Chicken Noodle Soup and a Castle

4/18/12
We had a great time tonight at FHE with the Young Adults. We took chicken noodle soup and they seemed to enjoy it. The missionaries really enjoyed it! (I took a little plastic bucket so they could take some home.) Last week at zone conference, one of the elders who is going home in a few weeks talked about how much he appreciated the senior couples. He said that they had been family to him. I thought, "That's something I can do. I can be family to these elders."

After dinner, we all walked to Veszprem's city center and up to the wall of the castle. The castle is just some ruins, but the view over the city was beautiful! On the wall, there are huge statues of St. Steven, the first king of Hungary and the person who converted to Christianity. He also stopped the nomadic lifestyle and settled cities, which kept the Hungarian race from being absorbed by other ethnicities. Marcel told us that the statues of him and his queen were not to scale. He said that Steven was a very short Hungarian and that his queen, who was German, was twice his size. When I mentioned this to another young adult, he told me that it was an incorrect rumor. He said that King Steven was a big man. Now, Napoleon and Cesar were short, but not Steven. (Hungarians make Canadians look modest.) It was a very fun walk. When they found out I enjoy theater, they took me to the city's theater.

We only had five YAs attending tonight, and I felt a little down that more hadn't come. But when I looked at Marcel, enjoying himself with these other YAs, I just felt so glad that we are here to give him a ride so that he has a group to meet with.

The Bad Hair-Dye-Day

4/ 16/12
I finally dyed my hair this weekend. I bought some L'Oreal in not quite the same color I use at home, but the next darker color. I mixed my one little tablespoon, which I use around my face, and went into the kitchen to wash the bowl out. When I went back to the bathroom, the dye was black. I hurried up and washed it out, but in the 5 min. max, it took out my hair color. So I got a box of Garnier dye and it looks better. The most common hair dye color here is red. Any color of red, from crayon-red to flaming-purple-red. These reds are worn by even the elderly.

It's so exciting/daring/crazy to enter any store and shop by picture. Occasionally I will find a few words that resemble something I want. Like on the soap I got to try to counter-act the toilet paper: "Intima-Waschlotion-Extra Sensitive" It's worked pretty well.

A Trip To Sopron

4/9/12

We had a great Super Preparation Day! Mondays are our Preparation days, or days off of missionary work, when we can get shopping, laundry and cleaning done. It is also a day when we can sightsee. Monday after Easter is a national holiday, and when that happens, our P-days are called "Super P-days". So after church on Sunday, we headed to Sopron to spend the night and day with Elder and Sister Flammer. They are from Providence, Utah, and came to Hungary a month before we came. We had such a nice time visiting with them and sharing our struggles with the language and our appreciation for the Hungarian people. On Monday we went to a place called The Picnic. In 1989, in August, 10-12,000 Hungarians and East Germans met at a park to protest the Communist guarded border. At the end of the several days gathering, 150 of the people forced the barbed wire border. Only a couple of guards had been left to guard this area outside of Sopron, and they thankfully decided to assist those escaping. (Up to that time, over 4,000 people had tried to escape that year, and only 38 were successful.) Over the next few days, more people escaped until the border was once again secured. They left their cars, their children's toys and everything they had just to get out. Only one person was killed during that time. By September, the border opened at this spot, and floods of people poured into Austria and West Germany. There are pictures and signs around the grounds, detailing the events. Many of the pictures showed whole families weeping for joy. Families who were once divided were reunited. It also told how kind the western countries were that took these refugees in. Later, it was said that this event is what eventually tore down the Berlin wall in November of that year. As I read about the events and looked at the pictures, I felt so grateful that I have always known freedom. I also had a flashback from when I was young and living in Germany. I remember our family at the border to East Germany, looking at the barbed-wired fence, and feeling some anxiety about being there. When I asked my siblings if this had happened, my brother wrote and confirmed the encounter and added that we were escorted out of that area by some military personnel.


After this, we went to lunch at a Hungarian church member's apartment. Her name is ZsuZsa, and in November she returned from a 18 month mission at a genealogy center in another part of Hungary. Like us, she is an older woman, and she was so gracious! When she found out we were coming to Sopron, she asked the Flammers to bring us to lunch. First we had a broth soup. In a separate bowl, she had some noodles. So you put those in your bowl and then poured the broth over it. I made the mistake in thinking that was the main course and took a tiny bit of a second serving. Then she served the main course which was stuffed cabbage, or Toltott Kaposzta. It was delicious! (Last night, when we were feeding the missionaries in Sekes., Elder Peterson said there really wasn't any dish with cabbage that wasn't delicious in Hungary, and he hadn't liked cabbage at home in the U.S.) Then she brought out a plate with about five different desserts on it. Soooo we had to try each kind to be polite, right? I felt like the stuffed cabbage when we left! We had a great visit with her and she talked about what it was like under Russian occupation. No one here would like to go back to that, but they all talk about the fact that everyone had a job and a little money, and that now the economy is so bad. She was the first member to be baptised in Sopron, eleven years ago.

We drove home a different route that we'd taken to get there and got to see more spring countryside. Every little village has it's white, tall-stepel church, and small country homes. It's very picturesque.

Easter

Easter 4/8/12


The words from one of my favorite hymns expresses my feelings about the Savior:
"I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me." I am so thankful that He loved all of us enough to come to earth and teach us by word and example how to love and serve our fellowmen. By doing that, and keeping His commandments, we can show our love for Him. If we all followed His example, we would be living in 'heaven on earth'. I am thankful that He was wiling to endure the agony of the Atonement, by taking on the grief, illnesses and sins of each of us individually, and the world collectively; so that we can be comforted, have the burden of guilt lifted from us and cleansed in this life, and live with Him again some day. I am thankful for the resurrection, that the chains of death have been broken and we will all live again after this life. Christ is the light and life of the world, and I love Him and His gospel!

