meals

Roast duck on stewed prunes with home fries, fried eggplant with chicken on a bed of lettuce, Chicken and pineapple with rice

People mentioned in our reports

Modern building

This is the building where Nuskin and Tahitian Noni have their offices.

Hungarian washing machine

more pictures

Explanation....

Dear Readers,

we had many people commenting on prior mission reports so we decided to post them all here in one spot. Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to sort these reports so the oldest are at the bottom of the queue and the most recent ones are on top. So what you will see is the report we wrote today, 3 Feb 2008 and then 14 old reports, followed by some pictures and report number 15. We hope you can sort this out if you need to. Otherwise we hope you enjoy reading the reports in whatever order they come.

We are also posting many pictures at this time that may be out of sequence.

love to all
the dukelows

16th mission report

We had a quiet Christmas and New Years. Santa found us and left quite a few nice things under our two foot tall artificial tree. The Hungarians traditionally buy their trees as late as possible and decorate the tree on 24 December. About the first week of January we started seeing used Christmas trees along the sidewalks. Some were pretty sad, Charlie Brown style trees, others were huge. Some trees had all their needles and others had none. The later in January the trees were put out the fewer we saw with any needles. It appears that tree stands that hold water are very rare in Budapest.

Last year we basically had no winter weather. This year is making up for last year. We had snow in mid-November and a heavy snow in the first week of January. The heavy snow was followed by a weekend with freezing rain. That ice caused the English speaking branch to cancel their services because the folks could not get their SUVs out of their driveways in the Buda hills. Cars were not the only things slipping. We slipped and slid on the sidewalks going to work. Very few people here cleared their sidewalks or put out sand or salt. Sister Dukelow took a nasty fall on Monday, 7 January hitting her nose against the corner edge of a building. She looked like she had lost a fight for several days as her eyes turned purple. The scratch on the right lens of her glasses still remains.

The Hungarian Immigration Office finally granted Sister Dukelow an extension to her visa. She can now officially stay in Hungary until 11 September. We plan to end our mission on 1 August because our daughter, Gwyndolynn, and her family are coming to tour with us after our mission is over. Hungary has instituted a new system for visas that will mean our missionaries should only have to register once and not have to return to the registration office three or four times during their mission. We hope this works because we lose many missionary days each month waiting in the immigration office for our paperwork to be processed. The Chinese are the largest foreign minority in Hungary. Chinese people are often in the registration office with us.

We started doing the financial audits of the mission branches early and have finished three so far. Our first audit was in Nyiregyhaza in the far eastern part of Hungary. We stayed at the Corvin Mátyás Hotel there that has a medieval theme restaurant with armor and crossbows on the walls, and serving wenches wearing thematic costumes. Our room had one big window above the bed that was basically a skylight. Above the window was a huge sycamore tree. We woke up to church bells at 6AM (they must be on the early schedule with bishopric meeting and ward council prior to their other meetings.) The bells apparently also woke up all the crows in the city because for the next twenty minutes, there was a long procession of crows flying over our hotel window. It was quite an unusual way to start the day but appropriate as corvin means crow or raven.

Sister Dukelow spoke in Sacrament meeting on Chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel and explained how to use that chapter including keeping a study journal to develop Christ Like Attributes. She challenged the members to purchase a copy in the next three months, read it and decide on a virtue to start working on. It was great that so many had seen and knew what Preach My Gospel was as they were asked to raise their hands if they knew the book. She shared with them what value she was working on. She also gave examples of people she knew who possessed that attribute.

Elder Dukelow also talked on Preach My Gospel using Elder Kopischke’s general conference address as a basis. Elder Dukelow explained how the first missionaries went out using only the Book of Mormon and the Holy Ghost as a guide. Then 120 years later, a Marvelous Work and a Wonder by LeGrand Richards gave our missionaries an organized way to preach the Gospel. The missionary work started using a number of memorized lessons shortly there after but spreading the Gospel became almost like selling washing machines. Today our missionaries are expected to live and study so the Holy Ghost can work through them as they teach concepts found in Preach My Gospel as guided by the Spirit.

One of our senior couples, the Ballentines, took on a big project of reproducing the Primary’s Children’s Songbook in Hungarian. They received help from people all over Hungary who translated the various songs. Sister Ballentine also made a cross reference index so a person could find the songs in English and Hungarian as well as the music on the Songbook CD. Then they compiled the book and had copies made at their own expense so every ward and branch could have two copies. The Hungarian saints love this song book and want more copies. Unfortunately, the Saints in Hungary have been given almost every Church book they possess so the thought of purchasing a Church book at their own expense is quite foreign to them.

In the past year a group of bi-lingual Hungarians led by Gergely Noémi, Elder Dukelow’s tutor, as an initiative project have produced several very nice translations of Church books. You can read all about it at www.cumorah.hu. They have published Lectures on Faith, Lucy Mack Smith’s History of Joseph Smith, and Talmage’s Jesus the Christ. They are now working on Miracle of Forgiveness, Articles of Faith, and Standing for Something, among other projects. Since these books are also being published at their own expense, they cannot just give them away and the Saints in Hungary are interested but not buying the books. If anyone has a good solution to the problem of how to market such Church books without violating the Church’s policy against supporting commercial endeavors, we would welcome any suggestions.

Our next audit trip was to the far western part of Hungary where we checked the books in Sopron and Szombathely. We then stayed the night in Szombathely and spoke in Church the next day. The talks were essentially the same as in Nyiregyhaza. This was the first time we had driven to these towns; always before we took the train. One town we passed through was named Farad, a curious name because in Hungarian it means tired, in German, bicycle. We will post pictures taken on our ride home on our blog.

We continue to have good turnouts at our bi-weekly mid-singles Family Home Evenings. We even have a couple of young single adults who join us. The discussions are usually very interesting. We have one sister who is quite provocative and outspoken in her opinions. It livens things up quite a bit but sometime she also is a bit too forceful so we need to make sure everyone knows a person has the right to their own opinion.

Sister Dukelow has been generally healthy for her entire mission. She had a slight problem with her digestion system last year at this time but this year, so far, so good. She did have a cold and stayed home one day to rest. We try to exercise each day, get enough sleep, and eat a balanced diet plus one candy bar, Snickers or Milka, each day. We understand that other senior couples also follow this same pattern and also eat one candy bar a day. It appears to be a good thing because we are all healthy.

We continue to work with the two new members we helped bring into the Church, Laura and Andrea. Laura has had some health problems and being the only American in a remote area on the Balaton is a challenge. Her Hungarian is not good enough to allow her to enjoy the local church meetings so she looks forward to coming to Budapest and meeting with the International Branch which speaks English.

Andrea is also doing well at the moment considering all the trials and turmoil she went through to come to her decision to be baptized. She now says “our church” instead of “your church” as she did previously. She is now working for an Israeli firm and wants to learn Hebrew so she can do a better job. Andrea’s mother, Rose, and her daughter, Laura, may also join the church. They really enjoy meeting with us.

