Elder Giacalone in Hungary

Monday, May 26, 2014

More Pics

Shout out to mom!!!

Buda from the top of a mountain

Szeged Week 10 Pic

His very first door! He's growing up so fast!

The "family"! Elder Miller got another "son"!

Seriously though, aren't we so good looking? My son and I! #narcissim

Both "greenies" fell asleep on the train: love jet lag!

On top of the Buda hills! All of Budapest below us!

Lizard fatality :()

On splits with the Buda elders!

Parliament!

The church in Buda castle

Szeged Week Ten (Week 59)

Right now, it is raining so hard outside that the buses cannot move. Oh my.

Well, this past week was truely a different one from the rest of them. I'm a dad! I'm super excited! I'm training Elder Mellor! He's from Washington and he is super cool! He also looks just like my brother, Vincent. It's absolutely crazy. He really likes sports, and when we played soccor on Saturday he was all over the place making goals. He's awesome!

SO. We have had a fun last week. Lots of new things, like this cool things called the "12 Week Program", which is pretty much an awesome guide for Trainers and Trainees. If you thought that I just taught him every day in our apartment from just my brain, that is so not true! The church has this thing DOWN. It's really cool.

Today we had New Missionary Training in Buda at the mission home. It started at 7:45 AM. When I discovered that, I realized that we would have to leave Szeged at like 4:00 AM, because three hour train ride. Instead, we just left on Sunday night. We weren't really excited about it, because we had to leave a baptism a little bit early. When we finally pulled into the train station, I got a phone call from Sister Smith, the wife of President Smith, and she knew about our weird situation regarding trains, so she kindly invited us to dinner with her and President! It was really fun! I had really missed homemade cooking...sigh.

The next day (today), I got to pretend to be a tourist while my new missionary was in training and doing offical document stuff at the city courthouse. So, I got to hangout with the Buda elders and they showed me around the city! There are two sets of them, and I was older than all four of them! Weird stuff...but, I saw Buda castle (seat of the Hungarian government since like 1200), went on top of this tower that was just freakishly tall and dominated the landscape of Buda and Pest (yes, they are two different cities...), and we got to gaze over the entire capital! SO.COOL. Then, I finally got re-united with my companion and came back here to good ole' Szeged. I'm exhausted! SO MANY TRAIN RIDES.

So, I also gained a strong testimony regarding something really random this week: about my mission president truely being called of God and loving us, as missionaries. I had to call President Smith the other day about a situation regarding one of our investigators, and we ended up laughing on the phone for like 15 minutes! I knew that President was a funny guy, but I was laughing like REALLY HARD. Then, when we had dinner with him and Sister Smith, I was saying how I was feeling all nostalgic and everything with training and not feeling up to it necessarily, and he said how he remembered an email I had sent him LAST JULY about an amazing experience I had while tracting as a new missionary in Szolnok, and he said that he knew that I am always capable of doing great things because of my faith. The Spirit kind of just kicked me and said "hey, he really does care for you!" I know it sounds really weird, but honestly, as a missionary it's important that you can trust your mission president and be yourself around him, because if you trust him, he will trust you.

Well, I loved this past week. Change is hard sometimes, but we grow from it. We figure things out, and most importantly, we GROW. We become stronger and work harder. In the moment, I personally do not like change, but I always-ALWAYS-seem to look back on my problems or trials with fondness, and gratitude to my Heavenly Father for allowing me to learn and to grow. It's a weird thing, definitely, but essential to our development as children of God.

I love you all! Be safe, and for those kids getting out of school-DO NOT FORGET TO PUT ON SUNSCREEN OR YOU WILL FRY SO HARD.

Ok, that's it. I love you!

Sok Szeretettel,

Elder Giacalone

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Szeged Pics

An English Class Member that reminds me of my Grandpa

This was above someone's apartment door: "For those that come in, leave all hope behind!"

Water fountain...What?

Hanging out with a member

Szeged Week Nine (Week 58)

Holy crud. My world just got thrown upside down.

Transfers came! This is how the traditions go regarding the dreaded "phone calls" on transfer morning: if you get a phone call from the APs, then you are just moving cities to another companion. Nothing special. But, however, if you get a call from President, then you are either 1) going AP, 2) going Zone Leader, or 3) training. As we waited with dread for our call, the phone rang. I flipped it open (shout out to old Samsung flip phones) and saw that it was President Smith! And...

I'm training!

Freak out. So, tomorrow morning I go up to Budapest to the mission home and get my "greenie". Elder Shoop, my current companion, is going to "whitewash" my mission-best-friend Elder Neely out of Kecskemét, and Elder Neely is going to Székesfehérvár (try saying that one!). So much craziness.

