Is the Summer Really Over?

This is a picture of the Duna looking toward Ersbet Hid (Elizabeth Bridge) There is another bridge on the other side of it. We hope one day to take a sight seeing ride on the Duna. some day we will have time.

This is a view of part of the city from the castle hill. All around the hill you can get spectatular views of the city.

Well, I think that summer is just about over. At least the hot weather is about gone. We have been in the 70's for a few days. The breezes tend to make it really nice. We have been very busy working every day. This has been just a regular hard work week. I have learned to do a couple of more things and discovered some mistakes that I made. Hopefully, they are correctable. On Friday I spoke to Germany with some people who are good friends with our friends the Barlows. That was nice to catch up on our mutual friends. He is helping me to find who to talk to for a project that I have.

Tomorrow will start our really, really busy week. It is transfer week and we will have lots of missionaries all over the place for three days, as well as it is the first of the month, which means that I have lots of bills to pay, and rents to pay, each of those are full day committments for me.

With this we will have missionaries in financial crisis that will need to be taken care of, and should be exciting. It is always fun to see the missionaries, even with their crises. We also have to install a new program and with it we will have to remove everything from our computers, including my link with the bank. Poor Elder Hecht is sweating it big time. We will wait until after transfers to tackle that.

Yesterday on our P day we went to the Castle. Don't ask which one, I don't know, lbut it is just up the moutain side close by. We rode up on the bus and then just walked around. The view is outstanding. I have taken quite a few pictures, I hope that you can enjoy them. We found a small outside restaurant with a great view of the Duna and had lunch.

The pictures are fountain at the side of one of the buildings.

Another gate in a different part of the castle. And Brent with one of his cowboy buddies.These are some of the parts of the foundation of the castle. I thought for a minute the wooden thing was a gallos or torture rack. I have no idea what it is, but it looked interesting.

Last night we attended a baptism. It was for a lady that Elder Sardoni, Elder Tchlukalov, Elder Prescott and Elder Hecht. Three of them were in the font with her as she was petrified of the water. She is a very nice lady and to top it off, she speaks English. That makes it nice for us. I made suti for it....banana and zuccini bread.

This is a couple of the locals going across the courtyard.

We find that we do enjoy being in the office. We have lots and lots to do, but, there is something to say about semi-consistency. We are getting settled in our little apartment and actually had the Woods over for dinner today. That was a nice change for us. It is good to have grown up friends here, to just sit for a while and visit. We made a great drink, and I will be making more of it, as it is also good for us.

I think this was my best picture of the day. It is the Parliment building from castle hill. It is right across from where we watched the airplane races last week. Budapest is a very interesting city. We are happy to be here and love serving.

We really enjoy the members here, and wish we had time to get to know them more. We do have Family Home Evening here on Monday nights. We expect a few more this week than we had last night. We host the older singles in the Buda Branch. We have invited the missionaries to bring investigators if they would like. This will help us to know some of them better. I hope that your next week will be as exciting as ours will be.

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY…

This is the Parlament Building on the Duna. It is a very impressive building that is being remodeled or something.

I have to apologize that we have been so long getting around to getting this done, we have been super busy. Tonight (8/26/08) we are staying at work just a little later to get this done. Anne Discovered that I was on line and called on SKYPE. Of course we don't have our Skype stuff with us so we talked as long as the connection would hold. It was good to talk to her, even if it was just for a few minutes. I am not sure that we are going to get pictures. They just don't seem to be uploading.

August 17, 2008

This has been, indeed, a very busy week. Each day has come with new experiences, challenges, and learning. We are so very aware of all the new learning curves that we have to embrace and then do. It is scary to think about them all at once, but we can just tackle them one at a time. One thing I have learned is that some of the answers don’t come in the midst of learning and trying to make things happen, but they come after requesting help in our prayers and then often during the night I wake up with the answer in my head. I have finally learned to write those answers down, so that I can go back to sleep. One step at a time is my motto. I have figured out that I have not completed some things that should have been done. I am currently late in doing the branch reports and they are still puzzlement to me and Brent has tried to help me and with some things, we just can’t figure them out. I am sure that someone from England will be calling to see what we are doing and we can call them also to ask for help. It will all come.