We and the other senior couples conduct inspections of the young missionaries’ apartments every six weeks. Most of the times we find the apartments in good shape as they are suppose to be. Some times the young folks get a bit lax and need to be gently admonished which is usually all it takes. Rarely do we need to charge them for damages they caused to their apartments. Putting tape on walls is still the biggest problem. The young people need to hang their pictures and don’t want to buy picture hangers so they tape their pictures to the walls. When the tape comes off, the paint and plaster also comes off. Repairing an apartment after it has been used by tape happy missionaries usually costs us several hundred dollars.

On 26 January we had a branch presidents’ social. Unfortunately only four units were represented due to other commitments. We had a good time and went out to eat at a nice restaurant, Remiz. Sister Dukelow had fried eggplant with chicken. Elder Dukelow had an exceptionally tasty roasted duck breast on stewed prunes. Sister Gasser was not happy that she did not get to cook the meal but she was a good sport about it. She cooks the most delicious cinnamon rolls every day when she and President Gasser are doing interviews of the young missionaries. President Gasser complains good naturedly that she will always find time to cook cinnamon rolls but lacks time to prepare him a sandwich so he makes one himself.

On 27 December we received 13 new missionaries and this week on 5 February we will receive another 13 new missionaries. That means that one fourth of our mission will either be brand new or here for less than two months. It is a real challenge for President Gasser to find the right people to train all these new folks. The last group was full of great potential and we hope this next group is the same. It makes a world of difference in Hungary if you can speak some of the language and have the right attitude.

Another note on the weather: Although we have had winter weather in January, we have also had mild days with temperatures in the mid-40s Fahrenheit. Of course when it gets warm outside, our apartment becomes unbearably hot inside. We just open the windows and don’t complain.

The passing of President Hinckley is a momentous occasion in Hungary because he is the only prophet most of these people have ever known. The funeral was broadcast via satellite to the stake center and other large chapels around the country. We watched it at home over the internet. Many of our newer members did not understand why we were not sad at the death of this great man. We explained that we firmly believe his spirit is not dead but just gone on ahead of us to a better world.

January was also a busy month because Elder Dukelow was in the middle of finding two new meeting places for our new congregations in Kaposvar and Szolnok. The Kaposvar congregation had outgrown its initial space and now has over 30 people attending each Sunday. Szolnok had its first meeting today and had 11 people in attendance. We decided to find a nice place for the Szolnok people to meet from the beginning as we believe it will grow quickly in the next few months. Kaposvar struggled for almost a year before it finally got going and some of that may have been because they met in a small room on the third floor of a rear building. Their new place is on the main street, one flight up, and much nicer and larger rooms. The Kaposvar people are ecstatic.

Just to balance out good news, we have two cities in Hungary where the police believe that missionaries are not allowed to randomly knock on doors. We have had a legal opinion on this topic two or more years ago that said as long as we are polite there is no law against such activities. We are hoping for a similar legal opinion quickly.

To finish up the report, we bring you some notes on cars and phones. We had one phone stolen in January. Ironically, the same apartment of sisters has now replaced its phone three times in one year. Their first phone was destroyed when they spilled soup on it. The next two were lost to pickpockets. We also had one other phone destroyed by missionaries who thought they could repair the on-off switch with a steak knife.

Our only car accident in the past five months happened on an icy day when our missionaries stopped at a red light and the car behind them did not. Very minor damage but it will cost their insurance approximately $500 to replace the fiber glass skirt under our car’s bumper.

Not an accident but an unnecessary expense happened when our missionaries in Szolnok decided to use their car, a small Skoda similar to a small VW sedan to move their 30 new chairs from the store to their meeting place. The store was going to charge them about $25 to deliver the chairs. They took out the rear seats from their car and in the process jammed up the seat belt retractor. The repair on the seat belt cost $50.

Tonight is Superbowl XLII. Live broadcast time here is midnight to 3AM. Elder Dukelow is hoping for a replay on Monday evening. If not, maybe next year.

Old mission reports number 14

Dukelows’ 14^th Mission Report 10 Oct to 24 Nov 2007

From 10 to 12 October, Elder Richard G. Hinckley, son of our 97 year old prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley, visited our mission and provided training to our missionaries. He and his wife, Jane, a former tennis champion, are very approachable people and full of life. Elder Hinckley told several personal stories about his father that made the prophet even more remarkable. The Hinckley children take turns eating dinner with the Prophet to ensure he eats correctly. One night Jane had prepared spinach casserole for dinner. The Prophet said, “I don’t like spinach.” Jane replied, “You need to eat it because it is full of iron.” The Prophet said, “I’d rather eat a horseshoe.” Jane responded, “We’re fresh out of horseshoes so eat your spinach.” And he did.

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) has established a logistics and accounting center in Budapest. The Human Resources officer responsible for setting up this 110 person organization is Bill Tarpai, a member of the Church. Bill and his wife, Helen, have spent most of the past twenty years in some fairly inhospitable locations managing the refugee centers in Pakistan and Bosnia. They were delighted to be able to come to Budapest where they could actually participate in Church activities and enjoy civilized society.

Elder Dukelow tried to help Bill from his first week in the country, the first of August, to find a nice apartment so Helen could join him. Bill finally found what he was looking for, a dwelling of at least 3,000 square feet of the finest Budapest could offer in the 1930’s. It is close to Parliament on a street filled with antique dealers. The Tarpai’s house hold goods if all spread out might fill approximately one fourth of this monster apartment but they are very happy there. Fortunately it is also a somewhat furnished apartment so it does not look so cavernous.

One of the things Bill Tarpai wanted to do was to give the members of the Church a fair chance to compete for the jobs the UNHCR would be offering. Most of the positions required expert language skills. Elder Dukelow made sure the appropriate local Church leaders knew the jobs were being offered. Some Church members thought they could just call up and get a position but everyone had to go through a rigorous screening process. The competition was stiff but a few Church members did get jobs and will probably have a career working with the UNHCR if they want it.

We ate dinner with the Tarpai’s on Thanksgiving at the Ezuestponty (silver carp) restaurant, which is Arthur Frommer’s favorite restaurant in Budapest. We learned that Bill will be transferred away from Budapest in February because the director of the new center here is a man from Ghana and he has hired a woman from Ghana to be the center’s operations officer, the position Bill was hoping to fill. Bill may go to Chad or the Sudan on his next assignment. It is sad in a way but the Tarpai’s know it is part of their job.

On Thanksgiving we also visited a new mall that opened on 15 Nov, shopped at the Budapest Market Hall to buy peanut butter and fresh walnuts, visited the castle district, heroes square and the Vajdahunyadvar (fantasy castle) where we saw the ice skaters. There was a long line of skaters waiting for the evening skating period to open. We were tired at the end of the day.

The missionary restoration concerts have been going full speed ahead. This year they have three sister missionaries singing as well as several elders. Sister Low, one of the senior missionaries has been directing this effort. She is very talented, organized and motivated. She plays the piano for some of the songs and also is part of the bell group. There are two other senior sisters helping on that, the mission president’s wife and Sister Giauque plus some of the sisters who sing. One elder plays the cello as part of the introduction and another elder also plays the piano for some of the songs. The Hungarian sister who is the narrator married on November 17 so they had to have a substitute that day. They have been around the country of Hungary performing where we have organized congregations and have been warmly welcomed. Tomorrow and Sunday will be the last restoration concerts. Then the Christmas concerts begin with the same people only Christmas songs but they are only going to perform on one weekend for the congregations in the Budapest area—no more long trips.

