past with missionaries and things that happened that shouldn't have. So, that's always rough, but luckily I don't think they have been any time recent, it just has a long-lasting effects that we all have to pay for later, unfortunately. We're starting up a class though to help teach and train members, like 5 at a time, how to be member missionaries, help us out in our program, and a couple kids as like a mission prep since they're at mission age. It sounds like a great idea, but stressful at the same time, because I don't know how to train other people to do things that I haven't quite even figured out. Oh well. It'll be good!

I love you all! I hope you have a great week and listen to conference! I'm so excited for it!!! That's kind of what we're focusing on this week with everyone we're teaching: prophets and Conference. Watch it!

Love,
Sister Butterfield

Week 25: 8 month mark!!!

September 23, 2013

It’s been a good week!! I don’t really have time to write an email to everyone today, so maybe you'll just have to take parts from the ones I send you and the rest of the family and put those up, if you want to. We spent awhile this morning cleaning and rearranging our apartment and we still have to go shopping right now, and then we have a couple programs that we have to rush to. But things have been good! We had to teach Sunday School (Gospel Principles) again yesterday, so I was pretty worried about that off and on all last week, but it went pretty well, I think. We taught about fasting! Something else fun for the blog, I tried horse last transfer! I’ll have to tell you more about it later though! Hah or maybe I already did and forgot about it. Oh well. 

The weather is pretty cold and then randomly we'll have a pretty warm day. I got out all my winter stuff! I don’t really have a great jacket for it, so I usually just layer two sweaters, but I do have a black sweater that’s thicker.

I’ll think about good stories and things for next week. I was going to send a bunch of pictures this week too, but I ran out of time and they take a long time. I wish I had more time to email! I’ll make sure to make more time for it next week! 

I thought of a few things that might be nice to have (for my birthday), but they aren’t all necessary, especially if they don’t all fit or won’t send well: salsa, Oreos, maybe a ring or something, Christmas CDs/music on a pen drive (and it doesn’t have to be church Christmas music), chocolate chips!! .. I’ll keep thinking. 

Also! Today is my 8 month mark!! Say happy birthday to Scott and Rory for me! Love you!

Week 24: Life is GREAT!

Hey everyone!!

It's been a GREAT week over here in Veszprém! Sister Maxfield and I get along great and our work is picking up so fast! We have a few investigators that we meet with regularly now, some once a week, some a few times a week. We still aren't sure how solid they all are but we have high hopes for this transfer! I'm SO glad that this transfer is 10 weeks! Crazy, because we've all been dreading it for months since we first heard about it, but it's turned out to be the best thing ever! This week we managed to get Super Standard. That's a miracle in itself, if I ever saw one! Haha! We realized how close we were on Saturday without even trying to be and we just pushed ourselves a little harder on Saturday and Sunday for it and it all worked out! First time on my mission! Yeah!

I don't have too many stories; well I have some, just now a ton of time. One funny thing that happened was that we were teaching this lady a lesson in her apartment and we were just about to finish it, by asking her to offer the closing prayer for the first time, when we heard a knock on the door. Her daughter went and opened it and called her mom to the door, opening the door just wide enough for me to recognize our elders standing in the hallway. Hahaha! We all laughed. Hard. It was a good time. That's never happened before; they just happened to be tracting the one building, in an area of like 54234345 apartment buildings, that we were in. So good!

That's all I can think of for now! But I gotta run! Thanks for all your emails! I hope you're all doing well! I'll send you some pictures next week! We got a bunch of good ones with our elders here! Life is good out here in Hungary. How's America? Everyone as stoked for General Conference as I am? I hope so! If you feel like you're struggling, one thing I've learned is that it's in those times that the Lord blesses us the most and we see the most miracles in our life! I mean, hey, look at this crazy situation that I've been put in. I'm not capable of doing it on my own, but I have the Lord on my side and things are going great! Love you all!

Much Love,

Sister Butterfield

Week 23: Adjusting to Being Senior Companion

September 10, 2013

HI!