We have had two zone conferences in the mission office this week, as well as two days of taking missionaries to registration. That means four out of five days in the office we have had LOTS of missionaries all wanting something, wanting to visit, not just with us, but with everyone around. It makes it rather distracting. It increases my work, as they all want to bring me their reimbursement forms to be processed. It is also the middle of the month and they are all running out of money. I shouldn’t say all, as many of them seem to have a way of being very conservative with their money and always have some. Others have an abundance of over-spending.

We have been able to attend several programs with the missionaries this week. Sometimes they apologize to us for taking us away from our work, but we assure them that this is the frosting on the cake. We love to be able to sit in on programs and are getting much better at understanding what is being said. Last evening we had the opportunity to sit in on one that was to help someone quit smoking. We will see how he does with it.

Sr. Tanner, one of our Debrecen BEARS will be returning home in a couple of weeks. She thinks that her Un-homecoming talk will be on the 14th of September. She lives in Centerville. I gave her Anne’s phone number, in case some of you might be able to go. We worked together all during the time we were in Debrecen, so you might enjoy hearing about that. Nothing will be in the Clipper, according to her. Her name is Michelle Tanner.

A very funny thing happened of Friday. One of our Elders called asking what he should do about his underwear. He had put a load of whites in the washing machine at night. He left them until morning, and found that they were all orange. Somehow a sweatshirt had found its way into his white batch. We were not nice. We laughed and laughed about it. We told him to try to bleach them. I talked to him on Sat. and he said that someone had given him some stuff to use to make them go back to white. It only had worked a little. I think he will be getting new underwear. Sunday, August 24, 2008 --Update on this subject: He came into the mission office on exchanges with the AP’s and pulled up his shirtsleeve and showed us, they are now only light orange, sort of like the inside of the pumpkin. His mother is sending him new ones.

Saturday we packed up all our boxes again and have them stacked ready to go. On Monday night and Tuesday night we will continue to pack up everything but what we need so that we can move on Wednesday. We will be happy to be moving into an apartment that is a little bigger and has some comfortable furniture in it. Wednesday is also a national holiday and we will try to get to see some of the festivities that are held on that day.

On Saturday we also got on the Metro all by ourselves and went to the Big Market that was closed the last time we were there. Oh my, so many things. We looked at the whole thing and decided where we will buy some things. We actually bought a birthday present for a nice young lady, but I’m not telling what it is so it will be a surprise. We are getting a lot more savvy about where to shop. There is a Wide Women shop just across from the Posta in the mall close by the office, and so I stopped in there to see what they have when we went to the Posta to Mail Trevor’s gift. I am here to tell you and they cater to people twice as big as I am. Made me feel good. The picture of me is by the sign of a restaurant that Brent couldn't let me pass by without a picture.

Sunday, I got to teach Sunday School. That should be good, you are thinking, teaching I Hungarian….well it is not in the Buda Ward, but in the International branch, so it was in English. I think I have agonized more about that then about all the speaking we do all over the country….go figure. It was ok. I am sure everyone was thinking that they were glad that I was teaching and not them. They get any and everyone to teach and speak, etc. It is a very small branch. Probably 20 in Sacrament meeting and not ten in the second hour, but some were in primary. I guess it was good enough (I think that means that we can speak the language) so we are now going to speak in church next week. We win!!

There was a girl that came in late to the meeting. She is studying for a graduate degree in Music at Oxford in England. She is in Hungary for about five days doing some research. She is an organist. After my lesson I asked that she play the closing song. Brent had already talked to her and had her play The Iron Rod. (Wow she is good). After we were taking about how well she did and that it was my gr. Grandfather that wrote the music. You know the usual. She said that it is a favorite of her family. She said they have a picture in the entrance of her home (parents) and her father got an iron rod and painted on it Hold tight to the rod. And hung it under the picture. Every time they went in and out of the house they saw that, as a reminder…… good idea.

For a change on Sunday evening we don’t have anything to do, so we can relax and enjoy the cool evening. It will be a busy week ahead, but we will enjoy it anyway.


August 24, 2008
This is the continuation of a very busy week, and the second was much the same. Brent finally was able to figure out the branch reports….they are in Hungarian….. and is almost through with them. I am so grateful for him because he understands what he is doing with that.

