Budapest!!!

Jo nápot mindenki!!!

We made it to Hungary! Oh my gosh where do I even start this week?

I'll finish with the MTC almost two weeks ago now. So our last Sunday night devotional was a little different. We got in there and they said we were just going to watch a video of an old devotional that Elder David A. Bednar did, which is an amazing devotional about the Character of Christ. So we watched that and then when it was over the lights came on and I reached down to put my things away. As I did that, everyone all of a sudden stood up. We were all confused as to what was going on. I looked up and DAVID A. BEDNAR WALKED IN!!!!! Seriously?!?! He then did an hour long Q and A with everyone. It was so cool! So we saw another apostle. I feel so spoiled!! :)

So then the next day we flew to Hungary!! I got to sit next to two of the Elders so that was super fun. We got to Paris and everyone was nasty from traveling and it was really hot and humid so we were all super gross looking haha and then we had a quick flight to Hungary. We all were a little stressed because we couldn't understand all of the Hungarian that was being spoken around us. But we kind of knew that would happen going in so at least it wasn't a huge shock. The Mission President and his wife are so nice!! I am so happy that he will be my mission president for most of my mission. So the first night we were fed at the mission home, we had some interviews with the mission president and then one of the AP's took us to see a castle. It overlooked Budapest so that was an amazing sight! Then we got to stay in a hotel that night which was nice. The next morning we woke up, had breakfast and then walked back over to the mission home. We did some streeting that morning (where we go out on the street and talk to people about the gospel). That was hard. Because I really don't speak Hungarian. It was fun though. Then we went back to the mission home and where we had a meeting and all met our trainers. My companion is Sister Broadhead from St. George, Utah. And she is awesome!! I seriously got so lucky to have her as my companion. The Elders in my district are pretty fun too. We have a senior missionary couple, Elder and Sister Hulbert, in our area that live right near us that are some of the nicest, coolest people ever!! I feel so lucky to have an awesome first area to serve in. They help us so much. Our first day here we went to the branch house and Sister Hulbert had put up signs and balloons welcoming the Sisters to the branch!

So I am serving in a little town called Békéscsaba. It's super cute and the people are pretty friendly - even the ones who want nothing to do with us. We are opening this area to sisters! They had sisters here before but it's been many years. The branch is really nice. On one of our first days we taught an English class which was SO MUCH FUN! I teach the more advanced class with Sister Hulbert so it's a blast. I get to teach this week so I'm excited. We have about 8 people in our class (at least that is how many came last week). Its so fun. We also have an institute class once a week and a family home evening once a week. We have been meeting with a few people since we got here and thats fun. It is so hard though. I just wish I could speak and understand everything they say back to me. The same thing with streeting. I can go up to people and introduce ourselves and kind of start talking but then I usually let my companion take over...especially when they start talking back to me. I know it will come with time and I need to be patient. I've only been in the country for a week so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I do not speak this language. I'm hoping it will start coming a long quickly though. Streeting is a little scary but it's good. I just don't let myself think that it is scary while we are doing. I normally probably wouldn't be one to just go up and start talking to a random stranger on the street. BUT that's what I keep doing.

One fun thing that happened this week (just kidding it wasn't fun but it is a funny story). The Hulbert's took Broadhead Nővér and I out for lunch. We got this soup. It was like a pea soup. So I already do not like peas but i figured I'll just try everything. So we are all eating it and wondering what the other stuff in the soup is. So Broadhead Nővér looks at the menu and says "Oh...you don't want to know what it is." It was liver. We ate pea and liver soup. It kind of made me super grossed out but i just sucked it up and finished it (luckily i had only poured a tiny bit to begin with). Just for everyones information...I do not recommend the pea and liver soup. :)

Yesterday we had to go to Buda because I had a new missionary training. It was fun to be back in the city already (I would love to be able to serve there at some point). It was a good training. It was fun to see some of my MTC district again. Unfortunately they had split is up so I only got to see a few of them. I didn't realize just how much I missed them until I saw them again. So it was good :) During a break we all walked down to a pékség (bakery). Most of us go this piece of bread that is HUGE and filled with nutella. It was amazing. I felt a little bit like dying afterwards because I was so full. But it was totally worth it.

