Three days at the mission home!

We arrived at the airport in Budapest at 6:15, we couldn't believe that we finally made it. It is a small airport in comparison with others. We managed to get most of our luggage on a cart, yes where there is a will there is a way!

The very best part was to see Elder and Sister Bagozzi and Sister Smith. They brought two cars to get all of our stuff to the mission home. We rode with Elder Bagozzi for the 45 minute ride. When we arrived at the mission home we hauled our luggage to the third floor. Thank goodness for an elevator. There we met President Baughman and his wife. Their apartment was very nice and so were they. They took us up to the fourth floor where there were four beds in one room, a double bed in the other bedroom, When I say double bed it is two singles pushed together. She told us that the young elders think the single beds are better so we took that option. It wasn't until the third night that I discovered how uncomfortable the bed was. We freshened up and the Pres. and his wife took us to a cute little restaurant not far away from the mission home and close to some cool statues. I was too tired to take pictures so I will post more when we go back to get our visas. The good news bad news is that Hungarian food is very good. We had a good visit with them during the meal I think, we just hope we didn't say anything that should not have been said. We were so tired that anything could have been possible. We vaguely remember going to bed that night but  the shower the next morning was heavenly!

   The next morning Sister Baughman fixed us eggs and toast, the bread here is really really good. We met with the Bagozzi's and they told us how to be missionaries and then we met with Pres. Baughman and he gave us a letter and went over it telling us what he expected to happen in Sopron. We then walked three or four blocks to the mall where we learned how to use our debit card and we got our 1st Hugarian foriths. They told us that if we put our thumb over the last two zeros and divide by 2 then that is the dollar value.

We purchased a hair straightener, a blow dryer and a GPS, then we had lunch in a fun sandwich shop in the mall. Here is a picture of the ceiling of the mall with the animals hanging upside down. After a short nap we met Elder and Sister Gudgell, (she was a neighbor to my roommate Lana Baegger Barlow and emailed me a lot about stuff to bring), the senior single sister missionaries Sister Smith and Sister Hansen and the Bagozzi's and we all walked four blocks to the subway where we boarded two trains to go to a very yummy pizza, pasta, salad place called Vapiano's. They made our dish before our very eyes. I had sour cream chicken pasta, Steve went for the spice, very tasty.

Thursday the Pres. wanted us to stay and see a zone conference but it wasn't our zone. We fought hard to stay awake during these meetings but were able to enjoy a Subway sandwich for lunch(not quite the same as an American sub but close.) The pres. and wife and the Bagozzi's went to an embassy meeting and left us on our own. We thought about walking to another restaurant but I had a blister on my heal the size of a quarter (so much for Danko shoes and comfort) so we opted to stay in our apartment and eat the left over sandwich from the flight. With nothing to do we both got a little homesick so Steve put on a movie. He picked The Christmas Story. Ralphie in that movie looks a lot like our oldest grandson so that did not help my feelings about home. Sleep was hard to come by that night. The next day we packed the blue Opel and plugged in the GPS and headed for Sopron. It took us about 2 1/2 hours. The  GPS wasn't all that great but did tell us when we were over the speed limit and he/she spoke quite a bit. It was better than hearing recalculating! We haven't name the devise yet, we plan on giving it another chance since it took us to the wrong place when we were trying to find the branch house where the missionaries live. They walked to where we described and found us. They are three very nice guys. Elder Wright from Virginia, Elder Olsen from Twin Falls, Idaho and Elder Szabo from Hungary who is waiting for a visa to go to the Washington DC mission. They directed us to our apartment and we met our landlady, Erika, who a member of the branch. She served us a very delicious lunch of fruit soup, stuffed cabbabe and a tart dessert. Steve was telling her how to say his name in Hungarian and he said it was Isten which means God instead of Istven which is Stephen. The missionairies bowed down to him. We all had a great laugh. We are unpacked and still have some organization to do and next time we will post pictures of our humble abode. Life in Hungary is great!