A Night at the Opera....Extra

The above pictures are of the Hungarian State Opera House from across the street where we emerged from the Metro (underground) before crossing the street.

The second one is after we crossed the street and were entering the Opera House. The is (above) the entrance to the Opera House and below is the ceiling of the entrance. Not too shabby.
The Wood Family had tickets also that night, though not right by us. It was a fun to get a picture of them all as we were going in.
We all had to check our coats. We tried to take them with us and were turned back to the checkout. No one takes their coats with them! It was very crowded. It cost 140 forints to check both coats. They were amazingly fast. That is Brent taking our coats in.

The first thing I really wanted to take a picture of was the ceiling. The usher rushed over to tell me that I could not take pictures after the opera started. Everyone was taking pictures. Actually the crowd was multi-lingual. We could hear all sorts of different languages and even identify many of them...that doesn't mean that we understood what they were saying. The place was totally full.

These are the boxes that mostly seat four people. The dress was also interesting. Some were very dressed and others in jeans.

This is Sister Wood sitting in their lodge, which was just behind us, we were center on the 13th row and they were probably ten more rows back and up two steps. There seats were good, as were ours.

You almost can't see this but it is the curtain. HUGE!! If you can blow it up screen sized, you will be able to see it a little better.

Another picture of the ceiling.

Another picture of the boxes. You can see the pillars, two really big ones, they are of a red marble. On the other side of them is a HUGE box, I hate to think of what that would cost.


As the second intermission began we had been instructed to turn our phone on. Molnar Zolt, our landlord, called us and gave us instructions as to where we were to meet him. It was in the Actor's Buffet. We went in, after we finally found it. We had lots of people helping us to find where it was. We met his mother who kindly took a picture of us with Zolt.

He is really tall. He is one of the four bohemians living in the loft. He sings baritone. He also told us that if we want to go to another opera he would get us tickets. Anyone want to come, I am sure we could get four.

After the pictures, he took us to see the stage. I am so sorry that the pictures are not quality. The scenery was wonderful. In the scene outside with the snow flying, the trees looked so real and beautiful. We watched the roll them up. I was amazed that they were not real.

I don't know what about the polka dots....., but this is looking back into the stage area, which is really, really big. If you look really carefully you can see the back drops being rolled up.

This is the one of the garret, where they were preparing the bed for the dying scene.

The opera was beautiful. The music unreal, and it didn't matter that we could not understand the Italian, but neither could the Hungarians. They were lucky because they had a sub-title board in hungarian. I watched it a little bit and could get a bit of the drift sometimes. We did read the synopsis, and of course I have a certificate from Ken Ariotti's Puccini/LaBoheme Symposium.

We loved it. I think we will try to go again, and again, if it is at all possible.

We just wanted to share this really special opportunity to see one of the most beautiful Opera Houses in Europe, even if the photography was a little lacking. What can you expect from a Brownie Hawkeye?

I will be awaiting to see who wants to come.

What a Week!!!!!

Monday and Tuesday this week were pretty usual work days. However, there was a bit of frivolity amongst the group.

Wednesday morning I got up early and made some goodies to take to work, just because everyone needed a good sugar fix. Yeh!

One day before Christmas this truck was parked down on the street in front of the Mission Home. Makes you wonder if he ever got out. He is no longer there.

Wednesday night was the beginning of our celebration. We had been invited, along with the Woods and the Gassers to go to the Duplice's, branch president of the English Branch, for Christmas Eve dinner.

We had a great time with them. One of the things we came home with were small (walnut shell) baby Jesus nestled into the walnut shell. This is a Hungarian tradition. On Dec 5th, which is St Michelos Day, you go up to someone and writh your right hand, put into someones left hand this small token of Christmas and say Boldog Michelos (Happy st. michelos). Interesting tradition.

We had great food, great company and an oveall great time. We then went home and did part one of the Christmas morning casserole and put them to chill overnight.

