News From Hungary! vol. 42

Well, this is it. And, like Brandon, I don't know what else to say. I have been a bundle of nerves for weeks. I have been feeling all the feels: happy, sad, excited, nervous... Maybe "on an emotional roller coaster" would be the most accurate description. And I have been busy, busy,busy. But mostly excited, and looking forward to the day.

The Last One

I don't even know what to say, this is my last email. I will be seeing you all in like two days. But for me I think that it will feel like three. (Airplanes)

Well,

Monday
My last full work day out here as a missionary, it was so weird. But we got some really good work done and we were able to meet with some investigators as well. We ended the day with a bunch of travel but all is well. And I was able to begin packing before I went to bed, so I am pretty much all packed now.

Sunday
Stake Conference. It was awesome, and in Budapest, so basically all we did that day was travel, but it was still really good, and we were able to get an investigator to come with us all the way to Budapest for the conference. 

Saturday,
I still had tons of travel, but it was all good.

I am sorry people, but I can't talk about each day, like this in my last email. Each day was roughly the same this week. But what was different is that halfway through the week I got Elder Bridges as a third companion. It has basically been like a party ever since then. Elder Bridges just makes all aspects of missionary life 100% more fun. We have had to travel between two cities for like the past five days, but even that hasn't been so bad. And I guess the biggest part of this has been that we have been working our tails off to get all of our work done well each day before the transfer.

I have surprisingly few things to pack into my suitcases. I don't know how I did it, but I am pretty much entirely packed and I could still fit a lot of things into my bags. I am pretty sad to leave the mission field, but I am super excited to see you all again.

I don't know what more to say. I love you all!
Sincerely,
Brandon.


Mom's Notes:

Day after tomorrow we will be meeting Brandon at the airport in Salt Lake City. He arrives at 2:00 p.m.  I made sure he had my correct phone number, just in case there might be any drama. We will  have a family dinner that evening, with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins (throughout which I imagine Brandon will be exhausted, after flying 13+ hours, and all the travel stuff that goes with that...but he wanted to do it), and then spend the night with family in Salt Lake. Friday morning I might get in some shopping in the big city, but we will definitely be headed home by early afternoon.

My missionary is coming home!

News From Hungary! vol. 41

Is this going to be the last one? Or will there be one more? We will find out next week...

A Good Haircut

It isn't everyday that I look in the mirror and think, "That is one good looking man."... Wait, yeah it is.
But it certainly helps that I got a good haircut.

One good-looking man. *1

This last week was really good. I can't think of anything specific just off the top of my head so I will just jump right into talking about the individual days.

Yesterday
The library where we usually email was closed. So instead of emailing we did a bunch of nothing really. But we did go out to do some whipping. Elder Rusz hadn't ever really had a lot of opportunity to try it out, so we went and did that. I don't know if I have ever told you, but whips are just as loud as guns in the right hands. Or at least almost as loud as guns. *2

Sunday
This was one of my best Sundays here in Hungary. I have never had an easier time understanding all of what was said. This is kind of unfortunate because I will only have one more Sunday in this country, and after that. Well we'll see won't we.
After church we went to go look up some people who live on the edge of town. It was pretty fun to go out there on our bikes. It was super dark though, and the roads weren't all paved so it was a little bit worrying in some places. The worst part was that we got lost like five times and one of those times left us with no better option but to ride our bikes through a very scary pitch black part of town. I don't know what it looks like during the day, but I hope I don't have to go back during the night. I really wasn't too worried about being out there though, every single house out there was clearly recently constructed and it looked like only rich people actually lived out there. Which is actually the exact opposite of what it was that I did expect.

Saturday
We spent the whole day looking people up. We didn't actually find anyone who was able to meet with us, but then again we don't usually find lots of people who are willing to meet with us. We did however find some inactive members, and so we later told the Branch President about that. Maybe someday they will come back to the church.

Friday
We had a pretty awesome district meeting. Or district counsel as the mission has begun to call it. (I have no idea why) afterwards we had an apartment inspection where we were told that everything in our apartment was great. Go Us! And following that inspection we got a ride to the train station from where we traveled to the city where our Branch President actually lives and there we had a very good meeting with him.

Thursday
We did our weekly planning in the morning. It was then that I realized that I would be planning my last full week in the country. Such a weird feeling. Following that planning session we went out and did a bunch of tracting.