Gulash and Family Home Evening

4/4/12

We just had Family Home Evening with the young adults for the first time. We took Gulash and they liked it. When I asked them if this tasted like the traditional soup, they said that it is usually made with beef and much saltier. (I made it with pork roast because the only time we were served it in a home, it was made with pork. We were also told that the beef here is expensive and poor quality. Hungarians like a lot of salt. Glad these kids told me the scoop.) Richard assigned them all to bring a soup recipe next week. That ought to be fun. I hope that they are something I can replicate. I asked if they wanted to have soup each week or have a treat. (I refuse to do both!) They said they wanted the soup. I told them that I had served Taco soup to some Hungarians in our branch and that I didn't think that they liked it. But these Young adults said that they liked to try American soup. So, next week we'll bring Taco soup. They told me that Hungarians love "soups". They said that they even like hot soup in the summer. whew! That will take some getting used to. One soup that everyone keeps telling us about is fruit soup. It is a cold soup and everyone says it is delicious.
Afterwards we played Wink Murder and a clap game that we learned last night at a concert. It was really a fun evening. A young man from Szekes. goes to school in Vesprem, (it's about 40 minutes from where we live,) which is where the Young Adult Center is, and he's going to these events and ride home with us. His name is Marcell and he speaks english very well. The missionaries also help us with interpreting. Only a few of the other youth speak some english. It's challenging, but friendship bridges any gaps in our communication. Friendship and cookies. And now: soup.

Developing A Young Adult Center

3/30/12
Friday night we got invited to a Young Single Adult activity in Veszprem. We got to meet with the YA president, Flora, who doesn't speak english. She is such a nice girl and we appreciate Elder Masters, who interpreted for us. We have really got it easy with this assignment. The other Young Adult centers that we know about, are run by the missionary couple assigned to them. They do the cooking, lessons and come up with the ideas for activities. This branch is already having activities twice a month, and now it will be weekly. The Center will also have Family Night, which they haven't had. But Flora was clear that the young adults will do the lesson and activities. This is great news! She gave the spiritual thought and did a wonderful job of it. She used the George Albert Smith manuel and had parts that she'd selected read by the group members. (We've noticed that these manuals are used right along with the scriptures here, and the members use them as their reference books.)

Afterwards, they had a surprise birthday party for one of the group. We had the first cake here that we really enjoyed. It was made of a biscuit-type of cookie that is layered with yogurt and sour cream in a spring form pan. Then on the top is a clear gelatin with peaches on it. Flora had put a smiley face on it, because Bolazs is always smiling. The game we played was, "Coming From America" and had nothing to do with visiting or immigrating from America. It starts by a person announcing that they are an American Cowboy and this is my job. (This is the category that was chosen.) Then they tell the first and last letter of the name of an occupation and mime the occupation. One of the branch members told me that they played this game in school and that he thought it funny, in that the Russians were the occupiers, but they still said they were "Americans".
We're going to do the first family night next week and have soup after the short lesson, and then a game. Some centers have a dinner after FHE and after the activity night. We're just going to start with the one dinner and a treat at the activity. The reason I picked soup is because they only have a hot plate. With a 40 minute commute thrown into the mix, we are a little limited. The first soup I am going to do is Hungarian Goulash so that hopefully it will taste familiar.

The Horse Evolution Show

3/30/12
We just went on our first night out. A couple of days ago We found the Tourist Information office and they were able to help us find out about this event. Both the girls in the office spoke very good english and were happy to share the upcoming events in Szakes with us and tell us how to get tickets. Tonight we went to a very glitzy show called, "Horse Evolution Show". (There was nothing about evolution in it, by the way.) There were 16 beautiful horses: half were huge black stallions and the others were smaller and younger, white mares. The riders were acrobats and dancers and it was very entertaining. For part of the show, they had guys on snowboards doing stunts while being pulled behind galloping horses. They also had a dance-off between Celtic dancers all in white, and these big black horses, each taking turns doing fancy steps.

The best part of the evening was meeting a couple who sat next to us. When they first sat down, they probably asked us if anyone was sitting next to us. (This sure isn't America! We sat on the second row, in the middle, and almost immediately, people came up to us from each side and asked if anyone was sitting there. So they sat by us. There were seats available everywhere. Why in America do we space ourselves the way we do?) When Richard answered in Hungarian that we didn't speak Hungarian, the man, named Attila, said, "Oh! Of course not. Sure." He and his wife spoke very good english and wanted to visit. They were so friendly and it was nice to be able to get to know them. (It reminded me of a similar experience we had in Rome, visiting with a newly wed couple on the bottom of the Spanish Steps.) We visited during intermission and when the show was ready to start back up, the wife, Andrea, asked if we could exchange information; so we gave each other our phone numbers. She told us about her dad who was outspoken during the Communist occupation, was put in jail and scheduled for execution. That sentence was reduced to 15 years in prison, and he ended up serving 8 years before he was released. Before he was put in prison, he was planning to immigrate to Brussels. He met his wife after he was released and always told his family that he was glad he went to prison so he could stay in the country and have his nice family. We hope we get to visit with this couple again.

We have met so many nice people here. Everyone we've come in contact with has been friendly and gracious.