Elephants outside our window!

H​ey! It has been another great week! The time is flying by, really! I cannot believe that in just one week we will be getting transfer calls. It is kind of sad because I feel like each and every day I just get to know the people here better and come to love them more and more!! I know there are other people here in this country that I need to meet as well though, so I am prepared to go wherever I am needed, but it will still be hard. Earlier this week was a bit slow, but like always, it picked up. We got to visit with Klára Néni and also with her granddaughter Dzsen, who is around 16 years old. Klára has such a strong radiating testimony and it was so great to visit with them. Jarrett Nővér and I also tracted an apartment building this week that had 190 apartments!! It was one of the strangest buildings ever, but we have some families that we are going to come back and visit sometime. 

One of the most exciting things from this week was our lesson with Péter and his family!! I absolutely LOVE that family!! Péter made us dinner and dessert, again! He is too nice! We talked with him more about the restoration and tied it in with the priesthood which went super well. He had great questions and so did his wife, who has been getting more involved with each visit. I asked Péter if he felt that this gospel is true, and would he be baptized and he said YES! His wife and kids have still been going to a different church each week because the kids go to that church's school and the daughter is actually getting confirmed there soon but said they would be able to come with Péter to our church later. They also have a super soft cat that they call Rüfi! We all had a lot of fun watching the cat play fetch with the little son, whose name is also Péter. They call him kis (small) Péter! They are such a fun family and it has been so amazing getting to know them. Péter is a bee keeper and this week he actually got stung and his hand was super swollen - poor guy, but the honey is the best here! 

So there is a circus in town and I'm pretty sure we saw it actually coming to town! Ha! We were about to leave for the day and I looked outside the window and there was a band, dancers, camels, zebras, and elephants (with a guy standing on top!) walking down the street, right outside our apartment window! So fun! Shortly after we left we were sitting on a bench at a bus stop were I talked to the sweet bácsi next to me. It all started with me asking "Hogy tetszik lenni?" (literally: how does it please you to be - formal way of asking older people how they are doing). Before even mentioning it, he asked about the book we had, which was the Book of Mormon. We were able to teach him just there at a bus stop and invite him to church. He promised to read the whole thing and was so happy to talk to us. It amazes me that is just a few moments, I am able to get to know people on a personal level, in another language, when just moments before they were a stranger to me. I love it! 

Last week Jarrett Nővér hit her YEAR MARK! And this week I hit my SIX MONTH MARK! So crazy, it still feels like I just got here, I can't believe I've been a missionary for six months now, and it has been the best 6 months ever!! We celebrated by getting ice cream - there are ice cream places popping up all over the city like popcorn! I seriously think there were 5 new ones just over night! 

We had a really fun Sport Nap this week, we played soccer and had some new people join us. There was a little boy named Zsolt, probably around 7 years old, and man was he a superstar! After he made a goal, he did the cutest little dance! I loved it! 

We got to watch General Conference this weekend (in Hungarian) which was great, although I am sure I will get more out of it when I read it in English next month. It was a challenge, watching it in Hungarian, but still great. It's kind of funny because we would hear it start in english and think "wow, I bet this is going to be a good story!" and then the voice over would start in Hungarian! After one of the sessions on Sunday, we went tracting and had one of the neatest experiences. We were csengő-ing outside an apartment building and no one was answering. The last one was a woman named Margít who told us to come right up! She met with the missionaries about 7 or 8 years ago where she lived in a different city and she was so happy to see us! We found her! I really felt the spirit during the lesson and it was also a huge testimony to me that the gift of tongues is so real. I knew exactly what to say to her and was able to understand everything she said. She cried as she spoke, she told us that she had been at the hospital all morning with her sister who is sick and staying at the hospital right now. The only reason Margít was home at that time was because she needed to run a quick load of laundry and then she was headed right back to the hospital to be with her sister. I know it wasn't by coincidence that we got to meet with her and that we needed to be there at that time. I hope we will get to meet with her again soon. We also laughed together because on her couch she had a little stuffed animal hedgehog and I told her about how I often have to tell people to just call me Sűni Nővér, because they have a super hard time pronouncing Schoendorfer. She thought it was hilarious! Again, I am so grateful to get to know people on such a personal level in such a short period of time.  

I hope you all had a fantastic week and are doing well! Some thoughts that I have from conference that really helped me are that in order to be humble, we need to develop a habit of saying grateful prayers. Also, charity, the pure love of Christ, is so so key to happiness! The saying is true - "charity never faileth!" I loved the quote by Abraham Lincoln that was shared, which is "Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." I think that is so powerful. And lastly I love this phrase which I heard more than once during conference, so simple, "Senki nem jár  egyedül." (Nobody walks alone). I truly know that we are never alone. I am so grateful for this gospel and for a loving Heavenly Father that loves me, and all of you. 

Also a shout out to my cute friend Jessi who is on a study abroad in Ukraine right now and opened her mission call this past week. She has been called to serve in the Ukraine Dnepropetrovsk Mission! She will soon return to an area nearby where she has been living recently - so excited for her, good luck Jessi!

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Sok ​

szeretettel, Schoendorfer Nővér

Nover Jarrett hit 12 month mark last week, and this week I hit the 6 month mark! Best 6 months ever!!!

A circus came to town right outside our apartment!

Tracting in a building that had 190 apartments!

My zoo map went through a lot today hahaha, first a monkey grabbed it out of my hands (there are even monkey scratch marks on it) and then I let the emu take a bite out of it -- we love the zoo on P-day!

Feeding the lemurs at the zoo today