Wednesday
Just a day full of tracting, and streeting. We probably also tried looking up some people. Oh wait! Super early in the morning we had one of the best lessons that I have taught in a long time. Just as good as the one where the person that I was teaching actually understood the implications of the Restoration, and what that would mean for them personally. The man that I taught was honestly super cool, and we will be talking with him to set up another teaching appointment.

Tuesday
We did a bunch of look ups, and we were able to meet with a less active member. It was all super good. And I am glad to have been able to meet that member, because it seemed that the only reason that she is inactive is because she literally cannot walk all the way to the church building. So we were able to inform the Branch about her, and at the very least they will begin bringing the sacrament to her.

Well I think that that is all.
For those of you who are wondering about what I intend to do when I get home, the answer is get a job. Right now I think that the best course of action for me is to work for a bit before I try to go to college. Especially since I don't really have any money at all. I also really want to get a car that I can use in college so that is one of my big goals.
I don't actually know what day it will be when I arrive home, but I think it is the 14th.   *3

I am sure that you all actually know better than I do. As far as what time I will arrive, I actually have absolutely no idea whatsoever.  
I love you all!
Sincerely,
Brandon.


Mom's Notes:

1. That is one good-looking young man. (I remember Bruce and I, at about that same age, giggling at the thought of calling ourselves a man and a woman. It just sounded so weird! We were a boy and a girl...I don't know when or how we made the transition to thinking (and saying) "man" and "woman."
Apparently my kids don't feel that way at all.)

2. We will have to have Brandon show off his skills with a whip. Also, it's funny that all the American missionaries in Hungary have run off to buy themselves a whip, but Elder Rusz, who is from Hungary, has never had the opportunity to try it out.

3. He had me completely, totally freaked out. We have all made arrangements to get out of school, and off of work, and travel to Salt Lake on the 15th; we could not do it on the 14th—or it would at least be super difficult, and some of us might not make it. (Although if he was right, I would have moved mountains to get us there a day earlier than planned.) Even though I've read his itinerary several times since we first got it, I had to look it over three times this morning to keep my heart from racing.

Just over one week left! It's hard to believe, and it's coming too fast. I am so ready, and I am so not ready. But, ready or not, here he comes!

News From Hungary! vol. 40

Volume 40. We will only make it up to volume 42, and then Brandon will be home. Wow.

I had a hard time finding Brandon in this picture.
I finally did see him because I recognized Elder Rusz next to him.

Cold Fusion *1

Well, this last week was really good, though full of various hardships. Though looking back they weren't that bad, in fact they weren't even all that hard, just tiring.

On the topic of injuries from my bike accident, I actually got some whiplash when I hit my head and for the next four days moving my neck at all was pretty painful, aside from that where I landed on my shoulder actually did get bruised, but no where near as bad as the bruise on my leg. *2

So, this last Sunday was really good. It was probably the most tiring day of the week, but it was still good. There were many good things that happened, and a lot of walking. After church we did a quick companionship study to look through the brand new ward list that we were given. As we were going through we realized that there are sixty-two different addresses of members who live in the actual city of Székesfehérvár. This was a surprise to us because most of the active members don't actually live in Székesfehérvár. So we went on out and began looking them up. Talking to everyone who crossed our path as we did so.
One of the inactive members was really funny. We knocked on the door and a couple moments later she opened it, and as soon as she saw who we were she slammed the door closed and locked it. 

Poor tired Elder Rusz and I had no idea what to do, and just stood there for a bit. Elder Rusz Whispered to me. "I don't think that she wants to talk with us." To which I responded a bit more loudly, "Vajon miért nem akar beszélni velünk." Which would mean, I wonder why she doesn't want to speak with us. *3  About two seconds after this she unlocked and opened the door and told us gruffly, "Hétőn 17:00 találkozunk." 
And so we will be meeting with her at five o'clock today. Hopefully she can refer us to someone who would like to hear about the gospel, and also be more active in the church as well.

Saturday
Well I was on splits with the Zone Leaders. Good guys they are, and I found it helpful to getting some direction as to what it is that I should do for the last two weeks of my mission. Until now I have been doing almost nothing but tracting and streeting, but now I am going to take it on myself to try and meet with many members as well, and see if they can point me in the right direction to find some people.

