December-The end is near.

The heading for this post does not refer to the end of 2012,  or the Mayan calendar, although we do wish you a Happy New Year; but rather, it refers to the fact that the next posting that we do to this blog will be the last posting.  We are scheduled to leave Hungary on February 6th.  I will wait until after our return to do that last posting.  Our feelings are mixed.  We look forward to being reunited with our family and friends but at the same time we will be leaving so many friends, many of which have become like family.

 This is a new chapel nearing completion in the city of Kecskemét.  We have told most of you that a building was announced recently for our Szeged branch.  It will be two stories and much larger than this one.  Everyone is so excited!

 December saw the completion of a few humanitarian projects done here in Szeged.  Here's a sample of some of the stocking caps made for the homeless.

 This Branch member, Monika, was a regular cap making machine.

 Here we are with our young adults who did a lot of work on another project, comfort blankets for a children's hospital.  Blankets were also made and donated to a family shelter along with a lot of supplies and materials provided through the Church's humanitarian aid department.

 Making sugar cookies for Christmas again.

Here we're making bead work flowers as a "Relief Society" activity in the small branch at Békéscsaba.  They don't let me attend Relief Society activities in Corona.

 See how proud the Elders are of their flowers.  Andrea and I are proud of ours, too.

 We were called upon to move two sister missionaries at once from their location in Kecskemét.  It was an act of faith.  Somehow we managed to get all their luggage into our little car.

 They had to practically sit on each other's laps for the trip to Budapest.

 This is the large indoor shopping location in Budapest where Andrea likes to look for cute little things to buy for sending home.

 For my birthday, Andrea surprised me with a birthday cake at our Institute class, 16 people attended.

 We diverted for a day to go to Budapest on my birthday and we showed our friends Kurt and Janice Nielan around.  They were on a cruise down the Danube to see the Christmas markets.  Yes, it was cold.

 This is Mikolás (Santa Claus).  He comes on December 6th to give good little kids presents.  The beard is real.  The Hungarians do not mix Santa Claus with the December 24th/25th celebration of Christmas.  Sounds like a good idea to me.  This is a branch 'Santa Claus' party for the Szeged branch.

 These are his helpers.  More like demons than elves.  They will poke and torment children who have not been good.  It doesn't look like their hearts are into it.

 Each child was expected to give Mikolás something in order to earn their little goodie bag,  in this case a piano number.

In this case, a tune on the recorder.  The littlest girl recited a poem.

 Only one of these boys actually played the piano.  The other is faking it.

 He got a goodie bag anyway.

 Our elders sang 'Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer' for their treat.

 Andrea's hairdresser gave her this apple for Christmas.  Can anyone guess how the Christmas Tree was created?  The answer is at the end of this post.  Don't peek before trying to guess!

 Our single young adults recorded a Christmas carol which they sent to ward members via internet and DVD.  You can see it on YouTube by using the following link--> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m93Iw3pGLQo&feature=autoshare

 We had a Christmas Zone conference.  After zone training we played games.  This is the thimble game, which we introduced. 

 A white elephant gift exchange.

 The mission home's version of Mikolás. (Actually one of the APs)

 Singing carols around the piano.  We had a lot of fun.

 This is Dom Tér(square) in Szeged at Christmas time.  We did not take this picture.

 This is our apartment at Christmas time.  We did take this picture.  The luminaries were made for us by the Bartell kids.

 We sang in a Christmas concert for the Békescsaba branch.

 Andrea was part of a trio!  I think I can get her to join the ward choir now.

We, the missionaries of Szeged, sang about that reindeer in a Szeged branch Christmas party.

 Here's our young adult center decorated for Christmas.

 We had another young adult baptized during December.

 We performed in a small branch choir held in a small nearby community that one of our members lives in.  It was a neat experience being part of their Christmas observance.

 Lots of refreshments were served afterwards.  I thought the table was pretty.  Andrea's pretty too.

 Our friend Géza gave all of us missionaries a traditional Hungarian Christmas meal.  The centerpiece of it is always fish soup. (lots of paprika)

 There's no telling what you might fish our of your fish soup!

 Here's all six of us.

