New Furniture

We got new furniture for the Center. Sorry the one picture isn't very good. It looked better on my camera. Elder Murray was so excited. He asked me to come help him rearrange it so it would look nice in the room. The "blue room" is where the missionaries in the area teach many of their "programs" - they call them programs instead of discussions. Anyway I thought it looked nice but then he would stand there with his thoughtful look because he wasn't quite satisfied. So the picture of him in the blue room is of his " thoughtful look". He was such a good sport to pose for the picture. Here's a funny thing about Elder Murray - look how tall and thin he is - but boy can that young man eat. We always make him be last in line when we serve dinner otherwise we wouldn't have enough food. Monday night we served Macaroni and Cheese with Hungarian sausage in it. I served his plate nearly half full of mac and cheese ( probably triple what I served everyone else) and he was still standing there. I said "how much more do you want?" His answer " how much more can I have?" I don't know where he puts it. His legs must be hollow.

Elder Wanlass' Birthday

The next day was Elder Wanlass' Birthday - April 10th. I got to talk to Braedon for a few minutes right before he went into Sacrament Meeting - the day he was ordained a Deacon. Right after that the sister missionaries called us for a surprise birthday party for Elder Wanlass. The Sister missionary in the yellow sweater ( Sister Johnson) borrowed a yummy cinnamon roll recipe I got from Candy London. She did a great job. They were delicious.

Elder Wanlass is one of my favorite missionaries. He's from Las Vegas. He's such a hard worker, very humble and so nice. He played the piano for us after Sacrament Meeting today. He is also a very gifted pianist. His mom teaches piano lessons. He really knows how to play. The other sister missionary ( Sister Bodily) is a concert pianist. So we have alot of musical talent in our mission. Next week they are going to have an Easter Concert. It should be really nice. I'm excited I get to be here for it.

AP's Birthday

The first picture is of the AP's and our Mission President. The AP with the striped tie (Elder Gardenhire) had a birthday a few weeks ago but was helping the Pres in another area so we didn't get to celebrate with him then. The other AP with the pink tie (Elder Miller) - his birthday was on April 9th - the same day as my grandson Braedon - who turned 12. It's pretty funny because we use the same table cloth, the same goofy Burger King Crown and a pink tiarra. I know it looks like all we do is have fun, which is pretty much the truth. It is fun here.

Our Bulletin Board

This is the bulletin board for the Center that Deen and I made. They had a girl in the YA Group who did the bulletin boards for them all the time. But I guess she got sick in February and suddenly died. It all happened in a matter of 2-3 days. Anyway that obviously was a very sad thing. So I guess they haven't found anyone to do the bulletin boards since then. Deen and I had a fun time doing it. If anyone has some fun suggestions for May - send them our way. Neither of us feel like we are very creative. Hopefully we will find a YA soon who would like to do it.

General Conference

In between sessions of Conference everyone goes outside to eat lunch. I don't know if you can see how big those sandwiches are the missionaries are eating. Pretty crazy - But some forgot to bring something or didn't have food in their apartment to bring. Next October I'm going to bring food for people just in case they have the same problem again.

The bottom picture is two of our YA - Kristoff and Csaba. Csaba (in the white shirt) brought a large loaf of bread, some cheese spread and meat. He was sharing with everyone. He kept trying to get me to try some, but fortunately I had already eaten. I'm not sure what it was, but the only thing that looked safe was the bread. Regardless, it was very nice of him to share.

You might notice that some of the people are dressed very casually. The Mission Pres was talking to us about that in between sessions. He doesn't want anyone not to come because they don't have church clothes and yet he wants them to know the importance of dressing appropriately for church. It's kind of a touchy subject - I'm learning that there's alot of things to consider here that we sometimes take for granted in the states. Everyone came at 11:00 this morning for the Priesthood session and the YW Broadcast. Then at 2:00 we watched Saturday afternoon session, then 6:00 was the Sunday Morning session. So by the time everyone got home some had been gone for 10-12 hours depending on the distance they had to travel. It was a very long day.

Ikea

This is Elder Bagozzi trying out a bed in Ikea. After a fun day in Szentendre, we stopped at Ikea to find a bed for the Sister Missionaries. Elder Bagozzi and his wife are the office couple. They are responsible for things like this so we went with them to help them decide. One morning the Sister Missionaries came into the office to report they woke up to bites all over them. They pulled out the trundle from under their beds and found bed bugs - some were an inch long. It was very creepy. So they obviously need new mattresses. They have been staying in the Mission Home for a few days while the problem is taken care of. Sure glad we don't have that situation. It would be difficult for me to sleep at night after that.

Szentendre

The top picture is items the store owner makes out of Marzipan. Some of the really cool things he makes are in the back. In order to see that you have to pay a fee for a tour. Since we are tight with our money, we just looked at what he had in the front. But he made some pretty incredible things out of Marzipan.

The next shop is full of toys. It's not a very close up picture, but I'm sure my grandchildren would be able to find something in there that would be fun.