Sziasztok!

Hellooooooo everyone!

I hope you had a fantastic Christmas! I sure did. We got up and opened all of our presents which was so fun!! I love all the Trader Joes treats mom (especially the partially popped popcorn. I went through that in like 3 days. It is truly a gift sent from Heaven above. There are no salty snacks here, mostly only sweet, so I cried many tears of joy at that.) Then went to breakfast and when we went outside there was like a foot of snow! A REAL WHITE CHRISTMAS!!! Then class for some personal study time, and then it was time for the big Christmas morning devotional with…ELDER BEDNAR! It was probably one of the coolest things that I have ever experienced. They passed out so many cell phones and it was like a big Q&A session. We talked a lot about Christ and how we can be better representative of Him. Also we talked a lot about using our agency for good and acting instead of being acted upon. I loved it. We were in the missionary choir for that meeting and singing “The First Noel” for an apostle of the Lord was the coolest most humbling experience! I’m pretty sure you can look up the devotional online. Then we had more study time and then a big Christmas lunch. And then we watched these two guys act out A Christmas Carol. They were so talented!! Then we had sack dinners in our classrooms with our districts which was the best!! Have I ever told you how much I love my district? They’re all so cool!! Then it was time…time to call our families!! I was so nervous and I didn’t even know why. As soon as I heard their voices the floodgates opened and I just cried so many tears!! (of happiness of course) I LOVE MY FAMILY and I miss them so badly! But again…I’m so happy. This week was so much better. Anyways, talking to them was for sure the highlight of my Christmas! I loved hearing Chase talk about his Christmas presents and hearing all about their wonderful Christmas time! After that we had a devotional with David Archuleta! Holy cow all of the sisters were FREAKING out! The elders were a little jealous I think hahaha because they kept yelling “PAGE 33” (the page in the missionary handbook about flirting and that kind of stuff). But it was such an uplifting night and it brought both the Holy Spirit and the Christmas spirit which was much loved here! All in all Christmas was a hard day thinking about missing out on Chase opening up his Santa presents and stuff, but there is no where else that I would have rather been. Being at the MTC on Christmas was honestly the biggest blessing and most uplifting day that I can remember in my entire life!

My companion got sick this week with a horrible cold and I am starting to feel it a little this morning, so I really hope that I don’t get sick…again!!

On Sunday we found out that my favorite counselor in the branch presidency is being moved branches. That was so hard. His wife really helped me through some hard days here and I am so, so sad for her to leave!

The Albanians left on Monday night in the middle of the night. THAT was so hard. We became such good friends with them and even though they were elders, I felt like they all just got me! They joked around a lot but also let us open up to them on hard days. I miss them so much and we cry every day because we just miss talking to them all the time!! Our elders are not sad that they left though, we were pretty sure that they didn’t like to share us with the Albs haha!!!! They will forever be in our hearts!

Since over half of the already small numbers of the MTC left on Monday, Tuesday was SO EMPTY and almost depressing. But we decided that since we were practically the only sisters on our floor we would take super long HOT showers and sing at the top of our lungs! That was so fun until we realized that we don’t remember the lyrics to anything except a few random hymns! SO we sang some TSwift and called it a night.

When Motra left I got to move to a bottom bunk! And now we each get two closets which is so cool. BUT WE MISS HER!

We just found out that they are practically dissolving our zone. We are really sad about it! Now our zone consists of the Hungarians, the Albanians, the Dutch, and the Turkish. There are no Albs here until February, and we aren’t even sure if there are Dutch or Turkish speakers here right now! We will probably find out on Sunday. Let’s hope that there are so that it isn’t just us Huns!

We are getting new schedules next week to work with the branch changes so my pday probably won’t be Thursday anymore. It could be as early as Monday! We will see.

My comps and I had a great lesson with our new investigator Bertold! We even recited the first vision to him in Hungarian! When cool things like that happen I get so excited to get out into the field and teach real investigators!

Ok so for a couple random things:

Somehow I thought that when missionaries got set apart they magically were not tired anymore. I knew I would be mentally tired from Hungarian and I knew in Hungary that I will be very physically exhausted, but I thought I would be more alert here in the MTC! Like in sacrament meeting, we turned around and the whole row of elders behind us was snoring. I AM SO TIRED!! I guess that’s just MTCban. It’s cool though, I guess it’s just part of the experience.

Gertsch Nover got a package from FRANCE for Christmas from her friend that lives there, and she’s been sharing all her little french treats with me and I love her so much for that.

This week I learned that snowflakes actually look like pretty little snowflakes!! WHAT? I just thought they were little blobs of ice but they are sooooo pretty when you look at them individually! That probably sounds so dumb that I didn’t know that but I love it!

I literally cannot read in English anymore! Whenever i see an “S” I pronounce it like “sh”! I was reading something out loud with my district from Preach My Gospel I think and I accidentally said “Jesus shaved me” instead of “Jesus saved me”. We got a really good laugh out of that one. Gertsch Nover was talking about a shirt and she was like, “Ya its from Mikarose!” (but all of a sudden it was in a weird Hungarian accent so it sounded like this – meek.ah.roh.shae.) We died at that one too!

If someone would like to send me Lifesavers wintergreen mints I WOULD LOVE YOU FOREVER!! Hughes Elder is getting sick of giving me all of his I think. Hahaha! And they don’t sell them at the store here.

I got to be a new missionary host yesterday!!!! It was sooo fun!! I hosted three cute new sisters and it was so hard when I had to wheel them away from their families!! I was trying so hard not to cry! Haha! I was like, “Okay Sister Mason, you HAVE to be strong for them!” And I held it in the whole time and then cried a whole lot after. One of them is going to Czech/Slovak mission speaking Slovak, the next one is going to Argentina, and the last one is going to Canada! When I was walking the girls to their rooms, I saw all my friends from home! Anna Marie Adams (she’s been here for a while and I love seeing her everywhere!), Britten Bell, Hannah Cyrier, and Brenna Wyson. It was soooo good to feel a piece of home but it made me so sad to see them all teary eyed after walking away from their families! Sestra Cyrier sleeps just a few rooms down from me and we talked for a while last night and I LOVE HER and I am so excited to have her here with me! The Czechs used to be our next door classroom neighbors but they moved classrooms because the new group is way smaller so that was sad!

That’s about it for this week! Can you believe that tomorrow starts 2016?! It is crazy to think that my whole year will be completely dedicated to serving the Lord and the people of Hungary. I want to make it count! I am trying my best to do my best and I am so determined to not waste a second of my mission! I know that Jesus Christ lives and that He loves me, and more importantly that He knows and loves YOU. I have seen so much this week just how aware of us He is, and it is crazy!!!!

I love you all dearly and miss you lots.

Sok szeretettel,

Mason Nover