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.