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| Ever wondered what 'meat' vegetarians eat? |
The heat is on! Literally because the thermometer is rising
daily, and figuratively because we only have hours to go. . . .Utah in 48
hours!
This week Stan’s uncle and
aunt, John (Eddie to us) and Ann Miller came to see Budapest, a bit of Hungary and us before we
leave. So together we enjoyed one last ‘fling.'
The first morning we had a
drive south to see the countryside – the sunflowers, the corn, and the wheat
all at their peak. First stop was lunch overlooking
Lake Balaton and a beautiful view from the restaurant at their terraced entrance.
On the way home we 'ferried' back across the lake.
In Budapest we did a Hop On
Hop Off bus tour – which gave us two days and two different tours of looking at
some sights around the city,
and a short ‘cruise’ on the
Danube.
The last evening we went to
Castle Hill to get close-ups of Fisherman’s Bastion – Stan’s favorite spot and architecture
in Budapest.
We had guylas (goulash) served
in small, traditional bogrács (kettles) for
dinner,
and a traditional Hungarian
palacsinta for dessert.
We had planned to go
directly to Kaposvár after dropping Eddie and Ann off at the airport,
but received word about a meeting – it was July 2nd and a new
mission president. President and Sister Szabadkai
called ‘emergency zone conferences’ so they could meet the missionaries, share a
bit about themselves and their testimonies.
It was very nice
to get to know them a bit. They have
been members for 23 years and have 4 children.
President Szabadkai asked us to do several things:
1. Fill
out the My Family booklet
2. Write
experiences of family members and share the stories as you are teaching
3. Talk
about the temple
4. Exercise
daily; it will affect the rest of our day
5. Be a
full-purpose missionary. Conversion ‘work’ does not end with baptism; keep in
touch and continue to help the convert get to the temple.
6. Members
and full-time missionaries will serve together.
7. Smile
more! Be happy! Experience the love of Christ.
And it was all in Hungarian –
as will be all future meetings and conferences!
The elders were all excited
to have a celebration for July 4th, so we made that our final Fiatal
Est (YSA) on Friday night – the first time we really used our deck. The elders planned the menu – hot dogs, chili
(my assignment), popcorn, watermelon, root beer (that they made).
Elder Winkel insisted on s’mores;
it’s a Winkel tradition! Luckily it was
American Week at one of the small grocery stores and the elders found a bag of
marshmallows. We quickly FB’d Eddie and
Ann to bring some graham crackers from the commissary in Germany where they were coming from. They got the last box! So we had s’mores – each person had one to
see what all the fuss was about. And yes,
they loved them. We had brought the
mail to the elders from the mission home, which included a package to Elder
Winkel. He kept taunting, “I got a
package." So I finally told him he
needed to open it and share the contents.
His mother sent graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate! Perfect timing. So they had s'mores to their hearts content.
The amazing and best part of
the evening were the little pockets of conversation and teaching going on (in
the midst of the activity) with the elders and our wonderful friends in
attendance. One group even stayed long after the elders
went home and President Balint was doing the teaching. We feel that seeds that were earlier planted
and have been germinating for a while are now just on the verge of sprouting
(baptism). One of our elders that made a
big difference is also leaving this week.
And two of those ‘on the verge’ were at church today – and I think they were
very touched. This is a hard time to
leave. We have hoped, fasted and prayed
for these friends.
We had a wonderful testimony
meeting and some tearful good-byes afterwards.
They surprised us after the meetings with some refreshments and many
individual expressions of love and thank you.
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| President and Sister Balint |
We will miss these many
friends, this branch, this service, and working closely with the
missionaries. We hope we have served as
the Savior would have us serve. We have logged over 4 million steps (thanks to
Stan’s Fitbit), aka 2,000+ miles; and we hope those were footsteps in the
Savior’s work. We have learned and
loved; we hope we have shared and grown.
Our testimonies have been strengthened.
We know Heavenly Father loves His children in Hungary. We know He has a plan for them.
We have been blessed to
serve together. We have especially
enjoyed our study/reading time together.
Besides daily reading the Book of Mormon, we also ‘pronounced’ the [entire]
Book of Mormon in Hungarian! Because we
have done so much driving around the country, we have taken that opportunity to
use that time for further reading – a time for me to read aloud, which gives us
moments for dialogue and reflection. We
have read, The Infinite Atonement, Jesus
the Christ, Killing Jesus (by Bill O’Reilly), New Testament Gospels, Articles of Faith, To My Friends (talks of
Elder Holland’s), Heaven Changes
Everything and we are currently reading A
Marvelous Work and a Wonder.
We love the Savior. We know He lives. We are so grateful for His
Atonement and its blessing in our daily lives.
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| Good bye Kaposvár |
