A TIME TO REMEMBER

What a great experience we had this week.  To start it off, we had a Family Home Evening for the three elderly sisters in our branch.  They are all alone, and looking for a reason to live.  The second one from the left Martika nini, took care of her older sister until a couple of months ago when she died.  Now she says she is just waiting to die.  The one to her left, Rozie nini,  is a widow who has been alone for a while.  She is quite hard of hearing.  To her left is a 91 year old lady, Gizi nini,  who we take the sacrament to her each week.  On the far left is our landlord, Erika.  The FHE was interesting.  Shauna and I both just sat and stifled our laughs. 

They have had little to do with each other, so we will see if we can keep this going.  

Here are Britt and James as they came into the airport.  What a great experience to have them come.  They are always so fun.

We took them to some ruins about 130 kilometers  from our house.  It was amazing  I will add some pictures below of what we got to see.

The ruins are above a village called Dobronte.

  

What a perfect setting for a herd of sheep.  The shepherd was close by. 

You can see how well kept up the area is, but it is that way in all the small towns.  They are so beautiful.

  

I'm jealous they are there... wait I was there also.  What a magnificent sight.  (Not only Britt and James.)

We ate at this place on the banks of the Balaton.  All the time I am looking out at the lake I am thinking about Jeff having these pictures for Reiners's walls.  It was surreal.

We are on a peninsula in the Balaton.  We were going to a town called Tihany.  Really, everything there is a tourist trap, but that doesn't make it any less beautiful.

I think they told us this was a Abbey.  Like everything else they wanted us to pay to go in so we just looked at it from the outside.

There is a definite Catholic influence around here.  (Notice the two cute nuns in for fore ground.)

We went the the "Second Largest Thermal Lake in the world.  I think they use the term "thermal" a little loosely.  When I think of thermal. I think of hot.  It was not hot, but it was warm.  These "thermal baths" are a big thing here in Hungary.  A couple of days later we went to another one closer to home.  

This is the "Castle Esterhazy", a place about 30 km from Sopron.  It was build in the 1700's.  Joseph Hayden did a lot of his compositions while staying here.

James is cleverly hiding behind the middle of the gate!

Below are some pictures of the grounds by the castle.  They are beautiful and very fun to just walk around.  We certainly didn't have to fight the masses.  It was great.

They we went to a "garden party sponsored by Eva Kovac, a wonderful woman we have become acquainted with.  All but one of the members of our "English Club" which meets on Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoon were there. These are great people.  

Tibor is the one crouching down.  He is such a remarkable person. In a former blog I did a thing on his garden.  His wife, Ande, is in the back with the darker brown shirt on.

This is Eva.  She also has given us so much service.  When we have wanted anything, she is there.  She bring us produce and flowers from her garden  all the time.  Her English is very good.  She also helps me teach the Basic German Class.
We spent a memorable last evening together with Britt and James.  Behind them, behind the Danube River, is the famous Parliament Building.  It is truly magnificent.

Isn't that beautiful, those two.

We walked a little ways down the river bank to this bridge.  Like everything else, it is so ornate.  

This is one of the seven bridges that span the Danube.  I read that when the Nazis knew they were going to lose, they blew up the bridges in Budapest before fleeing to stop the Russians from following them.

This is a church we could see behind us.

I think you can see why Budapest is considered one of the six most beautiful cities in the world.
I look at these pictures and I get jealous of myself.  We are truly blessed for the experiences we are having.