May is gone, it is cool again.....

Just a reminder of how beautiful the countryside is in Hungary.

This has been a very interesting week. Every day has felt like Friday. We have made some interesting progress with some of our projects. Others have fallen behind. There was some miscommunication and one of our big projects will we delayed, though we now know it is on the way. Our other big apartment project is moving slowly also. We will get it done soon.

"Secretary #2", shown in the back of the picture learned that he will be sent back out to the field in two weeks. His name is Elder Portzline, from Indiana. He will be training a new secretary beginning now. They all seem to stay altogether too short, but they are always happy to get back out.

On Wednesday of this week we had the last concert in Pest at the Stake Center. We decided to go so that we could see the last hurrah. It was so good. This picture is of Sister Gasser, Ferre's wife from Tatabanya, Janet Seamons, and Rocille Lowe. Janet and Rocille are from the Gasser's ward. They came to ring the bells in the concert. The family from Tatabanya has come to three of the concerts. He, the dad is a member. The mom and daughter are not. I think we are seeing the mom realize that it all is ringing true. We are going to visit with them in a couple of weeks and they are going to take us to the place in the Danube where he was baptized. He says that it is a very sacred place for him. He will be one of the great leaders of the Church in Hungary one of these days.

We are now trying to work through getting ready for the big audit, which terrifies me, and get ready for whatever is next.

We did get officially notified of the two new couples. We have been corresponding with the one couple, the Garners from Provo, who will be replacing us. We are very excited to have them come. The other couple, I think I may have said, is assigned to be support for the branches and members and missionaries. That will be a blessing to all the branches in the country. I cannot suggest enough, to all who may be considering a missionary service, how very needed you are in emerging countries like this. They need examples of people who live the gospel to pattern their lives after. We can tell you that you do not have to know the language to communicate and love these wonderful people.

I am making banana bread to take to the baptism today. I do make lots of this because we continually are buying bananas and as it gets warmer they ripen too fast and I cannot bear to throw them out. It is a nice way to eat bananas.

The baptism was very nice. A young man by the name of Aron was baptized. He is in his 4th year of college studying economics. There was another young man there who I didn't recognize. Turns out when we saw him before he looked really scruffy witn long hair. He cleans up nice and come to find out he is already member. He is coming often now.

I attended a program with the sisters with a lady who has a baptism date on June 20. She is an opera singer. She has invited the sisters and me to her house on Tuesday. That will be nice. I think they thought she needed a friend who was older. They need to be sure that she meets people in the ward. It looks like her daughter may also be baptized. We love feeling like the have something to do with the baptisms and that makes us feel like we are really missionaries. However, we do know that the mission could not run without what we do, so we are not feeling sorry for ourselves. Maybe we just have the best of both worlds.

Our missionaries are working hard and we seem to be having more baptisms. We should be having a whole family baptized in the next few weeks. That will be wonderful.

We ended up going to VaPiano's with the Gassers last night. It is always nice to go there. We drove. Won't make that mistake again. We took the president's car, as we were taking a former mission president (from Hungary) back to his hotel.

Today we attended the International branch and had a gizillion visitors there from many places. We have three new people who will be here all summer. That will be a great boon for the branch. We had a lady from Florida, who lives near lake Balaton and teaches English there at a school. She joined the church here. I got a frantic call from Elder Hecht who said she was coming here to church today. She is a lovely woman. I saw to it that she got introduced to two other teachers in the branch. She told me she is coming back next week.

After that block time, we grabbed the White Knight (the mission van) and took two professors from BYU back to their hotel, so they could get packed and get to the airport. Then we went out to the stake center to meet President Peterson (the former president here) and take him to the airport. He happens to be the brother-in-law of Kent and Kaye Servoss. So I snapped a picture of him in the back seat of the van.

Then we went to the Buda Ward Sacrament meeting. It is so hard to sit through the whole thing...we only sometimes understand what is being said. We are now home until Tuesday. It is raining and cold, so we don't anticipate any sight seeing tomorrow.

We will be back working hard on Tuesday. I do have to say, it is nice to be able to put on a pair of slacks and relax.

Happy first week of May. It will be the day we used to make baskets out of type paper, cut the neighbors lilacs and put them in the baskets and take them to the neighbors who owned the flowers. Such nice children we were.

Another Day in May.....

Last Monday we travelled with the Assistants, Elders Hazy and Plowman to Tatabanya to the Restoration Concert. It was really nice. I have attached a couple of random pictures taken after the concert. We will attend again this Wednesday in Pest. That will be the final concert. Things may get back to normal.










