A Toothsome Tale

or...

A Story With a Moral

About ten days ago, after Loralee finished eating her delicious dinner, her teeth started hurting her. It felt like the gums in the lower-right part of her mouth were getting sick.

Loralee thought, "Oh dear. I have not been very good at flossing my teeth lately; maybe my gums are getting sick." So she went right into the bathroom and carefully flossed her teeth; they bled a little bit, so she was sure that her diagnosis was correct. Then she brushed her teeth for three whole minutes! "That should make things better. "she thought.

Her mouth still bothered her the next morning, but she knew that if she was diligent in brushing and flossing, then she would feel better in a day or two. By that night her mouth hurt even more, but she still had faith in the words of every toothpaste commercial—and every dentist—ever.

The next day Loralee's mouth hurt her even more. If she touched her gums—particularly on the inside, and especially on the spot between her two back teeth—then the pain was terrible! Throughout that day she could feel her pulse beating in those back teeth. It smarted when she chewed food on that side of her mouth. By bedtime the throbbing in her mouth had given her a frightful headache. Loralee was sad. She was also a little puzzled. Those back teeth were not sensitive to heat, cold, or sugar—only pressure. This didn't sound like a root canal, or even a cavity. What was going on here?!

For the rest of the week Loralee brushed and flossed her teeth after every. single. time. she ate anything, but the pain grew and grew. By Saturday she was having headaches and a sore throat all day long. "This is worse than I thought," she reflected. "I will need to call the dentist and probably have a root canal." On Sunday her mouth hurt, her throat hurt, and she had a monstrous headache that got worse and worse throughout the day. When she went to bed Sunday night she was beginning to have an earache too. She was worried about getting a root canal, or maybe even needing to have a tooth (or two!) extracted, and how to pay for that. She took some Tylenol and sorrowfully went to bed.

Very early on Monday morning Loralee woke up just enough to roll over in her bed. In her groggy state she felt something small fall from the back of her mouth to the front of her tongue. She wondered if a piece of a chipped tooth or broken filling had fallen from those sore teeth. That woke her up! So she snatched the bit out of her mouth and went into the bathroom where she could turn on a light and look at it, and look in a mirror without waking anyone else up. She studied the thing she'd taken out of her mouth; it looked like a piece of a popcorn kernel. This was strange...It must have been more than a month since she had eaten any popcorn!

Loralee went back to bed, hoping that the bit of popcorn was the sole cause of all her troubles. When she woke up a few hours later she poked at her gums, on the inside, between her two back teeth—just to see how they would feel about that. They were a little sore, but not very bad at all. By dinner time that night she was able to eat normally, her teeth did not hurt any more, and she had no headache. She went to bed happy that night.

And the next day—except for her extra careful and frequent brushing and flossing—it was as if she had never had a tooth problem in her whole life.

The moral of this story is:
You should be very diligent about flossing your teeth, or you might regret it a month later.

Or maybe the moral is:
Popcorn is sneaky and treacherous—Do not eat it!

News From Hungary! vol. 5

Here is Brandon's letter from this morning (and a few *Mom notes):

If there is anything that I have learned this week it is that we are all ~"The Captains of our fates, and Commanders of our Souls." (I am pretty sure that this quote has nothing to do with "Master and Commander" *1) Each of us has the power to decide everything that we will do in our lives, and where we will go in our lives. This is especially true when one looks at our decision to be happy. Each individual no matter who they are can choose whether they will be happy or not, regardless of circumstance.

So... I will now relate to you the miraculous events of the last week. Don't laugh, they may seem unimpressive, or small, but I assure you these things were huge big, wonderfull things. *2

