Talk less, Smile more.

I have no time my friends and family, so this is going to be so quick, I am sorry, I know you all were just anxiously waiting the whole entire week for updates from me, but I have failed you. and if you could all stop YELLING AT ME. that would be nice. 

+~!!!!!HiGhLiGhTz!!!!!~+

1. we, the Pest sisters living in the 13th district, by the side of the Duna, are the proud new owners of a brand new, SAMSUNG MICROWAVE. ladies and gentleman dreams come true. it's stainless steel :')

2. we had splits in Dunaújváros and got fagyi a total of 3 times in a 24 hour split. if you do the math then yes you will realize that that is too much, but that i have no shame. 

3. We weekly planned by the Duna, and realized once again how we are WAY TOO BLESSED. 

This week I have realized the overwhelming power of the spirit in our work. I am so thankful to be able to be an instrument in the hands of God, and to be here in this beautiful ország. If you just let him, God will guide you, he will lift you, and he will help you. I believe that with my whole heart. 

sok szeretettel homies

Swenson nővér

1.  Pday activity today? we are cooking with sister szabadkai!! she is teaching us how to make my favorite meal hortobágyi palacsinták. 

2.  What do you do at district meetings? we ususally just takl about our work, our investigators, then we have some spiritual thing that elder jones does!

3.  Do any of the missionaries in Hungary have a car?  A bicycle???? cars? no one! bicycle, there are a couple of companionships!

4.  Do people in Hungary generally have their own cars, or do they use public transportation? uhm a lot of people just use public transportation for sure. 

5.  What is the funniest "no" you have ever gotten at a doorway? hahah probably the time that the man told me that he is a

6.  What time do you have to be in to your apartment for the night?  What time does it get dark? we have to be in our apartment by 9, and it has started to get dark around like 7ish? maybe a little later?

7.  Does your companion speak any other language? nope

8.  Does your mission president's wife speak English very well? yes she does, she is amazing

9.  How many times did you eat with members this past week? actually none this past week.

10.  YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!! i adore youuuuu 

You can change your life if you can choose to be happy.

This week we had the absolute pleasure of having a member of the Presidency of the Quorum of the Seventy come and visit our mission. My testimony of prophets and apostles has been magnified this week. From the moment that Elder Kearon walked into the room you could literally feel that he was called of God. It was such an amazing feeling to be standing with a group of missionaries, who had all been searching for questions to be answered in a conference, with one of God's chosen prophets. i will absolutely NEVER forget this week. The things that I learned are beyond too lengthy to write in an email, but I do want to focus on one(or maybe two) of the points.

We THRIVE in opposition: you guys, think for about two seconds of the history of our church. Have we ever had a nice, flower lined path to walk unharmed to our destination? The answer is absolutely not. If you look at us statistically, we are so small, but that is what I am so grateful for. We do fantastic when we face impossible odds. I was thinking a lot about Joseph Smith. He lived a whole LIFE of opposition after his earth altering moment in the Sacred Grove, But I am nothing but thankful for that man's tenacity, For him facing the impossible odds that layed before him. Because of joseph Smith, I can be here today in Hungary, facing my impossible odds, and witnessing God's miracles every single day of my life. We as latter day saints thrive in opposition. Elder Kearon talked about Elder Ballard's perspective. His attitude when they go out to work is "lets go out and get ridiculed" this stemming from the apostle paul in the new testament. I LOVED that. I know that the normal world is a little bit different than missionary life, and you aren't having people reject you constantly about your beliefs, but we all face little types of opposition daily. and I think we should all apply Elder Ballards perspective. and hey, think of who we are taking all of this opposition for. It's worth it friends.

On a lighter note hahahah I GOT TO TALK TO MY BEAUTIFUL MOTHER AND PERFECT FAMILY AND CANDACE YESTERDAY and it was too good to be true. I feel it apropos to give my amazing mother the shout out she deserves. Every single time I show the hungarian people the picture of my mother, I tell that that she is the most Christ like person I have ever met in my life.

