Hollókő

The first below picture is looking up at the Hollókő castle wall. At the bottom of the pictures is an explanation of what you are seeing.

Hollókő more and more pictures again

Hollókő more and more pictures

Hollókő more pictures

Hollókő pictures

Easter Monday Seniors visit to Hollókő

On 24 March, Easter Monday, the senior couples of the mission visited Hollókő in the northern mountains of Hungary. It was a cold, wet, snowy day. We got the van stuck for a few minutes trying to turn it around. Sister Dukelow slipped and slid her way through the town on the old rock streets because of the slush and flat soled shoes. We hiked up to the castle and enjoyed the views. The castle was built in the 13th Century and has been partially restored to make it safe for tourists. The town was full of visitors expecting to see the traditional Hungarian Easter festivities. Due to the inclement weather and the outdoor stage being covered with snow, they moved the colorful and energetic folk dancing inside where only about 120 of the thousand visitors could see the performance. The shops and street vendors did a brisk business. Lunch was a disaster. The weather cleared up in the afternoon and we enjoyed a sunny drive home to Budapest.

March pictures

The church is in the village of Kakasd. The artwork and push-ups are from our talent show. The statue of King Matthew and the Fishermen's Bastion are from our beautiful 15 March day.

17 Mission Report or 15 March catch-up

March 15 we walked to the castle area. That means walking uphill, walking around the castle city, looking toward Pest from the Fishermen’s Bastian where we could see the beautiful Parliament Building. Today is Hungary’s national holiday so there were large groups of protestors at the Elizabeth Bridge that Elder Dukelow could see using his binoculars. It was a beautiful blue sky day! Just the kind we like!!

At 4:15 p.m. Andrea and her 12 year old daughter Laura came to visit us. Andrea joined the church in December of last year. She has had a real struggle with several different aspects of her life but it seems she has turned the corner and things are going better for her. She seems happier today than she has for a while. It was a good visit.

Just as they were leaving we received a call from a missionary telling us he needed the PUK code so that he could use his phone again so we went to the mission office, took the phone card with the PUK number out of the safe and he is back in business. The reason why this is important is that tomorrow morning the transfer calls are made and he wanted to be able to receive the news via phone and not have to wait until church time to find out if he or his companion is going anywhere.

Some of you have heard already but we will add it here. Elder Dukelow is officially 65 years old and it was a good birthday celebrated with pineapple upside down cake made by Sister Dukelow and a lovely restaurant dinner with Elder Dukelow’s tutor and her husband. It was fun to get the e-cards and other e-mail wishes. THANKS!

On Feb 8 we received the Schnebly couple from Mesa, Arizona. Sister Schnebly was born in Hungary and is a fireball missionary. They were so anxious to get out and get to work that they refused the offer of President and Sister Gasser to stay a night in the mission home before they left for their first assignment. They are now living in Gyor and visiting the branches in the West side of the mission.

On March 4^th we gained another new senior missionary couple, Brent and Nan Gudgell from Bountiful. YEA!!! They stayed with us 3 nights before they headed to the city of Debrecen where they will work at starting a mini-outreach program. We do have another senior couple, the Giauques, in Debrecen but they leave April 12. The President didn’t want to leave this congregation without a senior couple so there is a bit of an overlap. (We still need more senior couples. Encourage your friends, neighbors and family to put in their applications to go on a mission.)

This is one of the few months when we have only traveled one weekend. It has been a nice rest but Elder Dukelow will speak in church in the Hungarian Ward tomorrow and Sister Dukelow will speak in English without a translator in the International Branch next Sunday.

Tomorrow the International Branch Relief Society Sisters will have a pot luck luncheon after their meetings (about 3 p.m.) in honor of the organization of the women’s society in 1842. That is a lot of years!