Hungary is awesome. I love so much being back in Europe!!! It's a little different from the other places I've lived but it's still Europe. And it's so great. They have a Marks and Spencers here and a Tescos! Although sadly they aren't really the same. But it's still comforting to see those names and signs all over :) I am super exhausted like all of the time but I'm also so happy to be here. I'm nervous to talk to the people some times but I am so glad that I am a missionary. I hope you all have a fabulous week. I will try and take more pictures of Békéscsaba this week so you can see where we are serving.

Szeretlek titeket! Jó nápot! :)

Simons Nővér xx

Last Pictures from the MTC

Hungary!

Arrival in Hungary!!

Ultóso hét??‏

Hi Everyone!

Oh my gosh!! I cannot believe that this is the end. We leave the MTC on Monday and that is absolutely crazy to me! I can't believe how fast this time has gone by here. And I have LOVED it! So this is probably going to be a really short email this week. Really not a lot has happened.

So this week. You are probably not going to believe this but we got ANOTHER apostle! L. Tom Perry came and spoke to us. That makes 6 that we have seen in the time that we have been here. I don't think that has ever happened in the history of the MTC! So we've had Elders Anderson, Christofferson, Oaks, Perry, Holland and Uchtdorf. Seriously?! I feel a little spoiled haha but I'm not complaining it's been awesome. He talked to us about the importance of companions and being a good teacher. He gave us some great pointers on teaching.

So consecration week! That was hard. I'm not going to lie there were some days I totally sucked at it. But Thursday, Friday and Saturday were good! We all did really well at just speaking Hungarian. Then Sunday came and we had interviews with the Branch President, and no one else speaks Hungarian so we ended up just giving up and speaking English. Then Monday we tried hard again to pick it up and by the end of the day at least I was struggling a little bit. But walking out of the temple today it was a good feeling because I didn't have to feel guilty about speaking English haha

We did our last lessons with "investigators" a few days ago. We had one day where Martineau, Nover and I had to teach 3 lessons! That was a bit rough. We had one lesson in the morning over skype with someone actually in Hungary. That went really well actually! That was the best skype lesson we've had yet. She was so nice - I hope I get to meet her in Hungary for real. Then we taught one of our investigators (who is our teacher) and that was one of our best lessons too. Both of our investigators accepted baptism :) And then we taught our last lesson (where two of our elders are playing investigators). That one was okay - a little rocky and we got interrupted but in the end we kind of just all laughed about it and ended it.

Well that's about it. We have in-field-orientation tomorrow and then Saturday our teacher is going to do a cultural day with us and tell us all about Hungary. I am so excited for that. I'm not going to lie I'm slightly insanely terrified right now to be going to Hungary in just a few days. But I'm also crazy excited to get out and start doing the real work. I know lots of people say that being in the MTC for so long is hard and you're just ready to get out. There are some things that are hard and yes I'm exhausted 24/7 but I have absolutely LOVED my experience here. I have made some amazing friends that I know I will be in contact with forever. I know when I get to Hungary I probably won't understand most of what people are saying but I'm excited to be able to pick up the language more and become fluent in it. It is such a cool language! (by the way for Lord of the Rings nerds apparently it's really similar to Elvish? .....don't ask me...;))

Szeretlek titeket!! Talk to you all again from HUNGARY!!!! :)

Simons Nővér

p.s. Please keep Zach and all of the missionaries that were evacuated from Ukraine in your prayers! I am so broken hearted for all of them and just can't even imagine what they must be feeling. I know that the Lord has a plan and they will be okay but that doesn't make it easy. So just keep them in your prayers! :)

class with our teacher runnels tesver

new clothes for my birthday

gross.....lol lots of starburst = red tongue 

May 8, 2014

Sziastok emberek!!

