July 26th, 2010, Email

I bought a guitar, as you can see in the picture.... It was 75 bucks... and sounds amazing.

(From mom) Hi Trev...I just checked are you still here? Mom

I sure am!!!! I love you!

Szeretlek!!!!
We havent been here long... the pictures are loading...

something wayyy cool this week (short version) we were driving to szorolapozni (to pass out english class fliers and we saw this kid walking around a school with a basketball and we were just like whoa!!! basketball is rare here, and smith said he knew him from english class and i said turn around! lets go talk to him, and hes a basketball player too!!! haha so we walked around the school and he had 3 friends playing ball at the school which was a golden find because ball courts are uber rare here and pretty decent for outside, i told smith to tell them if we win we get to teach them, and we were in pros clothes hahaha and i wasted them hardcore and the next day or something 2 of the 3 that said they could make it came and are decently interested and one seems to be pretty intrigued by our message, they re all just way cool anyway haha
Send me tabs for Identity Crisis, you remind of home, wish you were here, and yeah hymns are awesome!!! haha anything of good report that would attract people to us when im singing. haha thanks for the pictures people love to see things of america here... and oh my gosh they LOVE AMERICAN INDIANS haha half or more of the houses ive been in have indian pictures and or books about indians haha they love the "american free old west" story if you know what im saying....
And you sent the old Archos right? haha yeah its way easy to use, just like a USB, thats why it will be nice to have, a couple investigators and members want some of my Dustin Kensrue music. What else did you put on it, like the tab choir??? :)
I get way nervous at random times, like i know exactly how to say it but im around hungarians now and they say things a lot different hahaha like asking someone how they are doing is weird unless youre in a conversation and yeah kinda weird so door approaches are still wierd for me because i cant ask how they are doing which is a really good ice breaker in America haha the Hungs want it to the point right now.! hahaha but im getting to where im separating every word almost and not just the ones i know haha so its just a matter of learning more words and grammar... oh, um if you could send a few of my papers i wrote in college to me that would seriously help my english class SOOOO much... we need things to read that are metaphorical and slangy so they can understand how we say things... pick a few of your favorite, i might have you send more later but the one about Fear where the girl walks out the door and something something? and any of the ones where my professor wrote good things about it ok haha sorry i have so much but that really would help my class soo much...

Heres some more pictures, a good update, the apartment, that sandwich is a normal meal or snack the roll is the zsemle i talked about zs = pleaSure the ultimate cheap food, like not even a nickel for one!!! haha the cheese is amazing haha and the ham is from the deli thing, they dont sell packs of meat like our ham, theres only like 6 slices and its more expensive than 12 slices of deli ham haha and that juice you see or will see, is THE GREATEST JUICE IN THE WORLD. I will come home with: suitcase, a tie guy tie bag (bag of ties), and juice and snacks so you can taste the most amazing juice in the world.... hahahah The pics in the park is Játék est (game night) (Inserted by Gay: "sounds a little like "Nebo Heights' Night Games to me!") i thought it would be a good way to find people and get younger people introduced to the church, these are the kind of things that keep the church going here haha
Oh yeah English class is the best way to find in every area of hungary... i thought we should do 2 days instead of just one and we have got quite a bit of people who came, it was the first class of this session. There are 10 lessons. I might buy a guitar my last 2 days here and bring 2 home with me ;) hahaha the sticker was given to me by a recent convert who is way awesome... knows the gospel inside and out haha His name is Bálint.
oh yeah thats the pope praying, i dunno if i told you this but Pápa means pope haha
Oh yeah, they are usually in the begginer class. but yes we tract the communist cement apartment buildings and at actual houses too but you have to ring a door bell at the gate because these people are loners haha they have everything fenced off...
I gotta go, I love you all!!! oh yeah its been rainy and stormy lately, soooo nice haha BYE!!!
this is my "messed up" bed (the one in the back, the air mattress is the black thing on the floor), i just figured out how to turn it into a couch, where it folds is where the board is, i might buy a different air mattress because mine squeaks every time i move and yeah, id get the one with the flocked top, its deflated in the picture because we are going to Sopron today for baptismal interviews and we are staying over there.
oh and the dance pictures is a pioneer day we took some investigators and some of the branch to in Szombathely (saturdayplace) haha we had a fire and cooked hot dogs and Sister Haslem the senior couple cooked peach cobbler!!!!!!!! hahaha it was amazing, never thought id have that in HUngary...
The wheel barrow race was with the pioneer day in Szombathely. There are 2 kids Ádám and Albert who are investigating but are pretty much mormon but they dont know it, we have a goal to baptize the whole family... Ádám is the one in the wheel barrow, and Albert has glasses on and kinda looks like Dallas, my cousin.... hahaha but yeah the rest are members as far as i know from Pápa but the pics of the girl and her sister are not active but their brother is always.... always with us... i think its a little ridiculous but oh well... i wish i could speak so i could be more bold with people haha i have to go at the pace of my trainer because i cant do it all on my own haha

The MISSING or LOST Email... from July 5th

Hey everybody... Things are going good here... its really hard to type be cause the keyboards are different.
Ok... Im in Pápa. North westish. My comp is another Elder Kyle Smith from California. This is his last transfer. So ill kill him. THats how they say it here. haha he is pretty cool. Theres not a ton a new things happening in Pápa. Church was ok, i bore my testimony. Um the language has picked up a lot since today.

