Christmas

So if you don't know, when a young man or young woman goes on a mission, their calls home are pretty limited. I'm not all-together sure why that is, to tell the truth. I've always known it and it's just the way it is. But they call on Christmas and Mother's Day for sure. So Friday morning we got to talk to Josh for a while and it was great! He's with Elder Wilcox and they're doing well together. They had a baptism scheduled for the day after Christmas and hopefully that went really well. He's not far from Budapest now, he's in a town whose name I gave up trying to pronounce--Dunaujvaros. The name means 'a new town on the side of the river' (Danube). It's a steel town that was built in the 1950s so it's not as old as some of the other parts of the country. He also explained something-in his past emails sometimes he'd write that they'd gone to "Pest", which I assumed was short for Budapest. But he said there are different parts to Budapest, one is Buda, the other Pest. So it wasn't a nickname but an actual part of the city.

He shared with us some of Hungary's history and some stories he's been told by some of the people there. He said they had a very cold snap, -15 celcius (or close to 0 in Farenheit), the other week, but it was warmer again now. They actually don't get a ton of snow, historically. He likes cooler weather so he's loving it. His two areas so far have been in the southwestern part of the country, there's so much of it he hasn't seen yet. He said for their Christmas zone conference the mission President and his wife asked everyone to bring some of their favorite photos of the country to share and Josh said he saw some AMAZINGLY beautiful pictures of places he hopes to go.

He said his sneakers that he took have a hole in the one sole so he needs a new pair, but we can't really mail him a pair of sneakers. They would get stolen! He said some people mail one shoe at a time to try to prevent that from happening. I'm wondering who is doing the stealing? Given that fact and the high cost of mailing packages from the States, we told him to go shopping for shoes but he wears a 14, hopefully he can find some there!

He did receive the two Christmas packages we'd sent, which included a bunch of notes from friends and neighbors. We also sent him Pringles, which I heard weren't available over there but I guess they are now but they are really expensive. We sent Oreos and peanut butter, a long-sleeved SUNS t-shirt, and some other things. I forget what all we sent. Anyway, it was good to know he did get his packages.

One thing he said they do over there is "whip". There is a man who hand makes and sells whips and the missionaries all buy one and they learn how to crack it and do all kinds of things with them. He said the most fun is to swing it over your head and then all of the sudden jerk it the opposite way and it makes the loudest sound ever.

He occasionally forgot an English word for something he was trying to share with us. That's usually a sign he's immersed in his new language. He said he had a 45 minute conversation with an investigator from the Pecs area and when he hung up he realized he'd just spoken Hungarian the whole time without a problem. WOW!! So he's getting much better at the language and it's really sinking in.

Since it was Christmas Day there were some families who had them over. For breakfast a family cooked them what are basically crepes with a Nutella sauce. Mmm! After we talked with him they were heading out to another dinner appointment. I'm so grateful to those who take them into their homes and share what they have.

We're happy for him and hope he continues to be safe and have a positive experience. He always enjoys hearing from people and tries hard to write those who have written him, although sometimes they get pretty busy. He appreciates everyone's love and support, words of encouragement, and sends his love!