Grandma and Grandpa Go on a Mission

101 ways to be a missionary

2011-01-10T06:27:00.000-08:00

Today Bruce looked like he was home in our orchard again.

Our landlady and good friend Agi asked him to prune her apples trees which she had some cut back several years ago because they were too big. They got cut in half, vertically. And for some strange reason they are not producing apples.

So today Bruce is trying to help her salvage her trees.

Looks right at home, doesn't he!

Making Piñatas

2011-01-10T02:52:00.000-08:00

We are getting ready for Mexico Night next week. And what is a Mexican party without a piñata.

We started out last week with our activity covering the balloons with paper mache but we knew that there would not be time on Friday to get it all done so Bruce and I did the next two layers. What a job!

You will note with started out with grand ideas on the first two but it degenerated into just ruond.

But the kids had such fun decorating last Saturday.

Sister Hansen and Laura wanted to turn one of the round ones into a penguin.

Sister Wolfe turned another one of the balls into a fish

Zoli and I started the star but we were running out of glue so we just painted the remaining two pinatas. Tonight we will finish them ---with something?

Elder Hommes and Zoli#2 started to make Big Bird but ended up with just Bird.

Jeno and Balazs created "turtle-saurus"

And a Happy New Year

2011-01-10T01:29:00.000-08:00

This was a very interesting New Year beginning. We had long planned to take our youth in to Budapest for the country wide New Years Activity. We were going to all ride the train together but at the last minute one of our investigators decided that he would like to come. He is in a wheel chair and the trains and the buses are not wheel chair accessible so we had to drive in. Which would turn out to be a good thing.

Anyway, it was a fun time in Budapest. The kids danced and had fun together. No one needs to have a partner to be out dancing and one of their favorites is "The Cotton-eyed Joe".

One of our very artistic missionaries painted faces. Everyone wanted something and Sister Steck was employed for hours.

The dance would last until 2 and then they played games and ping pong until 4 in the morning, as the trains here stop running about 11pm.

They had a potato bar for supper. The Hungarians have no idea about a potato bar. I finally made an example and put it on the table, and some actually tried it that way, but not many. They mostly just scooped the chili onto their plate and ate it as a main course. So of course the chili ran out quickly.

This picture is Dior, Kata and then Aaron

After things were settled down, we went upstairs with the Buaghmans and Garners to play Mexican train. Sisters Wade and Harris joined us after awhile. But as midnight approaced, we went back downstairs to join the group. At midnight they sing the national anthem and then have a prayer; it is very touching.

Then traditional New Years fair is hot dogs. About 12:30 Aaron, (an investigator and just a super young man) and Kata, a member who has been inactive for sometime but is now returning, wanted to head for home. So about 1am we put Joseph, in the front seat, (he is the one who is disabled and he can't manage the back) and Aaron, Kata, and I squeezed into the back seat of our little car and made the 3 hour drive home in a snow storm. Bruce is such a good driver and we obviously made it safely. We were tired and glad to be in Szombathely and not still in Budapest.

One very sad note. We received news on Tuesday that one of the young women in Budapest developed severe Meningitis on Monday and passed away on Tuesday. She had served on the Budapest YSA council and was well known and well loved. It saddened and frightened everyone.

We ended up at the hospital Tuesday night getting tested and getting a prophylactic antibiotic.

The youth were all very upset. When you are young death seems like a myth and it is hard to face it up close. Added to which they had, without warning, lost one of their very close friends.

2010-12-29T06:20:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas from Hungary!

We hope that you had a very Merry Christmas filled with Family, Friends, and Happiness! We enjoyed spending our last Christmas here with our missionaries and our friends. We kept old traditions, the baking of Cardamon Bread, and shared it with our new friends, who called it Kalacs. These will be some of our best memories. It is a great season to be a missionary.

Early in the month we took our YSA youth out for ice skating. (They skated, we watched).

On the 19th a group of very talented young missionaries brought us a very special Christmas Concert. Actually, the young man on the far right is not yet a missionary, although he has his call. He is a fabulous organ player. Even our plain little electric organ sounded rather spectacular. Sister Bodily, on his left is a concert pianist. Sister Roderick has a wonderful voice and is from Cache Valley. She sang with the "Sundance Singers". Elder Ottley played guitar and Elders Rummler and Kubricky sang.

We bought this beautiful Poinsetta to decorate the chapel. Here they are called Mikolás Virág.

In the afternoon we took them over to the central square for caroling while we all handed out fliers for the concert.

Finally, after a very long day, I had a chance to feed them. Homemade chicken noodle soup and hungarian bread. It was just perfect.

We had a special Christmas Zone conference and the YSA kids in Budapest made hats for all of the missionaries

Santa even found his way here to Hungary and left

?stockings? for the Elders and Sisters.

We enjoyed the traditional Haslem Christmas morning breakfast.

And we spent the remainder of the day playing games and watching Disney videos and putting together this puzzle.

It was a great day. It has been a great season. Hope yours was just as wonderful.

Love,

The Haslems

"Events" or "Why do I never learn to count the cost before I start a project?"

2010-12-15T07:42:00.000-08:00

President Baughman has asked the missionaries to try using "events" as a finding tool for new investigators. We already had our closing social planned for English Class (we will take a two week break for the Christmas Season). We made plans for a shorter class and then showing "Joy to the World" and then a special "süti" (sweet treat) from me.