Sunday
It is always the biggest, and most accumulative day of my week it seems. No matter what I find that the most has happened on this day, despite how much I may have worked during the rest of the week.
I went to church as usual, the coolest part about Sacrament meeting was that I was actually able to pay attention again. Ever since having Sacrament meeting in Hungarian I haven't been able to do anything but fight the battle of not falling asleep in Sacrament meeting. Now I won't lie, I didn't make it through all of Sacrament meeting, but I made it all the way to the last 10 minutes. But it gets even better. I had a potential investigator contact me, During Church! And they didn't just call, but they came in person, this woman even brought her son. I don't know if you all remember the story about the really kind lady whom I spoke with a couple weeks back, but Elder Gilson and I decided to make her some Brownies and a thank you card. Yesterday she came back with the dish and some walnut bread as a "Thank You" back to us. She still doesn't seem to be interested in investigating, but we started a game night on Tuesdays and it sounds like her son might come over for that. So her family might be converted through the most common way that I have seen out here. Which is that a child investigates and gets baptised, then the family follows. That is about all that happened Sunday. I taught a lesson to a member family and they gave me dinner.

Saturday
This was a slow day, Elder Gilson and I went tracting and tried to look up some people who said we could come back sometime, but no one was home. In the end we decided to go to the branch house and facebook message (the fastest way to get people's attention apparently) some of our investigators and invite them to church. During this time one of the members showed up at the branch house. His name is Vili,( say, Vee-Lee) and he is a recent convert. So we just thought he was there for a recent convert lesson. We talked to him for a bit but then he begins pulling out a vacuum and I'm just like. Vili, are you cleaning the branch house? And he is like yup. So because Elder Gilson and I didn't have a whole ton to do (we would have traveled back to our apartment and begin to cook dinner) we decided to help him clean the branch house since he said he was basically going to do it alone. While we were cleaning with him the Sisters also showed up and helped us as well.  *3

Friday
Was weekly planning. We in our last zone conference were instructed to follow every single step in weekly planning, and to read everything, even if it wasn't relevant. *For example, investigators being baptised in the following week. Because of this we now take, on avereage, six hours to complete this, with a lunch break in there too. After weekly planning we went to a Branch activity with one of our investigators. We watched a film and helped the branch to get to know our investigator.

Thursday
District meeting, MCM, and English Class. All happened this day. Which for me meant that I was stuck in the Branch House all day. But, two of our now potiential investigators are were there. And I will be meeting with them this upcoming Thursday. I also met with an investigator, Niki, and taught her about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Afterwards we asked if she would get baptised, she didn't say no, but she didn't say yes. She wants more time to read the Book of Mormon. So we will see where things go with her.

Wednesday
There really wasn't anything special that I can think of for Wednesday. I made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomatoe soup. The first grilled cheese sandwiches that I have had in about a year.

Tuesday
We had our first game night. It was really successful, we had three nonmembers show up, on is an investigator, another is thinking about investigating, and the last is possibly going to investigate. This Tuesday there are supposed to be more people than last. I can think of at least three people who could come, I am really hoping that this will be the door to a lot of people being baptised.

And that is all. Last Monday I went to a museum. It was really cool, they were closing for the day (at 2:00) but decided to let us in and see one of their exhibits for free.

That is all, I can't think of really anything more right now.
Love you!
Brandon.

This picture is also from the Balaton outing. Funny kids!

 Mom's thoughts:

 *1 I'm sure he is referencing the movie, Master and Commander, when he says this quote has nothing to do with it.

 *2 Brandon's English spelling and grammar are deteriorating. ;-)

 *3 It seems to me that Saturday was pretty great for a "slow day."

That's it for this week. Now, back to sewing and distressing costumes. They will be awesome! The show will be awesome! (It always is.) You should come! (Buy tickets here, and credit Kaylie North for the sale of the tickets!) 'Bye 'til next time!

News From Hungary! vol. 4

Oh, well, I intended to post last week, but I got busy sewing costumes for Uintah High's musical, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. (Buy tickets here, and put Kaylie's name in when it asks you who to credit—she needs to sell $400 worth of tickets!)

Anyway, I will give you Brandon's highlights from last week (Feb. 5-11), and I'll post this week's news (Feb. 12-18) in a separate post. So, last week:


I have to say, first: A mission is hard. The work is easy, but the mission is hard. Those of you who have served missions all know what I am talking about. That said. Serving my mission has been one of the best experiences that I have ever had. In fact, as far as experiences go, it is the best one. I will however say that it is not the most pleasant one. That is likely greatly due to the fact that I am not a perfect missionary. That conveys a message that I don't mean. I guess I mean I am not perfect, far from it, and having imperfections removed can be painful sometimes. What makes a mission so good for me, is I get to be 100% devoted to trying to bring others to the gospel. That is what makes it worth it. And nothing really makes me happier. I would even venture to say that nothing will make any of you happier. Bringing people closer to the gospel is a wonderful thing. And when it works it is even more amazing.

