Szeged Here We come

We made an overnight stop in Budapest to pick up some "Humanitarian things" for the Szeged Branch Young Single Adults to give to an homeless shelter in Szeged.  There were eating items, sheets, and pillowcases. 

When we got there the Cromars, the couple on the left were there.  The Adams' couple, in the middle, were our hosts.  They took us to a town outside of Szeged where they have a museum of the communist occupation.  

These statues go down to the bottom, and you can see the feet below.

There were a lot of statues.

The museum talked a lot about what the communists did to destroy families and moral of the people.  

These are pictures of people who lost their lives from there.

Another statue. ( just in case you didn't know it.)

That night, after the Cromars left, we walked around a bit.  These are a few of the night pictures we took.

There was a bunch of vendors with their shops set up.  We walked around it a bit.

These are just a few of the interesting building we walked past the next day.

I love how ornate they are.

Especially this one!

I love the parks. 

This is where the sister missionaries live.  It is called the "Pink Palace." 

This is the Catholic Church in Szeged.  Following are pictues taken of it.

This tower is what remained after a flood in the late 1800's.  So they built the new church pictured above.

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This used to be "the Water Tower" in Szeged.  They have refinished it and it is no longer used for water storage.

This tower is the only part of the original church that was not destroyed in the late 1890's by a flood. Actually 60% of the city of Szeged was destroyed by that flood. 

These two pictures above were taken outside of the Catholic Church.  I would really like to understand the significance of them.  

 They also had a flood in the early 2000s.  The water was just about a foot below the arch where the cars are going through beneath that bridge.  It's hard to imagine how much water that must be since all of the land around here is very flat. 

Now on to the Jewish Syn agog.

Naturally we had to pay to go there, PLUS the men had to put on a skull cap.

This is a partial list of Jews who were destroyed during the Holocaust.  It is sobering to think that each names represents one person taken to the concentration camps to be destroyed. 

This is what I LOVE about Europe, as especially Hungary.  The churches are certainly ornate, which tends to suggest where their priorities are.  I sure like to go in and look around. 

I love traditions

The Joo family invited us to their home yesterday to teach us how to make Toltott Kaposzta ( stuffed cabbage) and to make a wreath for the holidays.

Steve became quite the expert in taking the back part of the vein of the cabbage off.

The filling was ground pork with chopped onion and rice.

Julian was a big help putting everything together.

Ande made a delicious pastry. This is a picture of the walnut and raisin but she also had a poppy seed filling that was good. We weren't having any drug tests soon so we ate our share.

Julian is brushing them with egg.

After the leaves of cabbage are stuffed and rolled they are put in a pot with shredded cabbage on the bottom and then some smoked pork, the stuffed cabbage and then more shredded cabbage with a couple of bay leaves and some pepper. The pot behind is soup which was also very good.

While we were waiting for the food to cook we made traditional wreaths. This custom was started in 1839. Each wreath has four candles on them.

I was struggling with the ribbon among other things so Ande made the bows for me. I know that will answer a lot of questions for people who know me and wondered where the bows came from.

The four candles represent faith, hope, love, and joy. We light one each Sunday until Christmas. In Christian cultures Advent (waiting) is the four week period before Christmas. It begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. I hope I am not the only one who didn't know that advent meant waiting.

Tonight after dinner we lit the first candle and talked about faith. Elder Allredge and Elder Hansen read from Preach My Gospel.

The dinner was delicious! I love Christmas time.

Why I love Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.

Just because we are in Hungary doesn't mean we couldn't celebrate an American custom so we had our English Class come and share our Thanksgiving Dinner.

We couldn't find a turkey so we bought three turkey breasts and a package of dark meat. I am not sure what part of the turkey they were but buying the turkey in parts eliminated a lot of carving. The down side as that we didn't have a wish bone!

We were able to find yams but no marshmallows so we did garlic yams, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, corn, rolls, cheese filled celery. We were able to find real celery. They use the root of the celery in Hungry to flavor there soup. It is very flavorful. We had real jello thanks to my sisters sending a Thanksgiving package. I can't wait to get their Christmas package.

We had pumpkin, lemon meringue and banana cream pies. It was fun to make pies again even though we couldn't find a pie plate like home, but we were able to come close.

Bence lifts weights and doesn't ever eat sweets but he tried a piece of lemon pie and declared it way too sweet for his liking!

Tibor tried all three and we think he got full. What a sport!

The elders were a little late because they also teach English Classes on Thursday night.  We had them sing for there supper. They really sound good singing together. 

After, Steve told the group that it is our tradition to tell what we are thankful for. It was great to hear what everyone said. I am thankful that I got to fix Thanksgiving dinner for friends. I am thankful to be lucky enough to serve a mission in Hungary. I am thankful for our family and that they have so much to be thankful for.

I am very thankful that Eva and Ande did the dishes!

Happy Halloween

Someone asked in our English Class if we were going to have a Halloween Party and it sounded like a great idea.

Tibor came first wearing a lovely wig with horns.

It didn't look bad on Steve or

Zsolt.

We played the game where you have a candy tied to a piece of string and a person rolls the dice and if it is doubles he slams the lid down on the candy.  The objective is to jerk the candy on the string before it gets trapped or you give the slammer a piece of candy.

It was intense!

Plus we got our exercise getting up and down.

Bence lifts weights and he got doubles several times and almost put a hole in the carpet on the floor from slamming down the lid.

I had to get a picture of Eva in with her jack-o-lantern sweatshirt. She took all the rest of the pictures.

We enjoyed some orange food, Tibor brought the sliced squash which was delicious and Eva the cake.

My sister, Rhonda, told me about these oranges filled with fresh fruit.

I had to make the traditional popcorn balls but most thought they were too sweet.

We were able to find some Dracula teeth. Halloween isn't a celebrated holiday but we did see some pumpkins carved into jack-o-lanterns but no trick-or-treating. We did have a fun party.

Opportunities in Hungary

I had the opportunity to help a branch member out when she asked if I would make a pattern for a life size donkey.

How does one go about making a donkey head without a pattern? I remember hearing a sculptor say once that he just carved away everything that didn't look like a man. I thought that might work for making a donkey as well,  so  I just cut  away everything that didn't look like a donkey on a newspaper. I only had some stripped fabric left over from making bags so this is what I came up with.

Ande then asked if I would make two donkeys for their manger scene in Fertoakos. She gave me a brown blanket that I cut up to make two donkeys. I used the back of the blanket for the front of the ears. Steve came up with the idea of how to get the yarn on for the mane. I was fortunate to find some shredded foam to fill them with so they would not be too heavy to nail on a board and hang up.

It will be fun to see them in action in the manger scene. I am just glad that they didn't want camels!

One more thing crossed off my bucket list!

A Night at the Cemetery

November 1st is All Saints Day in Hungary. It is a national holiday that actually begins at sun down on October 31st and finishes at sun down on November 1st. We held English Class on the 1st and then went to the cemetery. Everyone said that we need to have this experience. We got there at 8:15 and found out that they lock the gates at 8:00. They told us this in Hungarian and in German.

Lucky for us November 2nd is All Souls day so we were able to walk through the cemetery and see the beautiful tombstones with flowers and candles on them. This is a statue near the front gate.

Christians who celebrate All Saints Day and All Soul Day do so in the fundamental belief that there is a prayerful spiritual bond between those in purgatory those in heaven and the living.

This picture was taken with my flash on so that you can see the beautiful flowers and candles.

The stores are full of the candles to buy.

The elders got this picture with the moon in back of the tombstones. The moon is the big light.

The people were very reverent as they stopped at this statue.

It was definitely something that we were glad to experience.