For the October branch leadership training Sister Dukelow invited every sister in the congregations in Szeged and in Debrecen to a meeting. The purpose was to learn about each other and build unity. It was successful and fun! The sisters loved hearing about each other and they loved sharing about themselves. The meeting started with the song, I am a Child of God, and closed with the song, Sisters in Zion. There was a lot of love in the room. Elder Ruggles enjoyed being the translator for the meeting in Szeged as he was the only male in the room. Sister Dukelow provided zucchini cake for refreshments. It was so good they asked for the recipe.

While in Debrecen we went to see an outstanding exhibit called the Real da Vinci. Outside the museum they had set up a replica of his monumental 27 foot tall bronze horse that was planned but never cast because his sponsor turned the bronze into cannons. If this exhibit comes anywhere near you, do yourself a favor and go see the incredible things da Vinci was conceiving while the rest of the world was groping in darkness.

The weekend we went to Szeged we forgot about daylight savings time changing and we were there an hour early. But we were not the only ones an hour early!

One of our senior couples, the Stubbs, is leaving this coming Tuesday. All the senior couples came in for training a couple of weeks ago and we went out to dinner in honor of this couple leaving and President Gasser’s birthday. We were in charge of finding the restaurant. We wanted to find somewhere close to the mission office so we could all walk to it. We found this place that is really a beer hall but we thought the menu looked okay and the prices were okay. They had this little room where they could shut the door so we ask for that but the owner insisted it wasn’t big enough for all of us so we agreed to take some other tables but when we showed up for the dinner he put us in the little room which turned out to be a very good thing because the other customers were smoking. Interesting thing, he wanted us all to eat the same thing because he could serve us quickly. We had very good veal goulash with spaetzle. He asked what kind of a salad we would like, lettuce or cucumber so Sister Dukelow said cucumber and everyone agreed, thinking we would each get a bowl of thinly sliced cucumbers with some dressing. What a surprise when he brought out plates that had five four inch long pickles on each one! We have never seen that happen anywhere before. But the food was good. We even ordered cake which seems something between a cross of bread pudding and chocolate cake with a rum flavored sauce and whip cream on it.

Thanksgiving dinner at the Ezuestponty was also memorable. Sister Dukelow had a plate of roasted carp with shrimp covered with garlic sauce that was very good. Elder Dukelow, always the risk taker, ordered a plate of six wild duck legs that turned out excellent. Normally wild duck breast is a featured menu item in many Hungarian restaurants but never duck legs. These legs had been marinated and were soft and succulent. The legs were swimming in a dark wine sauce full of grapes and berries. A half-dozen deep fried mash potato croquettes and a plate of spicy cabbage salad on the side made this an unforgettable meal. Bill Tarpai and Elder Dukelow shared a pot of spicy carp soup with freshly made bread to start the meal.

Every other Monday evening we invite the over 30 singles to our home for Family Home Evening. We never know who is coming or how many will show up. We have very good discussions and the new members especially enjoy visiting with those they do not know. We have learned to our surprise that some Hungarian single sisters do not want to marry a man who is rich or handsome. Their argument is that a man who is rich is probably not honest and a man who is handsome probably does not have the spiritual qualities they are seeking. They are astonished when we tell them about our courtship and marriage. A blind date in the Washington DC Greyhound bus depot, getting engaged three weeks later, and then Elder Dukelow leaving for Germany two months ahead of his bride. Sister Dukelow tells these Hungarian sisters to have faith and not just reject a man because of his appearance, financial status or length of time being a member of the Church.

We received our latest shipment of new missionaries on 13 November. There were only 5 elders and one sister. These folks came off the plane speaking good Hungarian. This was very impressive but probably due to the small group size. Our next two groups will be big, 13 at the end of December and another 13 on 3 February. President Gasser is concerned about where he will find 26 trainers for these new folks.

We were in Pecs and Kaposvar last weekend for training and to speak in church. We had about four inches of snow on Sunday morning that turned the area into a winter wonderland. The roads were not too bad because the temperature stay above or very close to freezing. Elder Dukelow had all the mission vehicles equipped with snow tires before 1 November. He is a popular man at the tire service shop in the basement parking lot of the MOM Park shopping center.

In Kaposvar we had an unusual incident wherein a woman who is mentally ill came into the meeting with the intent of punishing the congregation. Elder Dukelow and a couple of missionaries restrained here and took her out after she started spitting on people. Elder Dukelow told one of the missionaries to call the police. The police responded in about five minutes but explained that since this woman had not actually hit anyone, no crime had been committed. She told the police she knew the rules and although they could lock her up for 24 hours she would have to be released because she is crazy. The police did convince her to leave with them. It is a sad situation because this woman joined the church in February and has been causing us huge problems ever since. We had eight investigators in the meeting when this incident took place. They were shocked but the missionary who was conducting the meeting told them simply we had tried to help the woman but were unable to do so. He then went on with the meeting. When Elder Dukelow gave his talk, everyone was helping him when he did not know a word in Hungarian and the incident was almost forgotten.

In 2003 when Elder Dukelow worked for seven weeks in Hungary, there was talk about setting up a NATO logistics base near Kaposvar. Last week the Hungarian Minister of Defense announced there would be a NATO logistics base set up at the Papa military airfield to support the C-17s that fly from Germany to Iraq and Afghanistan. It is estimated that this base will employ 350 to 400 people. This will be a tremendous boost for the region around Papa which is very poor. We hope that some of those people who will be assigned to the base will be Church members who can help the tiny branch at Papa. The people in Papa are very excited about this base but Hungary being Hungary, there is a good chance this plan will never become a reality.

Old mission reports number 13

Dukelows’ 13^th Mission Report 2 Sep to 10 Oct 2007

Prompted by popular demand from our faithful readers who find our reports interesting, we again attempt to record some of our daily activities without boring anyone to death. For reasons unknown to us, our reports usually scramble in e-mail transmission the first and second attempts which is very frustrating because we test them between our e-mail accounts before sending them out to the world. We have reloaded our original software on our laptop so maybe we will get this report out in a readable form the first try….we hope. This report is not in any chronological order.

Sam and Terry Roberts, our former Church Educational System missionaries, left Budapest on 3 October. Bob and Yvonne Wood, their replacements, arrived on 5 October. We found a very nice apartment for the Wood couple in the ritzy second district of Buda, quite close to the Margít Bridge, and only a 20 minute walk to the mission office. The owners of the apartment are ethnic Germans named Schultz whose ancestors moved to Hungary many generations ago. The Schultzs are exceptionally pleasant people. The apartment is in a building built in 1930 and the elevator is the original one that was installed when the building was built. One must use a key to open the elevator door and then step into a big cage that slowly lifts you to the desired floor. The elevator rises on a cable in the middle of the stairwell so there are no walls around it. Similar elevators have been featured in old French movies, Charade comes to mind.