We all wanted it to be a special occasion and so plans were made. But the best laid plans. . . .as we all know! English class the week before the ending social was a fun week as they were refinishing the floors in the chapel and priesthood room so the Profi class (mine) and the Hallado (Elder Feuz) met together in the hall. They were about 18 of us and with both the Elders and myself teaching it made for a fun class. Our vocab for the week was Christmas and cold weather words, like "slippery". And then we sang some Christmas songs. It was fun. And we talked-up our closing social, hoping they would all stay for the film. It is in English with Hungarian subtitles so we told them it would be good practice.

But what to make for this very special "süti" that had been promised? Finally I decided on a dessert that I make at home. A crepe that is filled with that Cool Whip cheese cake (cool whip, cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice), and drizzled with chocolate and fruit sauce. I could even see it in my mind.

Do you remember the parable in the Bible about the man who began to build the house but did not count the cost before he began? When we get to heaven I am going to get the award for the person who personally made this same mistake the most times in a lifetime!

I made my crepe batter on Monday. Here a crepe is known as a palacsinta and is a very common treat. They even have very special and very nice palacsinta pans. Tuesday morning I went into production. Problem 1: the Hungarian palacsinta pan is about 12" diameter, much too big. So I rumble around in the little pantry in our apartment. Agi's parents lived here and it is still stocked with a lot! of their things. I found a small cast iron pan, the perfect size, but I am sure it was used for many years to cook kolbasz. So the first task is to scrub it, rub it with a fresh potato while it was really hot (heard that helped with taking out tastes) and then re-seasoned the pan. After 45 minutes or so problem 1 is mostly resolved. Just have to keep putting butter on if for quite a while because one spot keeps sticking.

Problem 2: Now I just have to turn my pot of batter into palacsinta. Alton Brown I am not! I still have to swirl the pan and you can see ripples running all around it, but who cares. People are just going to eat the thing.

So after a couple of hours I have my stack of palacsintas.

Problem 3: I now have to create the filling. This is the biggest problem of all. Cool Whip: no such thing here. I consider real whipped cream but I am afraid that it will not hold up and just turn back into cream. Cream Cheese: they have it here. I buy the local brand instead of Philadelphia brand because it is so expensive. I forget that it tastes a lot like processed American cheese. Sweetened condensed milk: this is definitely not available here. But I read on line that you can make it. You just need powdered milk, oh dear, that too is not available here. But powdered Coffee creamer is. I know I have seen it on the shelf. Well, I couldn't find it anywhere and so I ended up getting two bottles of a sweetened coffee creamer liquid and 2 tubes of something that you squirted into your coffee. It had milk and sugar in it. I combined the two with some butter and more sugar and cooked it up to the right consistency. It actually tasted just like sweetened condensed milk, just brown like caramel. And for the cool whip I actually find powdered topping mix. Which I have to buy in a package of 5, which was fortunate because I can't get it to whip in my impatience and keep adding more powder. Now finally I have all the pieces. But as i put the cream cheese into the bowl, I remember it's got a different flavor. Too late now, its getting to be afternoon, I've run out of time and patience and I still have to make a fruit sauce for on top. Fortunately I have a lot of chocolate sauce i made for something last week. Anyway. . . I just start mixing everything together and hoping! I taste and make more whipped topping and add it. It just doesnn't taste right. Bruce helps at this point. He tells me it doesn't matter what it was supposed to taste like, that what I've whipped up tastes good. So I finally get all the crepes rolled, and on the balcony (it has become our second freezer), get the fruit sauce made, get everything I need for serving packed up and ready to go. And I have about 1 hour to spare. From 7 am to 4 pm.

But now the good part, everything went beautifully. I didn't have much time to prepare the English lesson but even that seemed to go okay. Then we gathered in the chapel area for the film.

I had a very strong sense of the spirit when I was in the film. I love that film because it has a little of everything in it and the choir sings and you always feel good when the choir sings. After the film 3 of the missionaries bore their testimonies and we had süti.

Problem 4: people began asking for the recipe. How am I ever going to be able to tell them how I made it. And Zoli (who helped eat up the remaining 6, cut the numbers a little too close) kept saying they were good but strange because they always put turo (a dairy thing they make and use with everything) inside their palacsinta.

And Elder Haslem and I did dishes while the missionaries spent nearly an hour visiting.

All in all, even though I once again forgot to count the costs before beginning a project, (I could have bought strudel and it would have been just as good) the evening turned into an event that will be remembered and was just what President Baughman would have hoped for.

Budapest Christmas Fair

2010-12-12T09:16:00.000-08:00

We had a multi-zone conference in Budapest on the 4th of December. Bruce and I decided to stay overnight to see the Christmas market in downtown Pest. Thursday, after the zone conference, we and the Thompsons went by Metro over to Pest. It was freezing cold and a little snowy but beautiful. The market was so much fun to see.

This was another "summerfest" type market but everything had to be traditional Hungarian. And the food vendors had just loads of wonderful smelling food. (The Baughman's were going to take us out to dinner later, so we resisted the temptation to have a meal.)

They do a lot of decorating of Gingerbread. Should have taken a close up of these cookies but they are so much fun. They surely got an A+ in their Wilton Decorating Course.

Obviously an internet image, but I wanted to show you how ornate they make them.

Lots of interesting pottery

And the Hungarians have a lot of very traditional Christmas Cookies and sweets. We saw a lot of dried fruits that looked really nummy.