We were able to move on Wednesday. That was really a good thing and we are getting settled in for the long haul. We have one really big bedroom with a wall of wardrobe drawer, cupboards and closet area. It is very nice and we have a balcony that looks into the office building across the street. Likewise, they can look in here so we are pretty careful about the curtains being pulled at the right time. We have an extra what they call a half room that has a queen sized bed in it. It is available…just let us know when.

We arrived at the apartment at 9:00 a.m. and met with the Dukelows to talk about the last minute stuff. The President and his wife came to pick up the Dukelows and talk them to the airport and gave us the bad news that the Canaan’s are not coming. He had a mild heart attack and was in the hospital still. We are all in mourning wondering what will happen next. The Woods and the Gudgells are the only senior couples here now and we are both at the mission office, they are doing CES and we are in the office. Sr. Tanner one of our missionaries, has been holding it together for the last month. We are truly broken hearted about this. The President is in Germany this week attending the Area Mission President’s conference. Brent sent him a message, suggesting that some of the other missions around us have many more couples, and maybe we could borrow one or two, just so we can continue with the speaking, training, and the Outreach program. For two of us to hit all the branches attached to the mission very often is a real push. They love to have us come, and want to learn all we can teach them. Some places we truly are treated like celebrities. It may mean that we are only attending church in Budapest one Sunday a month. The Gassers go out almost every week, and I guessing that we will also need to do that. The Woods can only go when he doesn’t have High Council meetings to attend, or HC speaking assignment in the Stake.

After we got stuff put away, sort of, we met the Woods and went down to the Duna (Danube) and watched the air show and air races. They were cool to see. It was very hot so we just spent a couple of hours there and then came home. Actually I went to the office to get some things done, and ended up taking some of it home with me. It is amazing how much the pressure of the office is like all the years I worked. I am watching my blood pressure very carefully.

Friday morning I received the call I knew that I would get from England. I am sure that they will get me straightened out. I am still working on the “learn one thing at a time” theory….and correct each mistake as you figure out you have made a mistake. I am very good at that.

Saturday was another P day (2 in one week because Wednesday was a HUGE holiday here) and we went to Ikea to get Brent a new pillow, and we bought a couple of things, nothing big. Then we went to Tesco (like Super Wal-mart) and did a BIG shopping, so that we have plenty of food in the house and will not have to stop to shop somewhere every evening of our way home. That will be nice for us. We had stopped buying too much so we didn’t have to move it.

We have had a very good week, but it has been one with long days, and not so many programs. We do enjoy the programs.

We hope that we can get our computer hooked up very soon so that we can take care of all the things that we need to at home. We don’t have the code to put into the computer hook up system that the Dukelows used, and left with a two month contract to continue. We e-mailed them to ask and they can’t remember the code. We aren’t sure what we will do, except that we may have to cancel their contract early and have the bills sent to them for it as we don’t have the code to put into the computer hook up system that the Dukelows used, and left with a two month contract to continue. We e-mailed them to ask and they can’t remember the code. We aren’t sure what we will do, except that we may have to cancel their contract early and have the bills sent to them for it as there will be a huge charge. We are hopeful that our landlord can help us.

We got to speak in church today and it went well. The branch had lots more people there today than last week. We had a new girl from LA there who is going to school here and will be here for four years. We also heard that they will be getting another family. If we are nice to the people who work for the State Department, we may be able to have them get some stuff from the military PX, as we understand that they can do their shopping there. I am still holding out for molasses. I would also like to get some root beer, so that we can feed our zone, root beer floats for dessert on an upcoming zone conference.

Our friend, Ambrose, who was working on the stop smoking program, came to church today. That was a plus. I don’t think he did the stop smoking routine though.

We are still happy, the Church is still true, and we love being here; just wish that we had more friends coming to serve here too.

A Wonderful Weekend of Travel

The Pictures below are as follows: Elder Gudgell and the lion (I think you can tell the difference) at the chain bridge. A view coming out of the tunnel going to the Chain bridge. That was a couple of weeks ago. The third is a picture of the Chain Bridge. It is a walking bridge across the Danube. We went there a couple of weeks ago.

The picture below is the Opera House in Budapest. Our new landlord, in 1.5 weeks sings there and said he will get us tickets to his opera.

I am not sure that I can even remember this past week. It has been a blur. It was terrifying to discover that I had to figure things out for myself. I had to take ten deep breaths and say just try to conquer one mountain at a time. So I tried that most of the time. I was able to get lots done, but there is still more. I am also discovering that I have to figure out how to fix some past mistakes. That will also come. There are so many reports to be done, and I have to tackle them one at a time. This will be a new week for discovering something else new.