We went on a hike with this kid named lacko (lots ko) and his little brother Tommi. Lacko is with us a lot. kinda weird but whatever. I wouldnt say elder smith is totally trunky but hes not very intense, just kinda floats. But oh well ill be able to do more things the way i wanna when i can speak better and have learned more about how things work. Im always tired. my bed has a 2x4 in the middle of it, where it folds up. its ridiculous. the people here have some ridiculous ideas. So ive been sleeping on the floor. Im going to buy a mattress pad today. Sorry, but i cant sleep on a 2x4. Well today on the hike i talked a lot with tommi and he helped me with the language a lot and so its coming along. I have a pretty good missionary vocab but i need to know what people are saying haha So yeah. i uh wish i would have put more music on my zune, i dunno if pres is just very leinient or what but i only put things on that had religious words and its anything thats calm. so uh yeah, i got a lot more of that stuff. well, i dunno what to say. its really hot here. welcome to the surface of the sun. oh and i have yet to run out of breath here. its ridiculous. nobody will wave here. no one. the members are all really nice but nobody waves. our apartment is pretty nice. the food is good if someone knows how to cook. but the water is always bubbly. they sell normal not bubbly water but they dont buy it haha and its not carbonated water. they have that and you mix in szürp. (syrup) and thats kinda cool. the sausage is way good here. we have our own washing machine. they are tiny here. just like everything else here. our apartment is pretty decent size though. i have more pictures but mycamera is dead and these are my comps. the english class was interesting there were only 2 girls about my age in the Profi Class. (pro) and they wouldnt talk or anything it was weird. but yeah. so yeah, we havent found a lot of people. theyre all so antisocial anti-nice they wont talk. um... we have a car because hes a zone leader. a lot of places are getting bikes so ill get a bike sometime on my mission.

Is the plant that you see in the picture poison ivy or is it something else???


i have ups and downs. things will get a lot better as i learn the language.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!

I love you soooo much. I wish i could send you something, but uh, yeah.

Well i forgot my folder with everyones email in it so pass this on. I gotta write to Skee for his address.

Well, let me know if you want to know anymore... OH, funny thing. we have streeted and tracted and tracting was the only thing that found anyone who was interested. Í wish i could speak and understand better so i could be more bold with my approaches.

Um, the first night was nice, i slept in the mission home. Its wayyyy nice. ha. i went running with the AP s the next morning down to the Danube River. It was way cool. But i was tired all day and i still am.

This one guy we tracted into, makes his own honey and gave us some, its wayy good. He said you can take sugar from the store and the bees will make honey with it and you get a 5 times profit... haha

But yeah things are good, im adjusting better each day. My back is stiff sometimes but when i study in the morning i wear my brace so it doesnt put pressure on it.

My Address:
Pápa
Ady Sétány Utca 7/ II / 6
8500
Hungary

The II is the roman numeral 2-

Ok, the needs, when you send me a package....
My shirts.
Shoe polish.
American food, ill tell you later unless you send it this week then just send peanut butter or something, im not dying for anything really haha
Pillow case.
Some pine needles or a small bow/branch whatever.
Maybe a few of Moms Rolls :) tightly sealed haha
welll thats about it.

Love ya!!!

Mid-night Email

Im on.... are you still up???? hahaha
wow... trooper... this is Mom right??
I'm feeling a lot better... the doctor called Sis Baughman and said it was one of the 3 bacteria she suspected.... so food poisoning basically....
thanks for the pictures :) especially of tyler driving the Buick, that ones way cool, i put them on my camera...

