Old mission reports number 9

9^th Mission Report from 12 March to 21 April 2007

First of all, thanks to all your faith and prayers, the missionary who was sent home sick with a nervous breakdown has now almost completely recovered and wants to return to his mission. President Gasser is waiting to hear officially from this young man’s physician before making any decision on having him come back. The young man spoke with Elder Dukelow on the phone and he sounds fine but with such a serious illness in his recent past we need to be very cautious about putting him in a stressful situation again.

In late-March we visited the city of Kaposvár and spoke in church. Kaposvár is where Elder Dukelow lived in the spring of 2003 while he was helping with the security for the training of the Free Iraqi Forces. This little congregation was started last November and has two baptized members and 10 or 12 friends who attend regularly. One of the friends is a young man who is part of a local Bible study group that is trying to find the true church. Elder Dukelow told this man about the experiences of Wilford Woodruff, an early very successful missionary of the church and later the third president of the church. This Kaposvár Bible study group has striking parallels to people who were taught by Wilford Woodruff and joined the church as a group.

On the same late-March trip we visited and spoke in Pécs. Elder Dukelow told of the test of faith made by a Mr. Peterson who held the franchise for Caterpillar tractors in Northern California. Mr. Peterson tested the “windows of heaven” promise of the Lord in Malachi. When he paid 20 per cent tithing, his annual income doubled. When he paid 30 per cent the next year, his income doubled again. He paid 40 per cent and his income doubled again. He stopped paying extra tithing at that point because the scriptures say “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord, thy God.” One of the Roma brethren in the Pécs branch was fascinated by this story but completely missed the point. He asked Elder Dukelow where he could obtain such a tractor and how much it would cost. Elder Dukelow told him to plan on paying about $100,000 for cheapest new Caterpillar Tractor which ruined whatever this brother had in mind.

Last week we visited Szombathely again. This branch had some rough times in the distant past because of the lack of tolerance among the members. They are still learning to live peacefully with one another. One thing for sure about the Hungarian members, they are passionate about their beliefs and are not afraid to express their opinions.

We typed our last report on the office computer because our laptop was sick. We had it repaired but it is still not exactly the way it should be. Our office computers also had serious problems this past month. The difficulty started when the Mission Office System (MOS) software on Elder Dukelow’s computer would not work. A call to the help desk in Salt Lake City brought the fact to light that we were working with obsolete programs and would need to update our software before they could help us. They sent us new MOS and also new operating system software as the new MOS required new operating software also.

The instructions with the software said in big letters: “Do not attempt to install this software without reading all the instructions.” So Elder Dukelow read the instructions and started the upgrade. The first thing he had to do was back up all the data files on both his and Sister Dukelow’s computers since they are networked together. So far so good. What he did not do is backup all the system program files on Sister Dukelow’s computer that linked her to the Budapest Bank. We had about a week of hard times before all the bank links needed were restored. Sad to say, MOS does not work any better now than it did before. Each day Elder Dukelow has to rebuild the network connection to Sister Dukelow’s computer in spite of having mapped the network many times to fix this problem. Any suggestions from smart computer people would be appreciated. We have a “computer guy” working as a secretary in our office. He played with a Commodore 64 as an infant. Unfortunately he does not like to read instructions which limits his usefulness when working with bizarre programs such as MOS.

In the continuing column of the bizarre: Apparently one section of approximately 40 kilometers of railroad track between the cities of Györ and Csorna is now owned by a private company and not by the Hungarian State Railroad. The last time we bought train tickets we were issued separate tickets for this section of track. The conductor did not even mark these tickets when she check the rest of our tickets on our last trip.

This past month brought us adventures in cars, apartments, and phones. We were authorized to purchase two new small Opel Corsa cars for the mission. We went to the local Opel dealer to make the purchase. Since we specified that we wanted automatic transmissions and electronic stability equipment on the cars we must wait approximately five months for delivery. The salesman told us the Hungarians do not buy small cars with automatic transmissions and stability equipment. He could deliver cars without these features immediately.

The President’s car has a nasty clunk in its automatic transmission. The Opel service sent us to a transmission specialist to get it fixed. The transmission specialist said he has too much work to do and recommended we come back in two weeks. It is still not fixed and the President is still driving it, hoping it will not give out on him on the road.

We did identify another tire service, also operating under a shopping center, which is willing to change our winter tires to summer tires. These folks are even busier than the previous tire service and they only make appointments three days in advance.

One of our new drivers who had only been behind the wheel four days in Hungary was in an accident that he could not avoid. He was stopped at a red light waiting to turn right. A woman pulled up beside him intending to quickly turn left on the red light before the cross traffic started. Unfortunately she was a little late and as the traffic started she reversed without looking and dented the driver and passenger doors of our car. The amount of paperwork for a no-fault accident is just the same as when you are at fault. We should be reimbursed for the $520 dollar dents she put in our doors.