We took the Wood couple shopping on Saturday to the big Auchan super market. They were a bit overwhelmed by this store which is about three or four times as large as a super Walmart with probably 50 check out lanes. We are always surprised at the variety of things we find in Auchan. On this trip we bought some beautiful giant red “Starking” apples from Northern Italy that weighed about one pound each and were absolutely delicious. The only problem with such large apples is one apple is too much to eat for even two people at one time and they tend to turn brown when sliced and stored.

On Sunday, 7 Oct, we enjoyed the satellite transmission of General Conference from Salt Lake City. We went to the stake center in Pest and Elder Dukelow hauled over many extra books and magazines from his storage room to give away. Often our missionaries find their bags are overweight on the night before they return home so they abandon their libraries that they have accumulated during their missions to avoid paying overweight penalties. These perfectly good books along with many copies of the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church study manuals from prior years are now in the hands of people who may enjoy them rather than taking up space in the storage room.

We had many people who are investigating the Church attend the conference broadcasts. Elder Holland’s talk about Mormons being indeed Christians regardless of our rejection of the Christian trinity concept that was first formulated three hundred years after our Savior was crucified quite upset one lady who has a degree in theology from a Catholic university. We will have to work a bit longer with her to overcome this concern. President Eyring’s talk about writing a few lines each day in a journal to record the things God has done for you will surely be a good exercise to follow.

In our never-ending adventures with Hungarian bureaucracy we found last week that Sister Dukelow has a residency permit that expires in March 2008 while Elder Dukelow’s residency permit is good until September 2008. Apparently our young missionaries who were working as the mission office secretaries, and who filed the paperwork when we were still in the US, failed to notice that we had volunteered for a two year mission. They used the standard form letter requesting an 18 month stay that they used for all sister missionaries. It should be a correctable error but it will take some time and more visits to the foreign residents’ registration office. If we can’t correct this mistake, we will be coming home in March.

On 2 October we received 10 new elders and one new sister missionary. They are a fired up group and eager to get to work. The new sister named Moon, was delighted she could read all the signs on the buildings as we drove to the mission office. “Hey, I’m fluent!” she proudly proclaimed. Elder Dukelow asked her a couple of simple questions in Hungarian which brought her back to reality and a concession that she was not as fluent in the language as she thought. Nevertheless, she demonstrated great ability for reading on her first day in country and should be truly fluent in a few months. The elders were also reading the signs as we drove along but not as well as Sister Moon.

We were suppose to receive 11 new elders but one got sick at the Missionary Training Center with influenza and was quarantined for a week. He should arrive tomorrow, 10 Oct. Elder Dukelow will pick him up at the airport because we have Elder Richard Hinckley, President Hinckley, the prophet’s son, visiting here and our Mission President Gasser will be with Elder Hinckley in a conference.

Elder Dukelow and his Hungarian tutor, Gergely Noémi, visited the Ethnographic Museum in Budapest a few weeks ago to discuss the possibility of us obtaining a copy of the Hungarian explorer, Xantus János’ Mormon manuscript. This document is Xantus’ trip report of his 1852 visit to Salt Lake City. He visited with and interviewed most of the senior church leaders at that time. On 8 Oct, Elder Dukelow was able to obtain a digital copy of the manuscript consisting of 63 double sized pages of perfectly legible, almost calligraphic handwriting. We must ask the museum for permission to publish the text but we can now study it privately to our hearts content. It is really fascinating to read. Noémi, who recently published the first half of Talmage’s Jesus the Christ which she translated into Hungarian was instrumental in making the contacts to get the manuscript.

The Ethnographic Museum was hosting the world’s prize winning news photo display so we went to see that exhibit. Unfortunately, most of the photos were about sad subjects, such as war and suffering so it was not very pleasant. On the plus side, we visited the museum’s interactive exhibit of musical instruments from around the world which was very interesting, even fun.

On 21 September we and the other senior couples visited the Hungarian National Memorial Heritage Park at Opusztaszer:

http://www.opusztaszer.hu/site/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1&lang=en

This link will give you an idea of what we saw if you are interested). The weather was ideal and there were no crowds. We were given special attention at their horse show where riders demonstrate the old Hungarian skill of shooting flying objects from horseback with a bow and arrow. Pretty impressive marksmanship.

We had dinner with the group at a local inn. Sister Dukelow had a non-descript Wiener Schnitzel (breaded veal cutlet). Elder Dukelow had a big bowl of mutton stew that was cooked in a cast iron kettle hung above an open fire (bogrács in Hungarian). Unfortunately, the meat was apparently prepared with someone using an axe instead of a knife and there were bone splinters and bone chunks throughout the otherwise quite tasty dish. We should have known the quality of the food at this obvious tourist trap would be less than the highest but the fellowship was good and no one got sick so it was OK.

Our warm weather uniform of short sleeved white shirts for male missionaries changes on 15 October to dark suits for the next six months. We took our winter clothes to the dry cleaners so we could start out fresh and paid approximately $4 for each garment. Do they still have $1.50 and $2.00 dry cleaning in the USA? We hope so.

We had a cold spell at the first of September when the temperature did not get much above 50 degrees Fahrenheit for almost a week. Elder Dukelow was wearing his suits then but the young missionaries stuck with their short sleeved shirts regardless of how cold it got. Everyone complained about the cold so our building turned on the heat before the normal 15 October starting time. Then it turned warm again and we have turned off our radiators and opened the windows to cool off our apartment. We are now enjoying what the Hungarians are actually calling Indian Summer, well they don’t say “summer” but they do say “indian nyar”. The trees are turning colors very nicely and we plan to go into the hills to see all the falls colors.

With the change of seasons, women’s fashions also change as one might expect. We still occasionally see ladies wearing flip-flop shoes but more are now wearing their cowboy boots with short pants. Women wearing what looks like down filled vests are fairly common. Those who acquired tans during the summer seem compelled to show us they have no tan lines, especially in the region below the navel. One would think their tummies would get cold but fashion apparently means sacrificing comfort.

In spite of President Gasser’s stated intent last year around Christmas time that we were not going to commit so much time and mission resources to a Fall concert series, it will happen again because “his Boss” Sister Gasser wants to ring her bells. We have some very talented young folks who can sing and play musical instruments, and a few old folks with similar talents so the concerts start this week and will continue until Christmas. We are thankful that Sister Gasser is a hand bell ringer and not a bagpiper.

Sister Dukelow needed new shoes and attempted to buy them on-line. Our credit card company would not honor the order. So we went shoe shopping in Budapest and after a few hours found her two pairs of comfortable shoes that were wide in the front, narrow in the heel, not pointed in the toe, and dressy but not too dressy. Elder Dukelow is thinking about buying some handmade Vass shoes but has not yet decided whether he can justify the price even if the shoes normally last decades with proper care.