If there was anyway in the world I could have done it, I would have brought this home for Kyla

But my favorite thing about Christmas is that they make Kürtöskalács, a wonderful christmas Bread. They wrap strips of bread around a form. . .

And then they cook it over the coals, drip it with honey and nuts or cinnamon. It is just wonderful.

After strolling the fair for a while we went out to see the Christmas Lights of Budapest.

We found a Hungarian friend. . .

The Thompsons left us to take the train back to Sopron but Bruce and I had decided to stay overnight at the mission home and go shopping in the morning.

Well, morning dawned gray and very snowy. We braved our way to the Nagy Piac, or the big farmers market. It is all indoors, so, except for the cold walk from the Metro exit over, it wasn't too bad. The Piac is just a great experience: fruits and vegetables as well as pigs feet, pigs noses and pigs ears.

I was in the market for my Hungarian Nativity set. We finally found the vendor, and because I am not willing to bargain, (just can't bring myself to do it), and because I speak English I paid twice what I should have done. But then Bruce discovered he had left the Visa Card at the mission home. (They told us that the vendors would not take Visa. They did. And we didn't have enough cash). So my wonderful spouse walked all the way back to the Metro, went back to the mission home and retrieved our card and then returned to the Piac. It took him a good hour to do it. But I have my nativity.

These are Youtube links about the Christmas market. They are fun to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FK2JRjrTvI&feature=player_embedded#!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtrirHONJtU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfuYtbpVfXs&feature=player_embedded

Family Home Evenings

2010-12-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

One of the really great experiences we have had has been our family home evening with the YSA. We hope that with our departure, if there is not a new couple to replace us, that they can keep this group going. Everyone takes their turn with everything. They are learning to prepare the lessons.

Some are excited for the challenge, other not so much so. It is just like with a real family as your little kids learn how to do the lesson. Everyone always share a talent. I wish I had pictures of some of these. Bruce sang, "Little girls have pretty curls, but I like Oreos. . ." for his talent one week. Zsofi showed us how to wash windows. Agi recited a wonderful poem. I understood none of it but it was long and sounded beautiful. Someone will share a scripture and explain why it is important. Of course, to the Haslems falls the charge of the treat. And then we play a game. All good family home evening must end with a game!

The Haslem family will all recognize "Neighbor". We made a set for the group, but here it is called "Szomszed". We also play zilch which we have renamed "Semmit".

Snow

2010-12-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

Winter has come earlier this year than last. We have had quite a lot of snow and are expecting a lot more. And with the humidity in the 65% range it feels bitter cold.

Just because you are a missionary does not mean that you don't have to push the stuff around. Elder Haslem tried to clear the walks but Liza thought he was out to play with her. You will notice our gate. In order to get into our house and into the warm, we have to get through a locked gate and two locked doors.

Luca is the cutest little dog in the world but has short fur, so she as to wear a doggy snow suit when she goes out to play. She reminded me of a little four year old out in his snow suit trying to plod around in the snow.
Dad says I will need a little dog like Luca when I get home. I must admit that he is pretty cute. But I think I will stick to Grandkids. They can be sent home to their mothers when you are through playing with them.

West Zone Thanksgiving Day Celebration

2010-12-01T09:31:00.001-08:00

This was our second annual West Zone Conference. Last year we hosted it alone in Sopron. This year, Hooray, Hooray, the Tompsons were here and we worked together and had the dinner in Szombathely because we have the biggest kitchen. You just cannot have Thanksgiving at our house without sticky buns for breakfast. So we made 3 pans of them. Yes, I do look tired in the picture, and yes, I was tired!

Sister Thompson decorate our tables. Only problem is that the missionaries didn't figure out that the turkey was also their napkin. They kept asking for napkins. They are amazingly bright enough to learn the hardest language in the world and then can't spot the napkin.

Bruce carved the elegant Turkey. It was pure chaos trying to get everything done in our little oven. We had to resort to the microwave to finish the Turkey but I didn't hear one complaint.

Aah! Time to rest and to eat. We had such good food. The Thompson's make the best corn casserole that I have ever tasted.

This is cute Sister Walker. Unfortunately, with this picture you cannot see how cute. But take my word for it, very cute! Anyway she is also the fastest dishwasher and made short work of all our dishes. No such thing as a dishwasher here.

Hawaii Night

2010-11-21T10:40:00.000-08:00

Well, if they won't send you to Hawaii to be a missionary, you just have to bring the islands to you. Our district wide activity this month was a Hawaii night. Fortunately for us, the President transfered in Sister Jordan a week ago. She is from Tahiti and was delighted to share her skill. She absolutely made the evening. As always, I am running around and not taking pictures. But we first had Hawaiian haystacks for dinner, which was a great success. (Everyone wants the recipe but I have no idea how to tell them to make the chicken gravy as they make nothing similar. ) We also made leis. No one has one on here. They were actually crepe paper boondoggle.

Sister Jordan first tried to get the women to learn to dance.

The most fun was when she worked with the guys.

Then she gracefully showed us how it was supposed to look.

The Elders were actually the best at the limbo.

If you want to see the actual action: http://picasaweb.google.com/karenchaslem

And then we ended the evening untying human knots.

They succeed!

We also did coconut bowling. Coconut balls and water bottle pins. That was fun too.