Christmas morning we go up really early, and we were able to wear very casual clothes, which was nice. We took all our stuff for the casserole over to the church and cooked the casseroles (4 of them) and set out the waffle irons (3) and the Woods mixed up a HUGE batch of waffle batter. We had fruit, fruit juice, all kinds of topping for the waffles and about 30 very hungary missionaries. As you can tell, they had a great time.

Elder Garcia really liked the Christmas souffle.

After the eating was over some of them went to play ultimate frisby, some stayed around and played ping pong, and other's went up to the President's apt and watched a disney movie. As for us, we went home. I think we were in need of a nap, but instead I cooked a bunch more stuff, as we were expecting company on Friday.

In the evening we were invited back to the mission home to have Christmas dinner with the Woods and nine of their children who had just arrived from the states. When that was over we were ready to give way to sleep.

Friday we actually stayed home almost all day. We cleaned and washed and go ready to have our District missionaries over for a White Elephant party. I made chili and soup for them. They stayed exactly an hour and a half. In the evening we were invited to the Gasser's to watch the new movie of Emma. We enjoyed it.

Saturday we got up early and went grocery shopping. We found that TESCO is open at 8:00 am and it is a great time to shop.

We got ready and packed the car and started on our journey toward the western part of the country. We stopped to deliver mail, inspect apartments and deliver supplies along the way. We arrived in Szombathely on the far border of the country to the west. We checked into a pension, which was close by the church.

We got a few pictures. This castle is cool. It makes me think about the approaching armies that often came into this country to conquer. This was was built in the 13th century.

Sunday morning we were at the church in time to speak in sacrament meeting at 9:00 am. This was a great branch. They are a pretty big group, with families. They meet in a church owned building. It is quite nice. The people were wonderful. We will be back there in a few weeks when we head out to do audits.

We do enjoy being able to speak to the members and investigators. It is interesting to try to decide what they need. Sometimes we can tell those who were touched by what we said, and other times not. We certainly have to lean hard on the Lord to direct what we should say. Great experiences.

We do enjoy these trips and it gives us a chance to see some of the missionaries and see how they are really doing..... and if they are keeping their apartments clean. That has become a big deal for us and we are really trying to help them do better. I remember it was a problem 40 + years ago too.

Of course the highlight of the week was to be able to talk to all our children, and actually view their Christmas. That was very fun for us. I think that we did really good at keeping busy and not crying because we weren't home. It was a different Christmas, but we did enjoy it.

Tomorrow we head out in the late afternoon to the the Opera House in Budapest. It is a magnificant building. We will be seeing LaBoheme by Puccini. Our landlord is one of the four bohemeians (I don't know how to spell that). He gave us tickets. It looks to me like we are on the 13th row in the center section. I will let you know if they are good seats. There are two intermission in this long opera. During the second one we are to meet Zolt and he will show us the opera house. We are really excited about that. I hope I can get some good pictures. This will be a great start to our week.

We will get New Year's Day off work again. Then it will be back to normal. Is there anything like normal in our lives.

Happy New Year to you all, and thank you for your support.

IT'S CHRISTMAS WEEK....who is going to do the shopping?

MERRY CHRISTMAS

This is our "official" Office Christmas tree, graced beautifully with pictures of our grandchildren. Thanks Liz. I actually took a bunch of them off and brought them home because we found a tree in our apartment and put it up, so we now have a tree here. Isn't that Great.

The first thing we want to do is to wish all of you a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS.

We are so sorry not to have time to send something to each of you personally, but please know that we do think of you often. We love to know that you visit our Blog once in a while so see what is going on here in Budapest, Hungary. Never did I imagine that we would spend Christmas in Hungary.

We have had a pretty busy week, just with the office work. But in addition to that the trains in Budapest and in spots all over the country have been on strike. We had Zone Conferences, a small transfer this week, missionaries going home, not to mention the senior missionary travel for the weekend. Our cars have had a work out. I think Brent has spent a great deal of his time ferrying missionaries around.