We have had some turnover in missionary apartments. Renting new apartments and closing old ones keeps us on our toes. We now have 52 apartments to worry about. Last week a 50 year old lady who was attempting to rent us an apartment owned by her aged parents caused us some unnecessary headaches. We use a standard rental contract that was prepared by an attorney for all our rented apartments. This lady had never seen a rental contract before and was very unsure of how she should proceed so she sent it to her lawyer who recommended several changes. Most of the changes were very minor and we could accept them without concern. Her last demand for a change was an eviction clause that stated that if we damaged the apartment, we had three days to fix it and compensate her, or she could evict us within three days. We sent her demands to our attorney and he came back with the Hungarian law citation that said an owner must give a tenant at least 15 days written notice before eviction. The lady backed off this demand.

Then as we were ready to sign the revised contract, she read through it one last time and choked on a statement that said, “The tenant (meaning us as the mission) will pay the rent and all the normal utilities. All other expenses will be paid by the owner.” The lady wanted to know what “all other expenses” meant. This was entirely too vague for her. We needed to rewrite the contract to be specific in what we expected her to pay as other expenses. Elder Dukelow almost lost his cool at this point but bit his tongue and explained it was not possible to foresee all possible contingencies that might cause her to have to pay something extra. The point of this statement was we pay for rent and utilities and not for something like a special assessment to repair a damaged roof, for example. She replied it was not fair to require her to pay for something that she could not control but she signed the contract and we moved missionaries into her apartment.

Vodafone’s customer service makes one wonder how they stay in business. One of our missionaries lost his cell phone. We immediately blocked the service to that phone to prevent someone from using it. A month later, the person who found the phone or bought it from the finder turned the phone into Vodafone for repairs because it did not work. Vodafone called us and asked what we wanted to have happen with our recovered phone. We asked that they return the phone to us which they did. We then requested in writing by FAX they restore service to this phone. Two weeks later when we tried to use the phone, the service was still blocked. We called Vodafone and asked what the problem was in restoring service. We were told we needed to request the resumption of service in writing. We pointed out that we had done so two weeks prior. The Vodafone customer service person was able to find our FAX but could not explain why the service was not restored and assured us it would be restored within a few days. It was restored but it makes us wonder about their understanding of the term customer service.

Rose’s brother LaMont and his wife Sandi have gone to Singapore on an 18 month mission. They are an office couple too so that makes it fun to hear about all the things that happen in their office. LaMont’s main job is to pick up and take people to the airport. There is much traveling by air in that mission. Sandi makes the travel arrangements and take care of the cash box. Everything is done by cash except the monthly missionary rent payments. They do much more too but those are the biggies.

Sister Dukelow has started a personal project of reading the Bible from cover to cover. She is now in Deuteronomy 28 after only two weeks. Her questions about some of the very strange things she finds in the Old Testament cannot be answered by Elder Dukelow. He is on his own personal reading plan attempting to read the Book of Mormon again from cover to cover in two months. He is in the middle of Alma and making good progress to achieve his goal. Both readers have found their respective scriptures to be about learning what you should do and then doing it. If you obey God’s commandments, you will be blessed. If you don’t obey, you miss out on blessings.

Old mission reports number 12

Dukelow’s 12^th Mission Report 15 July to 2 Sep 07… just delete if not interested

This will not be in chronological order but in order of what we think is interesting.

On 20 August the Hungarians celebrate their national holiday, somewhat equivalent to our July 4^th plus their national saint, Saint Steven whose mummified right arm can be seen for a quarter in the basilica named after him in Budapest. Since the 20^th was on a Monday this year, the enterprising Hungarians turned the holiday into a three day weekend with air plane races on the Danube, parades, folk dancers and of course, thousands of little booths containing trinkets and goodies for you to buy. Sister Dukelow believes there are only a few dozen firms that own the booths and they hire various people to man them during the holidays because they are everywhere and most have the same stuff for sale. Most of the stuff has no prices marked so you don’t know what they will ask for a certain item until you touch it and ask how much it will cost.

The air plane races were quite interesting as they started and finished their course under the chain bridge which was the first bridge to span the Danube in Budapest. Before the races they had some big commercial passenger planes plus an old DC3 fly very low down the Danube. The little racing airplanes are so small and do such fancy tricks that one woman next to us asked if there were really people flying inside the planes because she thought they might be big radio controlled models.

In the evening of the 20^th we watched the fireworks at home on our TV. It poured down rain earlier in the evening and we thought that would drive away the crowds. We may have been part of a very few that left the river bank because it was packed with people. We could hear the fireworks from our apartment and they lasted a good half hour. They were large and colorful. After the fireworks finished, it started raining again.

We went on weekend trips twice each month and saw more of Hungary. We visited Debrecen in the East, Eger and Miskolc in the North and were back in Szeged in the South the last weekend in August. Since then we visited Pécs, Sopron, and Szombathely doing Church audits.

Debrecen is a beautiful university city with many trees along the streets. The LDS chapel is very nice and has apparently won prizes for its landscaping. The city also has a huge park with a big spa in the middle. Hungary’s largest Protestant church is in Debrecen. We headed back to Debrecen to audit their financial records and stopped to see Hungarian cowboys at their Hortabagy national park on this trip. The tourist season is over so the cowboys had gone home. Almost every missionary who makes it to Debrecen owns a fancy hand made braided leather whip purchased at this Hortabagy park. Debrecen has a flower parade on 20^th August each year. We watched the highlights on TV. If you can imagine hundreds of baton twirlers, dozens of club bands, and a group of stilt dancers in shaggy sheep skin coats, you will get the idea.

Eger is a beautiful small city with many pretty flowers everywhere. We did not have time to explore the city because we were on a tight schedule but we will go back on 9 September to speak in church and do some training.

Miskolc also has a beautiful chapel and a wonderful congregation of Latter Day Saints. The branch president is reputed to be one of the richest men in Hungary. He is really a good leader and takes care of his people. Miskolc is an old industrial city with not much charm. It is the third largest city in Hungary after Budapest and Debrecen. There are only two hotels in this city that have ads on the internet. It is certainly not a tourist destination.

We spoke to the missionary who was visiting Miskolc the day we were there who was the first to preach the restored Gospel in Miskolc in 1992. He told us about renting a hall and having 100 investigators at his meetings. They were teaching 50 lessons a week. The current branch president was one of his converts. The missionaries in 1992 were preaching on the street and a group of men were harassing them. A man stepped out of the crowd, punched one of the opponents in the nose, and told the rest to show some respect for these missionaries who were trying to talk about their religion. Later in the week the missionaries were visiting in a home and this same man came into the house as it was his home. The missionaries were afraid he would do something to them but he listened to their message and found it was something he had been searching for. He owned a big wine exporting business and several night clubs. He sold his businesses that were not compatible with the church and the Lord blessed him with other success.

Food is always important in Hungary. There is no social occasion without something good to eat. The Hungarians like to grill fat during the summer. They make a big deal out of selecting the right wood, preferably dried fruit tree wood, to give the grilled fat a special flavor. Stew cooked outside in big pots suspended from an iron tripod over a wood fire is another favorite.