Everyday brings something new with our 50+ apartments. We had some missionaries who decided one night to set fire to a magazine on their balcony for no apparent reason. It got the neighbors excited. Two other missionaries apparently decided that we would not check on whether they cleaned their apartment so they stopped cleaning and turned over the dirty apartment to two different missionaries. The owner came by to check on something and complained to us about the bad situation so the new elders had the job of cleaning up a mess they had not made. This happens too often in spite of our efforts to have the incoming missionaries fill out an inspection form. No one wants to tattle on someone for leaving a mess. Happily, most apartments we check are sparkling clean and the missionaries are proud of their cleaning job.

We had some interesting things happen with our cell phone system. The mission network is not supposed to be charged for calls within the network but we were charged for some calls. When I called customer service to complain, I was told the numbers were dialed incorrectly. Apparently if one uses a shortcut to dial the calls within the system the service provider charges the call. We think we have that fixed.

A telephone used by two sister missionaries stopped working early in March. Customer service was not able to restore the service to this phone and told me to send it in for repair. After a month in the shop, I was told the phone had been disabled because it was reported stolen. The phone had not been either lost or stolen so I again called customer service to see if we could restore service to this phone. The customer service lady who I am getting to know quite well explained she had a written request from us barring service to that phone. I asked her to fax us a copy of that request so we could see who had signed it but this was not possible due to privacy rules. ? ! … I requested she talk to her manager and get us an exception to their rule because we needed to know who outside our office was barring service on our phone system. Next letter we will tell whether we were able to find out who the culprit was.

Last week an elder called to ask Elder Dukelow some advice about how to handle a situation where a lady who wanted to join the church believed she could not give up drinking coffee. Elder Dukelow explained he had faced this problem many times before since coffee is pretty addictive and many members cannot give it up. He suggested the elder tell the lady that the Lord gave Joseph Smith the Word of Wisdom as a blessing for our health. If the lady believed Joseph Smith was a prophet, she should test the Lord’s guidance regarding coffee and see whether the Lord would bless her. Two days later the elder called back to report on this sister’s progress. She had stopped drinking coffee and felt miserable all day the first day. The next day she woke up feeling fine and told the missionaries she had no desire to ever drink coffee again.

Today we took the bus to a shopping center called the Rose Garden. It is in the very fashionable and expensive Second District of Budapest. Our goal was to buy some dark brown sugar at the Kaisers Grocery Store for making Cowboy Cookies. Most of the other stores have only light brown sugar or crystallized brown sugar that does not make good cookies. We found our sugar and also bought a bag of poppy seed which is used in many Hungarian pastries. The shopping center is quite different from others we have seen. Almost the entire top floor is dedicated to health services, doctors, dentists, chiropractor, massage, etc. Apparently much of their clientele is English and German speaking as the signs on the doors are in three languages. The shops in this center are also pretty exclusive. We now know where to go to buy alligator skin bags.

This is Sister Dukelow writing now. I just wanted to share some personal feelings. I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. He is our Savior. I know that I am a loved daughter of our Heavenly Father. I know that each of us have Christ-like qualities that need to be developed and I am slowly developing a few. I know that Joseph Smith restored Christ’s Church on the earth again and translated the Book of Mormon. I am thankful that I know the Church and the Book of Mormon are true.

I have enjoyed my scripture study very much in the last six months. That is probably my favorite part of my mission. I have learned much as we have prepared to talk in sacrament meeting each month in the various branches of the mission. I also have the privilege of training the primary, young women and relief society organizations. How blessed I have been to grow up in the Church in wards that had good functioning auxiliaries.

I have learned that I need to be more humble and willing to do as the Lord commands. I have had answers to prayers. I have received inspiration through the Holy Ghost in regards to my work in the office. I am thankful for that. Finances are a big part of the mission. My constant prayer is that what I do will help the mission run smoothly and provide others the opportunity to teach those people who are looking for truth.

Now that I feel more comfortable doing finances I am looking forward to getting more involved in the actual discussions but if you don’t speak Hungarian it makes it very difficult so that is something I need to spend more energy on. We started attending our district meetings. I like that. I feel more like a missionary now.

I really am amazed at some of these young missionaries. They are so strong in the gospel and do so well in the Hungarian language. It is a pleasure to be around most of them and then there are times when I shake my head and remind myself they are still YOUNG. I really admire them. This is hard work. Transfers come and new cities, new companions, new branches mean you start all over again. Phone calls come in and appointments or programs are cancelled and yet they go out eager to share their testimonies and invite those they talk with to come unto Christ.

I am learning to prepare food the night before because when we get home sometime after 6 in the evening we are hungry and we don’t want to wait to eat. I have cooked more soups and stews here then I ever have before. More fresh vegetable have been used here too. We do eat very simply and a lot of the same food but it is healthy.

The quality of the brown sugar makes all the difference when you are making cowboy cookies. We paid 454 forint ($2.05) for 1.1 lb of dark brown sugar but at least we found it. Yea! And yes, the cookies turned out just right.