Last Monday, we went to the Balaton. It is a super pretty lake in Hungary and it is huge. We hiked around an Island, well more of a peninsula, in the lake and my companion got some super cool pictures.

I am going to Go backwards now because it helps me Remember.

Sunday 
Just a bunch....Oh wait, I was going to say tracting but we actually had an investigator come to church. Her name is Ica, and she is super sweet and depressed at the same time. Nothing makes her happier than being visited by us missionaries it seems, and nothing makes her sadder than her own family who has divorced from her and denounced her. But she was super happy in church and we missionaries have been working with the ward to make her as happy as possible. When we met with her in her home last week I felt impressed to ask her if she would be baptised. She was confused as to why she would need to be baptised since she has been baptised Catholic, but after we explained it she was increadibly happy. I had never seen her so happy. Interestingly she didn't accept, but she did say that she would think about it. We also visited Mohamed who we didn't expect to actually see because his daughter is sick and in the hospital, but we did meet him and we were able to give him a get better card for his daughter. We also prayed with him and that was nice. Earlier before that we met with a former investigator and he Is now a new investigator again! Yayy! Oh yeah, when we went to the Balaton we went with a member, and we wouldn't have been able to go if it weren't for him. So the sisters made a thank you card and I made brownies for him.

Saturday
I don't remember what we did on Saturday. Wait yeah I do. We were invited to a birthday party of one of the members. We went and brought a birthday card. At the party we were able to meet a lot of the members friends which got us the idea of starting a game night to get the youth interested in investigating. We also got to meet with one of our former investigators and that was cool.

Friday
Weekly planning. We have been challenged to read and do every point in the weekly planning session that you find in Preach My Gospel. It takes forever, for the last two weeks it has taken six hours. I honestly don't even remember what else we did on Friday.

Thursday
District meeting, English Class. These were good, no one really payed attention in English Class this last week though. We with one of our investigators. Niki, super good meeting, we had a good member present. Hütter Olivér. He helped a lot.

Wednesday
We made brownies and delivered them to some investigators, well potiential investigators. I am really hoping that this will be a good effort in getting them interested in investigating.

Tuesday
Umm, Oh, we met With Ica. She is the depressed investigator that I was talking about, We brought her some flowers and taught her about the Restoration. She was super happy afterwards.

Well, I think that that is everything.
Love you all!
Brandon.

News From Hungary! vol. 3

Well, here's what Brandon had to say today. Luckily for me, Elder Gilson takes lots of great pictures, so I have some to show you. (Brandon's camera was stolen just before Christmas. I'm hoping to send him a new one in a few weeks.)

Lots of thanks to Elder Gilson for all the awesome pics!

Here's the latest:

Bumm!

If you think that says "Bum" then you are wrong, at least in the language I speak, It actually says "Boom!"

So, Last Monday
Uhh, I don't think that I really did anything all that special. Elder Gilson finished making a "I'm a Mormon" video.

What??

Tuesday
Zone Conference, it was pretty good. I had to pick up more books of Mormon so that we can teach with them, and carrying them all the way back to the train station was pretty tough. Or at least it would have been if Elder Gilson didn't carry it the whole time. I offered to take it from him but he declined. Ah well. We also had this super long training about Weekly Planning. Actually the training was pretty quick, but now we are going to be doing weekly planning for a lot longer.

zone conference

Wednesday
Umm...We went tracting and streeting, it was pretty boring. I mean, I actually enjoy it, but nothing happened. And yes that really is all that happened that day.