We also had our zone conference. We got to make two great big apple cakes for the conference. It turned out really good. We will do that one again.

Brent had a birthday this week and our office elders came through with stickies numbered up to 67. They put them all over his office. I think that they enjoyed doing it and were quick to drop by early in the morning to see if he had seen it.

For his birthday in Hungary we got him a new Hungarian hat with ear flaps. I am sure he will model it for you. It actually fits. He also received a Hungarian Scarf, which he is graciously modeling in the picture above.

Some of you may remember last summer when we wrote you about the man who was a street musician in Sweden, but was Hungarian and he joined the church. There was also a picture of the old Mission Home in Budapest in that article. The picture just above is that musician. He and his wife sang at the Budapest Ward Christmas Party last night. He is very nice. And, yes those are feathers in her hair.

This morning we got up early and travelled to Sopron. We had a nice trip. Not too many people on the road at 6:00 so we made good time. We were able to check two apartments there, since that is all there are. We have been checking for ice buildup in the freezers and our missionaries are doing well in that regard. We were pleased, but hope for even better. We noticed that our written instruction were hanging in the aparments there. We complimented the Zone Leaders for doing as we asked.

You see above missionaires study area in their "penthouse" apartment, another set of missionaries showing off their Christmas tree, and another entry in the Ugliest lamp contest.

We attended the Branch in Sopron and found them to be so friendly and happy to have us there. One of the members is Judi (pronounced Udy) one of our Family History friends from last summer in Debrecen. It was nice to see her again. After the combined RS/Priesthood meeting, they had a little social and we had suti (pronounced shooty), that is sweets like cookies and cakes and a hot orange drink. We also received a roll of cookies that were left over. On the left is Elder Christensen from Afton, WY. He was one of our Busermain Boys for a time, when we were in Debrecen. He is carefully holding his drink as they served it in glass glasses, hot was an understatement. When it cooled down, it was good.

The picture below is a picture of a building across the street from the Elder's apartment in Sopron. I just thought it was interesting. You see buildings like this all over the country. Sometimes they are remodeled and made into a building for whatever, even a house. They do have an interesting way of building. It is not like we do in America.

When we finished in Sopron we drove to Papa. We only had one apartment there to inspect and were able to do that before church. They too were very nice, but not as friendly as the other branch. Both of the branches we visited are small and had 20 to 30 people in attendance.

We had a very nice drive home and got home early enough that we wanted to have dinner. Sometimes we are so late getting home we don't care about eating.

We are anticipating an interesting week. Besides finishing up year end stuff, and trying to be ready to be out of the office for a couple of extra days (boxing day you know) , we have dinner engagements on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. They should be fun. On Christmas we are fixing breakfast for our Zone and then we may chill out. On Friday we will have our District over for a "White Elephant" party and goodies. That is, we will have goodies if we can get the lock fixed on our pantry door. The key broke off and part of it is lodged in a place where we can't reach it with anything, including GUM to remove it. Until it is open, we can't make up the stuff we put in there for Christmas treats. Such trials.

We hope you all have a wonderful, and exciting Christmas as we are planning to have! We'll take lots of pictures. We hope you do too.

Love,

Us

Halfway through December...Already!!!

We are getting into the spirit of Christmas. We bought this wreath at Tesco last weekend...Saturday. When we opened the packaging, it smelled really bad. It is now hanging in our window to bring cheer to all who can see. it. It has lost its "aroma" finally.

The weeks seem to slide by. Monday comes as we are tired from a weekend of traveling and then suddely it is Friday. Sometimes we can't even remember what we did. I know that we spent a lot of money last week. Brent had to take the mission cars in for some tuning up. That took about two days. Fortunately, I didn't have to go with him. I just keep plugging along paying bills and reimbursing missionaries.

One evening last week, I think Tuesday, I attended Enrichment Night at the church.

These are some of the Relief Society sisters visiting.

We learned about how to use our cameras. That was a good thing. I learned how many different setting my little tiny camera has.