We ate at our favorite Greek restaurant to celebrate our 41^st anniversary. Sister Dukelow had the Mediterranean salmon and shrimp salad. Elder Dukelow had a very tasty pepper steak meal that consisted of a pile of mixed steamed vegetables, with two quarter pound slices of tenderloin on the side. The pepper sauce also was served on the side so everything kept its own flavor.

More recently we ate out as we were doing audits and had some fairly good meals. Last night Elder Dukelow had pork medallions smeared with goose liver that is really much tastier than it sounds. A few days earlier he had a “schweinehaxe” (pork shoulder) that was also very good.

We had a less memorable meal in Szeged. Sister Dukelow had a big plate of penne pasta and strawberry soup for desert. Elder Dukelow tried their version of cordon bleu: chicken breast covered with ham and cheese on a bed of home fries. Unfortunately all he could taste was salt. Probably should have sent it back.

Elder Dukelow ordered three short sleeved white shirts from Lands End over the internet. The Hungarian customs folks charged him 25 per cent customs duty for these shirts. They sent him a letter telling him to go to the main customs office to pay his duty and pick up his shirts. At the first window in the customs office there is a sign in Hungarian that says, “If you don’t have your paperwork, go to window number 5.” Elder Dukelow had his letter so he went to window number one and the man said, “Go to window 5” without even looking at the letter. At window 5 Elder Dukelow received a copy of the same letter he already had and took it back to window 1. The man at window one took the letter and told him to wait. Five minutes later he called Elder Dukelow up to the window and gave him a form that contained the same information as the original letter but it was now typed on high quality watermarked paper. Elder Dukelow was again sent to window number 5. At window number 5, the lady took the new paper and handed it back to Elder Dukelow with the customs packing slip from his Lands End package and told him to go to window 6 across the hall. Elder Dukelow took the slip and letter to window 6. The lady at window 6 told him to go back to window 5. Elder Dukelow objected and in his most polite Hungarian explained the lady at window 5 had just sent him to window 6. The lady at window 6 said to stand aside and wait a few minutes. Elder Dukelow now realized he may have arrived at the Office of Unending Bureaucracy made famous in the trick film of 1977 called Asterix conquers Rome in German. A few minutes later, a new woman brought the shirts from window 5 to the lady at window 6. She called Elder Dukelow, asked him for the customs due, and after he paid, sent him off with the shirts and a note verifying he had paid customs on them. A security guard at the front door checked the note against the packing slip and allowed Elder Dukelow his freedom from this very strange office.

We have been able to participate in teaching a few people with the elders and sister missionaries. The sisters asked us to help teach a Jehovah Witness couple. We told the sisters we would help on the condition that we only spoke of positive, uplifting things and did not contend with the Jehovah Witnesses. They agreed and we met with these people. It was a bit hard for Elder Dukelow to listen to the Jehovah Witnesses explain their understanding of selected verses in the Bible using their specialized translation without giving them the counteracting verses that their organization leaders scrupulously avoid allowing their members to discuss. He tried to get them to accept a Book of Mormon as a second witness of Christ and to read just one chapter, 1 Nephi 2, which explains our understanding of the Fall of Adam. They refused even to touch the Book of Mormon claiming all the knowledge about Jehovah they needed was contained in the Bible and they used no supplementary publications. In the light of the extensive training materials published by their organization the obvious fallacy of that statement escaped them. Elder Dukelow later provided the sister missionaries with a long list of Jehovah Witness doctrinal beliefs taken from their official web site and their favorite scripture verses. The fact that they deny the divinity of Christ sorely disappointed our sisters.

We have a very dedicated group of six hard working yet very compatible senior couples in the mission. These people also know how to have fun. In August, this group took a two hour boat trip on the Danube from Budapest to Hungary’s number one tourist trap, Szentendre (Saint Andrew). It was a very relaxing ride and we enjoyed each others company. On 21 September we will meet again to visit Hungary’s National Memorial Heritage Park at Opusztaszer. We will let you know about that outing in the next report.

Our Church Education System Outreach Center couple, the Roberts, leave on 3 October. Their replacements, Bob and Yvonne Wood, from Payson, Utah, should arrive about the same time. Our next couple to leave, the Stubbs, flies home on 27 November. We surely need some of you to put in your mission paperwork because we have no news of a replacement for the Stubbs and in April, three more couples leave.

Our daughter, Laura, is now living with her Aunt Ann in Orem, Utah. Laura is working at the local Ikea. Gwyndolynn Gentry and her family have moved from Mountain Home, Idaho to Murray, Utah. If any of you faithful readers in those areas would like their phone numbers or addresses please let us know.

Teaching the Hungarian leaders to delegate their responsibilities is a big challenge. In August, President Bauer, in Pápa was released after serving almost 10 years as branch president. Almost everything done in that branch was done by members of his immediate family. This policy caused many people to stop coming. Elder Stubbs is now the branch president and his task in the next three months is to find a new leader.

We had seven new missionaries arrive 22 August. As usual, since they flew through Milan, Italy, they all arrived without their checked luggage. Their bags caught up with them in two days. Just a tip for those of you who may be flying to Central or Eastern Europe and catching connecting flights in Paris or Milan, please pack extra underwear in your carry-on bag. Some missionaries believe it is more important to carry their scriptures and library with them and suffer a bit until their luggage is found.

Vodafone continues to amaze us with its antics. This time they decided Elder Dukelow was not authorized to make service requests for the 63 phones in our network that he had been managing for almost a year. Apparently some Vodafone bureaucrat could not find a document authorizing Elder Dukelow to act on behalf of the church, in spite of the fact that he had met with two Vodafone account representatives and had made numerous transactions with this company. We obtained a letter from his predecessor turning over responsibility for the phones and faxed it to Vodafone and all is well…

Last year the mission sponsored a long series of “Restoration Concerts” featuring the talents of three professional male singers who happened to be serving missions here. This year a new series of concerts will start featuring different, yet equally talented, magnificent voices of two sisters, two elders, and three bell ringers. We don’t have a schedule yet for the concert series but we are sure it will be extensive. President Gasser says we will not do a follow on Christmas concert series. We have not heard the final word from his boss, Sister Gasser, bell ringer in charge.

The Budapest Stake and the Hungary Budapest Mission sponsored a Young Single Adult conference for all central Europe. It was a great success and was written up in the Church News. Our mission office helped support the conference by getting visas for some of the young people who would otherwise not be able to visit Hungary.

About a month ago, a brother William Tarpai, came to church and later had lunch with us. Br. Tarpai is a Human Resource Manager for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). His organization is opening an office in Budapest to handle the accounting, supplies, and logistics for the UNHCR world wide. They will hire approximately 110 people. Elder Dukelow mentioned this employment opportunity to Sister Hauck, wife of the second counselor in the Stake Presidency, and the phone immediately started ringing with inquiries from various people about possible job openings. Br. Tarpai told us today the first positions are posted on the internet and work will start on 1 November. Br. Tarpai is interested in hiring as many qualified Mormons as possible because they have the necessary language skills and can usually be trusted in sensitive positions. If you want to work for the UNHCR in Budapest, we can give you the web sites to check for the positions.