Friday night the Buda Ward had a talent show. It turned out quite nice. Several of the performers focused on the Hungarian theme in honor of March 15, the national holiday commemorating Hungary’s failed attempt in 1848-1849 to free itself from the rule of the Hapsburgs. Elder Dukelow performed. He played his one inch harmonica. The tune he selected was Polly-Waddle-Doodle. The people loved it. We also head a reading of Kipling’s “how the camel got his hump.” Two people brought their paintings and their handwork for display. Sister Dukelow’s talent was on the refreshment table in the form of cowboy cookies. The missionaries from the office did a four man push up display. Maybe we will include a picture of it.

Audits are done and sent in to the people in Frankfurt. Yea! Yea! Elder Dukelow did a good job doing all those audits.

As we mentioned in our last report, one of the senior sister missionaries, Sister Ballentine, compiled all the single sheet music of translations of our children’s songs that she could find from around Hungary and organized them into a children’s song book. She had copies printed at her personal expense and gave two copies to each branch or ward in Hungary. This was not the official translation of the church’s songbook but the ones various people have done because they wanted to teach the primary children the lovely songs that the children in America had to sing. It was a big success and 100 more copies were printed and paid for by the individuals who wanted them. There is a need for these books. The children of Hungary need to be singing. If anyone who reads this has a video, preferably a DVD, of a Primary sacrament meeting presentation program and would like to share it with the mission - that would be wonderful. The Hungarians do not understand how children can put on a program. They are getting the idea now of singing for the program but there is more to be done.

We are excited to report that Szolnok, a city opened last transfer is doing great. There were two strong member families who find it closer to come to this town than the one they were going to so it will really strengthen this branch- to-be. They have a nice meeting place for Sunday meetings. President Gasser fears it will be too small too soon.

Kaposvar is really blossoming and it is so exciting to see their new rooms fill up with members and investigators. We had a chance to go there last month. What a wonderful feeling we felt.

We are opening up a new city, Oroshaza, which is in the southeast of the country. The Elders have an apartment and are looking for a place to have lessons so that they can teach those who are prepared to hear the message of the restoration. Satan is also busy. The police stopped these Elders and told them to go back to the city where they were staying. (They were with some other missionaries in Bekescsaba for a few days until they found their apartment.) We are legal here in Hungary and as long as the missionaries are acting appropriately they have every right to preach the gospel here. They have already had several programs (appointments to teach). Yea!

Another town, Bekescsaba which was opened January 2007 has outgrown its meeting room so hopefully a contract will be signed soon so a larger place is available. The people are accepting the gospel and this emerging branch is growing quickly.

We do have two small branches that need priesthood leadership so recently, Eger and Papa, had branch presidents that were called who live in different cities but they are willing to accept the call and commute to their congregations and I am sure they will do their best.

Utilities are getting more and more expensive. We are finding that landlords want a one year lease now and they want more money for the monthly rent. The government is getting strict on collecting taxes. Owners have to pay 25% of the monthly rent received to the government. Many people are still trying to figure a way out of not having to pay that tax and they keep coming up with different plans. Probably all of them would like to get their rent in cash and then there would be no paper trail but we cannot do that.

Employment is a strange thing too. A person is hired and goes on the payroll for 100,000 HUF (approximately $600) per month but then they are paid in cash maybe another 20,000 or 30,000 HUF or more per month. That way the business only has to pay social security and health insurance taxes on the 100,000 HUF but sadly when the employee retires he only gets retirement pay on the 100,000 not on the money that was paid to him in cash. People cannot get mortgages to buy real estate because they cannot reveal their true earnings. Recently they voted that they do not want to pay college tuition and a co-pay fee when they go to the doctor. Where do they think the money comes from to pay for these doctors? They cheat on taxes and they cheat on each other and then they wonder why the European Union will not let them join the monetary union.

This is Elder Dukelow writing now. All the above was from Sister Dukelow.

One of the least favorite parts of my job as senior office elder is reviewing telephone bills of the missionaries. Some have a difficult struggle keeping their calling habits under control. President Gasser sent a strong message about phone usage to all the missionaries and I am happy to report that we had only one companionship that will have to pay excessive phone use charges for February. They will pay approximately $15.

