Memorial Day Report

This last week was really interesting. We told you about the fact that we would be going to Miskolc again on Tuesday. We drove up again. We took Sisters Tanner and Ringling up with us and brought back Elders Dillman and Christensen. Elder Christensen is new and he is from Star Valley and was a student of Neal Hokansen's. It is so interesting how we can make connections to so many people who are here. We had a really good zone conference. Sister Gasser brought the makings for good big sandwiches that we made ourselves. I was again asked to bring dessert and this time it was Banana Cake. There was none left, so that was good. We can do that again.

Thursday when we had our English class we had four people there. They are consistent comers. Barbara, in the yellow, is the daughter of our old landlord. She is going to start meeting with the Sisters this coming week. The short lady is Ergi, that is like Liz, short for Elizabeth. She was a PE teacher and is really into exercising. She is also meeting with the sisters but rather inconsistently, as she travel a great deal. The couple next to me are Malinda and Daniel. They are not married, but are having a baby in July. The sisters will be setting it up to meet with them after this week's meeting. I am working on a pink baby afgan for their new one. Elder Wilson occasionally picks it up and works on it. He does ok with it. I haven't had to pick out and re-do much of his work.

Friday night was the most attended Outreach we have had and we were very excited that we had one particular inactive person there, as we have all been working to get him out. His Dad is our Elder's Quorum President and is doing such a good job with his calling, and so we are all trying to help him out with his sons. His wife won't have much to do with us. I am sorry about that, but we will keep trying. We also had several investigators there. We played all sorts of outdoor games and it was hard to get them to go home. We will try to take advantage of the huge yard of the church this summer and see if we can attract some others to join us. We had lots of people stop at the fence and watch. Next time I think that we will have several people assigned to go talk to them as they stop.

This picture shows you the back side of the church. It is small, but very nice. We use it really often. The missionaries are able to use it for teaching and other things. That is where I do my piano lessons. We are lucky, we have three pianos in the church.

I just got word today that I will be working with Germany (The Area Office ) with the Family History installation of a new computer, new internet connection, and the new Family History Program. The branch has someone called to do that project, but for the installation they need an English speaker, who knows a little about computers, and I got nominated and am so excited. We have a number of people who are extremely interested in doing their genealogy, so I will be happy to get that done and in working order, so that they can do it. I tried to talk Marv and Loni Gardner into coming over the take over the Outreach and Family History project, but I guess that didn't work. They would be perfect.

Sunday we went to Bekescsaba to speak. My talk was ok, Brent's was really good. We work hard on them, and after we go over them and try to improve them before we go to the next branch. Next month we will have a new subject, so we will get started gathering infor soon.

The drive was beautiful and we loved it. The baby storks have hatched all over, and we were able to see some of them in the nests. We didn't see any of them flying.

I don't know if we have told you about the ties. All the missionaries have bags of ties. They even left some for us in the old apartment. This one (above) was a particularly awful tie and one of our missionaries (Elder Sears) sent it to this guy (Elder Sweat) . He put it on and we took a picture. If you blow the picture up, you will see that it is possbly appropriate for Christmas time.

These two ladies (mother and daughter) are attendees of the Bekescsaba Branch. They have been meeting with the missionaries for over a year. They faithfully come to church each week and stay for the whole thing, and contribute during the class time. They just can't make the committment to be baptized. The Lowe's who were assigned there and just went home, did everything they could to get them baptized, but it just hasn't happened. We were able to sit in on a program with them right after church with the Elders. We bore strong testimony and hope we may have made a difference. I suggested that to them that we would come to their baptism, if they invite us.

So goes the work......Tomorrow starts a new round. We will have interviews with the president out here. We also will try to start sorting and packing stuff we are not using just now, so that when we go to Budapest we will have things ready. We have to dismantle the apartment and pack up stuff that belongs to the mission (stuff that missionaries have purchased) and be sure we leave what belongs to the landlord.

W

THE HEAT IS COMING, WE CAN FEEL IT.

So, we stopped to review our map along our route and spotted this. Isn't that just like the Burton lumber sign in Utah? Maybe not. Just thought it was interesting.

This has been a good week, and some times it is hard to remember what we did.

We had our district meeting as usual. It is always good and good for us.

We had all the missionaries in our district over on P day for dinner and to watch one session of General Conference. We have been asked to watch every week with them until we have seen them all. This is our district for the next three weeks. At that time we know that at least one of them will be transferred. Great group of young missionaries.

We have accomplished the usual, piano lessons, shopping. It is interesting to note that every morning we watch the people here take their baskets and go to do the daily shopping. We don't go quite that often, but more often than we did at home. Things don't seem to keep as long, like milk.

The car went in again to be fixed. It isn't fixed, but does work. We will have to call them this week to see if they got the parts in to get it fixed. At least we can find our way to the dealership and back. It only takes one bus and one villa mos to get there.