On Tuesday we received a lovely little package from our friend Claudia Heaps. She had given me a recipe that she said the missionaries would love, but knew we couldn't get butterscotch chips here, so she sent them. We decided to have a Cookie and milk Fesitival the following day. We had the Cookie Celebration, but the ones assigned to bring the milk forgot to bring it.

It was still a BIG hit with everyone. Thanks Claudia; it made for a fun Wednesday. The zone leaders were there also and some of them got to participate in the festivities.








On Thursday several of the Elders came and brought me some roses. They are beautiful and fragrant. That was sweet of them. An investigator gave them to the missionaries when they had a program with her. Lucky me.



Saturday was a relax day. We again took the villamos Gellert Hotel and walked across the bridge. I wanted my picture this time. I also wanted to get a picture of the "gingerbread" that they put on the top. I think it is new. I will have to check. We made a trip to the Grand Market to get some things for the Allen's. Then we rested and washed and ironed and rested. It was nice.




Sunday morning we started out early and drove to Miskolc. We checked apartments before and after church. We found two that were spotless, so they will go up on the wall. We got a little caught up with the views from the first apartment, so you got those instead of the cleanliness of the apartment.

We spoke in church and stayed for Sunday School and Priesthood/Relief Society. This is a great branch. The branch president is wonderful. He and his wife invited us to dinner after. It was wonderful and of course we had to eat and run because we had to travel to Eger to also speak. It was a nice day.





We came home tuckered out, but were pleased with how things went with the Branches. We will soon be starting our final hoorah of visiting all the branches one last time to eitherspeak/and/or do audits one last time. It is beginning to feel unreal. We have got to get up the engergy to start packing. Maybe next Monday when it is a holiday here and so we don't have to be in the office, but may go over for a while because we have so much going on. It might be nice to be there without anyone else being there.

Sosrry about how poorly spaced this one is, I have a hard time with the pictures not showing on the edit page. I am just grateful that they come up for the real blog. Anyone have suggestions on how to fix it so the pictures will show on the edit page?


We hope your week is good, as we will also wish for us.

The Transfer Week....again

We visited Szeged and Bekescsaba today and spoke in each branch. Interesting, we both spoke about our fathers, not knowing the other one was going to be speaking about them. It is so good to visit the branches. We wish that we didn't have to rush quite so fast. Szeged is a pretty strong branch with lots of priesthood holders, so the missionaries just have to do missionary work.

Bekescsaba is a new branch, officially for two days. It is run totally by the missionaries. The members are working hard to become good members. They are trying to overcome slips in their lives. We keep trying to encourage them to do so. Today in Relief Society we had 14 women, and Elder Hansen. One of the members gave the lesson. Last time I attended RS we only had about 6 or 7. It is so great to see changes coming to these branches...to see the members realize how important their membership is, how they can repent, and how they can serve. We are really blessed to be a part of this process. this is it for this week. Time for sleeping now.


This is the Tiza River, which we crossed several times on this trip. Sorry about the fence. I couldn't climb up on the car fast enough to get it while we were crossing the bridge.

This is what we saw all along the road yesterday and today. We also saw full fields of poppies that were beautiful.

I think this is the p.s. to the blog of yesterday. This is the mother of one of the Elder's in our mission. She lives in the Szeged branch and we finally met her today. I want to send the picture to him tomorrow.

Every Six weeks we have transfers and they come rather quickly. We said farewell to several of the missionaries we have been working closely with. That is always sad. But changes are good for missionaries. It also means that we get new missionaries. Elder Leinenback one of our assistants left to spend his very last transfer in Kaposvar. One of our missionaries from Debrecen, Elder Plowman from American Fork area, was made the new AP. Our favorite Finnish Elder Leitenin, our district leader, was made a zone leader and sent not too far away. Our new district leader is Elder Hecht, who was in the office for a while. There were several more from our district transferred. The good news of that is that we travel enough that we get to see them often. That is one of the blessings of being a senior missionary in this mission.


I think this picture is of the Sisters who were transferred this week. One of them, Sister Anderson, told us of a web site of her family. They are in Linden and at Halloween they have a train that is decorated for Halloween. I think that we will go there this Halloween....anyone want to come.

Then at Christmas, they have a Chistmass express. That is a little harder to get on, so she has promised to have them save our whole family r two slots, for us all to get to go. This is their family treat. No charge for either of them. I hope you will all put that on your planner too.