Thursday
District meeting happened. Oh, and after District meeting the sisters brought some pancakes and we ate pancakes for lunch which was super good. I also made some kind of  fried thing. I don't know what to call it but it was super good too. Roll out some bread dough. Put diced apple slices onto it, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and orange zest. Wrap it all together and pinch it to seal it closed. Fry it like a scone and eat it warm! Other than that we had a lesson and got a new investigator. Her name is Balogh Niki. She investigated last year but when she learned that we missionaries don't date or get girlfriends out here on the mission, she decided that she was done. (Sorry ladies, I don't have time for love.) She asked a bunch of questions about that in our meeting and still wanted to investigate after we affirmed that we don't date as missionaries, so I am feeling pretty good about having her as an investigator. She has even started reading the Book of Mormon. So we will see where this goes.

I don't know what church this is, but it's beautiful.

Friday
We did weekly planning for six hours. Then we went tracting.


Saturday
We went home teaching with Vilmos or "Vili" we just call him "Vili"  Super cool guy, he is going on a mission after he finishes High School. We Met with Páli Bácsi and he is super cool, he speaks with a different Hungarian accent so he is pretty hard for me to understand. After all of this we went Tracting and found a whole bunch of super nice people. None of them wanted to investigate, but I feel like I should keep on inviting them. So I will be finding ways that I can try and get them interested. If any of you who have served missions before think that this is a bad idea then let me know. Otherwise I will let you all know how it goes once I have figured out what I am going to do, and have done it.

Sunday
Singing Tracting approaches. Elder Gilson and I just sang songs for people and we got a let in! The Néni (old lady) who let us in is Roman Catholic and she told us something like 50 times that she won't change. I assured her that we as missionaries (or that we of ourselves, which is really what I meant) could not in any way convince her to give up her religion. And honestly we don't want that, we just want to give her more than what she already has and understands. We might go back there and try talking to her again sometime.

in the Balaton area

Today!
I went to the Balaton. It is the largest shallow water lake in all of Eastern Europe. It was super Pretty and made me wish that I could go swimming. Although to do so now would be freezing cold. The other missionaries took lots of pictures so I will try and get those for you all, but that might not be until next week.

The kind ward member on the left offered to take the missionaries on this outing today - I love the kindness shown to our missionaries. 

Lake Balaton

Lake Balaton

Elder Gilson at Lake Balaton.
His mom says he misses swimming, too. :-)

I love you all!
Sincerely,
Brandon.

The Latest News From Hungary!

Well Brandon's been sending awesome emails, so this might become a regular feature on my blog for the next eleven months. :-)

photo taken by President Szabadkai (I believe) at mission interviews. I don't know who the sister missionaries are.
Maybe the pair that are in Brandon's district? 

Here's what he had to say today (and *Mom's notes at the end):

So apparently my email last week was super good. Hang on while I check out what I even said...Oh, so that is what I did last week, that is good to know. It honestly is a really good format because it really helps me remember what on earth I have done throughout a week. *1

So on Sunday
I didn't really do a whole lot, I went tracting and found a bunch of cool and really nice people, but none of them were interested in learning about the gospel. One of them was this really nice young dude who was Catholic, but he loved talking to us. I have spent so much time getting rejected by people that I have realized that I don't even know what to say to someone once they are interested in listening. I have done all kinds of things, to try but it doesn't really seem to grab their attention. The first one is telling them the Restoration story, another one is talking about the Prophet and apostles, and explaining about how the Church is organized the same as when Christ established it. But it doesn't really seem to work all that well. Beyond that I have had this realization that has been dawning on me throughout the course of this last week and that is that I need to be doing more to love these people. There is the song from "Enchanted" that goes "How does she know You love her? How does she know she's yours?" And while I am not trying to woo any girls, I am trying to get the people here to know that I care about them beyond trying to get them to be baptised. So, I am starting all kinds of little missionary projects to let the people know that the missionaries care about them, and hopefully in effect they will know that God cares about them.