It was a successful night. The kids had a lot of fun. We had a lot of investigators there. Sister Wolfe didn't remember that this was a YSA activity so she invited a couple of families as well. But everyone seemed to have a good time.

The Torony bakery

2010-11-18T13:20:00.000-08:00

We often take our friend Zoli (Zoltan) home to Torony after activities. I like to do this because there is a great bakery there. When you go at night you go back into where they are actually making the bread. You pick your hot loaf off the shelf and they wrap in a piece of paper. It has been in operation for a very long time and they make the bread in the same way they always have. The bread is just wonderful, but I am afraid that this bakery would be closed down in a minute in the states. No hair nets, no gloves on the hands and a number of other infractions that would have the food department way upset. But I happily eat their wonderful bread.

They can fit over 200 loaves of bread in this oven

This video is long and the last is the same as the first. I have no video editing skills.

Quilting Hungarian Style

2010-11-18T12:42:00.000-08:00

Xenia had a new baby boy, and i thought that was a pretty good excuse to teach the kids to tie a quilt. Everyone got into the action, including Brother Haslem

These are two of the Zoltans in our group. When you have to choose from state approved names, you get a lot of people named Zoltan.
I think that our Dio decided that such sewing work qualified her to belong to the old "Néni" group
This is our landlady and great friend, Agi and her daughter who was visiting, you guessed it: Agi!

Elder Feuz even made a few stabs at tying the knots.

The blue dots all over everybody were the sticky dots I put on the quilt to mark the place to tie. The is just one big problem. We were well into tying when I noticed that we were putting the ties on the wrong side. But done, is done.

Bruce's Green Thumb

2010-11-18T12:20:00.000-08:00

Bruce loves winter flowers. He just couldn't resist buying this Christmas Cactus las winter. It had beautiful blossoms that promptly fell off when we brought it home. But he carefully cared for it all year and was rewarded with beautiful blooms. The cactus didn't seem to know or care that it wasn't quite Christmas.

And then one day we were helping our friend Agi at the nursery and Bruce found an Amaryllis bulb,which is also one of his favorites. It gave us these wonderful blooms

Halloween, Szombathely Style!

2010-11-16T00:48:00.000-08:00

Halloween is not a holiday here in Hungary. They celebrate All Saints Day and decorate the graves. Beautifully decorate, I might add. But as with things American, the holiday is catching on. We put on the branch activity as an extension of our YSA activity. It was a lot of work, and a lot of fun.

There is always a lot of preparations and we both worked at it. I spent an afternoon making donuts and chili:

Bruce cut and baked dozens of sugar cookies. and also made several dozen cupcakes for the "cake walk":

Dressing has become fun for everyone. I became one of many witches. These are the three young ladies from my English class. They have become pretty regular attenders at our activities.
I manned the room where we decorated cookies. This is something that is completely new to them. But they had great fun.
Bruce ran the "cake walk". One of the members set up a big sound system for the evening. We had great music.
The elders were in charge of the bingo game. I was certainly glad I saved this from last year. Please note the very interesting Utah State shirt Elder Feuz is wearing. He bought it in Pecs, Hungary.
We brought the group together for some games. Here you see the purpose for the donuts. Mostly just the kids and the "big kids" did this and the rest of us just ate our donut while we watched.
Then we took Tesco toilet paper and created mummies. This is actually the only purpose I would use this particular brand of toilet paper for.
Trick or Treat did not go exactly as planned. I had made spooky address for each door on the corridor. But mostly the kids ignored everything and just begged for candy, which is essentially what all the kids in the states do as well.
I created a memory Bingo game.
And then we ate the spooky treats. all the sisters were asked to bring a really spooky looking treat and then they just which was the most disgusting. The eyeballs won.

Kaland Park 2010 Október 23

2010-11-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

Október 23 is remembered as the day of the failed attempt at freedom. It is most interesting to hear the people talk about it. As with all things, their are many perspectives. There were a lot of speeches and reenactments and but it was a super p-day, meaning that we didn't twinkle back into Missionaries at 5pm, so the we rounded up our youth and went up to Sopron and joined Elder and Sister Thompson and their Elders and had a great day at the Zip-line park.

This picture is of me dangling from the Spider Web

Here I prepare for a easy ride on the zip line.

This is Elder Haslem on a section that required you to be nimble. Neither of us are nimble and this was a bit tricky.

If you want to see more of our adventure you can find them on the web albums. But you should know that it took me days to get over this little adventure. I am really out of shape!

Cleaning up the Red Sludge Október 11 2010

2010-11-03T10:47:00.000-07:00

We spent a p-day down in Devecser helping to clean up the sludge from their horrible flood of toxic waste. N0 one is allowed up in Kolántar which is the closet city to the disaster. Devecser is the next city away. I think the anticipate demolishing Kolántar but I can't imagine that anyone would want to return to this city either.

We spent the first part of our day getting in hazard gear and standing around. There is no one really to arrange jobs for all of the volunteers. They needed a good Stake President with his emergency preparedness program. Finally they gave us a job but a lot of us just broke off from the group and went around asking families if there was anyway we could help. And we certainly found people to help!