So, I don't have a ton of time right now to email you all right now. Merr. Where to start... This weekend has been awful and then great! My first few days were really rocky; I kind of lost it one day by myself haha. Let's just say, I have definitely cried more in this city than the rest of my mission put together. Yikes. I don't like being senior and having that responsibility at all, haha. Interestingly, the day that I became senior I felt a physical difference in the burden on my shoulders. Literally, I felt like a weight was dropping onto my head. My first day I got a migraine by the time we got home that night and then I lost it the next morning. It only went up from there. I realized that Sister Maxfield is a gift sent from heaven. That's kinda weird to say. I mean, I have loved every single one of my companions SO much, I've never fought or argued with any of them or anything, but I haven't necessarily been able to see, especially not this early in a transfer, why I needed that specific companion at that time. I feel kind of selfish saying that, because I feel like she's really just here for me and I don't know how to help her out, usually it's been the opposite. It's an interesting position to be in, but she's the one kind of putting me back together, which I feel bad about, especially as the senior companion. I think that's why the first few days were so rough, because I felt like she was pretty much better and more put together at everything than I am and logically, shouldn't I be teaching her stuff about missionary work instead of her teaching me? Nope. That's where I was wrong. But hey, it's great! She is a superstar at finding and teaching people. The work started picking up in Sister Fower's and my last week together and now it's just running. We don't have any investigators that are considered "progressing" yet, but we have soo much set up for this week and we have been getting so many more promising let ins and phone numbers, not just flaky ones. It makes me sick of stress, literally, to think about everything on my plate and lots of little things coming up, so I've been trying to focus on just one day at a time, one event/program at a time and it's been working pretty well so far. Sister Maxfield is a lifesaver in terms of helping me to find missionary work creative and fun and in helping me put my testimony back together. I just wish it weren't so much pressure to be a senior companion. Oh well, we're doing great together!

Everyone keeps asking for cool stories, so here are a couple: We've been doing a lot of RCLA work, so I've been studying the ward list here and putting it into lists of the areas where inactive members live and trying to get information about them. So, Sister Fowers and I started looking up a lot of them and then we'd just tract the rest of the street or building that they lived in. Most of them were pretty rude to us and not interested in being part of the church anymore, but we decided to keep looking them up. On our last Saturday together, we went to look one lady up and got let into her building, but she wasn't home. We decided to tract the rest of the building and in the apartment right below hers; a 15 year old boy answered the door. He just looked at us and said, "Are you Mormons?! So am I! I've never seen girls (sisters) before!" As we talked in the doorway, his mom rushed home from work and then back out the door, but told us to come back sometime and meet with her kids sometime because her kids were Mormon. So, we set up for the next week and Sister Maxfield and I went over to help him figure out why he doesn't come anymore. It was kind of awkward, because well, he was a 15 year old boy and pretty quiet. Right then, his mom came home again, so we went into the living room and started talking to them. Apparently, she used to meet with the missionaries when her kids were, but she wasn't ready to make certain changes and commitments in her life at that point. But, since then, she has broken up with her partner and feels like she is ready for this in her life now. So, long story short, even though we were there to meet with him, we met his mom and we're super excited to see where this goes! There's another cool story with another member (recent convert) and his mom, but I don’t have a ton of time right now to tell you all about it.

This week has been good! Interestingly, my mission has made me more excited to get married but much less excited (if that was even possible) to have kids and that responsibility. Haha yikes. Maybe I'll grow out of it. Anyway, I need to run! I forwarded you some pictures from Sister Maxfield that we took this morning. Thanks for the shoes, Mom! (: I miss you all!

Love,
Sister Butterfield

Let's See Some Pictures!

Some of the beautiful scenery in Hungary...

 Really hot one day! We were just waiting for the bus in superr hot weather. I'm surprised we're not all sweaty and gross in this one! haha

Our district (Veszprém and Székesfehervár). The senior couple left our first week of the transfer though. 

It started raining on us while tracting one day. it keeps going from being pretty cold and rainy to really warm, even this week. 

we were pretty bored...