In our tour of the mission to do audits, we were joined this week by Jim and Rona Jurgens from Frankfurt, Germany or Mapleton, UT. They are full time auditors for the church in central Europe and we learned a lot from them as we traveled together. They tried to recruit us as full time auditors for the church but traveling 20 days a month does not appeal to us. At the audit in Sopron, they were astonished when the branch president asked if we could sing a hymn before we left. We sang, “Count Your Blessings.” Later in Szombathely, two faithful and conscientious brothers demonstrated what exact obedience is about as they turned in an audit that was almost without any finding of corrections need. The Jurgens asked if we could take these brethren with us to train the other Hungarian leaders how to properly manage the Lord’s funds.

As we and the Jurgens rode together we exchanged faith promoting stories to pass the time. The Jurgens had a son who served his mission in Nicaragua. This young man was given a very difficult assignment for the last six months of his mission. He was assigned to be the branch president of a broken congregation at the very edge of the mission in a small town where the previous branch president had to be removed and was very openly hostile towards the church.

When young Elder Jurgens arrived in this village with his companion only six people attended their first Sunday meetings. The missionaries decided to visit every member of the church in the village and beyond that to speak with every single person in the village, including the former branch president. When they arrived at the very modest home of the former branch president, he was reluctant to permit them to enter. He allowed them to come in when they promised not to do anything more than sing a hymn. Both young elders were exceptionally talented singers. They sang their first hymn and were asked to sing another. They continued to sing hymns for almost three hours. There was a tremendous outpouring of the spirit. When they left the home they found the entire neighborhood had gathered around this dwelling to hear them sing. The next Sunday the former branch president and his family were seated in the front row of the congregation.

After six months the Jurgens couple traveled to Nicaragua to pick up their son from his mission. They went to the village where their son had last served. The Sunday meetings were attended by106 people. Following church, the Jurgens went to the home of the former branch president so their son could sing for him one last time. Again one hymn followed another until they pleaded they had to leave. When they went out, again they found the entire community had gathered to hear the singing. Everyone in the community hugged young Elder Jurgens and thanked him for his service as he left. His father, who has served in many prominent church positions and enjoyed many spiritual experiences, said with tears in his eyes, this was the spiritual highlight of his life, a never to be forgotten experience.

We enjoy many spiritual experiences as we invite new members and people learning about the Gospel into our homes. Andrea and her 12 year old daughter, Laura, visited us on Friday night. They have been investigating the church for over six months. Laura told of how she had been asked to pray at a Lutheran youth camp this summer. She prayed as the missionaries had taught her to pray, from her heart and not from a memorized prayer. She said it was as if a fog lifted from the camp and people who were before sad and frowning were afterwards smiling and happy. Laura wants to be a sister missionary when she is old enough.

The previous week we were visited by Sandor and Laszlo, both men are very new members. We had dinner together and a good Gospel discussion even though Sandor cannot speak any English. Later Laszlo asked to stay longer and we reviewed scriptures which was a real pleasure to do with someone who is absorbing the Gospel.

We are excited that Rose’s brother LaMont and his wife Sandi are entering the Missionary Training Center tomorrow (Sept 2) they are going on an 18 month mission to Singapore. They will be the office couple for that mission.

Every Sunday is fun as we meet with the Saints because we never know who we might meet and what new friends we will make. We are happy and thankful to be able to serve as missionaries. We pray for you, for your health and your happiness and hope you in turn will pray for us as we strive to serve others.

Love,

Elder and Sister Dukelow

Old mission reports number 11

11^th Mission Report (28 May-14 July 2007)

In response to popular demand, we are sending this report to all of you. Just hit the delete if you are not interested.

Late in May on a Saturday we visited, Rozalia, an older Hungarian woman at her home in a small village, Pusztaszabolc, at the end of the local train line. She was a bit concerned because she speaks no English and she had no confidence in our Hungarian so she also invited some young missionaries. The young missionaries did not show up because they had other things to do but we got along fine. Rozalia had several dictionaries out but we did not need them. She has a little farm on a property no bigger than half an acre where she raises pigs, chickens, ducks, and every imaginable kind of vegetable that will grow in Hungary. No space is wasted on her property. She has two houses but the second house which was intended to replace the first house had some legal zoning problems so it is still under construction and now houses the pigs and chickens. We came home with ten pounds of fresh peas. Since then we have received two deliveries of zucchini and more peas. We share the zucchini with the other missionaries but keep the peas to ourselves. They are delicious.

As we travel around the country we see numerous fruit and vegetable stands. It seems like everyone is selling watermelons these days. Watermelons are called Greek melons in Hungarian. We think the watermelons come from outside Hungary but they are delicious nevertheless. We saw one pick yourself orchard that had apricots and peaches. People were there picking. We have enjoyed cantaloupe, cherries, and strawberries. The apricots we bought were not very good. A nectarine we bought was as hard as an apple but still tasty.

Every block in Budapest has a flower shop and one if not two hair dressers. Most blocks also have a small grocery store and a tavern. Every other block has a green grocer. Some stores are very small, about six feet wide and twenty feet deep. Many stores are in the basement with a door below the level of the sidewalk.

A friend of ours named Zsacky (sounds like Jackie) Andrea brought Sister Dukelow a beautiful bouquet of roses, laurel, and other flowers. Andrea has many useful talents; and floral arranging is one of them. Everything about this bouquet was symbolic; it was even shaped like a heart. Andrea’s mother’s name is Rose and her daughter’s name is Laura. Andrea has a degree in theology and is close to joining the church. She has many questions but she knows it is true.

On 19 June we visited the Parliament building and other sites of Pest with a group of other missionaries. The Parliament building is very beautiful and has many stairs inside. You can read all about it on the internet. We also visited Saint Stevens Basilica in Pest. It is very ornate inside. That afternoon, we left the other missionaries and took a look at the brass shoes memorial on the banks of the Danube near Parliament. During the last days of World War Two, the Nazis rounded up the last of the Jews in Budapest and took them to the river. They made them undress and take off their shoes. They were then shot and dumped into the river. The brass shoes are a fitting memorial but very hard to find unless you specifically look for them. We will attach a picture.

June was a significant month for us as we have now gone a historic three months without an automobile accident involving our missionaries. We have two new cars waiting to be delivered next week and another one on order. We did have one missionary’s phone and one wallet stolen by pickpockets. Elder Dukelow jinxed himself with his bragging. On Sunday 14 July, a lady backed into President Gasser’s car in the church parking garage.

On 30 June we took the chair lift to the Janos Hill, the tallest point in Buda. It was quite interesting because we rode silently through the air above people’s back yards, a Seventh Day Adventist Church, and among the trees to the top of the mountain. Then we hiked a short way up to Elizabeth’s tower and looked out over the city and the surrounding country. It was cool and a bit rainy so there were no crowds. We are sure to go again on a sunny day.

The last of June we also made a trip to Szeged to do some training and speak in church. Elder Dukelow was asked to use a translator because some of the people in Szeged could not understand him when he speaks Hungarian. This was disappointing but he is now working harder than ever to speak correctly. He spoke last Sunday in our small beginning branch in Bekescsaba and the people there seemed to understand what he was saying without too much difficulty. He talked about the parallels between Hungarian and Mormon pioneers. The people were fascinated by the lists of Hungarian and Mormon inventors that he reviewed. The Hungarians are proud of their inventors and scientists.