She is never not giving of herself, to help other people. She has been my rock out here on my mission, sends me more packages than I deserve.  There hasn't been a week where i didn't have a perfect email from her, and she wakes up at literally 3 in the morning every week to chat with me. I adore her, i want to be half as  good of a person as she is, and I get to see her IN LESS THAN THREE MONTHS.

sok szeretettel barataim, sok szeretettel

swenson nővér 

1.  So, what did you end up doing after your phone call for Mother's Day?

we got fed the most fantastic AMERICAN dinner (that involved hidden valley ranch) :') in the whole world. we even got a brownie trifle for dessert, GOD BLESS AMERICANS

 2.  What do you have planned for Pday today?

we are going to go to heros square with the elders wayyyy rad investigators. i am super excited!

 3.  What is the balance of Hungarians and Americans in your ward?  Are there any other nationalities that are pretty prevalent?

uhm, there is definitely more hungarians than americans, there is a guy from japan, and a couple of people from africa! but nothing much other than that!

 4.  Have the Elders in your district been out for a long time?  Except the greeny...Don't you have one of those? uhm not really actually! elder ure has been out for 4 months more than i have, then everyone else is at lease 2 groups below me!

 5.  When the American members have you over for dinner do they make American ish foods?

yes they do because americans just get it.

 6. When was the last time you had a pizza?

honestly, probably on the night we celebrated the night before the night before christmas in veszprém!

 7.  Do they celebrate Mother's Day in Hungary?

yes they do but its a week before american mothers day

 8.  Do you go to ward council in this ward?

we do as missionarys, yes, but me and sister morris live an hour away from the church and the elders live like 3 minutes away so they usually go.

 9.  Do you have a good ward mission leader in your ward?

yah he is doing great!

 10.  You are BEAUTIFUL.  Seeing you today made my mamma heart burst at the seams.  Love you so much.

you already know i love you, SO MUCH MORE. it was so good talking to you. 

Repült a hetünk.

But really this week went by so fast. That could be because pday wasn't on a tuesday this week but like why am I even typing this out nobody cares hahah. 

I don't have too much time, but this week on Thursday we had a photographer come and take pictures of me and sister Morris, like doing missionary work, So basically I am going to be the cover of the next Preach my Gospel people. Anette (the photographer) is the coolest human ever. She is from Australia, served her mission in Germany, and was so fun to be with all day. It was fun because we got to take her to see this investigator  named Dávid in the hospital. It was fantastic because the hospital we took her too was the sketchiest thing, like basically this huge unfinished building, and we just like walked right into davids place in the hospital. welcome to Hungary friends. 

We got to go to PÉCS for splits this week. Pécs is like the coveted city in our mission, It is where our mission president and his wife are from.  There is a reason why it is coveted. That place is beyond gorgeous. I went on splits with cute Sister Christiansen who is in her first transfer. We did this sort of finding where we flip a coin to tell us whether to turn left, or right, or where to go. 

I have officially become a néni this week. I learned how to do kézi munka and now all I do on public transportation is hand stitch little flowers into a cloth. mom are you proud of me? :')

We had this huge miracle this week!!!!!! We had a family of 10 come into our branch house this week and tell us that they wanted to be baptized!!! and that would be really cool if that really happened but it didnt, I just dont have anything else exciting to say this week so I thought i would throw something like that in here. I am sorry. i am not funny I keep forgetting that. 

SOK SZERETETTEL,

swenson nővér 

1.  Pday activity

we are going to ZARA. which is my favorite place in this ország, and then we are buying a board game with the elders and playing it all day and so basically its my perfect day haha 

2.  What has been your favorite Pday activity on your mission so far?

haha we were literally just talking about this!! i have to say the time during christmas when we went to Székesfehérvár and did a trap house, and played monopoly, or when we got to go to Tihany with a member and hike next to the balaton. 

3.  Have you ever given your testimony in the Pest ward?

yes i have! and its actually SO weird because i spoke it in hungarian and they translated it to english, and it was so weird to like, hear my hungarian thoughts coming back at me in english?

4.  What did you have for dinner last night?

haha i was lame and just made some eggs, nothing too exciting

5.  Do they have sushi in Hungary?

YES. but i have yet to go because none of my comps like sushi. :(

6.  Do most families live in apartments?

haha yah mostly everyone lives in a 10 story kinda thing. 

7.  How big is the Young women's group in your ward?

there is like 1 hungarian, and 2 americans!

8.  Did you have any good dreams this week?

honestly i cant remember haha i am so sorry. 