This is the remains of one of the houses near the post office where we first went to work.
At the Post Office we tried to clear the area of the red sludge by shoving it, you can guess, into the stream. It is where all of it was headed. We also loaded all of the interior furnishing into large trash receptacles. These large bins were brought in by truck, but there simple weren't enough of them.
When we left the main group we found an elderly gentlemen who needed help getting the water out of his basement. It was a huge job as we brought the water out by bucket brigade. It was back breaking work. Some of our Elders got well soaked in the muck and I worried for them. We got them cleaned up as soon as possible. Sorry you have to go on your side to see this picture, but I can't get my blog to change or move pictures, so mistakes just have to stay where they are.
One of our big assignments was simply to help them spread gypsum everywhere to try and cut the caustic nature of the stuff. This too, was very tiring work. And you just stood alot waiting for the next load of gypsum. There is too much to do here and not enough of anything.

This picture just cannot do justice to the sludge. It is about 9 to 10 inches deep on everything.
My great friend Dio. That actually means nut in Hungarian and she really is one.
It was good to give help. Mormon Helping Hands has returned many times. You did notice our yellow vests. They didn't stay yellow for very long.

random things.

2010-05-11T03:03:00.000-07:00

Sept 6,

I went to my edit post page and found a bunch of things I had been working on but did not finish. Iwill just add a comment and post some of this.

This is the Joó family for FHE and dinner. I made apple crisp and Andi just about died. she though it was too sweet!

May 3, 2010

This is an example of the house that they build right on the wharf. This is an actual little city with a post office.
We took the Elder out to the Bob Sled run. It is really quite fun.

Spring in Sopron

2010-03-29T02:45:00.001-07:00

It is so delightful to be back outside walking again. This year we have found some trails that give us easy access to the Löver Hills. The one picture I didn't get here is the "Ski Run". I will add that in the next couple of days. You'll enjoy it!

Édes Family Baptism

2010-03-01T00:41:00.000-08:00

This was a very happy event. The E'des family are very happy to be members of the church. They found us when Elders Grossen and Hintze handed out Halloween Party invitations on the street. It has not been an easy road for them the whole way but the changes they have made are so wonderful to see. Brother E'des has been interviewed for Priesthood ordination and will be made a Priest next Sunday. Sister E'des is anxious that I learn to be a Hungarian cook before i leave the country and is starting on me this week with langos, Hungarian fried bread.

Life is a Cake Walk

2010-02-28T12:29:00.000-08:00

I forgot to add these Farsang videos of my Cup Cake walk. I think the adults like this better than the kids!

Farsang

2010-02-15T04:34:00.000-08:00

Farsang is Hungarian Carnival. In some areas of the country it is the time of Balls and expensive parties. In some communities there are traditional masks.

But in Sopron in our Branch it is the time to have a party.

There were costumes of a sort. Ádám was a missionary

Laura was a princess and Bi was just cute

We all made masks

Dad even played pin the tail on the donkey

Sorry it is sideways. I don't seem to be able to fix that. Maybe Christie can.

Family Home Evening

2010-02-14T23:39:00.000-08:00

Erika, Elder Nichols, Elder Hintze

Preparing for family home evening gives me a little something to do on my preparation day, prepare for dinner. It seems that we are all more open to talk and to accept a message over a meal. There is just something about eating. We are also trying to get each branch member or family over. It is really helping us get closer to them.

Edina, Csaba, Erika

"Szuper" waffle night

2010-02-07T07:52:00.001-08:00

We decided that waffle night was getting a little stale, so we had szuper waffle night and played some games. You will recognize scrabble here. It was very fun to play. I cheated and had Kata Édés help me. And we won. You will notice below that this is not the scrabble that you are used to. There are a few more letters to work with. This is my scrabble game so everybody get ready to play when I come home!

My Investigator board

2010-02-07T05:25:00.001-08:00

This is the investigator board that took me forever to make. I still haven't got the pieces laminated. But it is a good thing because the folks in the Branch found a couple of mistakes i had to correct. I used the Conference messages and the Gospel principle and Preach My Gospel to get my text. Pictures I found in old Liahona's and also I went on line and copied some. I have in mind what my next one will be. It will have more pictures and less text.

Hungarian Class

2010-02-07T05:17:00.001-08:00

This is Etta, our Hungarian teacher and her husband Richard and her son Max. We spend every Monday, Wednesday Thursday and Friday morning at Etta's from 9 to 11. It seems like such a lot but we still don't really speak any useful Hungarian. We just hope that we can get this family interested in the church. We try to work in gospel principles as much as possible.

Some place to sit

2010-02-01T21:49:00.000-08:00

The one thing that was lacking in our lives was a place to sit. Sometime before Christmas, our friends Richard and Etta took us shopping. We told them that we wanted "cheap" as we would be leaving it behind eventually. Etta took us to a used furniture store and we found these lovely couches. And the best part - the man said that if there were no cigarette holes in them he would buy them back when we left. And they fit the bill for amazingly cheap. So we arranged to have them delivered. I had to wash them a few times as they had this faint aura of cigarettes, but it wasn't bad for anything from Hungary, where people smoke a lot! They look like something from your first University apartment but we love them and the couch even has a bed in it! We are living the good life.

THE BEST GIFTS OF THE SEASON!

2010-01-10T13:08:00.000-08:00

Kyla Haslem

Caden Haslem

Tate Haslem

Charlie Thomas Heywood

What could be better than a
COUSIN!

Boldog Karácsony!

2010-01-10T12:26:00.001-08:00

A Christmas in the missionfield. How much fun is this. It was a great season. Sopron is decked out with a lot of lights. It turned very cold! not as cold as Utah but then the moisture in the air is brutal!