So this was another great week. You aren't going to believe it. We got ANOTHER apostle to come speak to us! ELDER HOLLAND!!!!!! It was so great!! So we have had...Elder Anderson, President Uchtdorf, Elder Oaks, Elder Christofferson and Elder Holland. Seriously!?!?!?! Sorry to all the missionaries who didn't get any apostles before. So not fair to you all but I'm super pumped! It was a really great talk all about the importance of missionary work and making sure we are fully converted because we are inviting people to come unto Christ. We cannot invite people somewhere unless we are already there. I just liked that :) He got us all super pumped up for missionary work. He said that since he has been home for 52 years, there hast not been a day that has gone by that he hasn't though about his mission. He said "My mission meant everything to me. And I want yours to mean everything to you!" I want my mission to mean everything to me too. I'm just trying to do the best that I can and be the best missionary I can be now so that I don't have any regrets.

Funny story! So on Monday night we got back to our residence. I decided to take a shower at night because the next morning we have gym but I didn't want to shower right before gym in the morning. SO all of a sudden I hear "SIMONS NOVER SIMONS NOVER!! CHRISTENSEN NOVER IS HERE AND SHE'S SAYING GOODBYE!!" (Christensen Nover is one of our teachers who left a few days ago for summer). So I like quickly get out, put on my PJ's while I'm still soaking wet. I run out and she's like "Come outside!! The Elders are out there waiting so we can get a picture!!" SERIOUSLY?!?! So we go outside, in my pj's hair wet and not brushed and no make up on (apart from the slight raccoon eyes I had). The elders kept trying to get pictures of us like that! It was pretty funny hahahaha

So last night we had a cool experience. When new missionaries come into the MTC, the first day they go around and do this "investigator experience." They have two missionaries come in and like introduce themselves and start talking to the investigator and then the mediator stops them and the new missionaries take over. We got to be those missionaries last night - like the example ones! It was so cool! It was strangely really hard to do it in English hahahaha so when people who are learning a new language say "oh man this would be so much easier in English! i could do it with no problem!" That is FALSE! It is just as hard if not harder in English. In Hungarian, I only know so much so I can keep it more basic and simple. So props to the English speaking missionaries. For real! Another funny story about that night. So we go into these demos with mics attached to us. So we were instructed to turn them on as soon as we "knock on the door." So we did and went in and did our thing and then we came out. We were so pumped we were just talking about how cool it was and walking down the hall until we realized our mic's were STILL ON! Oh my gosh I was mortified! Although we are pretty sure as soon as we left they turned our mic's down for us. At least that's what I'm hoping. If not that's really embarrassing lol but no one said anything to us afterwards.

So today starts Consecration Week!!! That means that the moment we stepped out of the temple this morning, we are not allowed to speak a word of English until we walk out of the temple again next Thursday. I am freaked out but super excited at the same time. We are allowed to translate for each other (well we are allowed to do whatever we feel is right). So my companion and I are going to at least try for a day and translate for each other. But yeah we cannot speak any English other than that. It's going to be pretty tricky but I'm also excited! I think it will really help.

Well that's about it...there isn't much new that goes on here. We do get our travel plans tomorrow and that is CRAZY to think about! We have less than 2 weeks left. I am both excited and sad. I honestly have loved my MTC experience. I know some people are ready to get out of here but I have loved it! I'm terrified and insanely excited at the same time to go to Hungary. It will be fun to travel with our whole zone because there are 16 of us. And our district is super tight and we're pretty close with the other zone too. I'm excited to travel with them all. It will be really sad though when we have to say goodbye to each other in Hungary.

Things are great! I'm so glad I am a missionary. I would'nt want to be anywhere else right now.

Seretlek titeket!! (I love you all!) ...(i think that's how you say it;))

Simons Nővér

May 1, 2014

Sziasztok!!!

So this has been a pretty good week! Not a ton has happened...even though we had an extra day since our p-day was changed to Thursday. One of the best parts about the week though is that it is so warm and sunny out...I got to go play soccer! TWICE! It was so great! Our whole schedule changed so on Tuesdays we now have gym in the morning. However, this past Tuesday there was a confusion with our schedules so we ended up having like a bunch of extra gym time so we were just out on the field playing soccer. The Elders and Sisters aren't allowed to play a game together (our Elders came up and asked) but we are allowed to just pass the ball back and forth with each other. It was so fun. I'm coaching Cropper Nover on soccer now :) Ah it was so good to have a soccer ball at my feet again.

