The Countdown is getting real......

This is the season of Sun Flowers. I have tried to take lots of pictures so everyone can see how vast the fields are. When I take them the picture is just a huge field of yellow, but very pretty when we look across at them.

The seasons here are beautiful. It doesn't seem to get dry like it does at home. There is so much green everywhere. I am trying to be sure I don't ever forget how beautiful this country is.

We have been working doing lots of stuff that none of you are interested in learning about. Almost every day this past week we had lots of missionaries in the office. We love the missionaries, but sometimes we need them to tend to business. When the week was done on Friday (is it ever done?) we had a few hours to sleep and then fairly early in the morning we set out for missionary apartments between Budapest and the Southern Border of Hungary. We went up and down stairs, took pictures of all the missionaries, and discussed the good and bad of their apartments. We are making lots of progress with some of them, and absolutely none with others.

This picture shows a very inventive way to use bag ties. There are too many of them around for my liking, so with these....go for it!!

This went up the street in front of the Elder's apartment in Hod. There are some things that have not changed in this country.

We were caught behind a line of traffice, because of one of these wagons.

We met (that means Brent) with the branch president in Szeged to go over LURBS and then we went to dinner with a couple of elders. We couldn't get into the restaurant we wanted, so settled for another one. After that, we met Toth Zoltan (Zollie) the former branch president there, and now works with the mission presidency checking all the records to see that they are correct. He is a wonderful single 31 year old. I certainly want to find him a wife. He just won't let me. We went with him to get ice cream in the center of town on the walking street. We had a delightful time with him.

Sunday we spoke in Szeged for the last time. What a realization. They are a wonderful branch, full of families and Priesthood holders. They had three people (a family) baptized on Thursday and they were confirmed on Sunday.

Maybe I didn't tell you all that as a going away present for President and Sister Gasser the missionaries set a goal of streeting 5,000 families. They went over the goal. The parallel I see is that families are turning up all over the place.

We travelled to Bekescsaba to again speak and do apartment checks. I drove over to the sisters apartment to check it while Brent went over budget stuff with the Branch President. Again, this was the last time for Bekescsaba and it was a little difficult for them and us to have to say good bye.

The treat of the day was that there is family who are already members of the Church who live in the area, and they came to church. We had no idea who they were, as they came in just as church was beginning. When we spoke we both noticed that the father was nodding his head in agreement with everything we said. After he told me that he is working with the missionaries to help them find more people to teach. They joined the church in California a number of years ago. What a neat family. Told you that families are turning up all over the place.

By the time we got home we dropped into bed. Boy were we tired. We did 11 apartments, none of them next door to each other. It will be nice to have the new people here and let them help with the apartment checks. Of course, we won't be here to be helped.

We missed one, because we got some wires crossed. Wouldn't you know, they had baked a pie for us. Maybe they are going to bring it to us tomorrow, if they didn't already eat it.

We certainly do love our new mission president and wife. They are wonderful. He has a different style the President Gasser, but the President Baughman style is ok for us. Things are happening and will continue to do so.

This is Sister Baughman.

We have another missionary who will be leaving because of a health issue. We are so sorry for this to have happened, but sometimes there is nothing that can be done.

We are being happy and enjoy what we are doing. We pray every morning for health and strength to keep going. I feel that tired. Gotta double up on the vitamins.

I am going to string some pictures out for you and then hit the sack. I hope your week is good, ours will be.

Chatting about the week as it occurs, and occured it did...

The Center of town in Eger. Caught the back of a couple of older gentlemen....could they be missionaries?

This week a number of things have happened. Our Mission President and his wife, Walt and Katie Gasser, have all but their suitcases out the door.

We will meet the new mission president tomorrow. There is a great deal that goes into getting ready for the transition of the new president. And it will keep going on and on until we leave. I think we are in a big transition time for us.

We had to say good bye to one of our missionaries. We wish Elder Lofgren well as he gets some health issues taken care of . We will miss him and his hard work, his kindness, and his beautiful singing voice.