Saturday
We Finished a split with the Zone leaders. I am a district leader which means that I get to go on splits with the Zone Leaders twice a transfer. It was actually super fun, and they have a lot of confidence in me and my ability to help improve the work in Veszprém.(If you want to spell it correctly then there it is. V-E-S-Z-P-R-É-M, It is okay if you can't get the accent mark over the "e" I have a Hungarian keyboard and that is how I do it. I made breakfast for them, Hashbrowns and Eggs, and they loved it. I have more to say about cooking but I will write it for Friday. Saturday was cold and windy, and that was no, fun. But I made this super nice note for one of our investigators who was sick. I drew this pretty rose on it and told her that Elder Gilson and I care about her; and that God loves her. Which reminds me. She came to Church on Sunday. She said that she wouldn't but she did. And she said it was all because we gave her that note! (Maybe I should write this in order starting with Monday and going forwards. ah-well. Next time)

a selfie
It makes me happy that while Brandon is camera-less his companion takes lots of pictures and his mother posts them for me to see and steal. I wonder where they got the matching ties?

Friday
We started the split with the Zone leaders. But before that Elder Gilson and I went streeting and met a couple of really cool people. One was this dude who wasn't super interested and the other was this Girl who was super interested. She told us that she is trying to find God in her life and that she wanted to look through the Book Of Mormon. But didn't take the one that we offered to let her keep. She did take one of our pass along cards though, and that is good because it has the Church Website in Hungarian and it has our phone number. So hopefully she will be giving us a call sometime. The split was really cool. I spent the 24 hours that it lasted with Elder Neumiller. Super cool man. But my favorite part was cooking. I love cooking for other people, in part for the praise when I cook a good meal, but also it gives me an excuse to make something especially nice, and then I get to eat something nice too. I made what other Elders have called "Pizza Man Pockets" But what I will call a Fried Pizza. Roll out your dough, make it like a pizza, then fold it in half, and fry it. It is actually really tasty but a lot of work. I barely had time to make it. *2

Thursday
Had District meeting. This is where my profound thoughts about loving the people more completely really started. Aside from that we had MCM and English Class. Really tame day. Oh, I guess that we also did weekly planning. *3

English class

more of the English class

Wednesday
We met with a new investigator named Dávid. Really cool guy, really nice, but super Athiest. He doesn't want to continue learning about the Church, but I think that if we can love him then he will change his mind. His only reason for not believing in God is that neither of his parents believed, and he hasn't seen any signs that God exists. (for some reason religion and missionaries and you name it doesn't count as a signs) We also met with the Vasvary family that day. Super cool people. Which reminds me that we, Elder Gilson and I, also really want to include the members in our trying to love the people as best as we can. So we are going to, if we have time, drop in and share a quick message or ask if we can help, every time we are in the area. Just so that our members out here can feel like the missionaries care about them too.

Tuesday
Just a whole bunch of tracting and looking people up. Which makes it a pretty rough day, although it really isn't that hard, just tiring.

Monday
It was last P-day. We went over to the church building and hung out with the youth and began making an "I'm a Mormon" video about Elder Gilson. I also want to do one but I don't know what to say. But I will figure it out. It is possible that I will make a "Draw my Life" Video. Which would allow me to tell more about myself I think. *4

I haven't met with Mohamed again but I have talked to him over the phone. He is super cool and loves us missionaries. And we need to make sure that he knows that we love him. I don't believe that he is the only Muslim in Veszprém, but the Muslim community is so small that he is the only one that I know of. The larges City in Hungary is Budapest, it is perhaps, by way of landmass, the same size as Salt Lake. After that there are two other smaller cities, and the rest are either slightly larger than Vernal or about the same size, and this is population wise.

Well, I think that is all for now.
Love you!
Brandon.

*Mom's notes:

1. I notice that Brandon starts a lot of his communications with "So..."  I do that too. I wonder if he started it, or if I did?

2. All three of my missionary sons now have told me how much the other missionaries liked it when they cook(ed) for them. All of my kids really are pretty good cooks. Moms, teach your kids to cook: it will make them popular later. ;-)

3. I wonder what MCM is?

4. I've learned, from stalking his mother on facebook last week (hoping to find some pictures that have Brandon in them), that Elder Gilson was a dancer before his mission; I wonder if he will talk about that in his video... I don't know what a "Draw my life" video is, but I hope that Brandon makes one!

And that is this week's news from Hungary. Yay!

(Maybe I will get my act in gear and give you some News from Vernal one of these days.)