Im excited today because the doctor oked me to eat normal food but i gotta go into it slowly.... I gotta tell you haha these keyboards are weird, the Z and Y are switched and the punctuations are really hard to get to hahaha so thats why i dont put apostrophes and my spelling is horrible because its all red because its not hungarian haha
Heres the only picture worth showing today haha its on this tiny road behind our apartment that is next to the branch house haha i loved it...

i miss REAL cars soooo bad.... everyone drives these pathetic little 2 stroke scooters haha and some ride real dirtroad bikes and bullet bikes. and i was wondering if they had 4 wheelers around here and the next day in this same spot there was this weird medium sized 4 wheeler with a 50 cc engine in it hahahaha
i recropped the guitar one, it looks pretty cool.

and the other is when i was sick in the Celestial Room at the mission home haha
oh yeah they say hello here, and they mostly use it for goodbye.... im having a hard tiem adjusting to that hahahahaha
Are Trevor and Ryan in the SAME mission???? you didnt say in your letter....
WHAT?!?!?!?!!!! Thats crazy!!!! hahahahaha..... AHhh im so jealous!!! that would be soo cool!!!!
She (Liz Reese) actually came to the Mission home or call or something, anyway she came there and i gave her a blessing, the office elders pulled me out of greenie training and asked me to do it.... this mission is not a strict mission.... Pres is about moving the work forward in anyway shape or form... if it breaks a rule but gets someone to Christ we've done our job.... so it wasnt in anyway a big deal for the Pest (Budapest) elders not to give her a blessing.
Yeah its nice but its strange that he doesnt like guitars, because every mission in the world has guitars in the apartments but they cant really have music either haha but i have permission to buy a guitar which is wicked awesome!!!

no one gets to buy a guitar :)
Today's agenda... we just got done with studies... we never leave the apartment til 11, exercise, food, pers, comp, language. so we havent tracted. most of our day is gonna be spent fliering (hunglish) going to the 4stories and putting enlglish fliers in mail boxes, its not illegal here? haha weird i know.... but you can only put things in so its not bad, just like all of hungary its locked up and communicitized haha but we get most of our investigators form english class, we have 1000 to hand out today.... it starts wed.... ha we couldnt do it because i was sick...
oh yeah, then we'll eat, and tract tonight (at this point the server in Nephi went down, I should have just used my cell phone to let him know but my grogginess did not allow me to think effectively. So Trevor started asking)
Are sleeping???
Are you sleeping?? ****
Well... sweet dreams... i gotta get going, love ya! keep findin the big bucks for me dad... haha

Email Catch-up :) 7-19-2010

Finally we feel like we made contact!
Trevor wrote:
well, im back in Pápa now, this is email is working now. I got pretty sick wed, it started tues with a bad headache, anyway wed we drove to Budapest and yeah the hospitals are absolute horror film hospitals.... but we ended up going to First Med and its as new as our places are but its more of a clinic but i have 1 of 3 types of bacteria. An intestinal infection and just felt horrible. But i stayed at the Mission Home since wed and just slept and i went nuts and got out of there today, i dont feel one hundred percent but ill live... And while i was there i went down stairs to take the sacrament and saw Liz Reese walk in... haha so yeah, but i gave her a blessing today before we left. Im only eating stuff like rice and mashed potatoes and stuff that is easy on my stomach, they have me on quite a few things so i hope it just goes away...

Ok, so missionary work...... well i think i told you that we had dinner with an American family... they didnt really seem interested but they were way nice and she talked to me a little bit at the dinner about how i learned the language which i think sparked her interest, but her aunt is lds and asked her to feed us if we were in her town.... the next day we called back and told her thanks and that we'd like to meet again... she called back and said that her and 4 of her friends want to hear our message....!!!!!!!!!!! the next day it turned into her and 6 friends with their children!!!!!!!!! we should have taught them friday but i was sick and locked in the Celestial room (top floor of the mission home) haha so that will get done this week... i cant wait to teach and explain like i want to :D hahaha i had greenie training today it was pretty boring haha but i gave Liz (Reese)a blessing after and i hope it helps her... thats pretty intense, bro and sis just wandering europe hahaha but i think it will help her.... well.... i think i gotta get going..... I love you all, Talk to you at 3 in the morning..... hahaha so 11 30 ish after our studies and ill talk more.

July 12, 2010

So... if you get this, im at the mission home we had to come here to get my residence and we were going to email here but my LDS mail is not working... So president said to use this... so from now on until i get my other email worked out send them to this address. I will be on the email again in about 2 and a half hours and we can try to be on but please get whatever you have written me since last week sent to me HERE....
We just ate at this awesome all you can eat buffet.... wow, they cook the meat for you right there at one part and they have the MOST amazing fruit soup.... wow... 3 hours of food for 15 bucks.... not bad since uh ive pretty much ran out of food for the week. i need to buy more from now on.

Well, today we went to Budapest to do all that stuff... I will have to check when my lds mail is working on why it didnt send.... it had a bunch of pictures with it and i wrote a lot.


I saw all of my group today, they finalized their passport stuff. it was way cool to see my MTC comp. We gave Smith elder... my group smith and his comp, elder smith, a ride to Pápa where they could get on the train and go to Szombathely. (saturdayplace haha) I got a letter from Karlie and one from Trevor lebaron, he had sent it when i was in the MTC still, i never got your letters ...there is a letter in the mail for you Mom. They said they dont have the letters you wrote to me anymore...