The most significant thing that has happened this past week is that our long time, dear friend Karen Barnes passed away, (why do we say that instead of died?) on Tuesday morning. We are eight hours ahead of Mountain Time, and so we didn't hear of it until Wednesday. That was a tearful day. She has been ill for about a year, slowly her cancer spread. I am glad that she is not in pain any longer. I wished for and prayed for a miracle. That miracle didn't happen as I asked for it. I am sure miracles will occur as her children and grandchildren reflect on how she lived her life. She told me that she didn't waste her time reading fiction. She always wanted to read good things, preferably church things. She was always a doer. She crammed a lot into her life. It is hard to see her go and from this distance it does not quite seem real to us. Our broken hearts go out to Doug and all their family. We hope that Doug feels of the love we have for him and the rest of the family, and we will continue to pray that he will be able to be strong through all of this. Goodbye for a time, our friend Karen.

It is kind of hard to go from saying that to the things that are so much more mundane.

Like we had our hot water turned off last week (Thursday) to be exact. Now you might think that we are preceeded down the street by our odor. We just carry a rose between our teeth so we can only smell the rose.

We are coping and doing ok,but it is really wierd to have no hot water. You don't know how many times a day you need it until you don't have it. Tuesday they came in and began to change out our meter. We hope we are the last apartment to have this done. I suspect not. Our landlord said it won't be finished until next week sometime. If that means next week in Hungarian, then we could be a whole week. We certainly hope not. We have been able to get showers at the apartment across the street from the mission office. This is not disaster, just inconvenience!! It is Monday and still no hot water. However our landlord came in today and installed the new knobs for the heat so that we can control it this winter. Not...but the Garners can and will like it.

It is now very hot, and muggy to boot. This is the summer we remember from last year. It is so muggy that all our papers in the office are curling. I am excited about that.

We are still having a lot of rain. The big riverboats that came into Budapest last week are still there. The Duna is so high that even though these boats are long but not as tall as the cruise ships, as we know them, they cannot go under the bridges so they are stuck. Our friend, Ann Stahle, told us that her parents were coming through and might call us. She then said that they arrived; were put on a tour bus to have a nice tour of Budapest and then taken to the airport and flown to Vienna. We took some pictures yesterday of the boats in front of the Marriott. I am not sure you can tell how high it is from the water under the bridges.

The Gassers are gone. It was very hard for them to leave. I think we huged some of them good bye multiple times. They are now off touring Europe by train for a while and then by car. It seemed so funny to see them go.

However, it is also a testimony as to how things work because by Friday, it seemed like the Baughmans were right in place and things are poppin'!

The Baughmans (Boffman) are wonderful. We have spent a fair amount of time with them, as we are now their guides in some things. He, as I suspected, will want to know how everything is done. I hope I remember. We were able to have dinner with them on Thursday evening and enjoyed visiting with them. They will be wonderful. Friday was Zone Leader Training and the Zone Leaders were wowed by them. This is as it should be.

Saturday was a trip to Tesco with both of them. It was a whirlwind trip as she wanted to know about everything. I think she and I will take an afternoon and go again there and to Metro and whever else she may want to go and not take the men. They are great!!!

Late in the afternoon Saturday we had a "barbeque" without a barbeque. We had hamburgers and hot dogs and potato salad, etc. and celebrate the 4th of July.

We invited our district and the Baughmans.






Sunday Miskolc. We drove to Miskolc with the Baughmans to be sure they would be able to get around ok. Then they will be on their own. It was a good day and we enjoyed them. We were so sorry that they are so tired. But it was a good. Next week they have a very busy week and we will stay home to man the fort.

One of the great sidelights is that we have a few friends in common with the Baughmans. How funny....could be the common friends are from where else....du-ti-dum-dum... are you ready to guess? Yep the good old East 27th Ward. President Baughman is best friends with David Pollei. Bob Bradley was his mentor back in the old days when people could rush social units at BYU and Bob was his mentor. Small world?

Oh, I hope you are reading this Bob. I know you sometimes do. If I don't see a comment soon, I will send you an e-mail so you can tell Dave.

This is the notice that we have to have someone at our apartment on the 8th of July to let the repairman in to reinstall our gas meter. We have to take pictures and take it to the office to have the elders read it for us. Thought you might enjoy this.

We hope that we can check off a few things of our list to to. It feels like we are in over our heads and are trying not to drown. We will be fine, as we keep working hard to get everything in place for the Garners. We could use a maid at home and extra help in the office, but neither will happen. And we will keep plugging along.

Until next time.......