This is the Fire Tower in the Central Square. It is beautiful all the time but with lights it is really a great sight. this has been one of the first times I have wished for our good camera as night shots are not so good with my pocket point-and-shoot.
The Chrsitmas tree went up on the main street and this is the advent calendar. Each night a group of children would come a perform and they would turn over a number to see the picture below.

They opened a lot of booths along the main street selling food and Christmas gifts. I especially like this vendor who was selling Christmas Tree Bulbs. You could find stalls like this all over the city. There was also vendors sending assortments of Christmas Wrap the same way, by the sheet.

This fellow is making a traditional Christmas Bread. You can see it grilling on the coals in the front. It is very good and after it is cooked they dip it in honey or nuts or both.
Bruce gave me a beautiful hand knitted sweater and he got a big picture book of Sopron. We had friends to dinner and enjoyed ourselves very much. Only thing that would have made it better is if I could have kissed my Grandkids!

Thanksgiving Day

2009-12-18T03:40:00.001-08:00

Now of course, Thanksgiving is not a traditional holiday. There are not pilgrims and indians to dress up like and no stories of how the indians saved our necks. (We repaid them so well too) But for the missionaries, this is a super pday, a whole day with no missionary attire!

They always have a big Thanksgiving fete up in Budapest for the missionaries in that Zone, so I decided that our missionaries should have something as well. We did the whole thing, thanks to packages from home. But I am still a lousy pie maker. These two cute girls are our sisters in Szombathely.
The elders were happy to eat anything I put in front of them but the mash potatoes with turkey gravy was the real essence of the meal for them.

Hungarian December

2009-12-18T03:28:00.001-08:00

The first part of December I decided that Hungary was not such a bad place in winter. It was cold but not as cold as Utah.
We were going on our walks every morning except when it was raining too hard or blowing too hard. When the wind blows in sopron it really can push you over. And I am a fair weather walker so I wasn't much for that.
But on the whole, the weather was okay and we only had 2 mornings we had to scrape car windows. And best of all, there are still flowers. These pictures were taken about Dec 7 or 8th. Not too bad. There are beautiful pots of pansys everywhere. It's not Hawaii but I decided that I could do it. None of this 3 feet of snow that I had been led to expect.

Halloween Buli

2009-11-01T11:21:00.000-08:00

Here in Hungary, Halloween is not a traditional holiday. But as with all things American, the kids are really picking it up. And so we had a Halloween party at the branch and invited all of our English Class students and investigators and, of course, all of the members.

But getting ready for such an event is no small effort without a Pumpkin Walk committee to help. I made dozens of sugar cookies for people to decorate. They really liked this and everyone wanted to know how to make icing. I looked for cookie cutters but they don't use them here, so I settled for round cookies. We made chili for a small supper. Making chili for 50 in a kitchen too small for two is a neat trick. I would have given a lot for my big stew pot at home. Instead we used one small crock pot, two small pans and two large bowls.

These pictures really don't do justice to the mess that reigned in my tiny kitchen. There is just a tiny space to work on and nowhere to set anything down. But the good thing about little - it cleans up quickly!
Our church kitchen has only 2 cook units so warming up was a slow process!

We played Halloween bingo in one room. It took me two days to manufacture the bingo cards and they are now safely stored for next year.
Sorry about the quality of the picture, but you get the idea. I was amazed how much they liked this game. Most had never played it before.
We carved pumpkins. I hate carving pumpkins but they liked it a lot and all took home their pumpkin with a candle. This weekend is Day of the Dead, which amounts to Memorial Day and so the graveyards are full of candles. So they like the thought of a candle on their doorstep.
And here I am. The Wicked Witch of the East. They all liked my necklace which had little ghosts that twinkled on and off. The four elders dressed as the Madagascan penguins. They were a big hit.

But the great thing was that we had almost 50 people there and more were nonmembers than members. . A little bit of gospel was shared and a lot of friendship and friends of the church are awfully important for us here. It seemed to be a big hit. We have never had that many people in our building I am sure. And while I was playing the "witch" in one room, Elder Hintze was in the hall preaching the first discussion with everything that was in him. Somebody had asked about all the pictures on the wall and that was all the lead in he needed.

Áltálanos Konferencia

2009-10-12T09:30:00.000-07:00

General conference in the Mission Field can be a lot of fun. We got our translated disks of the Hungarian during the week and on the weekend, we had conference just like everyone else except we had a wonderful meal on Saturday and Sunday between sessions. On Sunday we had 24 watching conference, 4 of whom were investigators.

We finally found a clear day to get some pictures from the observation tower. If you are interested in seeing more you can see my web album where I am downloading them. http://picasaweb.google.com/karenchaslem

Our Daily Walks in Sopron

2009-09-28T11:37:00.001-07:00

Every day that it doesn't rain, we try to head out to walk for an hour. Senior companion for the day gets to choose the route. We have tried to find as many new streets and alleys and backways as we can and have found a lot of interesting things

We walk up in the hills were we found a lookout tower, "Sörházdombi". Unfortunately, on this day the air was hazy.

We find a lot of interesting and very old architecture, mausoleums, and churches, some built before the founding of our country.

We go slumming along Villa Street and find many beautiful homes. There is a lot of Austrian money here.

