December 8th, 2014

I had an amazing birthday yesterday!!! Sister Whittaker, biggest sweetheart,
woke up early to make me breakfast in bed and I woke up buried in balloons!
Love that girl so much! 

We went ice skating and we went caroling with the whole district
and passed out a TON of pass along cards. We were all freezing,
but it was so much fun! Love our district here in Győr. 

These men with the beards? Honestly, we don’t even know for sure haha. They are some kind of religion and they had a tiny little manger scene and asking 'Jézuska' (little Jesus) for some potatoes and tea...

 then just kept walking on their way! 

Hello everyone! 

Thanks so much for all of the birthday wishes!!! I had an amazing birthday yesterday!!! Sister Whittaker, biggest sweetheart, woke up early to make me breakfast in bed and I woke up buried in balloons! Love that girl so much! I still don’t know what time she woke up, so I made her take a nap later! We went to church and everyone was hugging me and wishing me a Boldog Szuletés Napot! which was a huge surprise, because I didn’t think anyone knew! I was given suti and 4 different people gave me a milka bar. I have sooo much chocolate we had to clear out a cupboard just for all of the sweets that we have gotten lately! After church, we came home and I read all of the birthday letters! Wow, well I haven’t cried in a long time, but I couldn’t help but have a couple of tears when I was reading them. That was the best part of my birthday and meant the world to me. Thank you so much. 

We went out caroling with all of the Elders for an hour. It was so so cold, but so fun! We got new pass along cards for Christmas about our theme “He is the Gift.” I love them for intros on the street! We went ice skating and we went caroling with the whole district and passed out a TON of pass along cards. We were all freezing, but it was so much fun! We switched from English to Hungarian a lot. Love our district here in Győr. The Elders were so sweet and made us dinner so I didn’t have to cook on my birthday and the other elders brought cake! Isn’t that the sweetest? I almost felt guilty all day, just how sweet everyone was! Then after church, we set up with 6 people for dinner appointments!! That’s more than I have had my whole mission!! Crazy eh?! The ward here is so amazing and it feels like home here! I got so so spoiled and had an amazing day!

Wow, sooo much happened this week! We had some great programs and some really crazy ones too! Some of the fun of opening an area, is that when you set up with someone out of the area book, you have no idea what to expect! Just a bit about some of our programs from this week:

We went to a lady named Klára. She was one of the most loving people I’ve met in Hungary! She told us we’re like her new American and Canadian daughters and she is our Hungarian Mom. She grew up with a house with no windows and a dirt floor. She said she was so grateful when she found a towel in the dumpster to use as a blanket. It was so amazing to hear her story and see where she is at now in her life. It almost doesn’t seem real, when I hear these stories. I really can’t imagine what that was like for her. I have never felt so lucky and so incredibly blessed for all that I have at home. That lesson was so humbling and I’m so grateful for her example.

The Ibolya Elders took us to their lunch appointment. So sweet of them! She is a younger mom with 3 kids, all not members, but her oldest daughter is now and on a mission! So cool! They had almost nothing, 2 beds in a single room. We ate some soup that she was so sweet to make us. She loves her kids more than anything and they were so happy. I am learning so much from these people, what things are truly important in this life and what true happiness really means and how we can obtain it.

Lajos is amazing! We walked around the corner and the table is all set for us, and sooo much suti!! He was so incredibly sweet, laughed so hard at anything we said and was just so interested in learning about our religion. He is super busy, but hopefully we can meet with him again soon! He sent us home with bags of chocolate too for Miklous day! On the 5^th of December, Santa comes to Hungary bringing candy, fruit and nuts for all of the good kids, but another man brings sticks for all of the naughty ones! haha We have gotten so much candy and suti from everyone here. I’ll send some home this week!

Gábor, he is so cool!! Almost all of the lesson was in English! It was the best lesson of the week and the spirit was so strong there. Me and Sister Whittaker bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and how we can receive our personal answer to our prayers from God and he started crying. He wants to know so bad if it’s true, but he says he just doesnt have enough faith. He doesn’t know if God exists, we shared Alma 32 with him today and he was so excited to pray again.  He said, “I will try” So excited to see where he goes!

Love you all so much!

Sister Schnoor