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

December 1, 2014

Hello from Győr!

Oh family, I love it here! It’s stunning! I was talking to Sis. Whittaker and it really feels like were in Paris... ok, well, we both have no idea, we haven’t really been to Paris, BUT this is what we imagine it to be like! haha You can’t even drive up within a block to our house, because they are all just little winding cobblestones roads! It is adorable, you would love it so much here!

I am in LOVE with Sister Whittaker! I can’t even explain it, she is the sweetest person that I have ever met, so adorable too! You would looove her! I feel so so so sooo lucky to be serving with her and she just has the biggest heart! I have had people tell me that I remind them of her and I didn’t realize what a great compliment I was getting! We’re just being completely obedient and we're seeing miracles!!

So we are opening the city, so that means zero.. again! So we just start streeting, stopping everyone we can on the street and talking to them. We hit the area book like crazy too and called every number in there! We now have several new investigators! :) Heavenly Father is blessing us so much already! I can’t wait to meet with these people this week!

The ward here is so amazing too! It’s actually a WARD! One of the only ones in Hungary. Every Sunday when you’re in a new place, the new missionaries bear their testimonies... well that would all be fine and dandy, but of course it’s in Hungarian and it is a ton of pressure! We practiced the night before and it all worked out fine! I’ve never been welcomed into a ward like I have been here! I just feel too darn lucky right now and that I get to be here for both my birthday and Christmas! The Elders are super great too and they look out for us sisters :)

So the first full day here, I had my very first American Thanksgiving! We went to the big Hajo! It’s a boat that is a restaurant on the Danube. They have a famous Mississippi platter there. The Elders talked us into splitting TWO. It was sooo much food! Really good, but just so much deep fried everything! We didn’t even finish off the first platter and there was still a full one waiting for us! We packed it all into boxes and took home more than we ate there!

The weather is getting freezing! The weather here keeps “misting” at least that’s what we call it! There is just sooo much water in the air, it looks like we went swimming when we get in, sticks to my eyelashes like crazy and makes it sooo much more cold!! I for sure am going to buy some warm gloves, scarf, and toque this week! They have the cutest little Christmas booths everywhere here! They are adorable!! We got some hot chocolate and it was more like pudding! Sooo thick! I seriously could have eaten it with a fork, it was sooo good! They also sell hot wine everywhere! It smells so nasty to me! We were offered hot wine a few times in the last few days, thanks, but no thank you!

We were streeting, when we heard some singing in a church, Sis. Whittaker peeped through the key hole and there were so many people inside one of the beautiful cathedrals listening to the music. We went inside and met so many cool people! There was this one girl with bright red hair that we both felt so strongly that we needed to talk to. We asked her all about the church and the choir, she was so so nice and soon we were talking about Jesus Christ and Christmas. There was a mass about to start, so she asked for our card and we had to split up, but I know that it’s going to go somewhere. I know it sounds crazy, cuz we have no way of contacting her, but we’re praying that we will cross paths with her again. I love finding people in ways like that! Missionary work is sooo much more than just tracting, it is so amazing to just have a feeling to go down a street, or talk to a certain person and see the results from it!

Just feeling so incredibly blessed right now and am so lucky to be a missionary!

Love you so so much!

xoxoxoxoxoxo

Sister Schnoor