9.  Does the MTC feel like a lifetime ago?

hahahah yes and no, time does not make sense out here honestly. 

10.  You know how much you are loved....right?

every single day. 

This weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek was just the craziest thing i have ever been apart of,

This weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek was just the craziest thing i have ever been apart of, life is busy, but its better that way you know?

So this week we had the opportunity to give a training for two of the zones. We talked so much about the spirit, and a lot Elder Rasbands talk  about following those "first promptings". The reason I bring this up is that we had basically the same training planned for both conferences, and it was the cooolest thing to me to see how different the two trainings were. The spirit really will lead, and guide us, We just HAVE to listen, and we HAVE to respond. 

So you know our miracle from last week Hadija? Ah I am just in love with this woman. we met with her 5 out of the 7 days this week, and it is really inspiring to see her faith, and see her desire to just honestly know more about this gospel. One of the days we went to her,  she started out by saying, "I was reading the Book of Mormon this morning out loud with my daughter, And I was praying that i could feel specifically the feeling that I felt when I was with you guys last time. and I did. I know that this is true, I know that this book is true, and I want to be baptized! Tell me everything i have to do!!!" hahahahahahahhaha we were SHOCKED. I felt like I was being pranked literally, Like that kid of thing does not happen in real life. 

I also had another way cool experience, Probably one of the biggest miracles of my mission. We were teaching Hadija about the plan of salvation, and all the little parts. We were talking about Jesus Christ, and the atonement, and why it is absolutely the center of the plan of salvation, and the importance of the atonement. We were discussing that, and we kind of had a little disconnect. Hadija just did not understand why Christ HAD to suffer, and why he had to go through all of that. I was just praying so hard to be able to answer this VERY important question, and to be able to help her concern. I opened my mouth to try to give her an answer, and all of the sudden, this fluent hungarian was just flowing out of my mouth, and this PERFECT answer, that honestly not even I knew, came out of my mouth. After I finished speaking she just said "I get it now, that makes perfect sense." I mean, you hear these stories all the time, but until it actually happens you don't really believe them. I know that the gift of tongues is real. i know that God cares so much about all of his children, and that he knew how important Hadijas question was, and he wanted her to have the answer. It was such a cool, faith building experience. 

In other news, yesterday we got to go sing finding with the elders in the park, it was fire. we saved several souls in the process.

A bearded man kissed my hand for a total of 30 seconds and i felt uncomfortable and endangered.

A memeber showed us how to make paprikás csirke, and nöl kedli this week and it I will be making that for you all the moment I arrive in the Americas (land of the free home of the brave)

Hungarians think that you will get a cold any time you walk outside without a jacket, so my investigator gave me a jacket with more faux fur than should exist on any jacket. I felt like a pimp.

Sister jensen is TRAINING. so this week i got to meet my granddaughter. the joys of family.

I am so happy to be here, life is so good, and have the best week okay every single one of youuuuuuu!

szívvel,

Swenson nővér

1.  Pday activity today?

I get to show all the new people in our district the parliament and the bazilika and i cannot wait cause they are going to love ittttt 

2.  What was the holiday on MOnday?  How do they celebrate?  What do they celebrate? haha it was just hungarian labor day. literally they celebrated by having everything in the world closed haha

3.  Is your companion good at door approaches?

no she sucks. haha yes she is good!

4.  Do they believe in Bigfoot in Hungary?

i have yet to ask haha

5.  How far do you have to go for your district meetings?

so we live an hour away from our branch house cause budapest is gigantic, so we travel a ton!

6.  Is it warming up there in Pest?

yes jött a tavasz :')

7.  Do they have "Mexican food" restaurants in Hungary?

haha uhm honestly know, the closest thing is this place called "gringos" and its kinda like a cafe rio idea? but dont think for four seconds that it is cafe rio, cause that would be blasphemous 

8.  Do people make eye contact in Pest?  Would it be a normal thing to pass by a hungarian and they say Hi and smile? actually thats a huge thing i love about hungary! when you walk by people on the streets, or like going up stairs and stuff, you always say hello! i love it

9.  Where is your favorite place to run there?

we have this little park by our house that i do some laps on! its great, through the city buidlings, its pretty nice

10.  Did you know that your hair is STUNNING?  It is so long and so pretty!!!

hahaha FINALLY. thank you! its trying its hardest to get long haha