One of these days I will experiment with them to see what I can do.

Every morning bright and early the POSTA man, who I call St. Nicholas, arrives with a huge green bag of boxes for the missionaries. It is quite incredible how many packages come for some of the missionaries, and others hardly get any. It is an interesting game that we play to try to get them to everyone. I am afraid that a couple of them will not get their packages for Christmas.

They have already come into Budapest for Zone Conference and no one is going out to where they live until after Christmas.

To complicate things, the trains are on strike and that does paralyze the country, including the missionaries. We have three zone conferences this week in at the mission home, and we are not sure they will all be able to get here. Early in the morning Brent will take the White Knight (van)over to Gyor to pick up missionaries who will have travelled from further west by bus and bring them into the mission office. We may have to find a place for some of them to stay if the trains are not running by night time. It is really crazy. I believe that the airlines have been having a strike also.

We love it when we can drive out into the countryside and see how really beautiful Hungary is. Here are a few of the pictures we snapped on our trip to Pecs and Kaposvar for the weekend. Yes, there was fog, no snow, just fog in some areas.

While were were in Kaposvar, which is up in the "mountains" we were able to attend a program with the Elders there. We met with a lovely family. She really has a testimony. She is reading the Book of Mormon every day and praying every day. She said that since she has been doing that everything in her life is getting better. She is preparing for a big math test that she has to take for her employment. She said that she is not good in math, but now she is understanding that better, as well as what she is reading in the Book of Mormon.

Most of the little towns have streets just like this one through the town and out of the town. Some of them have mini farms behind the little house on the street.

We tried and tried to get you all some mistletoe to hang in your homes, but just couldn't climb high enough to get it, but did get a picture of it for you. At least this is what we are told is mistletoe. Honestly I can't see the little white berries that we find in the fake ones at home. Maybe they don't grow plastic berries here.

We wish for each of you a wonderful prep week for Christmas, so that the following week will be wonderful for you and your family. Enjoy the snow for us. We are not scheduled to have any here.

So, It's December Already....

It is hard to believe that we are in December. Today is St. Nicholas Day. I guess it really is December. Our weather has been just a touch rainy, but very warm for this time of year. It has been in the high 40's and low 50's occasionally. In the morning it is cool when we walk to the office.

This is a gingerbread nativity that we saw today. There are other sights of Christmas that I will put in down the blog.

This week has been very busy. We have had apartments that closed and lots of work with that. It is the first of the month, so rents to pay, utilities always to pay, plus the end of month stuff to do. It is absolutely unreal what there is to do. Suddenly, it is Friday. Hooray for Waffle Night that we get invited to on Friday. Everyone likes a good waffle on Friday night.

You will see the center stage picture a little further down. It was interesting that the small children were dancing to the music as they played.

We have been able to attened only one program this week. It is with Atilla, with whom we have been meeting for several months. He is still struggling with the Word of Wisdom. He is feeling so badly about it. This week we took Elder Gudgell's chestnut that he always carries in his pocket to relieve stress and wrote CTR using the Hungarian letter for those words on it and gave it to Atilla. We are hoping that every time he is where he wants tos smoke, he can squeeze the chestnut in his hand and it will help him to make the right decision. Occasionally, he wants a cigarette more than he wants to be baptized, and then he feels terrible about it. He is trying. If any of you would like to remember him in your prayers, I am sure it would help. He is now looking at January 16 for his baptism.

This is a manhole cover. It is very Hungarian. They really are pretty.

We are getting ready for transfers in two weeks. We have a group going home on the 22nd of December. Then a couple of weeks later we have a group of two arriving from the MTC.

This month all the missionaries come to the Mission Office for The Zone Conferences so several times a week we will have entire Zones in the office. We have to figure out how to get all of us to be able to attend a zone conference and keep the office covered. WOW! Sometimes it gets complicated.