Friday
We Left early in the morning for Budapest, then we had interviews with President Hettinger (see Wednesday to see why), Then we went all the way back to Székesfehérvár for district meeting, then we did a bunch of tracting. Then the Zone Leaders showed up for splits, and then we went to bed. Just thinking about that day makes me really tired. But it was a good day, and we got a lot done.

Thursday
We had our weekly planning in the morning, then we went and had a lesson...Wait, no we had the lesson and then we had weekly planning. The lesson was awesome, It was honestly one of the best lessons that I have ever had. And it was the very first time ever that I have taught the Restoration and had the person that I taught actually realize the implications of a restoration to the Lord's church. The person we taught also invited some family over that day, I am not sure if it was for the lesson, or if it was just because they were going to be over anyway, but whatever the reason we were able to teach them all, and commit them all to reading the Book of Mormon. I have high hopes for them and I think that they are really going to progress in their knowledge of the gospel and be baptized some day.

Wednesday
We worked hard all morning, and then we rushed off to the train station to go to interviews with President Hettinger. All was going well until we reached our transfer point, where we needed to get onto a different train. Pretty much as soon as we were on the platform it was announced that our train was leaving! So we ran to make our train, but to no avail, it was already out of site by the time we were standing on the platform where it departed from. For a moment we were at a loss as to what we should do. But we quickly made some phone calls and got on a different train. It was a Rail Jet, which means that it basically never stops, and if there was a speed limit for trains, then this one would break that speed limit. We were almost to our destination when we received a phone call from the mission president's wife letting us know that we actually would not be able to meet and have our interview that day, and that if we would like then we could go to Budapest on Friday to meet. *4

Tuesday
This was a fantastic day. Once again we had to get up really early in the morning to make it to the conference thing with Elder Cook. It was really good, and apparently the biggest key indicator (one of the regular missionary goals that we plan for each week) that showed whether someone would be baptized or not was church attendance. And so we have since then been breaking our heads over the question "How are we going to get our friends to church?" I personally am stumped on that one. But our branch president has said that for him what helped in his personal decision to come to church was when he felt the spirit that the missionaries brought. And for him personally it took a long time for that to happen. So I guess in lessons, we will do our best to make sure that the spirit it present. Especially as we strive to invite our friends to church.

Well, I believe that this is all.
Yep, unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures this week, but I will take some today, because I am going to get a haircut. One last Haircut before I go home. Hopefully my hair doesn't get too long before then because It would be great if you all got to see it while it was still relatively fresh. I intend to get a more European style haircut again.

Well, that is all!
I love you!
Brandon.


Mom's Notes:

1. Cold Fusion?

2. "Some whiplash?" I hope there are no repercussions to this.

3. Hehehe! "I wonder why she doesn't want to speak with us?" I love it.

4. Poor Brandon. He has learned to love Hungary and the people there, but he really hates taking the train.

That's all for today. Only two more...   !

Bathroom Talk

This week I have been a seamstress, a decorator, an electrician, almost  a plumber, a cleaner, painter, and a stripper. Of wallpaper.

It all started because I washed our bath mats.

Now, I have washed them before—many times, in fact, in the four or five years we've had them. But this washing was the last straw for them; they completely fell apart. So I had to get new bath mats.

Off to Wal-Mart I went, and bought a lovely bath-mat and shower curtain set. Not that I needed a new shower curtain—I like my white curtain that lets a little light in—but it came with the mats I liked. On the way home I thought I can use the shower curtain to make curtains for the window. Happy thought! I got home and put the mats on the floor and they looked awful! Well, the mats looked really good (the cat thinks they are comfy, too), but they clashed with the rest of the bathroom—which was kind of an abomination anyway.

This is the 80's decor we found when we moved in: Iridescent mauve-ish, vinyl wallpaper (you can see
where a bit peeled off), brass light fixtures... And it only got worse, because I occasionally, over the year we've lived here,
would grab a corner of the wallpaper and peel it off as far
as it would go...and then leave the rest for another day.
Not too clever, I guess.

a scrap of wallpaper that I scanned—
the color isn't completely accurate, but it's close

Well, we needed the bath mats, and I liked them. There was only one thing I could do: paint the bathroom to match the bath set. So I removed the towel bars, the outlet plates, the light fixture, and the shower curtain rod, and started peeling up the rest of the paper.