This is Sister Ringling who went home on Thursday morning to St. Louis. We will see her when she comes out to BYU. We like her anyway.

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On the left are the two office elders, and right are the two old AP's.

These are all the pictures we have until after we travel today. We will be heading to Szeged and Bekescsaba. I will get more on the trip.

The Concerts also started this week, so we had to make arrangements for eldlers and sisters to live in Budapest. They have had two so far. They are called the Restoration Concerts.

Roceille Lowe and Janet Seamons from Bountiful, came to help play the bells. Elder Allen and Sister Allen were going to do this, but they are now otherwise occupied. Last we heard they are still testing and checking. We pray that all goes well for them.

The concert was beautiful and we are happy to be able to see it again this week, when we will take some pictures.

The best news of the week, came suprisingly at about 5:00 p.m. yesterday. Normally when new missionaries are coming, we receive notice on Wednesdays in the form of informtion that we need to get them set up in MOS (missionary operating system). That is the official way.

This time it was unofficial, but greatly appreciated!!! We received travel papers for two couples coming in August. The first will come on August 10. The ones to replace us will arrive three hours after we have flown out on the 25th. Perhaps the Pres. can suggest that they come at least one week earlier. We don't know anything about them other than their flight schedules. What we do know is that we appreciate all the mountains that were moved to make this happen.

The other wonderful thing, is that we have been able to talk with the Barlows on the phone several times this week....all business. We have a lot of work to do with setting up the LURBS system in our branches, and they are in charge of it from the area, so it is nice to be able to chat with them. We know that they are movers and they have gotten down to business quickly.

I will continue this blog, afer we return from the grand speaking tour of this week,so check back on Monday.

Oops! I am learning that because I can't see the pictures, just gobbeldegook computer speak, I have no control over the way the pictures come out, so again you will have to guess which is which. I don't think it will be too hard.

Next time I will just upload the pictures one at a time. I have no idea why they don't come out the way they used to...oh well. We just deal with how the cards fall sometimes.

The Good and the Bad

This week has been a real up and down week. It started out good, but quickly slid down hill and finished on a good note again.

The work every week is busy. We meet on Monday with the President to prepare for the upcoming events. Tuesday we have our District meeting, which is always good. Our young elders run a good show. They are dedicated and really move everyone along well.

We went to a Cinco de Mayo party at the Embassy Compound. Oh, it was so cold, but the food was delicious. I made Mexican Wedding cookies and they were good, but not as good as the enchiladas. I forgot how much I like mexcian food, American style.

Wenesday was when it started to go down hill. Elder and Sister Allen, our new CES Couple came to tell us of a medical emergency and they had to pack their bags and head home. They have been so incedible. Two months ago they hit the ground running and quickly got into the swing of things. They endeared themselves to the young adults of Hungary, as well as the missionaries. They got involved with the Restoration Concert, which is beginning this week. He is a wonderful musician, and she can carry her own too. The show will go on without them, but it will be wonderful because of their work with it. We miss them terribly, and continue to pray for restored health. They are wonderful, dedicated people who have the ability to love everyone. That love is returned.

Thursday they flew out. It was a very sober day around the mission.

This week was also "clean up week". Each street has designated places to put junk out on. Wednesday night people began to claim their spots. This is not just anybody,who can claim a spot. It is the Gypsies. They stayed all night for several days so that no one would take their finds. They can find the good stuff. I think we saw them selling it to people. Finally on Saturday the trucks came and picked up what was left, then the sweepers came with their thach brooms and cleaned up. It was amazing.

Friday picked up a little in the morning. By afternoon we were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Dave Madsens and the Steve Barlows from Germany. It was so wonderful to see them. The Madsens were here earlier this year and we enjoyed them at that time. This time they brought their replacements, our very dear friends the Barlows from Spring Creek Drive. It was so wonderful to see them and catch up so many things.

Visiting was just a side benefit for us, they were here to train our branch presidents in the new to us, finanical programs being instituted in Europe.

The training was successful. We had all but one of the branch presidents come for the training. The one that was not able to come was trained Sunday. The Madsens and the Barlows stopped off in Sopron for church and after church were able to train the branch president then. This is a really good beginning for getting this program up and running fairly quickly.

We have a lot more work collectively to do to get it going, but I have full confidence that it will be done.