The picture of the water is the River Tiz. We crossed it several times on our journeys.

We had a good outreach. Thanks to the Ballentynes, who just left to go home to Alaska, we have a waffle iron, and so we had Waffle night for Outreach. We are still getting a pretty good number out, but we need to increase it. We give the missionaries some invitations to give to YA's they teach and invite them to come.

Saturday we drove to Miskloc to do training and decided to take the long route and enjoy the scerery. I have started to take pictures of some of the churches that we see along the way. They are fascinating to see. I have a few of them with here.

We drove past the Tokaj vineyards. They are so well kept and really beautiful to see. We read that this is in only place in the world that makes the Tokaj wine. It is reputed to be a very good wine. I don't think we are experts on that one.

We also passed by trees that have mistletoe growing on them. the Big round balls are the mistletoe.

We also found some pretty good sized mountains in the distanced. I think this may be over the border into Slovakia.

We had good training in Miskolc. The branch president is a very kindly man with laughing eyes, who likes things done as they should be done. Brent trained with him and the YW president and should have had YM there. Nan trained with the Relief Society president. Our topic for Sacrament Meeting talks was Modern Revelation. It was a really good meeting. The sisters had an investigator who was really stuck by what was being said. I could see it as I was speaking, particularly when talking about the First Vision. It was one of those tingly moments when you could truly feel the spirit in the room so vividly. So good.

We also had to do inspections of the missionaries apartments. The elder's don't do nearly as good a job as the sisters do in keeping a really clean apartment.

We left Miskolc to return to Debrecen at 9:30 p.m. and were up the next morning bright and early to return. We had been asked not to spend the night there. It certainly would have been much more pleasant to stay there. The Branch President's wife told us after the meeting that if we come again, we can stay with them in their home. I understand that it is very big and nice and they have a daughter who is fluent in English. I am not sure tht we will ever get to go there again, from this direction.

We came back through some beautiful area again avoiding the M3. The missionaries came over right after we got home and brought dinner and watched another session of conference. It is delightful to spend time with them. We really liked that they cooked for us.

We mused last night about how we just come to love one group of missionaries, and then we meet the next group and fall in love with them. They are so wonderful and dedicated. The members we meet are also that way.

We spoke last time about the train we went on to last weeks adventure. We didn't have a picture, because I forgot the camera. This is the train. Doesn't it remind you of the old Saltair inside train? It even has wooden slatted seats. My, my how comfortable.

The weather is getting really warm and humid. We have some rain just about every day, and yesterday it got up to 90 degrees F. Then we had thunder storms all night long. We have heard tell of the hot summer, and I think we are ready to experience it. Oh, where are my sandals?

We are off to a good, but busy week. Thank you all of you who tell us you are reading this feeble effort to let you know what we are doing. Please know that we are loving it. We miss you all, but would not trade this adventure for anything. Again, if any of you want to come and help out here, I know who to talk to.

The Other Mother's Day - American

To your far right is an enthusiastic Elder Gudgell ready for church. Someone asked for pictures of us. We were practicing for the lovely picture on the front of the Blog.

This week was Mother's Day in America, so we got to have two of them this year. It is interesting that both were about the same, except that we got to make phone calls home, which made this one better. I think we are getting converts to SKYPE. Rob and Dave talked to us on SKYPE and Anne now has it on her computer. I hope the other two are not far behind. We only have a microphone and not a camera, so we don't have to worry about what we look like.

The pictures on the right are pictures of the cute house to the south of our house. On the bottom one if you look carefully you can see the man who say Hallo to us each time we go out of the house and probably his mother. He sits out there with her. His wife is much younger. Really cute people.

We have had a good week of some interesting things. Saturday we went with the branch on an outing, and I forgot my camera. It was interesting and a challenge to find people who could help us know what is going on. At least they know that we want to be with them, and hope that they will learn to trust us to help them with some things. It was kind of like going to the canyon, except it mainly flat land and we went on the old Saltair train. We went up on a green one and back on a blue one.

We stopped one evening to walk though a local bazaar where there were Gypsies selling stuff. We didn't buy, but I snapped a few pictures that were kind of fun. One of them shows the gypies in "costume". What a lot of junk they were selling. Everything from pots and pans to carpets and underwear. Normally you can tell the gypsies and they are not in costume, so I suspect they wore especially for this occasion.

This weekend (Sunday and Monday [today] is a holiday and everything is closed today. It is the Reformation Holiday. We took a short drive this morning to find some bananas and apples and heard church bells ringing and people all dressed up for church. Debrecen is the "Calvinist Rome" of the world. They just don't understand what an important part they played in the Restoration.

