Szombathely--Young Adult Fun

Saturday we took some Young Single Adults to a district YSA activity at the Sombathely District chapel. This was the first chapel build in Hungary and Bonnie served here on her mission. I wanted to see the chapel since one of my goals is to get our attendance up so we'll be eligible for a chapel too. (80 is the goal. We had 34 today but 48 two weeks ago).


They had a water balloon extravaganza. Which side looks like it is winning?



Of course here is my favorite missionary.


Here are the worker bees putting out the refreshments--palacsintas (the Hungarian version of crepes). That's Elder Haslem. We replaced him and his wife in Sopron. Their task is now to establish a district Young Adult Center in Szombathely. Everyone loves them here in Sopron so I'm sure they'll be a great success in Szombathely.


I decided to look around the chapel to see what we could have in Sopron if we work together. This is the entrance hall.


Doesn't the chapel look nice? I love their ceiling. It's multipurpose so they can hold dances and other activities here.


The Relief Society room includes the kitchen on one side.


The primary room is a bit small.


The baptismal fount is behind these glass doors in an alcove in the hallway. It's better than the sauna we have to use.


This is where they are trying to set up a Young Adult Center. It includes ping pong tables and a classroom.


I thought you'd like to see that since this is the district center, it has satellite for church broadcasts at General Conference time. Since Sopron is an hour away, we'll see it on tape the next week. This serves as an outdoor cultural hall. Can you see the green picnic tables behind the storage shed? You can also see the post on the left that holds the basketball standard. The standard is on the ground next to it waiting to be reattached.

Sétálás--walking around

We like to walk around and look at things. We see lots of flowers in window boxes.


Just down the street are the train tracks. Sopron is 35 miles from Vienna, Austria so Austrian commuter trains circling Vienna pass through Sopron every three to five minutes, blocking the traffic on our road, so it always takes longer than we expect to drive the mile or two to church. Sopron sticks into Austria like a turtle head sticking out of the Hungarian shell. Much of Sopron is only a couple of miles from the border on any side.


There are more cars now but the apartment houses don't have garages. So they've build rows of them near the railroad tracks that people can rent out. They use them just like our garages--with as much junk in them as cars.


There are now more bikes and bike routes. These people are riding the paved path that circles Lake Hetfö on the edge of Sopron (Neusiedler See in German), which lies mostly in Austria.


Here is a view from a window that shows how close Austria is. You have to click on the picture but you can see across the field another village that is in Austria. The border with machine guns and rifles separated the two with armed boats patrolling the south end of the lake ready to kill any swimmer, boater, or biker on the Hungarian side. Now you can bike, hike, fish, and swim freely. You can't even see where the border is--the signs just change language.

Keresztelö--Baptismal service

Saturday night we had a baptism. Sorry this picture is a bit blurred--I must have moved the camera in my nervousness of conducting in Hungarian. Here are Balog Eva and Dénes (sounds like "Danish") at the hotel sauna near the branch chapel. The water in the dipping pool had a bit of a nip but it looked like a baptismal font at the temple--so all was steamy with a refreshing spiritual dip.


Here are many of the branch attending the service. We held it at 9 at night after the sauna was closed.

Étel--eating time

Don't think you'll go hungry in Hungary. Elder Bohner and Elder Baumgartl (Bohner Elder and Baumgartl Elder in Hungarian) our two elders from Germany are taking us around to meet the members. Of course it is an eating tour. We started out by feeding Bohner Elder some Filipino pancit and egg drop soup for his birthday to start the food tour.


Barka Sandor (remember, Hungarians put their family name first) treated us with a nice helping of palacsintas. Those are large rolled up crepes filled with apple pie filling, berry jam, or cottage cheese and raisins.

Sandor lives deep in the forest as a caretaker of a former border guard camp. We drove through Austria to get there as the Austrian side had paved roads and beautiful neatly tended fields but the Hungarian side had dirt roads more like trails and thick forest for miles so the communists could keep people away from the border. One member who used to be a border guard during his required time as a soldier says they would get a bonus if they shot and killed someone trying to escape. Now you just drive through, though some of the guard houses are still there and you can imagine you are in a spy thriller making an escape.



Of course you start the meal with soup. the Edes family has some picky eaters so they do a "make your own" soup. Elder Bohner is showing mom how to put it all together, topped off with a nice spoon of hot Hungarian paprika sauce.