We did have the opportunity to attend a terrific program with the Assistants on Friday night. The man’s name is Otto. He was terrific. This is one of the rewards of working hard all week, we can attend these great programs and watch investigators grow in the gospel.

Our office elders are helping us a lot. They are also very busy, and when we have missionaries coming in the office, it really gets hopping. We are enjoying them.

Saturday morning we packed up and went to Tatabanya to deliver some supplies to the elders there. Then we drove to Pecs. We did apartment checks there with some of the elders. One set lives outside of Pecs and they had gone on the bus to another town, so they didn’t get checked. They will have to just give us a report to us on the condition of the apartment. At 6:00 we met at the branch house and did a training session on How to be a missionary family. We tried to have a discussion, but it was mostly us. We tried to give them ideas of how they can be finders for the missionaries and be sure that everyone they know has an opportunity to learn of the Church. Then we talked about how to prepare their children to serve missions. After we went for ice cream with one set of elders.

One of these pictures is of the view out our hotel window, the other is part of the town square in Pecs.
The third is a view of the Danube on the way to Pecs.

This morning we went back to church and spoke on the 13th Article of Faith. It went well. My talk was not so long as usual. Following Church we said our good byes and got on the road to Kaposvar so that we could do apartment inspections and also speak in church at 2:00. Wow are the apartments there nice. There is a set of sisters there and to be honest their very nice apartment didn’t hold a candle to one of the elder’s apartment. People in some areas are remodeling the apartments and putting in very nice kitchens and bathrooms, which makes all the difference between a yukky apartment and a good one.

We went to the branch house and remembered why we love the branch there. The people are so warm and wonderful. It was great!! We again spoke on the same topics. They Elder G. went to YM/YW and I went to SS. After we had a training and almost the whole branch stayed for it. They had request that we talk about family history. Loni Gardner will be so proud of us. We really were able to psych everyone on Family History. When we started talking about the miracles of Family History and the Spirt of Elijah, I got goose bumps. That's a good sign.

There was a couple from Northern Italy who were visiting there today. I was hoping that they knew Craig, but he didn’t join the church until 1999. They were very nice. She was Hungarian and he is Italian and they met in Austria. They live in Milan., where he is the branch president.

We had a long but beautiful drive for the two days. This is a really beautiful country.

The other day one of the office elders received a call from a man who said that he had a dream that he should contact the Mormon church. The story is really longer than that. So he told Elder Prescott that he had heard a lot of bad stuff about the church and he thought because of the dream he should learn the good stuff. Could he talk to someone today and meet with him tomorrow. Elder Prescott call the elders in Kaposvar, which is the closest town to where the man and his family live. This was Thursday, I think. By the time we got there on Saturday, the elders had met with him and his family and they were going to attend church today. They came. If we hadn’t had to leave we could have been at the program with them today. He said something to the elders about not drinking coffee and tea and he could live with that. He then asked about alcohol. They told him we didn’t drink that either. The man thought that might be a little harder, but he would work on it. The elders are pretty positive about this family. I hope it goes well.

We had a good, hard week, but it feels good to be working hard too. This coming week we will have a day to attend zone conference and will not be in the office so much.

We have only a week and a half until we get to move into our permanent apartment. It will feel good to unpack once again.

We are loving it here and it is so good to see so much good work being done by our diligent missionaries. It is amazing how mature they are when they are doing the work they have been called to do. P days we see the kid in them, but they are good. We are still looking for grown up, old missionaries here, if anyone is interested. This is such a great thing to be doing.

These are both pictures from Eger from two weeks ago when we were there. The "girls" are the Relief Society in Eger. The other is the Eger Castle. The Seige of Eger is the only battle that was "won" in the seige of the Turks in the 1500's. You can look it up if you want to.

The End of the First Week in the Office, training.....

