December 11:Dracula

Hello y'all,

This week was a lot of fun. It started of with a great P-day in Budapest! We went to Castle Hill and into the labryrinth beneath the castle where it is believed Count Dracula was kept prisoner. It was a lot of fun. there were sections were there is a fog machine and we couldn't see a foot in front of us. My companion disappeared and the jumped out and scared the sisters a lot. It was a party. While we were walking around (after we came back to the surface) it started to snow! Lot of fun. After we left the sisters we went to the mission home for interviews and then went back to Érd and played games with the other elders till the end of our P-day.

Tuesday. We went to a members home and had a really good lunch. I guess there is a thing here in Hungary (maybe in America too) that says that if you have a clean plate after a meal (you wipe it clean with bread or something) then, depending on how clean it is, the next day will be just as sunny. So if there are a couple marks on the plate then there will be clouds the next day. Interesting theory. We tried it out and guess what! It was still really cloudy and rainy:) I always love working in the cold and wet! It is just so much more fun for me (I'm not being sarcastic)! Maybe cause it is more like the first missionaries who had to do similar. I now this is nothing CLOSE to how hard it was to them, but it still is fun to think about!  Right after lunch we rushed home to change into sporting gear. One of our investigators invited us to play soccer with a group of her friends. So we went. It was a lot of fun. About 30 minutes into it I felt some blisters on my feet. They hurt pretty bad but when you are playing sports there is no stopping. About 50 minutes in I made a really hard cut while running with the ball and I felt a lot of pressure build up in one blister, then a little pop and the pressure left. It was a pretty interesting feeling... When we got home I took of my shoe and thought that my sock was just wet from the sweat. I took of my sock and lo and behold the bottom of my foot had blood all over it!!! SUPER AWESOME!!! My blood blister grew and popped while playing, in addition to this I had weird lacerations around the blister.... Super cool! After hobbling around for about 5 days the pain left and I was able to walk like a normal person!!!! 

Thursday and Friday we went to help a member finish chopping his wood. It was a lot of fun! He took a bunch of pictures and send that he would send them but he hasn't yet. I will be sure to send them in an email whenever I get them! 

Saturday we went to the branch house to practice a song with a member. My companion has a pretty good singing voice and so he was singing a Hungarian Christmas song and his sister is an incredible singer so they are working through the member and both singing parts to the song and the member is compiling it for them. So we practiced that for a long time. I was the camera man and had to hold the camera about a foot above my head so my shoulders died!! Good exercise I guess... After the practice I was able to have an interview with one of the other elder's investigators!! She is 14 and comes from a not-very-religous family. She has incredible faith and is getting baptized in a couple of weeks!!! 

It has been a really great week! Lots of fun things happened and are happening!! 

I hope all of your weeks were equally wonderful, and if not, that this upcoming one will be even better!!!! 

Biesinger Elder 

P.S. Somebody else has the pictures from our Budapest adventure so I will send those once I get them.

The girl is Dorka, the one getting baptized. and then thos are the goodies we got from the branch! 

I am sorry these are coming in a series of small emails..... Don't judge. It was cold...

December 4: Hypo...

Hello everyone,

This week was a little bit slower in regards to things that are out of the usual happening. On Thursday we bought some hydrogen-peroxide to clean our bathtub and stuff, bleach it and make it nice and white. Evidentally this kind is illegal in American because of how concentrated it is.... Well... I got my gloves on and started to work. I had finished everything and was just rinsing out the sponge when a tiny bit/a good amount splashed on the bottom of my pants.... Well, I glanced down, saw that it was wet and shrugged it off, 5 seconds later I looked down and..... I'll let the picture and video explain the rest.... Pretty rough, I guess that is what I get for doing stuff in pros clothes:)

It has been getting colder and colder here which is amazing! I'm starting to need to wear  a coat around now which makes all the nénis here happy! 

We were able to go do some service this week! By next week I will hopefully have some pictures to send about it. We cut some wood for a really long time with a chainsaw. It was a very manly form of service that was thoroughly enjoyed! 