Let me just say a word about wallpaper: If you are not willing to make a life-time commitment, Don't Do It!!!

Monday:
First of all, I could peel the vinyl off with no trouble, but the paper—which looked like water-stained manila construction paper—stayed behind.

Jessica, peeling off the vinyl

So I doused the wall with water and then used anything I could find—pot-scrapers, spatulas, and even a carpenter's square—to scrape the paper off the wall. This took two days. Two. Whole. Days. And then the floor was covered with scraps of gluey paper (it kind of looked like all the trees in my yard dropped their leaves on the bathroom floor), and there were still little bits of paper stuck here and there on the walls, and the walls were covered with glue.

Lindsey, scraping off paper

I spent another entire day scrubbing glue off the walls. Like I said, just don't do wallpaper.

And here was a problem: How do you remove wallpaper, that requires peeling, scraping, and scrubbing, from behind the toilet?  I have removed and replaced toilets three times in my life; I'm not afraid to do it. But I really didn't want to do it. UGH.

Well, this is where the carpenter's square came in. I sprayed a ton of water behind the tank, and then started scraping with the square. It worked! If I could paint back there in a similar way, we'd be in business.

I made another decision as I was pouring water down my walls:  I had the power turned off, and I looked at our outlets. Neither of them was a GFCI (safety) outlet and, besides that, anything we plugged into them would fall halfway out. This was the time for me to replace them. Playing with the electricity makes me a little nervous, even though I  was the one to turn off the breaker and I  tested it with a nightlight several times. But it was all safe. It was a little difficult (because that is thick, stiff wire!), but I did it. I changed the outlets myself! I also took down the brass light thing and spray-painted it white. Much better!

holding the old outlet (which is also filthy!)
and a sneak preview of the walls—
with the new safety outlet installed

Tuesday:
More stripping and scrubbing.

At last the walls were ready to paint. I decided "Parchment White" and "Rich Navy" would be perfect. I was wrong. But I'll get into that later.

Oh! And on the mirrored wall, under the wallpaper, I found this bit of excitement:

Michael and I were trying to decide how this pattern was done. Stencils?  A stamp? We finally decided it was done with a roller-stamp, in kind of a dark, olive-green.

Wednesday:
So the first thing today was to put primer on the walls—KILZ primer, the fumes of which probably did some permanent brain damage. (The window was open, but still...)

Around dinner time I was able to put on the first coat of "Rich Navy." (By the way, I found a paint roller that is only 1-inch thick, which fit behind the toilet tank nicely. I was not required to be a plumber this week after all.)

first coat—I was horrified

But, the Rich Navy...Oh, man! It looked black. My bathroom was going to look like a cave. As I cleaned up the evening's paint mess I stewed over that navy wall. Finally I decided to cut the remaining paint with some of the Parchment White (which, in the store looked a nice, creamy, off-white. At home it just looked white.). Well, I added about half a cup of Parchment to the remaining Navy, and did the second coat at 10:30 p.m.(when I really should have been in bed) just so I could see how it was going to look. My new color, "Bathroom Blue," was perfect. Whew! So instead of going to bed fretting about the blue wall, I went to bed fretting about the Parchment White.

Thursday:
I had the solution in the morning: If I could cut the blue and make a perfect color, I could tint the white, too. So I went to Lowe's and bought a sample-size of "Tawny Owl" (or something like that). I mixed 24 oz. Parchment with 3/8 cup of Tawny Owl, held my breath, and started painting. It was perfect! After dinner I started removing the painter's tape. (By the way, taping and un-taping the walls might be the worst part of painting. Just so you know.) About halfway around the room I started seeing places that really needed a second coat of "Tawny Parchment," but I told myself that I didn't care; I just wanted to be finished.

With the tape down, it was now time to wash the mirror (which had wallpaper glue streaks dried on it. I'm telling you, just don't do it.), and scrub the bathtub walls which had been exposed in all their old-soapy glory all week. As I was scrubbing the bath I leaned my hand on the Tawny wall, and a spot of paint came off with my wet fingers. >sigh< I decided I'd really better do a second coat. >SIGH<   So at 11:00 p.m. I did another coat of Tawny (I had just enough Tawny Owl to finish the job) and left it to dry while I slept.