Another great thing about this week...you're not going to believe this. We got ANOTHER apostle who came and spoke to us!! D. Todd Christofferson was the devotional speaker on Tuesday. We are so so lucky!!! 3 members of the quorum of the 12 and a member of the first presidency! Seriously?! So cool. He talked all about trust and how important it is for Christ to be able to trust us. It was really cool! He was so funny too! He also said in his talk which was really cool that it is our "privilege" to be able to serve a mission. I loved that because it really is. There are lots of people I'm sure that wished they could serve a mission but they can't for one reason or another. But it just helped put it into perspective for me and helped me realize that i want to have no regrets on my mission. I want to work as hard as I acn and just be the best missionary I can be. His wife also spoke and she was so great. She said, "your mission will be the hardest thing you will ever love." I just loved that! Being on a mission is hard! I am so exhausted all the time and Hungarian....is HARD. But I love it and I'm so glad that I am here!

Oh and a huge thing this week...we SKYPED with actual people in Hungary!!! I was so scared!!! We had to skype with them for half an hour and get to know them and share a little message with them. Once we got started though things started to flow and it was pretty fun! I didn't understand everything she said but I was able to pick up on a good amount of it and figure out what she was saying! She was super nice. HOpefully I'll get to meet her for real when I go to Hungary. Anyways that was pretty cool. We have to do it again next week. I'm sure I'll still be just as nervous next week hahaha but it makes teaching our "investigators" (teachers and other missionaries) not quite AS scary!

Speaking of which Martineau Nover and I had a pretty bomb-diggity lesson this past week with one of our investigators. We taught him all about faith and it was probably the most spiritual lesson we have had yet. It was pretty great! We have also started teaching two other missionaries in the class. We teach King and Bagley Elder and they teach us (although we have already taught them twice yet and we haven't been taught.) It was pretty intimidating at first trying to teach your peers. But it's actually pretty fun and it's cool because we are able to learn a lot from each other. It was kind of hard at first to take it seriously because they are pretty funny playing their parts but once we get into it, it's fun!

Well I feel bad I don't have that much to report this week. Things are going well though. I am loving life here. I'm excited to get to Hungary but also anxious and not quite ready to leave the MTC. I don't feel like I know enough to go out in the field haha but I'm sure once I get there it will be amazing. I cannot believe how fast the time is going. Seriously we have two weeks left and we will be in Hungary!!! We get our travel plans next week I think and that's going to make it even more real! I am just really trying to enjoy every moment because it is already going by fast and I know when we are out in the field doing the real work, it's probably going to go by even faster and I don't want to have any regrets while I'm out here. It's so fun. I get so pumped when I'm in lessons and I'm bearing my testimony in Hungarian to the people.

Testimony in Hungarian :)
Tudom hogy az evangeliumot igaz. Tudom hogy Jezus Krisztus es Isten el. Tudom hogy Isten a mi Mennyei Attyank. Tudom hogy a szentirasok igaz es nagyon nagyon fontos. Tudom hogy Joseph Smith profeta volt es Joseph Smith lefordidotta a Mormon Konvye. Tudom hogy Thomas S. Monson profeta ma.

Love you all and hope you have a wonderful week! :)

Simons Nover

Me and Sellers Nover

Me and Cropper Nover

In class

Martineau and Sellers

flash cards on flash cards on flash cards

Me and Martineau Nover

week 5?!‏

Sziasztok!!

Holy crap I cannot believe I have been here 5 weeks already. I mean I feel like I have been here forever but at the same time it went by so fast!! This week was pretty great. There were a few blah moments but that's like every day normal life.

So we'll start with Sunday...remember how last week there were rumors going around about having really good devotionals coming up? So Easter Sunday we go to devotional and it was PRESIDENT UCHTDORF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh! Apart from having Easter in Jerusalem this was the best Easter I've ever had. It was so great because it was really focused on the real meaning of Easter...Christ's resurrection. It was so great to focus on that so much. So we got to devotional and we sang prelude music that was all about Christ of course and normally I don't really pay attention to the words of songs that much and just go with it but this time I was really paying attention to the words and i was getting so teary just thinking about it. Then President Uchtdorf came in and the spirit was so strong. He gave the best talk I have ever heard in my life. He talked about the Atonement of course but then he tied it into missionary work. He talked a lot about Peter and how before Christ died, he was afraid and he denied him. But after Christ died, Peter feared no one and went forth and taught the gospel. Our new district motto is "I fear no man." He told us that as we serve the Lord, us and our families will be protected. We just need to give our worries and fears to Him and He will help us. He wants to Help us! Ah it was just so good! And then I teared up during the closing song of the devotional too. And then afterwards, Uchtdorf went around and shook so many people hands in the audience. It was so special to watch. He said that he couldn't go around and shake everyone's hand but just to know that he wanted to and to think that he did. There is a blind senior missionary here and I saw President Uchtdorf give him a hug. Ah it was so great! Oh and another cool thing about the meeting was that we all took the sacrament together. All of us in that big room! It was really cool!!