Nothing else happened out of the ordinary. Today we are going up to Budapest to go around with some sister missionaries that are stuck there and need some "guides". I served with one of them in Veszprém and it was a blast then so it should be a party today!

I hope you all have a great week!!! 

Biesinger Elder  

November 27: Party In Érd!

Hello everybody! 

This week has been a pretty standard week filled with work and miracles, and maybe some pictures..... 

On Tuesday we had a zone training where we learned a lot about the Christmas thingy that the church is doing. It was pretty fun. 

Wednesday I was able to do a split with one of the elders in my district. It was a lot of fun. We were able to meet with one of their new investigators who is amazing! It is a girl that is about 13/14 years old. She believes in God but no one else in her family does, nor do most of her friends. But it was really cool. She was super happy the whole lesson and almost cried when we told her that we were giving her the Book of Mormon for free!! It was such a cool experience! And a perk was that she spoke English really well. She had been learning for about 8 years and had a super good accent. It was a great meeting. They met with her again on Friday (I wasn't there) and she asked them if she could be baptized! Such a cool experience! Later on the split we were talking with a man and he told us that he really wanted to go to America, but only because he loved collecting volkswagen beetles.... and I guess there is a good market for them there. Can't say I was able to connect with him in this hobby. After that we went to a potential investigators house and the mans wife answered the door. We told her we were looking for Tamás and she told us that she had never heard of a Tamás and that no one by that name lived there. As we were leaving one of the little kids ran out and said hi to us and asked why we came back to talk to there dad again... Bwahahaha the mother quickly pulled the child in and slammed the door. She knew she was caught. 

On Thursday we didn't do anything out of the usual. 

On Friday we went over to the house of an old friend of mine (My father and I were his hometeachers when we lived here). The Némethék!!! It was really good to meet with them again. Their two boys are INSANE!! I have some energetic siblings in my family but they put mine to shame. It was crazy! But we had a really good time! One of them loves to just shout my name and all during church yesterday he would come up and just say my name and then run away... I am not sure how to take it.... 

Saturday we just worked and did fun stuff! 

Sunday we went over to a members house and had some yummy food and some good discussions... 

I think that that is about everything!!! Love you all!! I hope everything goes well for all of you!! 

Elder Biesinger 

Pictures.... Some fruit soup that someone made for us. Two of the pictures are of my weird companion and the final ones are with some of my favorite people!! Luca and Dorka! Luca and Dorka are getting aquainted and since Luca lives so close she came down for church! It was a fun reunion! 

November 20: Slightly Less Busy

Hello,

This week has been less of a crazy events week and more of a steady missionary work week. On Monday we went to a mambers house were she fed us some incredible food. It was pretty fantastic. She served my favorite (paprikás csirke) and some other yummy foods. We were all pretty stuffed afterwards and so we layed on the floor and tried to digest the food sooner so that we could eat the dessert. While we were on the ground (there were two companionships there) one of the elders wet willied my companion and so I held the elder down while my companion got him back. Pretty fun! 

Tuesday. We have a squirt bottle in our apartment filled with water. When my companion misbehaves I squirt him in the face or ear. This evening he did something silly and teased me about something I did and so I left the room and came back with the bottle and started attacking him. After trying to defend himself he ended up jumping on me and we wrestled for a while. Lot of fun! There wasn't really a winner but my hands were all bleeding and bruised because while we were wrestling the water thing was in my hand cause I was still squirting him and then he tried to get it out and it up cutting me pretty good:) Sooooo much fun! I can't wait to get home and wrestle with my dad again cause none of my comps are capable?:S 

Wednesday.... Nothing

Thursday.... Nothing

Friday.... Um.... nothing. 

Sunday! Today we were tracting in the awesome cold rain! !!!!! And we had a man let us in. He was kind of glassy-eyed at first and we found out that he was drinking. He wasn't super drunk and let us in to have some warm tea. It was fun. About 25 minutes into the visit some of his friends came who was wasted. He couldn't even get his coat off without some help. We had a good conversation with the sober ones and yeah... it was good! Fun experiences! 

I think that is it for this week! I lost my camera charger so I didn't get any pictures.... Bocs! 