I wrote a new bicycle policy for the mission since we only have bikes in a few places. The mission bought eight new bicycles in the Spring of 2006. However, because the missionaries did not have to pay for them they basically destroyed them. With my new policy, each missionary who rides a mission bicycle will rent it for approximately three dollars a week and pay for any repairs needed when he leaves the area. I hope we build a small savings from these rental fees so we can purchase new bicycles to replace the two year old ones that are pretty worn out. One missionary called me asking for new bicycles because he and his companion paid approximately $35 in repairs in the past week. I told them we had not yet acquired sufficient funds to purchase new bikes for them so they should ride gently for the next few weeks. I did note them for the first replacement bikes.

Car maintenance expenses still astound me here in Hungary. We normally pay approximately $100 for an oil change for our cars. Fortunately we only need to change the oil every 20,000 miles because of the synthetic oil they use. Two elders called me this past week because the lights went out on their car and replacing the bulbs and fuse did not seem to help. They took their car into the dealer and paid almost $100 to have three bulbs and a fuse replaced. I don’t know what the missionaries were doing wrong when they tried to replace the bulbs but that seems like expensive repairs for a simple job.

We are in the process of renewing our mobile phone network contract. I asked for bids from the three major cell phone companies here in Hungary. T-Com, the former Hungarian national company, did not respond. Pannon called me back and said they do not provide network contracts to churches. So we are waiting to see what Vodafone does and hope it works out in our favor. Vodafone has strange customer service but their cell phone coverage is good and reliable here in Hungary.

If you are curious about what we had to eat at my birthday dinner; we at chicken, turkey, duck, and hare. It was all good. Our guests Gergely Noemi and Imre have a cute tradition. They each order separate meals and then half way through the meal they switch plates. Apparently they do this all the time. Noemi started with duck and Imre with turkey. After the switch, Noemi asked if they could switch back because apparently her duck was better than his turkey but Imre said he was enjoying the duck also. I gave Noemi a piece of my hare which was very good and she enjoyed it. Imre is a cautious eater and normally sticks to very standard items, e.g. chicken or turkey. I offered to order snails or frog legs as an appetizer but they both recoiled at the thought of those items. Some people just don’t have much adventure in them when it comes to meal time.

The weather has been cool and rainy for the past few weeks. We had a big wind storm two weeks ago that blew away some signs and scaffolding but no major damage. This same wind storm caused considerable damage in Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. The trees are now budding, the forsythia is in full glory, and Spring is certainly just around the corner.

The fashions are also changing with the weather. We are seeing short skirts and bare tummies more and more. Most ladies are still wearing jackets and high heel cowboy boots with very pointed toes. The standard 10 foot long knitted scarf seems to predominate in young people’s fashion. Quite a few people also wear Burberry plaid scarves. The neo-Nazis have no sense of color and wear only black leather jackets and baggy black pants with cargo pockets. How dreary.

We really enjoy reading the Ensign church magazine when we receive them. In the past we have always received a big box with enough copies to give one to each missionary and still have some left over. We just received the special March edition on Christ but only 65 copies. Now missionaries who never cared much for reading the magazine are anxious to see who gets to read this beautiful edition because there are only enough for one for each companionship. We did not receive January or February Ensigns at all. Somehow the distribution center in Frankfurt forgot us on these editions. We hope to later receive the President Hinckley supplement also.

We have been trying to exercise each day to stay healthy. I normally do 120 pushups in four sets of 30 each morning, the first 60 with my feet on the sofa to make them a bit tougher. Last week, Elder Sears, one of the fittest missionaries and I had a push-up contest. I started and did 48 and stopped thinking I had done 50 because the counter was not counting out loud. Elder Sears then did 50. Then Elder Sardoni did 55. I guess the next time I will have to just keep pumping them out until I cannot do any more instead of quitting when I think it is a reasonably high number. Or, I could go last and see if I can out do the young men. I wish I would have done more push-ups when I was on my first mission as a young man. I think it would have helped my attitude.

We are thankful for your love and support. We appreciate every prayer when you ask for a blessing on the missionaries. We know it is only through your faith and prayers that we stay safe, healthy and productive. The Gospel is true.

Love to all

Elder and Sister Dukelow