So after that I was pretty drained of course. We were sitting in our classroom and the Branch President called me and my companion out. He asked if we would be the Online Coordinators which basically means we help the new missionaries with the computers and know how to check emails, email the branch president, etc. So we are supposed to go in this week and do a little training with the new missionaries! So that's pretty cool! All the new Albanians and Finn's are arriving today and we are super excited! 

So then we had Sacrament meeting. And our branch president changed it to be just a testimony meeting all about Christ. It was really powerful. I even bore my testimony!! (which for those of you who really know me is a big deal because i don't really like to voluntarily get up and talk in front of people haha) but it was so special. So that drained me again. Then we went on a temple walk with our zone like we do every Sunday and was such a beautiful warm day!

Then we had a district meeting that night and talked all about the devotional. Once again, the spirit was so strong!! We all talked about the things that we learned from the talk. It was awesome.

So overall...Easter Sunday was amazing!! I loved being able to just completely focus on Christ and His Atonement. It was so special. I hope everyone else had a good Easter too! :)

Then on Tuesday we had another devotional. And it was ELDER OAKS!!!!! We keep being told how an apostle hasn't come to the MTC in YEARS and within ONE WEEK we get TWO APOSTLES AND A MEMBER OF THE FIRST PRESIDENCY! I feel super spoiled that we have had all of these amazing devotionals!! Anyways Elder Oaks was great as well! He gave us some really great advice about being missionaries. We were on the second row too so we got to be really close to him and that was so fun! :)

So I've talked about TRC a bit in my previous emails...it's where we go and teach volunteers that come into the MTC. Usually they served a mission in Hungary. Last week we did it and I thought it went fine. Nothing special. But then as we were leaving one of the guys we had taught came out and said to me and my companion " Your Hungarian is so good!! I didn't know that much when I was at this point in the MTC! You guys are going to kill it!" UMMMMMMMMM needless to say that put me on cloud 9! Hahaha it was so nice to hear that and kind of gave me a huge boost!

OH funny story! The other day one set of our elders were teaching our teacher (who is a fake investigator) in the other room. And all of a sudden as we are sitting in class and we hear this noise....and all of a sudden we all realize it's Taylor Swift. We've only been gone a month but we were like...what is that?!?!?!?!? It was our teacher's phone in her bag hahaha we were debating touching her phone and turning off the music or sitting there and listening to it hahaha it was so funny how weird we all got and how hearing Taylor Swift threw us all of guard!

So we have started playing volleyball more and more often with the Elders! It's super fun! I'm still not very good but I'm getting better! It's really fun!

Well that's about it for this week! Not too much happens week to week! Things are good though. Hungarian is coming along. I think we are all feeling like we are sort of getting over the wall that we all hit and learning more again. It's such a fun language to learn. Thank you for all of your support! Thank you for the Dear Elders and the packages!! It is the best feeling ever to get mail haha I love you and miss you all!

Sziasztok!

Love,

Simons Nővér xx

All the hungarians!!

The girls

The boys (some from the other district too)

Photobomb by Elder Wilson

Prank on me by Elder King

 Prank on Elder King by me (those are raisins and at the time he was pretending he hated raisins...another story for another time) lol

The note we left our teacher when her phone went off :P

Girls in our Zone

Me and Sisar bates (one of the Finn sisters who already left. and she is next door neighbors with Marti!!)

Our district!!! (the tall girl is in the Estonian district but she's a solo sister)

One month!

Sziastok!!!

