June 19, 2016 (the first week)

Dear Mom,

You can email me if you want to. The limit is 60 minutes, not thirty. And the leaders in our zone told us that we could email for hours as long as we weren't preventing other missionaries from working.

I am in a trio companionship, or tripanionship. It's pretty crazy sometimes, but it's mostly fun. My companions are Gajdos Elder and Biesinger Elder. Gajdos Elder's dad is Hungarian, which is way cool. Biesinger Elder and his family lived in Hungary for a year.

Our first meal was a little confusing, and we ended up eating leftovers. They were tasty leftovers though.

Our zone leader is from New Zealand, and sometimes his accent is a little hard to understand. One time, Biesinger Elder thought he said "the empty seat" when he said "the MTC."

We've already taught our first lesson, and we're teaching another today. Hungarian is super weird. Conjugating verbs is all in the suffixes, they don't use pronouns a lot. And you change nouns with suffixes to show possession or plural. Teaching Edit (our investigator) whose name is pronounced "eh-deet" is interesting. We taught her about God and how to pray and it went pretty well until she started asking questions. Fortunately Biesinger Elder has enough experience with Hungarian to understand people. Also, the spirit speaks Hungarian, so we had a good lesson even though she probably couldn't understand us very well. Hungarian has different intonation that changes the meaning of what you say, so you can say the same words in the same order with different intonations and say different things. The difference between a question and a statement is intonation, not word order. It makes understanding and communicating a bit harder, but with the Lord's help, we can do anything. 

I didn't bring my camera to email, so I don't have any pictures, but I'll try to get some next week.

Thanks for your letters and your weird quotes, although sometimes I don't check my clothes before putting them on, and then I end up walking to the temple with a piece of paper in my sock. Today I found the one from President Monson that says, "Each missionary who goes forth in response to a sacred call becomes a servant of the Lord whose work this truly is. Do not fear, young men, for He will be with you. He never fails." I was really glad I found that one because yesterday it hit me that I'm trying to teach people the gospel in a language I can barely speak or understand. It's important to realize that the Lord is the one doing His work.

This week has been crazy. Adjusting to the MTC has been a little weird, but we've been doing good. It's been a little stressful, but I've been having fun. 

We watched the Character of Christ video yesterday, which is an MTC devotional that Elder Bednar gave on Christmas some time. It was really good. 

Love, 

Terry Elder

P.S. I mailed your letter on Friday. I forgot to mail it on Thursday. I've told you a lot of what it said anyways. I couldn't even use your form letter because I'm in a tripanionship.

P.P.S. I don't really know what y'all want to hear about, so if you want better letters, you should probably ask some questions. Otherwise I'll just email Elder Keeley the whole time.

P.P.P.S. In Hungarian, Elder and President come after the name, which is why it's Terry Elder, Biesinger Elder, and Gajdos Elder. And our mission president is Szabadkai elnök.