Have and amazing week!! 

Biesinger Elder 

November 13: Difference between purging and cleaning

Hello everyone! 

This week was a little more eventful and interesting then the average. Feel free to skip to the end if you want or you can skip to my Saturday summary because that is when the best things happened. 

Monday: After our preparation day we went to a English discussion class as distinguished guests. The people spoke pretty good English but they couldn't understand that we spoke (to some degree) Hungarian and that we talk with Hungarians on the street, in Hungarian. I don't understand why it was so hard for them to understand. We were a little late getting out of there and we had a FHE planned with another family that we had to take a train to get to. Soooo.... we got to sprint for the train! What a great thing. Once we got to the station (Érd alsó) we bought our tickets and had a couple minutes before our train left. The ticket person said that the train was going to Érd felső!! So we got to sprint. Let me tell you... Both my companion and I are pretty freakin out of shape. It was pretty awful!!! The FHE went pretty well. After our lesson the Grandma asked us how long we have been on our missions. My companion came a transfer after me but both of us are going home at the same time. She thought for a minute and then said "8 months is the perfect amount of time to find a Hungarian girl!".... Well... was not expecting that. She went on for the next 20 minutes instructing us on how to flirt and get the Hungarian girls. She told us to accidentally bump into them all the time and then start conversations with them. What great néni knowledge. 

Tuesday: Today we went over to an investigators house. A little background on him. He invented something when he was 12 that he sold to a big company for a lot of money. He has traveled everywhere. He has been a doctor, lawyer, accountant, and butcher. He is pretty brilliant and yeah... cool guy. He was telling us a story about his medical school years (for the faint of hear this might be gross...). He told us that here if someone dies on the street and they don't have a a family (homeless people) then the bodies get taken to the medical schools and the students use them for practice. At one of these occasions the teacher/doctor wanted to play with the students a little. He said "if you are serious about being doctors and that you have the guts to do it, you will be fine doing this" and we walks over to a corpse that had his stomach open (you could see all the organs) stuck his finger into the liver, wiggled it around, and then stuck his finger in his mouth!!! What the students didn't notice was that he stuck his pointer finger in the liver and stuck his middle finger in his mouth, so he didn't actually do the gross deed. But the students (most of them) didn't see this and one of the teacher's pets went over, stuck his pointer finger in the liver, and then stuck his pointer finger in his mouth. SOOOOOO gross!! We were laughing so hard. 

Wednesday:We had splits in Dunaújváros with the zone leaders. During the course of the split we had two people let us in!!  The first person was a young man about 25. He told us he didn't have time and to come later. We exchanged telephone numbers and went on our way (we were in a huge 10 story building). A couple floors later we get this random call and it is the guy. He told us that he was bored and wanted to actually talk with us. So we went back up and had a really cool lesson with him! Scheduled a return appointment when his daughter and wife could be there. The second let in was one a lower floor when a elderly lady opened the door. She told us that she was just visiting and so she wasn't going to let us in. But then we heard a voice from the back room yelling for us to come in. So we went in. Once we got in the room the owner of the flat (another elderly lady) turned to look at us. Eyes went wide, and then got really mad and told us to get out of her apartment.... We were kind of stunned by it all but thought it was pretty funny. Later in the day we (all four) went to a big building. One of us started at the top and the other started at the bottom. We thought the elevator worked so we said we could go to the top. It didn't. You need a special magnetic key to make it go. So we got to run up to the top floor where we took a little breather. At one of the doors I knocked on a little girl came running up to the other side and started talking. We heard the father come and he told the little girl to knock back. So she and I had some fun knocking back and forth different patterns. They opened the door after a little while and we talked for a while. It was good. The girl was about 2 years old and neither father nor daughter were interested. Oh well! 

Thursday: Today we came back from splits and went straight to a Nénis house for lunch. It was really good. After we got back we had angol óra. During it we were asked what the difference was between purge and clean. The only example we could think of was purge the world of impurities. I think that elder Wrathall from our district is getting to our heads. He talks a lot about purging the world. But yes.. it was hard to explain the difference to them speaking English. After angol we had district meeting. We decided for one of our transfer goals that we will get 3 new investigators a week and as incentive if one companionship gets it they can make the other companionship do some thing weird (drink a liter of straight lemon juice). I will keep you updated on that! 