We meet a lot of friendly dogs along the way, it seems like every house. On a street we call "Kutya Utca", Dog Street, the first dog stirs up the dog next door and in turn the dog next door stirs up the dog next to him. This is one of the nice friendly dogs. Too bad you can't hear it as well as see it, but I'll bet you can imagine it!

And then at the end, we are always glad to see home again! Our apartment is left half of the main floor. The sweet little green car is ours.

KIRÁNDULÁS

2009-09-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

Our first Branch Party, a Kirándulás, and outing with a little hiking and exploring and touring and such. Anyway, we felt it was a huge success. Bruce and I planned way too much food but our great little RS president just quietly and efficiently wrapped it up and dispersed it out to those who needed it. We had a lot of guests there from our english class. We were pleased and we talked a lot with them. One asked to have the Elders come and talk with her.
This is Bianca Révész. She is our only YW and she is a charming young lady. I wish that she had more friends. We are going to talk to the District President about having district activites for the youth. Districts are a new thing here. They were created only in June. Activities can now be more easily planned on a regional level. Outside of the Stake around Buda there are three districts, one west (ours), one south and one in the east. Notice our food. We had lots of fixings for sandwiches but we also made sish Kabab. Only we used sausage for meat. The uniqueness made them quite a hit. Bruce and I downloaded a recipe for a Greek Salad on the internet and fixed that. it just had all colors of peppers, onions, olives, tomatoes and feta cheese. They loved it because they love peppers, "paprikas" here. Marcsi and Ádám are the two in the background. They are members who are trying to help us with Hungarian. I am discouraged about it and they help to keep me inching along. We recieved a new Elder from the MTC. His language is so good. If only we could have had 10 weeks at the MTC. But the Lords must have other plans.

"GOFRI EST" (WAFFLE NIGHT)

2009-09-14T00:59:00.001-07:00

We had our first waffle night here in sopron. It is supposed to be a young adult activity to bring together and strengthen the youth, but in our little branch there are only 2 young single adults so we use this night to bring together and strengthen the Branch.

This is me making waffle in our closet that also serves as a very small kitchen. the waffle irons we could purchase were not very good and they don't get hot enough, but we make do. Waffles are just a bit rubbery.

Here is Bruce visiting with the folks

Ping Pong is the standard past time on waffle nights. About every other week we need to come up with an additional activity, like a movie or games or such. Suggestions will be willingly taken!
I didn't imagine that this would be part of my missionary work but it all such a lot of fun!

Our Work in Sopron

2009-09-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

We are working here in beautiful Sopron.

All of the streets are not tiny narrow like this but many were build when horeses and carriages were the means of transportation. I keep having to remember that much of this city is older than our country.This is our first apartment. It is one the Elders are using and they moved in with the other set of Elders here in Sopron. It was pretty spartan living. Notice that one of the beds is a stack of cushions. The trains ran through our back yard, and there are lots of trains here. You will notice that one of the beds is not a bed but a stack of cushions. I did have to take a day to clean under the stove and refrigerator. And to clean down the sides of the stove. The kind of dirt 19 year olds don't see. But other than that the Elders had it neat and tidy for us. It is good to see what the life of a missionary is really like. I like these elders very much. They have wonderful hearts and work hard. And they can speak hungarian!

The next set of pics is our new apartment. It looks alot nicer. We do wish it had a bit more furniture, like a chair and a book shelf, but we are very happy here. Please notice our fancy dryer. It is the way everyone here drys clothes. Stoves work on an on and off system. You have to have a thermostat and keep turning it on and off. Our landlady is also one of our members and she is a great lady. She tells me that she has this feeling that we have me before. I keep telling her we were friends in the life before.

We love working in Sopron. I have not taken a picture of our little church yet. We have the third and fourth floors of a building here and the Elders live on the fifth floor. It is pretty hard to tell that it is a church. We understand a real sign has been ordered.
Bruce has been made the new branch president in the Sopron Branch. His job (and mine) is to train. It is hard to do this when you don't have the language but we are managing. We use a lot of the Elders time so we try to shorten tasks of their days by getting their cleaning to the laundry, taking them to the store so they don't have to walk, and anything else we can think of so they have time for "finding". They take a table with posters into the town square. They call that "tabling". The try to talk with everyone on the street. They call that "streeting". Here are two of our great Elders as we are on our way to meet with the a ward member.

One of the great difficulties here is the membership records. The records are only updated when the branches turn in changes. And the branches never turn in changes. So the ward records show members who moved years ago. The process for updating the records is a little difficult and requires a lot of paper work for the branch and/or missionaries. And they just don't do it. We have found that of our 35 family units, 5 are not here for sure and others probably. We have only visited 1/3 of the members so far. We search the area record book kept by the Elders and these things have been known for some years but no changes have been. This is not just a problem here in Sopron but all over the country. Part of our efforts here is to get at least Sopron straight. Bruce is spending a lot of time on it. We walk all over the city tracking down addresses so that we know right where to go when the elders get some free time for us.

We also cover the areas of Szombathely and Papa. We have been asked to start an outreach program there, which amounts to activities for the Young Adults. Szombathely thinks that with only 40 active members maybe we should start by inviting the whole branch. It is called waffle night (Gofri Est) as we always fix waffles and have activities. we already invested in the waffle iron and think perhaps we should have 2.

