Tidbits from our letter from Josh:
Daddy and Mommy,
'Sup homies? It was great to talk to you over Christmas and New Year's, I really enjoyed it. It was great to talk to Roland and Spencer, Jen and Olivia and Grandma and Elliot and all of you guys. It seems like I was just over at Roland's house throwing mice to chickens and seeing how savage those things really are. Those eggs he made me from his chickens were soooooo good. I wonder what their house looks like now with everything re-done, or has that even been finished yet? (Their house was damaged in recent California fires.)
But ya. I wrote Jake and Casey letters, which I hope they have gotten. I think it would have been cool to have been in the MTC and get letters from a foreign country whereas the rest of my group only got the usual. I never got Jordan Driggs' address and as of now I think it's probably a little too late. He won't get it by the time I get his (MTC) address, get a letter written and sent off, etc. But I am excited to see how they are doing/did in the MTC. I miss that place a lot more than I thought I would have. With a new member, my companion and I watched a missionary video from like the 1980s about the process, where they show missionaries opening their calls, going to the MTC, traveling through the airport, a few missionary moments, then the reuniting of families at the end. It's a lot harder to watch that when you're going through it. You miss the MTC and realize that your mission will go by just like it did in the movie. By the way the MTC has barely changed.
Sometimes it's still hard here. I still don't understand the way I would like to, but I hope it's going to come soon. Especially because tomorrow begins my 5th transfer in the field and with the lack of missionaries I might become senior companion in about 2-3 transfers. It's scary to think about right now but I think I'll be ready when the time comes.
Today we just added up the numbers for the week and we have a mission standard and a super standard. It was a zone goal to reach standard the last two weeks aand then super this week. Well, in the whole mission last week only 2 companionships in the whole mission got standard, my comp and I and a companionship in Pecs. But this week my comp and I got dogged about 8 times with member-present lessons. We needed 4 for superstandard but only got 2. And then we needed 2 investigators in the church, I thought we would have had 3 but then 1 never showed, 1 came, and 1, the one whose daughter likes me, wasn't there. We texted her and asked where she was, was she coming? She said she had car trouble and we told her she should have let us know, we would have come and gotten her, but then she said, "then you would have been late". So with her not coming and missing out on the other 2 programs, we barely missed the super standard goal. Stinks, huh? Well, I still have many weeks here to keep pushing for that.
Also, you remember Orsos Andras that I told you about in my letter a while ago down in Komlo? The missionaries down in Pecs continued teaching him. I got a call from the Pecs Elders telling me he has a baptism date of February 13 and that he wants me to baptize him, so I get to go down and have "my" first bapstism of someone that I found originally, taught almost all the lessons, and became really good friends with him. It's so cool!
It's sad to hear that all the stuff has been taken down around the neighborhood. (Christmas decorations.) Almost nothing has gone on around here so Christmas just came and went. Wasn't anything cool. It was nice to talk to you guys but it wasn't enough, I can talk for hours upon hours, you know that. Really, thinking about it, I've learned so much even excluding the Hungarian lingo. Now looking back at things before my mission, I don't know why I did things certain ways or made certain things harder than they were. I didn't make the simple phone call to say "hey, I'll be home in a few minutes, I'm running a little late", but now I know I'll be a lot better about things like that when I get home. I will come home with "holy" socks from all the walking we do! Even with a car we street (talk to people on the streets) on foot and times we street it's quite some time, an hour or more here and there, but at least I got some socks for Christmas from members. (I'll get you their addresses like you asked.)
Elder Pickerd
Letter continued on 1/24/10~
Well this week has been horrible. I don't know why but I've never wanted to be home more. It's hard to explain but I want to do something normal every once in a while. I think most of it is just that no matter how hard I try, people drop us, reject us, and I still can barely understand very much. Even to Hungarians, their language is hard to them. Grammar is insane and makes it very, very difficult and discouraging for me. And when I'm like that I begin to miss my family and my best friends, Derek, Tenie, and Tiffany a lot, as well as having some free time to do things I enjoy to get my mind off of the things making life hard at the time. Everyone just says, "oh the language will come with time" but I usually feel and see little progress.
On a good note, I have a new companion now, Matt Pickerd. He is about 6'7", holy crud. It's weird to feel short. I'm not used to it at all! He is from Texas and he's really nice. Even the President told me, "you're serving with one of the nicest people in the world." But then he told Pickerd, "I'm putting you with a goofy Elder, you two should have some good adventures." So I guess President likes me enough to know my personality.
The weekly trips have been fine, it's pretty cool to be able to visit the whole zone for a day or 2 and get to see all the cities. Then we start the whole process again.
Well, I'll close for now. Be safe, have fun, and I'll talk to you all later.
Love,
Joshy or Elder Hosch
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