We had a really great Outreach program on Friday. It was ping pong and we had the best turnout yet. We had some members that had never been there before, and we had two investigators who have been there before. We think they are progressing well. The president sent us a copy of the letter that he sent to the area to get us set up as an official Outreach wanna-be program. We aren't big enough to warrent being a total Outreach at this time. We will work towards that, but reality is that it will probably take a while longer than our time here in Debrecen.

Rumor has it that we may be going into the Office in Budapest in August, unless we receive another couple to the mission. Nothing is offical from the President, but we know he has been thinking about it and did have us have a cursory training the first week we were here. We will see what happens.

We have also had some trouble with the car and the dealership jerry-rigged it so that we can still drive it until tomorrow, at which time they will take the shift apart and see what parts they need to get to fix it. Then they will put it back together in the Jerry-rigged mode and bring it back to us to use, until they get the parts. Then we will have to take it back to them. The car is not even a year old and we have learned that it has had this happen before. Our little "Sweet Pea" is not so sweet this week.

We loved talking with our family this weekend. It was just like being home talking to them. We have such a good supportive family and no one will ever know how much they do for us.

On to the cooking for the week now.....

Love,

Us

Hungarian Mother's Day

These will be somehighlights of our week. We attended a birthday party for Kati, the girl in the red shirt. She has some mental disabilities and it seems that it is a tradition for her mother to invite the missionaries to their home for Kati's birthday. They had tons of pictures of past parties. That is Lotsi sitting next to her. She sang and sang as many church hymns, very loud, until we stopped her. I am sure life is hard for her mother. They faithfully attend church every week and sing in the choir. The mother has been a member for many years. I don't think that Kati has been baptized because of her disabilities. She walks up to everyone and shakes their hand and says "Syia " which is hello/goodbye. Her mother fed us lots of suti (sweets). I got to cut the cake. I cut really small pieces.

Drove out to a town called Dereske to visit a family. We had no phone number so just hoped to find them. The mother and the children were at the Mother-in-law's home across the street and saw us come. We had a delightful visit. The mom is a returned missionary. She served in Romania. After she came home she married and the husband is also a member. They live about 30 minutes driving time from Debrecen. They don't have a car, so it is very difficult and expensive to come to church, as they have to bring the whole family on the bus. We met the mother in law and the brother in law. They were very nice. The three year old boy and Elder Gudgell hit it off. They played ball. The brother in law showed us all the animals. This is a rural community.

These pictures are of the goat kids, and a black lamb with horns. The 3 year old reminds us of

Porter. He looks up at you with big brown eyes. It was a good visit.

Before leaving home I felt that we needed to take something. I noticed that the Guiaques always took something to the families they visited, which usually was food. I didn't want to take food to her, so I looked for a magazine and nothing seemed right. I checked the cabinet where we have books and other church material and found a Hungarian copy of the Joseph Smith Manual. I hoped she didn't have it. I was right and she seemed thrilled with it. She speaks a little English so we could talk a little bit. I think that she misses church, but for whatever reason they don't come. She indicated to the sister that we could call her and she would talk about it. She is darling and we immediately liked her. We will go again, perhaps next week.

They have a great little farm there and have lots packed into a small area. They also have pigeons, baby rabbits, chickens and baby chicks, a couple of dogs. Fruit trees, and a garden planted. Good visit


We also visited with the Sabo Family and had Family Home Evening with them. They also had not been coming to church often and it seems had some issues. Sr. Tanner told them it didn't matter what others thought or said, but that they were in chargeof them selves and had to do what they knew was right. They came to church today and everyone was so happy to see them. He was gladhanding everyone there. You will notice that the children had a puzzle, so Mr. Puzzle Guy had to help them out. The older of the two girls in the picture bore her testimony today. They are solid with the doctrines of the church. I think they have been members for some time. They have an economic hardship also in getting their family of six to church each week.

We had a great Outreach this week. It was our spiritual night and we had a message on the Book of Mormon and for our activity we painted pictures of our favorite story from the Book of Mormon. Just like primary. We had one investigator there, who was a really good artist. We also had one more person from the branch attend, who had not come before. I think that the plan here is to build one at a time and I see it coming.

This last picture is of our district last Tuesday. Tuesday Elder Barrio and Elder Gaufain were transferred away. Elder Barrio went home to Seattle and Gaufain went to Pecs across the country. In the picture you see (left to right) Front row: Sister Tanner, Elder Barrio. Second Row: Elder Dillman, Elder Wilson, Sister Ringling, Elder Gudgell, Sister Gudgell, and Elder Gaufain.

We now have the makeup of a new district, with a new leader. We will see how it all changes.

We continue to work with the branch leaders to try to get things done to make the branch grow. We will be helping with a branch party next week that should be a really great time.

We are still having lots of rain, but the temperature is around 70 most days, so it is very nice, except that I lost my umberella. I am still looking for it. I am sure it will turn up. Yes, I did check the flour drawer, whoops, we don't have a drawer, but we do have a flour bag.