 We had the young missionaries over to our Apartment for dinner on Christmas Day.  They got to Skype with their families from here and we got to Skype with our missionary in Texas!

 Monopoly anyone!  It's only slightly confusing with everything done in Hungarian.

 Serious.

 Silly.

 One night we had a couple of single men over for dinner, and on another night we had the Magda family over.  They fed us on Christmas Eve last year.

 We taught them how to play Chicken Foot Dominoes.  I think it will catch on and sweep through Hungary.

The apple answer:  A sticker was placed on the Apple to keep the sun off of that spot while the apple ripened.

Boldog Új Évet!(2013)

November (+) what I forgot.

 What did I forget?  The last week of October.  It's really a very important week for Hungarians.  They celebrate the revolution of 1956 on October 23rd.  It's Hungary's biggest political holiday.  Never you mind that the revolution failed and that Imre Nagy, whose statues are all over Hungary, was executed by the communists.  The Hungarians are very good at revering their fallen heroes.

 We witnessed three different public observances of the day here in our fair city.  Many will claim the the revolution started as a student movement right here in Szeged.  We enjoyed seeing the old veterans in their various uniforms. 

 Of course, October saw a few Halloween happenings.  It's totally not Hungarian but missionaries tend to carry the Halloween spirit with them wherever they go.

 This was a young single adult party in Budapest.  Yes, we used the same easy costumes we did last year.  Our resources are limited.  

 Here is Andrea with a couple of our YSAs from Szeged.

Our little Békéscsaba branch did a Halloween party too.  I made the spider pinata.  I was very pleased with it but glad to see it whacked to pieces so we could finally get it out of our apartment.

 November 1st was All Saints' Day.  We took the missionaries out to the cemetery to see the candles and decorations.  Here we are with Elder Snyder, who is Nathan's friend.  We met him before our mission.  He joined us for Thanksgiving when he and Nathan were both in the BYU marching band.  It is a small world to have him sent to Szeged to be with us again.

 We and our young adults, along with other branch members, have been working hard to finish 75 blankets for a children's hospital in Szeged.  Service is one of the mandates of the young adult program.

 This is an accidental picture.  We take a lot of accidental pictures of the sky or the sidewalk, etc. but I liked this one.

 We went to Debrecen, about 3 hours away, for a CES conference for young adults.  On the way we stopped for lunch in this famous Inn in Hortobágy.  It's been in operation for a couple hundred years.  We made a point to stop in Hortobágy to buy a Hungarian whip for my birthday.

 This is the Debrecen town square in front of the Great Reform Church.  We went up the tower on the left side.

 The Reform church is more starkly functional than any of the Roman Catholic churches we have toured.  These stairs up the tower were almost treacherous.

 Here's the whip we bought.  I'm actually not very good at this yet.

 More blanket making.

 A farewell lunch for a couple of missionaries moving on to other areas.

 Andrea wanted a picture of some common products.  That's the biggest milk carton (1 liter) available.  Vanilla comes a a tiny bottle.  Baking powder is in a little envelope and all the eggs are brown.

 Some things are big though.  These loaves of bread weigh 6.6 pounds each.

 We used them to make huge French toast for breakfast on Thanksgiving Monday.  Thanksgiving is not a Hungarian holiday.  The missionaries all worked as they normally do on Thanksgiving Day and then had an extended preparation day on the Monday following so that they could celebrate Thanksgiving.

 We have 6 sisters in our zone,

And 10 elders.  It was such a pleasure to see that they all had a proper Thanksgiving feast.

 Just some interesting Szeged architecture.

 Under the category of strange things that we have seen:  About 10 young men with hunting horns played a charge as other young men and young women wearing animal skins on their backs raced down the street in the middle of town.

 There they laid down on the ground to be poked and swatted lightly with sticks.

 We showed the pictures to our young adult friends and they don't know what was going on either.  I think it was an initiation into a hunting, or hiking, or outdoors club of some kind.

In November we had visits from three other senior couples.  Here we are having lunch with two of them.  They figured out that if we were going to host them on a trip to Szeged, they had better get down here before we leave.

Have a wonderful Christmas,

Love,

Tom and Andrea