Szombathely at one time had almost 200 active members and were divided into 2 branches but then there were some problems and we have just one branch with 40 active people. If Bruce and I go down there to track down all their addressess we will be here for more than 18 months!
This is the wonderful church building in Szombathely.
This is a wonderful work to be involved in and we are very happy. We miss our children alot and are so grateful for google chat and skype because we can talk and see each other. But if you decide to come on out Sisters, leave your heels at home and bring comfortable walking flats

First Week of real missionary work

2009-08-24T02:07:00.001-07:00

Our first real week of work. We had a fun experience. We helped the Elders set up a table in the city center and then we went to the square to sit and practice the language. An elderly gentlemen came up to us and started to speak. We practiced our very little bit of hungarian with him. He gave us his address and phone number and we will go by with the Elders to visit him. The Elders also had a good time and found 3 new contacts. One has had contact with the elders before and then moved and lost track of them. They had tried to use the internet to find them but couldn't. But now we found them.
I, Karen, am going to teach singing in primary, visit the Young Women or in our case, Young Woman class, teach temple prep and write the ward newsletter. Bruce will be busy with the Elders quorum and also teaching temple prep. We are also the new teachers of the advanced English Class. We are going to cheat a little and take our MTC grammar guide which we thought was well developed and teach it backwards.
We are visiting in the homes of all the members and also tracking down all of the inactives. It has been done before, tracking down the inactives, by other sets of missionaries, but maybe this will be their time to change.
We are learning to adjust. You are forced into obeying the "eat less meat" thing because it is so expensive here. And you can't just go to the store and buy what you need for a recipie. They do have big grocery stores here but strangely enough they cater to hungarian cooking, which i know nothing about. It is hard to find oatmeal, raisens come in little single serve packs, I can't find cornstarch, brown sugar is limited and not ground small like ours. They have great chocolate but no chocolate chips. Milk comes only in a liter and is expensive. We are training ourselves to like box milk. Baking powder, soda and spices are deceptive and hard to find. They don't use much cinnamon and I haven't found nutmeg. We mostly like just to eat bread and cheese and tomatoes and we did find a few ready to eat meals that were okay and better than cooking. Chicken breast is $4 a pound.
There are no dryers, just big drying racks. Bruce bought his shirts from MrMac and after the first wash we find that they have permanent wrinkles that we can't iron out. Washers are very small and usually in the bathroom with drainage into the tub.
They have the most wonderful chocolate and ice cream here. We just have to pretend that we don't know that.

2009-08-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

We are here and in a wonderful little city called Sopron. we have had difficulty remembering how to log on to our blog. Christie finally has us under control and we are on line but are out of time. pday rules you know. we miss everyone but have a wonderful feeling that we can be of use here in Sopron. sopron is in the very west portion of the country, just 45 minutes from Vienna. It is very hot here right now. We did get a chance to bear our testimonies in Hungarian last Sunday. In fact we spoke in two different branches. Our area of responsibility will keep us moving around quite a bit and the only part I don't like is that we have to check on the Elder's apartments every 6 weeks to make sure they are keeping them clean and in order. We will post again as soon as we can and add picture. We are having to use an internet cafe right now. We are using one of the Elders apartments until our apartment comes open the first of September. Oh, and we have the cutest green car called"sweet pea".

One Week To Go!

2009-07-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

One week from today we will check into the MTC. Are we ready? No, we are not!!! The most important jobs are at the top of the list and what gets done, gets done and the rest will be left to someone else. We have enjoyed these last few weeks with family. I am certainly glad that we have become fluent on skype because I intend to use it often. We do not speak in church until the 9th of August, after we have been to the MTC. And on the 10th of august at 4pm Bruce and I will be on an airplane that will stop for a few hours in france and then we will fly on to Hungary. so you can expect the next blog will come to you from there. Well, maybe we'll have a chance to tell you about the MTC experience. Actually I am not letting the reality of leaving mix in with the "someday we will be going" non-reality that I live by.
Learning hungarian has been a adventure! Our brains are sore. We can speak a few little things and we know most of the grammer, but knowing the grammer does not mean that you can speak. We listen to our tutors pray and struggle to understand. and they speak slowly. But I have an intense desire to learn the language and intend to hire a tutor once we are there. I will not come home until I can speak hungarian. and we have to come home as scheduled because we will not be able to stay away from our grandchildren one minute longer than that.
Seretjük! (We love you all)

Called To Serve

2009-05-17T17:59:00.000-07:00

We finally recieved the call: Budapest, Hungry! It was a bit of a surprise as it wasn't a place even in our thoughts. We told the Brethren that we would be interested in the position of architect at the polynesian cultural center in Hawaii, but were willing to go anywhere. Salt Lake decided that we were needed "anywere" it seems. It is exciting to think of the experiences before us. We don't think that we will learn the language at the MTC and I can't imagine being there without being able to commuinicate, (I'm hoping Rosetta Stone comes in Hungarian) but those things will all work out. We have been warned that Hungarian is one of the hardest languages to learn. We are scheduled to leave on Aug 3, and as we list up all the projects we want to get done before we go, the time seems very short. We think of the many things that will be happening at home during our 18 months away; a new grandchild will be born in the fall, Emily will finish nursing school and take her state exams, Andrew will finish his education; but Bruce and i have a very strong feeling that this is an important thing for us to do and that this is our time to do it. We know that the Lord will take care of our family at home if we give our time and money and any talents we can scrape together in His service. We have strong testimonies that we hold Gospel truths that can change lives and improve people.

So. . . come what may, we're on are way!