So, we'll see how it goes! I'm going to have to shoulder the load of the work for the next few weeks until I can get my new missionary on his feet. It's going to be fun :)

Our week, on the other hand, went great! We decided to work our behinds off and try to throw out an insanely crazy work day! We beat our goal of eight hours and did a nine hour work day, with seven of them being programs! We slayed it! I also did another baptismal interview this week, and she is ready to go! The work here in Szeged is on fire! The branch is getting really excited with all the new convert baptisms, and the members are just letting the referal floodgates open! It's been AWESOME.

Funny moment of the week: When we tract here in Hungary, most of the time (like 80%) you will find yourself faced with the dreaded "csengő box", or the...doorball box(?) where you have to ring in to have someone buzz the door open for you. Sometimes they let you in right off the bat, other times they say...funny things. I've heard some funny things during my mission this far, but the other day was just great. Elder Shoop was buzzing in, and immediately a lady answered and just screamed, like literally SCREAMED: "SHUT UP!!!!!" And then hung up.

Sooo funny :) I laughed for like ten minutes! I've learned that you just have to laugh these things off, or else you get stressed.

Well, that's about it for this week! The weather has been great, there is a massive beer and wine festival going on in the main square and we accidentally walked into it the other day. Absolutely terrifying. But, whatever, all part of the experience.

And it just keeps getting better and better! I love every day! Make your week a good one! :)

Sok Szeretettel,

Elder Giacalone

Szeged Week Eight (Week 57)

Another fun week down here in the Szegedlands. Thanks for the package, Mom and Steph! :D

We had a baptism!!! The man that I interviewed was baptized by the Branch President. It was so cool! We did it in a Adventist church, because we don't have a fount to use. It was a very pretty building and it went great!

Hungary had it's Stake Conference last week! There is only one Stake in Hungary which takes up the middle half of the country and the cities around Budapest, and the remaining six cities are on divided into two Districts: one is on the far western part of the country centered on the city of Szombathely (this includes the city of Sopron, where I served), and the other one is in the far east centered on the city of Miskolc (this includes the city of Debrecen, mentioned by Pres. Monson in one of his conference talks). Szeged, my current city, is part of the stake. Dang, don't you feel so informed right now? :)

The Stake President has been in office for like eight years and he's rocking it. The common joke running throughout the members is that he is the "best Stake President ever", but then again, he's also the only Stake President. Ever. Lol. There were talks from members throughout the stake including youth speakers from Szeged, the new Branch President in Kaposvar (where I served!), and some really solid members from Buda, Pest, and Kispest, which are all parts of the city of Budapest. So yeah, the meeting was broadcasted to the Szeged branch house and we got to watch it on tv. So fun :)

Because the Summer is here, all the ice cream stores are opening up in Hungary! Here there are two kinds that you can buy: "fagyi", which is like a gilato type soft-served ice cream, and "jég krém", which, directly translated, is "ice cream" or the kind you would get at Baskin Robbins. ALL of our investigators want to go get ice cream with us and then sit on a bench in a park and then talk about the gospel. We gladly did it! It's been great, I don't think I've had more ice cream in one week than this past one! The weather has been beautiful!

Last night, I realized that I now need a new planner. You know what that means? NEW TRANSFER. And it's next week! I cannot believe how fast these past nine weeks went! I'm a little nervous, but I think it will be a good one next week. That also means that I will be emailing on Tuesday instead of Monday, so just a heads up.

Sweet moment of the week: Missionaries have been meeting with "A" since last Fall. He has had a few obstacles to his goal of baptism that he has been working on, and has been hesitant to set a date. This last week we met with him and talked about his scripture reading. Normally, it's a good thing if he read a verse or two, but when we met with him he had read EIGHT CHAPTERS. He looked different,too. Lots happier. Absolutely crazy. We (Elder Shoop and I) both felt it would be good to bring up baptism with him. We told him that we both felt it was time to set a date and to work out his problems. He looked at us, and then said it was time! So...August 4th! Woo! We're so excited! We also got to Skype at his house for Mother's Day, and so my family got to meet him! He loved seeing you all! :)

I'm so grateful for my mission. I love it. I got to talk to dad on Skype for a few minutes after my mom had to go take all my brothers to church. He talked about making this last year count. I feel so tired nowadays, but it's a good tired! It's the kind of tired that makes me know I'm working my butt off! I'm excited for transfers next week. I have a feeling it will be a good one :)

Have a great week! :)

Sok Szeretettel,

Elder Giacalone