These are the Judds. I served with the one on the left in Buda last transfer! He goes home in a few weeks, but luckily home is Bountiful, so we have lots of crazy shenanigans planned. The one on the right is also Elder Judd. He was my district leader my greenie transfer, but serving in a different city. He's here in Veszprém this transfer and he's staying here with me next transfer! Hallelujah! Probably two of the craziest kids ever, you can definitely tell that they're cousins when you meet them (yes, one is part Asian and the other one is part Mexican haha). Everyone loves the Judds! 

Week 22: Finally Staying

September 3, 2013

Hellooo.

I'm doing pretty well. I don't know how I'll be doing next week, during next transfer, but this past week was really good. We've had a really hard transfer together, Sister Fowers and I, but I learned so much and in retrospect, I loved it, even if it was sometimes almost unbearable at the time. We were both hoping that we'd stay together, so that we didn't have to readjust to a new change all over again, but that didn't happen... It's always exciting to get a new situation and be at transfer day and stuff; as much as we both love that, we just felt it was ready for us to maybe have a little calmer, settled-down transfer for 10 weeks together. But. Transfer calls came. 

This is going to be an interesting transfer. Plus, it's 10 weeks instead of 6, so thats an ETERNITY. It was a rough morning for us today, to say the least. haha. I felt oddly calm all night and this morning before the call came, so I told Fowers that I thought it was because something was coming for me that I wasn't expecting and that I wasn't going to be too happy about, sothe Lord had to calm me before i got it so that I didn't completely lose it. haha. I was right. Anywhooo, I'm trying to be super positive about it, and I think it's slowly working. So, I'm (finally) staying in a city. Sis Fowers is leaving to Kecskemét and we're both going senior. I was hoping I'd slide through my whole mission co-senior, except for one transfer as a trainer. haha. There are just so many sisters in my group and  almost everyone else in our group is co-senior for this next transfer, so we figure we should be too! haha, I guess it doesn't work that. I wish. I'm not completely ready to go senior, but, hey. I'm doing it anyway. Luckily I'm not super stressed out about that part though. That's the weird thing about missions, we're not ready for most things and there are a lot of things that we don't want to do, but we end up having to do them anyway. Ugh. haha. Maybe I can go back to being co-senior next transfer! ;) Anywayyy, Sister Maxfield is coming here! She's been in Szeged for her whole mission life so far, so Veszprém should be interesting for her, finding 24/7! haha yikes! We have the two "-field"s in the mission serving together. That's weird! I don't know her super well, she was in the MTC during my last three weeks in the MTC, but she mostly hung out with the Fins and her roommates, so I can't really tell you too much about her yet! Next week! I pick her up from Pest tomorrow, so I'm super excited about that! I get to go see everyone at transfer day tomorrow! (: Also, Elder Judd is staying in Veszprém too and he's getting a greenie!!! I'm so stoked to spoil that kid! We have to welcome people into the country and mission life the right way! (: 

Hm.. other than that. Our mission is growing! We're only losing three missionaries this transfer, but 13 are coming in! Three sisters and ten elders! one of the sisters is Hungarian! yay? yikes? haha jk, we're really happy about it, it would just be a hard transfer communication-wise. I've heard she's really cute! She's from Kecskemét, where Sister Fowers is going. There are three people in our mission that graduated from Davis, which is kinda cool! We all have to stick together! ;) There's me, then Elder Godderidge (Stephen) who graduated with me and Elder Haws (Taylor) who graduated the year before us. They're both really cool kids and we were all in the same Zone last transfer and now again this coming transfer, so it's always a fun time. Nate could come here too! ;) by then Haws and I will be gone though, so it'd just be him and Stephen, but it'd still be fun! 

I can't think of too much else. We had a good week! I told everyone that my family decided to go to California without me... haha (: Next year! Yikes! It's flying by. This coming transfer I hit my halfway mark and my birthday! Crazy! I'm almost not a teenager anymore AND half my mission is almost over. I miss things at home, but it hit me this week that I don't really even want to be back there right now. I mean, don't ask me if I feel the same way in a few weeks hahah, but at the moment that's where I'm at! (:

Love you all!
Sister Butterfield