June 28, 2015

Hungarian strawberry soup -- ready for family home evening!

We have welcomed this very nice and cool week!

Monday we hosted our last home evening with several investigators attending.  We hope these friends have felt the Spirit in our home as they have attended, heard a gospel message and participated in enjoyable activities and games with us and the elders.  We continue to pray for them.

I finished the sewing projects for our young sister who will be going on a mission soon.  Wish I had time to help her more.  We taught the ‘profi’ (most advanced) English class on Tuesday. We had 3 students, and did a couple of fun activities.  They did very well.  Interesting, when someone learns English, typically they learn ‘bigger’ words than those we use daily.  

Wednesday we drove to Kecskemét to close our last project.  This project was a bit unusual and surprising for us.  We were contacted by a high councilman’s wife who has a foundation that helps families.  They were working with a non-LDS family with sons, ages 11 and 9, who have a rare degenerative form of muscular dystrophy with a life expectancy of less than 20 years.  The boys are in wheelchairs and because the wheelchairs would not fit through the bathroom door, the boys had been taken from the family to live in a home in Budapest, with only periodic visits home --- and parents would then need to lift them into the bathroom.  The member’s foundation was saving to help widen the bathroom door and make some disability accessible changes.  We were contacted to see if the Church could partner with their foundation.  We mentioned this request to our supervisors in Germany who asked us to check out the situation.  Long story short, it was approved.  The bathroom door was widened, a disability shower was installed and the boys have returned home so that this sweet family can now be together to enjoy the years they have. 

We visited a couple of member families this week and were invited to dinner with the elders at the home of a very nice investigator family.  She made gulyas (goulash) and palacsintas (Hungarian crepes) served with various homemade jams.   Both were delicious.  We also had our monthly dinner with our LDS German friends (whom we home and visit teach), here this month.  And then yesterday we went to lunch at a wonderful member sister’s home.  She made lecsó – the best we’ve tasted here!   Lescó is made of sautéed paprikas (peppers) and onions, and (sometimes) sausage with tomatoes or sauce cooked down and served over rice.  Marti’s actually had zuchinni and apples in it.  It was delish!  She served us sweetened white currants for dessert.    And we didn’t get pictures of any.

Some of our faithful members were missing at church today, but we did have four investigators attend.  One (who hasn’t attended for quite a while) came into Relief Society because her daughter, a member, was teaching.  She made comments and said she feels much more peace and feels more of a good spirit when she attends our branch than when she attends other churches.  The elders started a Gospel Principles class today, and one of the young investigators attended.  We had a couple of sad, even teary good-byes to sisters who will not be there next week, our last Sunday in Hungary.  It is sad to think about leaving.  When will we ever see these sweet friends again?

Elders Lee (CA), Winkel (UT), Cox (UT) and Parkinson (ID)

This evening we had our ‘last supper’ with the elders.  We love our Kaposvár elders.  We will miss them. We had a good time; they can be hilarious.  We will leave things in good hands!

Oh yes, along with our morning studies, we finished ‘pronouncing’ (reading aloud) the Book of Mormon in Hungarian.  Familiar words kept us knowing the general idea of where we were and what we were ‘pronouncing.’  

Regardless of the language of the Book of Mormon, we know it is true.  We are so grateful for it, we are blessed because we read it daily, and we know that it is the ‘keystone of our religion.’  It contains the message that we want our friends here in Hungary (and everywhere) to come to love and accept as the truth.