Happy New Year!

Boldog Új Évet! 

I hope you all had a great New Years. I can't believe it is 2016! 

This week it got so extremely cold. I think the coldest day was yesterday, it was negative 12 (celsius). I usually don't go outside with wet hair but we had an early meeting and in less than a minute my hair was completely frozen! It was kinda crazy. 

It was a good week though, we are starting to meet with more people now that the holidays are over. We are teaching a woman named Erika who we were actually able to meet over the holidays because she is a teacher and had some time off. She has three little children who maybe I've talked about before, but they remind me of my nieces and nephews are are just darling! I love teaching their family and this week she really started to show more of an interest, so hopefully we can continue going to her house even with the start of school and her returning to teaching. 

Izabella, the néni I've been writing about, is still as cute as ever! We went to her apartment this week with the Elders and it was a wonderful meeting. We rang for her outside the building and then by the time we got up to her floor she was standing outside her apartment waiting for us and gave us all hugs and kisses! We taught her, along with her granddaughter and her granddaughter's boyfriend, the message of the Restoration and it went really well. During the lesson I recited what Joseph Smith said about his experience in the Sacred Grove and I felt the spirit so strongly. Ever since being in the Sacred Grove frequently a few summers ago, my testimony has been strengthened about the Restoration, and I am so grateful for the knowledge we have and for Joseph Smith being a faithful young man and prophet of God who was so courageous. We are asking Izabella this week to be baptized, which I am excited about. Another favorite characteric of Izabella's is that she is pretty short and sometimes when she sits in the chairs at the Branch House her feet don't reach the ground and she just swings them back and forth and I think its one of the cutest things. 

This week I taught Dani another piano lesson. It is so fun teaching him 1) because he is only about 6 or 7 years old so he is just a typical little boy with a short attention span and 2) because I am teaching him in Hungarian which has been a new experience for me haha. It is so funny but he is actually doing a lot better! Ever week though he finds something of mine that he wants, like a little paper origami Christmas tree I made, that I tell him he can have at the end of the lesson which has been helpful. 

So this week we received a referral from SLC from the Church's Christmas Website and it was for a man that lives in a village called Tiszalök, which is about an hour away by train. We lost track of the time a little bit before leaving and ended up running to the train station and got really lucky because the train was running a few minutes late. We were so excited to go but when we got there we found a really small village that looked pretty much like a ghost town, but it still an interesting experience. There was hardly anyone in the town and there were a lot of things that were rather run down. Unfortunately we weren't able to get a hold of the referral we had been given because the address was for a store that was closed because of the holidays. We are thinking that he might work there and maybe someday we will be able to go back. But we did some tracting and found an older man who was really interested. We gave him the Book of Mormon which he said he would read and hopefully we will hear from him at some point. It might be difficult to teach him since he is so far away but we shall see. Most of the houses in the village had some intense guard dogs that would just bark until we were out of sight and there wasn't even any workers in the town's train station. It was the most unusual place I've been to so far, but I'm glad for the experience. 

On New Year's Eve we went to a little party at one of the member's houses which was super fun. We had to leave early to get home but before we left I ended the night by singing the Fresh Prince of Bel Air on Karaoke with Elder Murdock which everyone thought was hilarious! On New Years Day we helped clean the Branch House with a few members, and they later took us out for dinner and then to a concert at a school where our Branch President was performing. Our Branch President is a professional dancer and it was really interesting to see what he does every day. 

This week we also taught Néomi, Levente (her younger brother), and Zsofi. I sent pictures with them at the Christmas party, and they are darling kids! We read the scriptures with them and talked to them about how important prayer is and how much strength we can gain through it. They also have the cutest 6 month old dog, named Mimi who is being trained right now, it was so fun to play with her! 

We had our Sport activity and it was so so cold! We played basketball and then afterwards we went to a football practice with the Elders which was held at a farm nearby. There were a bunch of animals there which were fun to see and also about 6 kittens running around which were super friendly. At one point, Elder Roberts and I each put one of the kittens inside our coats so just their little heads were poking out and we were playing soccer hahah, it sounds so weird I know, but it was a lot of fun! Afterwards the little kitten inside my jacket was just all cuddled up and didn't even want to get out. We also have been spending some more time trying to figure out the rather challenging bus schedule, after we ran around and missed 3 different buses this past week and weren't able to visit one of the members we were hoping to see. But, that's all part of the adventure I guess. 

Church this past Sunday was the best it's ever been for me and I believe that's because I tried to express myself more. I actually spoke about a few things in the meeting we had and also said the opening prayer for Sacrament Meeting. Néomi came to Relief Society with her grandma because she is just 11 years old and not old enough for Young Women's and the Primary teacher had gone home sick. I was able to sit next to her during Relief Society and it was so fun to talk with her a little as well. I showed her one of my favorite scriptures (Ether 12:27)1which she marked in her own scriptures and said she really like it too. I am so excited to continue to teach and meet with her more. 

Anyways, I think that is about it for this week! I would love to hear from you so feel free to write a letter or email. We have a 'New Missionary Training' in Budapest which I am so excited about because I'll get to see everyone I was in the MTC with and I'll also get to see Levente!! I was able to talk to him on the phone a little bit last week (while he is home in Hungary for a few weeks) and he sounds great. I was also able to talk to my friend Reni, who also came home to Hungary for the holidays. Unfortunately I'm not able to see her this time because she lives on the opposite side of the country but it was wonderful to talk to her. 

Have a great week and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Sok szeretettel, Schoendorfer Nővér

Town of Tiszalok

Wilson Nover and Hannah