I have acquired one Christmas tree from the store room, but have not had time to even think about decorating it. I hope that this week is just a touch slower. I am not sure it will be because of all the year end stuff that has to be done. Maybe the shoemaker's elves will come and get the tree done. Then again....maybe not.

This is an almost life sized nativity that someone built and was displayed at the square where we went today.

We heard, unofficially, that there is a couple coming to replace the Woods. We will really miss the Woods when they leave, but we hope that will have some new friends to enjoy showing the sights of Budapest to for a few months. We don't have a clue who they are, but will learn as soon as the mission president gets officially notified. We are so grateful for two things in regard to this. 1. That all the very hard work that the Woods have done to build up the program will not be for naught. 2. We don't have to try to assist the program to continue, and do the job we now have all at the same time.

This was on "center stage" at the square today. The man in the center is playing the recorder. It was good.

On Wednesday we had quite a day. Elder Gudgell had to do a training on driving with the Zone Leaders. Then we were asked to do a short (20 minute) training to the same group on caring for the apartments. We quickly talked about a number of things, but the big focus was to ask them to teach the missionaries of their zone how to defrost their freezers. It has been a HUGE problem, because they always leave it for someone else to do in the next transfer rather than taking care of it when they see the ice building up. So I got up early and defrosted our freezer, just to be sure I could remember each step. Then we put together a step-by-step paper on how to defrost, being very clear about not making it worse by leaving water on the floor, etc. We also put several other papers with it, including a week by week check list for what to clean and how. I hope it works and that we start seeing cleaner, less cluttered apartments. We tried to do it kindly. We really do love these missionaries.

Wed night we were asked to teach the marriage class for the Institute program. We had two women and nine young men. Interesting, only the women took notes. When it was over I asked the men what they were doing about working toward marriage. Most of them either laughed or hung their head, except Csaba ( pretty new member) who said, "I have it under control". I didn't dare ask him what that meant. I know that he doesn't date. He is so very happy to be a member of the Church and is already stalwart.

We had a mission fast this week. Each district participates in setting the goals that they want to meet for the coming year. I will be interested to see what the results are. We are invited to fast, but have no input into the numbers they come up with. We are just support....

Today we got up and did a little wash and got ready to go grocery shopping. It was the BIG monthly shopping that we do. We can always tell when we need to do a big shopping, as the cupboards start to get a little bare, just like home. After we finished shopping and got the food put away, we walked over to the Deli train station, and met the Woods and jumped on the train to Deak Ter. We walked over to a big square where there are tons of booths put up, just like the fair and we wandered around looking at all the stuff for sale. There were booths for everything. Most of the stuff that we really liked, we would say, nope can't buy that we could never get it home. We did buy Brent a birthday present. He needed a a warm hat and has finally figured out that it will be ok to wear one that has ear flaps when it get really cold.

We stopped to have lunch from one of the food places. Oh, my goodness! We know that we ate lots of colesterol. We all had something sort of different, one had chicken and chips, one had good sausage with chips, one had yukky sausage with chips, and one had a pork steak, which was shared with the person who had yukky sausage. It was very festive.

Father Christmas was walking around and there were lots of other fake santas too.

There were wine tasting booths. I am sure it gets very jolly as the day and evening moves along.

If you look at the sign in the top picture, I have no idea what it says, but to me the spelling looks just like how the the people in Hungary say Moroni. It was intersting to only me that it was right by one of the wine tasting barrels that were all over the place.

We got home before the really big crowds arrived. We ran into them back at the Metro station going the opposite direction. We had a great time and finally were able to realize that Christmas is really coming, soon.

We are staying home for the weekend and will attend church here tomorrow. That will be nice. We do miss seeing the people that we know in both Buda Ward, and the English Branch when we go so many weeks without seeing them.

We just continue to work hard and enjoy what we are doing, most of the time. We also are enjoying the chocolate here. Oh deal, what a problem for us. We just can't get enough.

This is an incredible experience that we are having , even though we miss you all very much. However, we would wish something like it for each of you.

One more week and one more month has slipped by.....where does the time go?