Friday:Today we had splits with the other elders in Érd. I went with elder Wrathall. For dinner we ordered a pizza. We underestimated what 60 CM would be. So in the end we had to turn the box sideways to get through the door. And I could barely eat 2 slices... It was pretty big. 

Saturday: Today we decided to do some less active lookups. Elder Wrathall looked at the map (we were in his area) and we left. We walked for a while for going to the first street and couldn't find it. We went to the next one and walked for 30 minutes and didn't find it. We went back to our apartment and had lunch and looked at the map again. With  both of the streets if we had walked 5 more steps we would have found them!!!! Frustrating. Later in the evening, after we went back to our original companions, we went to Előds for dinner (one of our investigators). He fed us the meal of pig brains and pig feet....  The brain wasn't that bad. It was partially raw... But the feet were dreadful. The taste was good but the texture was awful. 

Sunday: Today we had stake conference and I was able to meet with my dear friends from Veszprém and Kispest. It was a lot of fun and really good to talk to them all again! 

That about summarizes the week! I hope it didn't bore you too much! 

Love you all!! 

Biesinger Elder 

November 26: First week in Erd!!

Hello everyone! 

So.... like I said in my last email. I have been called to Érd!! Super cool. There work here is really busy and the members are awesome! Last Saturday we were able to go to a baptism of one of the members children. I guess that Érd has the biggest primary in all of Hungary. It is super cool to see all the kids. But.... it is INSANE! 90% of them are comparable to my younger siblings.. And that is saying a lot! 

My new companion is super great! He loves to have fun and loves the people. A good mix. He really wants tp go to a Horror Circus thing which will take a lot of convincing on his part. 

In our district there is an Elder from England. He is a very cynical but hilarious human being. He is obsessed with Russian and everything to do with it. 

On Friday we went to the Hivatal!! Always a great trip.. after the hivatal we went to a Restaraunt called "grill mania". We ordered a 4-person plate and they told us like 10 times that it was meant for more like 6 people... We ended up having a couple other elders come and so 5 of us took on the massive pile of meat. It was super good. Maybe not worth the money, but it is the experience that counts. Another elder took a picture so I am getting it from him and it will be included in my next email! 

I think that is all the introductions and stories... Sorry this email is super lame! Oh... We have stake conference next week and the Érd branch (along with a couple others) is singing two musical numbers. And the missionaries got dragged in! Should be a party. 

I hope all of you have an absolutely fantastic week! I hope you all celebrated Halloween well! 

Elder Biesinger 

October 31: Transfers!!

Hi everyone,

So.... this week has been eventful! It all started on Sunday when after sacrament meeting a youth came over with a telephone and told me that I had a new little sister!! I was NOT expecting to find that out like this!! Saw a great picture and heard some funny things about the process! It is so weird to think that one of my siblings is learning how to talk while I am gone and that there is just going to be a completely new one when I get home!! So much can happen in two years!

The second big thing was today! We were waiting for our transfer calls. My companion is going home for surgery so I thought that I was just staying here in Veszprém for 6 months... Well... while we were waiting I was talking with one of my companions old companions through text. I was relaying what Elder Jones (companions comp) said to elder Burnett (my companion) and then sending elder burnetts reply to Jones. Well... Elder Jones got his call and asked if we got ours. We told him we hadn't and asked what is happening with him. He said "Don't tell Beseinger but he is coming to me!". Little did he know that I was the one reading all of the messages:) It was funny! But yeah... I am going to ÉRD!!!!! That is the branch that we attended when we lived here as a family! I am soooooo excited!

On Saturday we had a pumpkin carving party that Réká (one of the youth) organized for the branch. It was a looot of fun. Mine was big enough to fit on my head (as the pictures reveal) and I was able to be the pumpkin model for the branch! It was a lot of fun!

I think that is about everything that happened this week!! Have an amazing week everyone!

Biesinger Elder ​