It seems like every time we visit Szeged they have some event going on in their main square. This time it was a summer festival with hundreds of picnic tables and dozens of vendors selling good things to eat and drink. We were fortunate to be able to see a beauty pageant and a belly dancing exhibition. Some of the young ladies in the beauty pageant did not seem to be having much fun. The belly dancing was good but one of the ladies was suffering from a wardrobe malfunction and had to keep hitching up her costume to avoid losing her skirt.

We did not eat at the festival but went across the street to the Methusalem Restaurant for our dinner. Sister Dukelow had the same meal she had ordered there before, strawberry cream soup and pasta with seafood. It was not as good as the first time. Elder Dukelow tried the beef tenderloin stuffed with cheese. That was excellent.

We had another memorable meal at our favorite Greek restaurant in Pest on 27 June. It was one of our senior missionaries, Sister Giauque’s, birthday so we joined the Giauques and President and Sister Gasser for this meal. Sister Dukelow was unusually adventuresome and tried the baked artichoke heart menu which will be the last time she will order that particular dish. Elder Dukelow had the lamb cutlets which was very good.

When we visited Sopron a month ago we asked the young missionaries for their recommendation for a good restaurant. They gave us an enthusiastic unanimous recommendation for their favorite place to eat. It turned out to be a pancake house. Mediocre food (lousy food may be more accurate) but you get what you pay for.

On that trip to Sopron the air conditioning for our train car did not function and it was hot. Sister Dukelow went to another car to see if the air was working. It was so we moved from our reserved seats to unoccupied seats in the cooler car. We sat across from a young woman who had just finished her bar examinations and was starting her career as an attorney in the national department of education. She was impressed with Elder Dukelow’s ability to correctly use the Hungarian word endings.

Our weather that was very hot in the middle of May turned cool for the last few weeks. We needed to sleep under blankets. It is suppose to get warm again this weekend. Maybe because we did not have a real winter we will not get a real summer. We are not complaining and we still have half of July and all of August before the summer normally starts to cool off.

On 5 July we had a fire inspection of our building. We passed. We had a pre-inspection two weeks earlier and one of the things that had to be corrected was a big supply of Books of Mormon that Elder Dukelow had stacked on the floor near the gas meter. All those boxes had to be moved to a different location in his supply room.

The supply room was also the scene of a big adventure about four weeks ago when the sump pump stopped working one weekend. We called the people who are suppose to take care of such things and they said they would send someone right out to take a look. No one came on Monday. The sump filled up to the top and Elder Dukelow used a small bucket to bail out the sump. We called and e-mailed again for help with no response other than assurances that someone was on their way. No one came so Elder Dukelow and the office staff of young missionaries took matters into their own hands on Thursday. They dismantled the sump pump and found it had become completely plugged up with gunk, little pieces of plastic bags and packing tape that had accumulated over the years. Even after cleaning the impeller thoroughly so it would spin freely it would not start. We bailed out the sump again. It was raining heavily so we called again and we were told the repair man could not come that day because there was too much rain.

Friday, a week after the initial call, the repair man came and after his careful examination of the defective pump which we had cleaned, decided it was broken and needed to be replaced. Our building custodian told us we should not have messed with the pump because we did not know what we were doing. After the new pump was installed, Elder Dukelow checked again to make sure it was working correctly and found the sump full to the brim again. He drained the sump, called the people back and had the repair man set the pump switch float lower so we could have a few inches of water in the bottom of the sump rather than it being full to the brim.

In all this sump pump business we learned another quirky thing about our building. The baptismal font which can hold approximately 500 gallons of water drains into the sump in the supply room. If we would have had a baptism while the sump pump was broken we would have had a big soggy mess in the supply room because we have many boxes of books and pamphlets stored on the floor as we have run out of shelf space.

This week we sent 13 missionaries home and gained five new missionaries. The group that we sent home included all four of the professional musicians who performed concerts throughout the mission last year. The new group of four elders and one sister seem to be a very enthusiastic bunch who were not fazed in the least that their luggage did not arrive with them. The last of their bags finally arrived today, only three days late. We have had delayed luggage take a week to be delivered.

There is a big Catholic church near the mission office. One Saturday the Catholic Church was the scene of a big traditional Hungarian handcrafts market. The ladies were dressed in their traditional costumes and had made many very nice items for sale. Elder Dukelow liked the beautifully embroidered little girls dresses, thinking his granddaughters would like them but practical Sister Dukelow said, “No, no, no.”

On 14 July, we went on an outing to the Gellert Hill. This hill is where Russell M. Nelson dedicated Hungary for the preaching of the gospel on Easter, 27 April 1987. President Gasser takes all the arriving new young missionaries to this hill so they can look over the city and the Danube River and enjoy the spirit of the place.

Our outing started off with a sad event. A man had died (no details available at this time) and his body was on the streetcar tracks. Many policemen were at the scene and the streetcar was not permitted to take its normal route. The streetcar driver told us to all get off and take a substitute bus that would stop across the street. The substitute bus never came but we took a different bus and got to where we needed to go.

There were many tourists on Gellert Hill today because it was a beautiful sunny day. There are also many vendors selling all kinds of souvenirs on the hill. We looked at the only three remaining statues from the Communist era in Budapest. All the rest of the communist statues were collected and moved to the statue park outside the city. There is a 120 feet high pedestal on top of the hill with a 46 foot tall statue of a woman holding a palm leaf that is called the freedom statue. This tall statue can be seen from many places in Budapest.

We took a bus to the top of the hill but walked back down because we wanted to eat our picnic in the forest. On our way down the hill we heard children playing and found them at a very long, huge plastic tube slide, much like one would see at a water park. The kids would bunch up in a group and slide down together screaming at the top of their lungs. Then they would jump up and run back up to the top to slide again. Too bad we had our nice clothes on because we could have slid on that slide. Next time we will have to wear our casual clothes, ha ha.

We went to a double baptism service in the afternoon. It was special because one of our departing missionaries who was picked up by his family last Thursday performed the baptism of a man he had been teaching for the past few months. The other baptism was also special because a man who had joined the Church around Christmas baptized a friend who he had taught the Gospel. The talks were given by new members. The special musical number was by a convert of less than one year. This entire service was extraordinary because of the new members’ participation. It is wonderful to see these people progress in the church. We also had four or five investigators at this baptismal service.

Saturday was also memorable because we heard that thanks to many friends and relatives, our daughter Laura was packed out of her apartment in Alexandria, VA, and started on her U-haul journey to Utah. She will be traveling with and then living with her Aunt Ann in Orem, next to Provo.

Our daughter Gwyndolynn and her family are now looking for a new home near Salt Lake City. Our daughter Rebecca and her husband, Sergio, have just moved to a new home in the Phoenix area. It looks like our daughter Lydia’s family is the only one not moving at the moment. It is a good thing that e-mail addresses don’t change.