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.