Now, while our friends were here, we were able to do a few things with them. Of course, first on the list is seeing the castle area, especially at night so you can see the Duna from the hight of the castle. We had a good Hungarian dinner at our little restaurant at the castle. We took lots of pictures and enjoyed a beautiful night. We decided to walk down. I think it was after 11:00 p.m. by the time we got home.

Satureday we got ready for the training and lunch. It turned out well. When that was over we did the Budapest Bus ride so that they could get a good idea of what is in Budapest. After we walked down Fashion Street and had to stop for dinner at Vapiano. Oh, darn. They all loved it. Liz are you suprised? Then we went for the cruise at dusk. It was so nice and warm that we sat outside on the boat. What fun.

It was hard to say good by but we had to get some sleep before we got up on Sunday at 5:30l to head toward Pecs. Spring is so beautiful here. We really enjoyed the ride. We went to Kaposvar and spoke there also. I taught Relief Society also. Fortunately, Sister Sabakai was there and translated for me. She is wonderful. I am sure that Heavely Father really prepared them for the gospel. They are an incredible strength for the people of Hungary who are members of the Church.

All I can say is what a week. We are hoping that this week might be a little less exciting for us. We hope yours is as exciting as you can stand.

just a note about the pictures. For some reason they come out fine on the blog, but on this part where I am creating and posting the pictures come out in computer jargon and I cannot move them around, so I hope that you can figure out which pictures go with the narrative. So sorry.

May Day is over officially.....

We were out streeting and no one wanted to talk to us.

This past week breezed by quickly. Friday, Meagan's 8th Birthday, is an official holiday in Hungary. It is Labor Day. Liz can attest to that. They celebrate Friday and Saturday and probably Sunday too.

The actual week was pretty ordinary....the regular stuff. Friday was different. We had been asked by the President to watch conference as a district, so we did. We went to the church and watched several sessions and then retired to our apartment and ate Spaghetti and watched conference. It was a great time. I thought that our cute missionaries would never leave. They do like to hang around a lot.

Saturday morning we headed out to Szekesferhervar to attend a baptism. We did this not just to support the missionaries, but so that we could attend a baptism on Meagan's baptism day.

There were two young men baptized. ( We had five in the whole mission) They both spoke English, so we could communicate with them.

Let me tell you about their story. One of them referred himself some time ago to the missionaries by asking for a Book of Mormon. They contacted him and kept setting up appointments that were never kept, for some reason or another.

The other young man was streeted. Elder McRae talked to him on the street one day and he set up an appointment with them. When he came he had the first young man with him. They were friends. How incredible. They already have a friend in the church and can grow in the gospel together.

Both of their mother's there at the baptism. They seemed to be very supportive of them. They are talking about serving missions. It was really wonderful to be there with them.

I think this goes to show that if someone is really prepared by the Lord to be a member of His Church, one way or another they will have the opportunity presented to choose to be baptized.

We met a a kiddy swimming pool for the baptism. We held the whole service there. It was very interesting, but it was good.

After we went to have pizza with everyone. Then we came back home.

Sunday we went to church at the English Branch and also the Hungarian (Buda) Ward. It was mother's day in Hungary, so I came home with a cute little African Violet and a long stemed yellow rose.

Today it was back to work. I had to pay the rents on all our apartments today. It took most of the day.

We are also making preparations for the new president. President Gasser is going over all the stuff he has or needs, so that is keeping us busy too.

I didn't tell you that our houseguest went home on Thursday. She arrived safely and had a good trip home. As she left she gave us an envelope full of money to use for missionaries who may need some extra help. That was very kind of her. Her new teeth looked good too.

We were glad that our children could all be together for Meagan's baptism. We will be able to be at the next one, but I don't think it is for a while.

Margaret Bagley send us pictures of our EMC group at their dinner at the Hansens last Friday. We were glad to see everyone looking so great. I know Karen B. is struggling with health issues, but she looked beautiful. We are so happy to get picutres.

We continue to be very happy here, even when the going gets tough. We are not the least bit sorry that we came.

The mission is preparing for a series of concerts this month. The Allen's are taking charge of it, along with the Gassers. It promises to be really good. They will travel the mission to perform. We will support them wherever we can. We heard two of the sisters singing today, and it was beautiful.

This weekend we will see our friends the Barlows, along with our new friends the Madsens for part of Friday and Saturday. It should be good. They will be doing a training on the computer reporting system for the branches. That will make life easier for us, once they are all trained and doing it correctly. Probably for those who will be following us. We hope someone is coming.

We hope your week is good, as ours will be.