I cannot believe I have been here a month. The time has just flown by. Although at the same time I feel like we've been here forever!! It was a good week. Some ups and downs like usual but overall pretty good.

Hungarian is going well! It is hard. And I think we all feel like we've hit a wall because our progress in the language isn't as drastic as it was the first week. But of course we are still improving. I'm just learning to have patience and try my best and know that I can do this with the Lord's help. 

Some fun things about this week...we have this little prank war going on with the elders. We've hidden a few of their things, and they've rearranged our desks when we were out of the room. The other day we went in and turned all of their desks around so that they couldn't get to any of their stuff on the inside. Later that night we walked into our classroom to find all of our desks gone! (The sisters’ desks). They had moved all of our desks into the classroom next door (actually Jake's old classroom!) It was hilarious! (Pictures below!) It's been so fun. We are like a little family away from our real families. We have a companionship of three right now and they are nicknamed by our teacher the "szent haromsag" which means "the holy threesome" haha and so they made this little hand shake where they put their hands in and then take them out and say "unite!" Although they had the word for "to unite" wrong for a few weeks and just found out that this whole time they've been saying "to murder or to kill!" haha sooooo they'll be readjusting their handshake. We played volleyball with them last pday during gym. Kristin would have been so ashamed of me haha I was terrible. Well...I hit the ball...but like I don't think it was good. But no one was really that good so I didn't feel bad. I did walk away with some pretty sweet bruises all over my arms though so I felt kind of cool. Or kind of dumb because I clearly didn't know how to hit the ball correctly haha

Our new favorite word in Hungarian...bizoynam (spelling is bad but you can pronounce it). That basically means "fo shizzle" hahaha our one teacher taught it to us one night when we were all seriously exhausted and giddy and loopy. She told us we have to say it in front of our one teacher who is a little bit more serious (still fun but now as loud goofy). 

We had some good devotionals this week! I feel like it's not really fair that since I've been here we have had so many incredible devotionals. I mean hello David freaking Archuleta, BYU Vocal Point. On Sunday we had BYU Men's Chorus come and that was super fun! I actually saw a kid in there I knew form EFY! But yeah it was so fun - I love having musical devotionals. And then last night there were all these rumors about how someone really big was coming for our devotional. So we got there early and got bomb diggity seats and guess who walks in. ELDER NEIL L. ANDERSON!!!!!!!!! It was so cool! He gave a whole devotional on the Book of Mormon and it was awesome. It was very informative but I think what I got most out of it was just how he acts. He was so so so so cute with his wife. And he just had a smile on his face the entire time. I don't think I've ever seen that man not smiling and I love it! We supposedly have incredible devotionals for the next two as well :) There are rumors going around about who it's going to be on Sunday for Easter but I'll tell you all next week who it is :) 

Soooo I woke up this morning and my head hurt a little bit...like my forehead. So I go to the mirror and I have this like random gash on the side of it. When I went to bed last night I was fine!!! So I think somehow I may or may not have hit my face on the brick wall that I sleep by. It kind of stings haha luckily it's to the side enough that I can cover it with my hair mostly. And it kind of makes me super cool because I'm basically Harry Potter now!!! 

Well that's pretty much all for this week. Not much exciting happens...the days are all mostly the same. I can't believe how fast time is going. On the one hand I think of 17 months from and that seems kind of far from now. But the last month has gone by so fast I really want to try and focus on the now and just enjoy my time here! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and it's so great. Life is great! I love my district and my teachers. Being a missionary is hard. I am exhausted 24/7.

I'm so excited to be serving at the same time as my brothers! And the Hoffman's and Kimball's.

Love you all! Thank you for the dear elders and emails! :)

Talk to you next week! Sziastok!

Simons Nover (Emily) xx

My harry potter scar...

So since we aren't allowed to eat in class...we have a slight obsession with Tic-Tacs. 

Although most of these were sent to people...not us buying them hahaha

Classy Elders

Noverek (sisters)

Some girls in the other Hungarian district!

Elders being Elders - with the zone leader in the background

Just being weird

Love all of these Hungary bookmarks from the cousins in England. 

Use them all the time!!

Where our desks used to be (prank by the elders)

Where our desks ended up (this is jake's classroom right next door)