September Passes By In Hungary

This picture was taken on our first day in Hungary, on August 23rd, 2011. This is on Castle Hill in Budapest. We include it now, out of order, because we got it later from Sister Bagozzi when she posted it in an email. We had a nice dinner overlooking the Danube at this location. We like this picture.

This begins some of the pictures in Szeged, where we now live, which we promised you in the last blog. This is the Belvarosi Bridge (the downtown Bridge) It is really quite beautiful with hanging flower baskets. We're not sure you can appreciate it without zooming in somehow. Who is that handsome man in the foreground?

This is the big museum in town. We haven't visited it yet, but we'll get around to it.

These are a few of our Young Single Adults at our regular Friday night activity. We have a spiritual message, then we eat, then we play games. We fix and provide the food and for this we get to pretend we are kids again.

Our Young Single Adults participated in a Youth Fair that was held in our city. That's our good friend Laci (Pronounced Lot-See) in the white shirt giving a presentation about our program. We were really pleased that our Young Adult Center was asked to participate. That's the back of Andrea in the blue dress.

Here's Laci with Viki, another one of our YSA's, at the same event. She was baptized last February.

Only a block away from our apartment is this impressive water tower built in 1904. It is no longer used to store water. It is not often open but we were lucky enough to happen by one day when it was. We really enjoyed touring its interior, seeing the displays, and taking in the fabulous view from on top. (275 steps) Andrea counted them.

Here is the view towards the center of town from the top of the tower.

I would take this duplication out if I knew how, but it is simpler to apologize right now rather than to figure it out. Sorry.

This is the view towards our apartment building. It's hard to point it out to you without a finger. It's the grayish looking one sort of in the middle of the picture and directly below the water tower that is seen on the horizon.

There, now the picture is much prettier.

This is the water tower at night. It is always lit up like this and we think it is very pretty.

Here's the picture of the main building of the Szeged University. It's a big campus scattered all over town. They have a student body of about 30,000.

Andrea wanted you to know that we can get a Big Mac anytime we want. So far we have not felt the want. This is in a downtown area that we call the walking streets. We have no idea how long ago they closed this section off so that it is foot traffic only but is is a very pleasant place to visit.

This is called Heros' Gate. It is a Fascist era construction. Things didn't turn out too well for hungary after the First World War and got worse after the Second World War, but the defeated should still memorialize their heros.

This is the Votive Church on Dóm Ter. (Dóm Square) The original church which stood here was wipe out by a flood early in the last century, along with half of the rest of Szeged. The small tower at the front left is all that remains of the original structure.

This is me with a new friend I met on the square.

A closer look at the church.

We participated in a service project sponsored by the YSA's, digging a garden plot. The girls in the picture, including Andrea, didn't really spend any time with the shovels, but it makes a good picture doesn't it?

This is meal time provided by the family for whom we dug the garden plot. Every one in this photo is a missionary except for the man with the camera. His name is Géza, a really nice member and an indefatigable picture taker, and an exemplary blogger of the first order.

On a trip back from Debrecen to see their Young Adult Center, We stopped give me a few minutes to wake up. This is our car, a Skoda. As you can tell, the countryside in this part of Hungary is flat. Very flat. Flatter than Kansas. It is called the Great Southern Plain. Agriculture is everywhere. They grow peppers for fresh produce and for making paprika. They grow lots of tomatoes and lots of grapes. Lot of corn and lots of sunflowers. They grow a little of a lot of other things and during the growing seasons their is plenty of fresh produce to buy.

Here are three Young Single Adults at the Friday Night Activity that we just held earlier this evening. Klaudia, Nik, and Viki.

That's all for this posting. We hope everyone is well and happy.

Love,

Elder and Sister Adams

The First Month

On a day recently, Saturday September 3rd, we were taken by a couple of YSA's to the Szeged annual Fish Soup Festival. We had a nice bowl of paprika-ish fish soup. (carp actually-but not bad) Here is a picture of the Dragon boat races that they were holding on the Tisza River. The Tisza runs right through the center of Szeged. The next time we publish, we promise to have some pictures of the city itself. Much of it is very picturesque.
Mixing with the local statuary.
This is a Sleeping Beauty type castle adjacent to Hero's Square. Don't ask us the real name of the place. We don't know. It's neat though, huh?
10 days after moving into Szeged we made a trip back to Budapest to take some YSA's to a conference. Here we are taking a P-Day tour of Hero's Square. The office couple, the Baggozi's, took us around.
This, of course, is the kitchen. If it seems that our apartment is a little larger than the usual senior couple apartment, you are right. We are lucky to have such ample space. It will be very helpful as we hold FHE and other activities for the Young Single Adults.
The front door and dining area. Our door has three locks. One of them is white bar below the windows.
Our Bathroom.
The wardrobe and storage end of our bedroom.
Our pink living room where we hold YSA FHE.
This is looking us at our apartment door, the one in the corner above and to the left of Andrea. The place looks a little messier when people have their wash out to dry.
This is the view looking down from in front of our apartment door.
But it is nicer on the inside. This is the downstairs courtyard of the building.
Here is Andrea outside our building, it looks a little crummy on the outside.
On the 24th we drove to our assigned area in Szeged. We took the 4 Szeged Elders out for dinner as a thank-you for helping find where our apartment was and for getting our luggage out the stairs. From left to right--Elder Müller (from Switzerland), Elder Rummler, Elder Van Wie, and Elder Neeley.
We flew out of SL City on August 22nd. On the 23rd we were in Hungary. Here we are in front of the Church headquarters in Budapest. Do we look jet-lagged?


We pose together at the MTC.
Nathan showing us all where he's going to spent the next two years, Dallas, Texas-Spanish Speaking!
Andrea and Tom are pointing at Hungary. Andrea didn't want to look funny lifting her arm so high and so she look funny pointing at Egypt.
Andrea and I entered the MTC on the following Monday and were able to see Nathan every day of the week that we were there.
This is Nathan at his farewell brunch at Kneader's before entering the MTC on Wednesday.
We flew out on Monday morning and spent the evening and night at Brian and Claudia's in Heber City. On Tuesday we spent the day in SL City, the high point being attending the SL Temple.




This is the three of us at our triple setting apart on August 7, 2011. Andrea and Nathan were set apart by President Perry and Tom was set apart by President Zimmerman.