Week 70 - 11th Week in Szeged

Well it's another week down,

Things have been going by quickly. The beginning of the week flew by with great programs. Wednesday we ended up in Szolnok for splits. For those who may not remember I served there for like 2 months, it was my second city. I loved getting to run around and see some of the friends I had made and looking up old faces. The Elders there are doing a great job too. The split was great.

The rest of the week we bounced around from place to place and program to program. Saturday we went up to Budapest for Missionary Leadership Council. Elder Leimer of the area seventy was there and gave us a training on teaching by the spirit. His words were inspiring and have really been motivating me to be better and try harder.

Sunday was also great! In the morning a member who had invited us for lunch after church gave us a call. When she was preparing the lunch the night before she decided to make cinnamon rolls. In the morning she cooked them, but instead of setting them aside for lunch she decided we should eat them while they were fresh. So she brought them to us for breakfast! I won't say they were as good as my moms, but they were pretty dang close!

After church she fed us lunch as well and we ate everything! She felt kinda bad so she made more food on the spot too! I ate well and didn't leave hungry! The rest of the day we planned and got ready for the training we will be giving on Teusday. Great week!

Elder Oakes, Hungary Budapest Mission
daniel.oakes@myldsmail.net

Week 69 - 10th Week in Szeged

Well this week has been a great relaxing week. We have done good work and been on a lower stress level. Wednesday we had splits with the Bekescsaba elders. That went really well. I was with elder Howard. He is a great missionary and I enjoyed getting to know him better.

We also went on splits again with the other elders here in Szeged. I spent a full day with elder Winkle. He is one of my favorite elders here.

Throughout the week we have been hanging out with the sisters a lot too. We found a corner store that had some American soda and started asking about rootbeer. Over the next week we sent in every missionary one by one to request rootbeer, and you know what the guy did? He drove to an importer hub and brought back with him like 8 boxes of AW rootbeer. We bought 3 of them!

Things are going great right now, the transfer is getting close too! Can't wait to see what happens!

Elder Oakes, Hungary Budapest Mission
daniel.oakes@myldsmail.net

Week 68 - 9th Week in Szeged

Man this has been a pretty crazy last week,

There have been lots of things that have happened. On Monday we got a new Elder here in Szeged. His name is Elder Tillamin-Dick. He is a good missionary. I was able to sit down and talk with him one on one and we have bonded pretty well.

The next day we had a HUGE meal at a member's house. His name is Géza (Gay-z-uh) He has a reputation for making large meals for the missionaries. He made us a 5 course meal! We had Bean levees, Fruit soup, Porkchops with potato wedges and a salad, a spicy noodle and meat mix, watermelon, and topped it off with cake! I ATE SO MUCH FOOD!!!! I was going to explode! He INSISTED that I eat multiple plates of each course, I also saved the sister as well as my companion by eating a few of theirs! I didn't realize I was capable of eating that much food! I practically rolled out of there and had to take a nap before I could recover enough to work the rest of the day. But it was great.

Wednesday brought sad news. Sister Heath got transferred out on a moments notice, and has left to go to Pécs. It was sad to see her go, but she is getting to serve in an awesome city.

Thursday we had splits with the Békéscsaba Elders. They came late that night and planned to stay until the next day! Splits were great with them but they missed the last train out of the city that night and ended up staying another night because of it. I cooked us all some Roko Krumpli! It was pretty good too. The next day they booked it to the train to make it back for their next days programs.

That left us with our normal Saturday routine. But we decided to help the other elders out by going on splits again. So my companion went with the other elders (Paul and Winkle) and I took the new elder with me. The splits honestly went great but when we split back after Sunday the other Elders had a melt down in communications so our Sunday afternoon was spent trying to help them work things out.

The last 24 hours have been stressful but things I think are going to be okay. I am grateful for the Lord and all he has done to help out here and to watch over my family back home.

Shout out to everyone who has been helping my family, thank you all so much!

sok szeretettel

Elder Oakes, Hungary Budapest Mission
daniel.oakes@myldsmail.net

Week 67 - 8th Week in Szeged

Hello to one and all!

I apologize for not emailing last week. I have been tight on time and last week I just couldn't find enough time to make a weekly email. But not a problem this week so I will try to get everything in from last week too.

Last Pday was lame. We had planned to go and have fun but we got rained out... the rest of the week kinda followed suit, except for when we had splits with the Szolnok Elders who are AWESOME!!! Great guys, I love them a ton!

The week after was a lot better though. I had a blast! As a district we went to a Kaland Park! (adventure park) on P-day. It was awesome! We went climbing on a rope course set up next to the Tisza river! We had a blast, great way to kikapcsolni! I love Elder Winkle, he and I are like best friends! He and I took off all over that ropes course and had a great time.

Wednesday we had splits in Budapest with the APs. I love those guys. The first day I was with Tuttle Elder. The guy is so cool and I was able to talk openly with him and he helped me sort through a lot of things for myself. The next day I was with Elder Heilein, he is German and super cool too. I went with him to a feeding program. OMG Nanies cook so much and so good, I think I rolled out of there after we ate and shared a spiritual thought.

The rest of the week went by fast, the work is going really well here right now which is good and keeps us on our toes with balancing programs. We still get plenty of time to find though so we were able to do tracting and streeting quite a bit. Today we had some plans for p-day but things got canceled the other night when the mission president called. Another missionary is getting emergency transferred into Szeged with Elders Paul and Winkle, so they have to go and pick him up today leaving us all by our lonesomes. But no biggie. It will be interesting to see how this goes. I know the missionary and have a good relationship with him so I think it can turn out okay. I'll be having a PPI with him tonight though so we will see...

Other than that its been a decent week. I still have 7 months left and am starting to feel trunky (but 7 months is a long time) I miss my family, and have been thinking about them a lot. They just got to welcome in my new baby niece, Lucy, last week! (I love you guys!) But this week will be good.

Love ya all! Shout out to Jess, happy B-day you rock!

Elder Oakes
daniel.oakes@myldsmail.net