Um, oh yeah, yesterday i sang in the street with the branch houses horrible guitar and setup a table but no one is around on Sundays really but we did get 1 find out of 4 people... but we got permission from president to buy a guitar and to keep doing it because a lot of other people have been getting crazy amounts of finds doing it because Hungarians love guitar and singing so were going to be doing that a lot more.... anything spiritual you might think is nice so talk to people like amber and whoever, and Devin... but include all the lyrics.... i have a simplified hymns so don't worry about that.
I have been told letters take 6 to 7 days so not too long... oh if you could send me like a super simple Chili recipe, an amercan family cooked for us and gave me Cheerios and some kind of Mac and Cheese and i want Mac and Chili.
The people here will not wave... and it drives me insane. They think its weird, and saying hello gives people a heart attack... Before i leave this country i will make wherever i have been a little nicer by waving at everyone. Thats my goal. Why can't people just wave????? Tell Devin that... he'll get a kick out of it...
Ok, i don't have any money in my account.... and i need to buy a guitar... i can just use the emergency plane ride money i guess but yeah....
Everything here is here is so tiny.... it ridiculous... i finally found an elder who is into motor sports like i am. and its a pretty good chance i'll serve with him next transfer, he's way cool, he is also smith elder, the older one that is not my companion...
I'm getting used to it here more and more everyday and i like my comp, he's pretty cool. Its all good... oh yeah, a gyspy kid spit on me last p day in TESCO, i think i told you that... Niether of us know why...
Well its great to hear that you're getting some things done at the cabin!!! Well, i might keep writing after this but im going to check and see if you wrote back yet
I love you guys

We have a car so we drove.... which is way faster and cheaper because we dont pay for the gas but i'll be back in Badapest wednesday and next p day getting greenie training with my kisci's...
Next week it will be about 5 or 6 when i get on... so we really can have a conversation :)
They drive like us but crazier and meaner and friendlier at the same time right side (of the road), left seat (driver) same as us. i get my drivers license this week or next... i dont really wanna drive here.


The mats..... Twila Rockwell was not the first to make the grocery sack door mats... Hungarians have been making them for quite some time... it was at a member's house... they had 2.

The field and building is in Pápa and it goes to show what these people live in.... id die if i had to live like that...


2 pictures are from off of our balcony in our apartment.

Ok my address is......

Pápa
Ady Sétány Utca 7/ II / 6
8500
Hungary

LOVE YA.... Gotta go... The bed issue, i think i addressed it in the one letter that didn't get to you, a 2x4 is in my bed where it folds... yeah... it folds... so i bought an air mattress i'm gonna keep trying it out it was only 7 bucks... if it doesn't help i'll talk to you about other options... i slept on the ground before with blankets under me but yeah... they have a lot of health stores and i bought some more electrodes, i also found that Chi Herbal stuff we used for my hamstring... i might try that, but it,s not a big bother, mostly in my head, but the bed is terrible and so i had to do something about that... it;s really hot in here and we have a lot to do to finish P day... LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!

First Email... It was a BIG one!!!

Clearly Missionaries in Hungary go to any depth
to reach those seeking the gospel! :)



It was good that it was a legal holiday, July 5th. Mom spent most of the night jumping up to see if his first email from Hungary had arrived. Finally it came. Apparently there was one previous to this but where it went or what was in it ... WE don't know! None the less, he looks like he had a fantastic first P-Day!

Trev's only e-mail that came through said,
"here's some more. Keep it real fam."

MORE WHAT? Maybe next week we will find out what was supposed to have arrived before this.

Waiting... Again

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 we finally got this email.

Dear Parents of Elder Hansen,

It was our great pleasure to welcome your son, Elder Hansen, to the Hungary Budapest Mission on Monday Night. He has the spirit and bearing of an excellent missionary and is full of energy and enthusiasm for the Lord's work here. We are very happy he is joining us in the mission field at this exciting time in the history of the Church in Hungary.

We are taking good care of your missionary, and have placed him in the wonderful city of Pápa with a fantastic trainer. His preparation day is Monday at which time he will write you an email. We would like you to know that you can contact us at any time if questions or concerns arise. May God's helping hand be with your family as your son faithfully serves in this great work.

With love,
Elder Recksiek
Office Secretary

After many airport delays... Hungary

Trev's London flight was delayed more about an hour and 40 minutes - that made for a lot of time in Chicago. This gave his mom time to find out how to track the flight; which she watched until he was well over Canada.

We got a phone call once he landed in London. We didn't talk long as his flight to Budapest was only an hour away.

Once again, his mom tracked his flight and was relieved for him as the plane showed landing in Budapest.