Here's Mom trying it out. First the noodles, then the broth. Last the veggies and meat topped off with the paprika.


The Joo family stuffed us with goulash soup, stuffed cabbage and pörkölt (what we call goulash). Hungarians like to balance the sour and the sweet. Pörkölt is a sweet food, so you have to eat it with Hungarian sour pickles on the side so the sour balances the sweet. The sauerkraut with the stuffed cabbage serves the same purpose so you don't need pickles.


Doesn't the stuffed cabbage with sauerkraut look great? It is stuffed with onions, ground meat, and rice.


How about this dish of small thin steaks topped with onions, peppers, and tomatoes? The Edes family served these. This was a sweet food that needed pickles on the side.


Does it look like I am enjoying the pórkölt? Sorry that I ate my pickles already so you can't see them. Many make their own in small vats on their window ledge so they'll be fresh for dinner.


Of course you have to have dessert. Joo Julia (9) is showing off her favorite dessert.


Kron Gizi (88) is insisting that we eat every bit of süti ("shootie" or dessert)


Bohner Elder is an obedient elder.


Kiss Maria (80) is serving her best. Of course anything you don't eat they send home in little packages. So we had stuffed cabbage for breakfast and for dinner pörkölt with süti and ice cream for dessert. (For a change of pace we had Turkish fast food for lunch.) Hungry in Hungary? No way!!

Szentendre--tourist town

On Monday we had our first zone conference in Budapest with three zones. Half the mission was there. The morning we spent in training. The afternoon we had a cultural excursion to sites north of town on the Duna (Danube). Here Mom is showing off the town square of Szentendre (St. Andrew), a tourist town that we didn't get to when we lived in Hungary 20 years ago. It's a famous artist colony with lots of art galleries and museums. It hasn't changed much in 200 years or so.


Here mom and Sister Baughman (pronounced "Boffman"), the mission president's wife, are checking out the famous Hungarian peppers. Do you think they can find just the right one? Doesn't the mission president's wife look like Aunt Gwen's Krissy? She's just as nice too.


Here are a couple of the creative signs advertising businesses.


Can you guess who they think has the money to spend?


Of course with all that walking around, Dad needs a nice Hungarian ice cream cone. If it chills him off too much, he can buy one of these fur hats.


Mom, of course, just needs to find a Hungarian cowboy and a horse to pep her up.


Relaxing on the banks of the Duna is a great way to end the day. Lots of people come up from Budapest on tour boats as a day trip.

Skanzen--a look at life in the past

Another part of our zone conference cultural excursion was at Skanzen, a set of reconstructed villages from the past.


There we got to see wooden church towers... (This one is from a Protestant church.)


and lots of thatched roof cottages and barns.


Mom checked out the gardens.


The windmills reminded us of our time in Holland.


Here's one of our missionaries hauling water from a well.


I'd rather get my cooling splash from a faucet.

Sopron Walk-about

Let's take a quick walk around Sopron Belváros (downtown) starting at the church. It's the top three floors of this rented building. The third window level up is the chapel, the level above with the bay windows is the activity level with the relief society, priesthood and primary. There is no elevator, just a grand staircase leading straight up. The old folks (senior missionaries?) are huffing and puffing by the time they get to church. You can see the windows on the roof level where the young missionaries live. The church suggests putting in an elevator but the owner isn't sure that the building needs one.


This is a fruit and vegetable stand across the street.


How do you like these flowers on "Castle Boulevard" that rings the historic city center?


Doors like this lead to inner passageways with all sorts of surprises...


like this view of the Fire Watch Tower that is the symbol of the town.


Here's another view of the tower from the street.


If you look the other way down the street you can see the tower of the "Goat Church" in the middle of town. I have no idea why the main church has that name. They are repairing the main square so we couldn't get much closer for a better picture. Nearby are also reconstructed ruins from Sopron's Roman past.


There are lots of fountains ...


and lots of little hole-in-the-wall banks--more than you'd expect for a town of 50,000. This is the one I go to on Mondays to make the church bank deposit.


But this is the cheap dentistry capital of Europe and in a cash only society you have to get money to pay for the dentist. There are over 300 dental clinics in town. As you walk around the downtown, you see several in every building (that and beauty clinics, massage parlors and restaurants to keep you busy while you wait for your appointment)--and if you look down the streets, you can see the dental tour busses parked from Austria and surrounding countries. Click on the picture advertising this dentist and tell me if you'd trust him. Note that most of the ad is in German.