Monday, March 31, 2014

Szeged Week Two (Week 51)

Ciao-sztok everyone.

Haha. Sometimes, the people here say "Ciao" (if that's how you spell the Italian word for "hello") because they want to be cool. It's ok, they're already cool. Actually, a lot of Europeans say "ciao" for "hello". Just some food for thought...

Well, still here in the Szegedlands. I love it! Right around now the flowers are blossoming, the weather is gorgeous, and the people all want to meet! The branch is super awesome. One of them just came back from a mission to Finland last fall, and she gave a talk about "enduring to the end". She gave a super cool analogy of God being a "firm tree" that we can always rely on when life gets "windy" I thought it was super cool! I thought she was a great example of that as well: when she went to the MTC she had to learn English to learn Finnish. Talk about craziness! But, she did it! 

My birthday was super fun! I got to go to Burger King for lunch (I know that I talk about BK a lot, it's just so...American..you know?) and my district threw a surprise party for me that night! Yay! We also had English class that night and I went out of the room to grab an extra chair, and when I came back everyone was singing Happy Birthday to me! It's super weird to be 20 now, but I wouldn't have wanted it celebrated any other way than how we did it here in Hungary. Mission birthdays are the best!

We've had a lot of cool things start to happen! So first off, geography lesson for you all! Szeged is actually only like a ten minute drive from the border with Serbia, so sometimes we run into Serbians on the street. Last week we were tabling in the main square, and we stopped a guy and told him about the church. He said that he had been looking for a religion, and now we are meeting with him. He is a Serbian, but says he is Hungarian, because the part of Serbia that he lives in now was once a part of Hungary. Wow...does your head hurt yet? Haha! And then LATER THAT DAY we were streeting on the bridge over the Tisza river and we stopped this GIGANTIC man. Turns out he's going to school here in Szeged playing American basketball with an American team! And he wants to meet! But get this: he's SERBIAN. But speaks English! SO MANY CULTURES. It's so cool! 

On top of all this fun stuff with foreigners, we are meeting with an American living here in Szeged! He's actually from the East Coast in the US, and he's going to school here studying to be a pharmacist (spelling?). He's had a rough past with his family and everything, and he had an experience where he knew of the existence of God in his life, and he wants to know more. We met with him in the park on a bench (typical missionary meeting technique *sarcasm*) and we started talking about Jesus Christ (super weird doing it in English). He said he knew Christ was important, but he didn't know a whole bunch about His life or what he did. I read Matthew 11 with him and we talked about what Christ did for us. When I finished reading, he was smiling and just quiet. The Spirit was so strong. Finally he said: "I know that what you said was from God. Thank you." Missionary work is the BEST. Hands down. I love where I am right now, and I know that miracles are REAL.

I love you all! That's it from my side of this wonderful Earth. 

Sok Szeretettel,
Elder Giacalone

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