Sorry that this didn't get posted last week. We simply haven't had a minute to do it. We didn't take pictures that week, so no pictures. We will get it up to date sometime this week (Aug 4-10), as we will be in the office all by our selves. We will get you up to date on it all. Nan

This is the end of our first week in the office. There is so much to learn. Sometimes I really think that Elder Gudgell and I should be changing our positions to some extent. I think that we may do a little re-arranging of some duties, as he has skills that I don’t and I have a few skills that he doesn’t have. We will see after we finish training and get into actually doing things on our own. We have one more week with the Dukelows and then they are off to sight seeing with one of their daughters and family and then to camping across Germany. They will maintain their apartment in Budapest until they return from Germany and then they will “rest” for a couple of days, and they on the 20th of August will fly home to Arizona. We will probably move in that day also. It will probably be a super P day, as it is a BIG Holiday here in Hungary. We may be able to line up some slave labor to help us move. Luckily we are not unpacking many things here in this apartment.

The week has gone like this. We get up early and study and get ready to leave our apartment, some days before 8:00. We don’t start until 9:00, but it gives us a chance to get on our computer and see what e-mails may have come. Sometimes we have a moment for a short answer. Then we get to work. We do take time for lunch. Oh, I didn’t tell you that we walk about a block to the bus stop. We could walk just a little farther and take the train, but they both are about the same and go to the same place, which is called Moskva Ter. It is the place where the trains and busses all seem to come from and go to. We hike up a huge flight of stairs and then walk about three blocks to the mission office. It is really good for us. We work until about 6:00 p.m.

I am in charge of all the finances. This will require some help from Brent, in that he understands accounting principles. I pay rents reimburse the missionaries, pay them their credit card money for the month. I also pay utilities, and I think that I track a lot of other things. We also will together do the audits on a semi annual basis.

Elder Gudgell will be the car czar, the apartment czar, the supply room czar, the missionary report czar, and in his spare time he will make runs to the airport and wherever else someone wants him to go, and also he will be managing a lot of other things. I do know that he is learning some new computer skills.

So that is the boring part. Yesterday we had to go to Gödölö, which is just east of Pest to help some elders close their apartment. We brought back all their stuff and dropped them off where they will be staying for a few weeks, and brought the “mission purchased” stuff back to the mission office and stored it until we need it in another apartment. After that we made our first real shopping trip in Budapest by driving to one of the super stores to do our shopping. We also looked for a pair of pants to replace the ones that got ruined in our move (refer to last week’s blog), but were unable to find any that we liked. The criterion is that they be dark and washable. We will look tomorrow at some of the stores that are having 70% off sales on men’s summer clothing.

When we got home we had about two hours to do stuff here. Did I say that Saturday is now our P day. We got some done. They we got ready and went to a baptism over in Pest. It was very nice. It was a young man who was streeted by the Elders. I think that we will try to always be supportive in attending baptisms. Sister Ringling and Sr. Dodge have one in two weeks and I hope that we will be able to attend that one. Sister Ringling worked with us in Debrecen.

This morning we set off early to travel to Eger to speak and train. We again spoke of scripture study. We took the whole time and then some. We are going to have to shorten our talks. Elder Gudgell was able to train the priesthood during Preisthood time. (They are on the two hour schedule). I was to train the Primary and was prepared, but there was only one girl there and so they didn’t have Primary. So we went to Relief Society. They were so nice. It is amazing to me how much they love to have the senior couples come and talk to them. They always treat us like we are celebrities. We are not. We do love to go and to visit with them. Today there was a cute little girl who I watched come in and she made me think of Meagan. I only got a little teary thinking about all our grandchildren that we miss lots. She had the mannerisms of Meagan and had her dark hair. She was very shy and had a hard time warming up, but liked the attention we gave her. That is not like Meagan.

As we drove home we drove north to the Slovakian border and when west along the border and then turned south to drive into Budapest. We thought that we were going to drive along the Duna (that is what they call the Danube river), but though we were parallel to the river, we only caught glimpses of it as we got close to Budapest. We made this whole trip with a little help from Lucy and got home without her help at all. That is Lucy GPS. She can really be annoying sometimes when she says “Re calculating” over and over again. As we get to know areas where we are going, we are able to know when she is right or when something spooked her.

We have had a very busy week and are really tired and we have others helping us to learn. I am a little nervous about what will happen when we have to do it by ourselves. One of our perks is that we now will have for six weeks, three elders in the office and one will be there to translate for us and assist us as we need his assistance. We are happy about that.

I think that we will call this a day and decide to get up early and get to the office to see what we can see and hear from everyone. We hope there is news from home.