New Week, New Year....

It is really 2009, amazing! In October 2007 2009 looked a long way off. It has moved pretty fast, now that we are on this end of it.

After the opera on Monday, most of the rest of the week was pretty mundane. A few bright spots and lots of down time.

We did have to work on Monday, Tuesday and until 2:00 on Wednesday. At that time we thought that we could make a run for the store, as we needed to take something to the Duplesea's for the New years Eve party. The first big store, Metro, was closed. Then we missed the turn off of Cora, so we went to Tesco. We were looking for avacados to make avacado dip. Alas, we found none. We also couldn't find the big bags of chips that we were looking for either. We should have chosen something else to make for the New Year's eve party. Oh well, life just seems to happen.

We did have a great time going with the Gassers to the Branch New Year's eve party. Because of the fact that there were a number of little children, and some old folks who don't do Midnight, we had an early celebration of the new year. Just as we all got bundled up to leave, the doorbell rang and some people came. They couldn't believe that we were all leaving; of course, we couldn't believe that they were just coming. I don't know how long they stayed.

You will notice that I received a triangle to use as a noise maker for the fake New Years Celebration. I know they were sure that I could handle that without going off tune.

The Duplsea's are very nice people and open their home to the branch for many, many celebrations. That is a good thing. They go home in the summer. I don't know who will take that responsibility on when they are gone. The branch is very nice, but small.

New Years day we just stayed home. Everything was closed. All the transportation ran funny schedules and we didn't want to be caught somewhere with an hour and a half wait until the next train, so we stayed home. It actually was pleasant.

Friday was back to the grind and we tried to pull lots of loose ends back together.

Saturday morning we woke up at 2:00 to try to see the U play. Alas, it was not on. Brent read the play by plays on the computer for about the first half and then went back to bed. In the alive morning we decided to do some shopping and happily left to ride the Metro over to Pest, after checking to be sure the game was not in replay. We did our shopping, and stopped to get some goulash in a small restaurant. Please see the picture. It was certainly was nice to have a violinist, who was most accommodating of our taking his picture. I missed the picture of the goulash. Oh well, it was good.

When we arrived back home Brent turned the TV on and apparently the game was just over. It must have started right after we left. Win some loose some.

This morning we went to church on our new schedule. We go at 10:00 and are through by noon. The Buda branch doesn't begin until 2:00 so we chose not to go, as it is so late. We also weren't sure of when their sacrament meeting was, and didn't want to stay for two more hours waiting for it only to find out that it was from 4 to 5. So we have had another laid back day. Tomorrow will come soon enough.

I didn't tell you are most unpleasant news. We have small water heaters in our apartments. This one is located in the bathroom, just across from the sink. On Friday I turned the shower on and no hot water. We had been experiencing not lots of hot water at times, but had not had this happen. The pilot light was still on but the striker wouldn't strike and heat the water. Brent fooled around with it a little. I know, Bubba, that I am not suppossed to let him do that, but you weren't here.

We finally call Zolt, our landlord. He came by in the evening and tried to fix it and couldn't, so he is supposed to be bringing another one. I hope soon. I feel like the olden days when we had to have baths in the galvenized tub in the kitchen, after having the water heated on the stove. I will be looking forward to having a nice shower....I hope soon.

All in all, it has been an interesting week, with probably not as much missionary work done. We will have transfers this week, so we will have lots of missionaires around for several days. We also get a new sister and a new elder who will arrive on Tuesday.

I think that we will be back to normal pretty quickly. I think it will feel good.

We wish you all a happy new year, and a great week.