Friday:
The paint is perfect! (And, surprisingly, the exact same color as the bathtub tile. Go figure.) So now I had to scrub the sinks, counter, toilet, and floor. And then make the shower curtain into window curtains. Just as I got to the last hem on the curtains my sewing machine decided to take a sabbatical; I can't get it to do anything. Dumb machine! But I did not let that stop me; I finished the hem by hand (because I am clever like that).

before and after  

Here is the finished bathroom:

I'm quite pleased with it!
And I will never put wallpaper on my walls.

News From Hungary! vol. 39

No new pics today.  :-(
This was very nearly two years ago, when Brandon was set apart for his mission. We'll have a repeat soon, when Brandon goes with us to have Ryan set apart.

Pretending

This last little bit of my mission is strange, I often find myself wondering how long until the end of the transfer, and realizing that the end of this transfer is the end of my mission. Usually I pretend that I still have my whole mission ahead of me, but there are times when I am looking forward to all the great things that come with the end of my mission. I don't know, I honestly wish that the end of my mission was something that I was unaware of, and that I wouldn't have to think about it at all until it was actually here. *1 But until the end I guess that I will just go ahead and keep pretending. 


Sunday
Well, I really enjoyed church, it was really good, I am finally at the point where I can really understand what is going on for the duration of the whole three hours. This last Sunday was excellent. Afterwards we went and did a ton of tracting and a little bit of streeting (stopping people and speaking to them in the streets *2). 

Storytime:
We were riding home at night, I and we were going down a gentle but long hill. I had just crossed the street at an intersection and made it safely to the sidewalk and so I began to pick up my speed a little bit. As I did so something caught my attention and I glanced back over my shoulder. Right as I looked over my shoulder the left handlebar of my bike hit a pole and twisted out of my grip. I went flying off of the bike and as I did so my leg hit something. I don't know exactly what happened next but I remember my hands hitting the ground first, then my left shoulder, and finally my head. Lucky for me my head was safe inside my helmet and actually I have come out without a scratch. Almost, I hit my leg pretty hard and it is sore now. I have a slight limp but nothing too serious.
Thank you all for your prayers on my behalf, If it weren't for those prayers and the hand of God, then I could be dead right now. I honestly for a second thought that my helmet and head broke, but the fact that all I have is a nasty bruise on my leg is to me enough proof that God saved my life last night, and not only saved my life, but preserved my body enough to continue working hard for the rest of my mission. *3

Saturday
After such an interesting Sunday it is sad, but probably good, that all I can say for Saturday is that we did a lot of tracting, and looked up a couple of people.

Friday
We had an excellent District meeting. I don't remember what it was that I had originally planned, but we ended up talking about planning, faith, and carrying out those plans. I know that we had the spirit there to inspire us, and that I at least know better how to do missionary work. If only I knew two years ago. (That long?!)  Then we went out tracting.

Thursday
We did a ton of Look Ups. And we found one person who was really interested in meeting with us again. I am not really sure how interested, she is in the gospel, but it is something that we can work with and I intend to try and meet at least once more before deciding whether we ought to meet frequently with this person. The teaching record suggests that I shouldn't, but hey what do I know but that this woman now is ready to accept the gospel.

Wednesday
It was a Zone Conference day! And it was pretty exhausting. I spent pretty much the entire day in Budapest. And then came home in time for pretty much nothing. I had to walk from the train station to my apartment, and by the time we made it back and dropped off our stuff it was too late to really do any kind of finding activity. So we sent a text to our investigators.

Tuesday
I actually really don't remember what it was exactly that we did. So probably streeting, tracting, and anticipating Zone Conference.

I do know who Sister Hopwood is. I also know who Elder Castellano is. I have actually been in the same district as Elder Castellano, he is quiet, but pretty funny if you are listening for the things that he has to say. *4
I don't really know what else to say.

Love you all!
Brandon.


Mom's Notes:

1. I once wrote a paper about this in high school: If kids didn't know when the last day of school was, they would work harder the whole time instead of slacking off at the end. It's funny that Brandon should express the same idea.

2. That's what I thought streeting was, but I never remembered to ask him until this past week.

3. Michael saw Brandon's email before I did. He said it was really interesting this time and I said, "What? Was he in a car accident or something?" Close—and not particularly the kind of news I want to hear. I'm glad he's OK!

4. Bruce went to church in Greeley, CO and saw the stake map of missionaries who are out. Sister Hopwood and Elder Castellano (who, obviously, are serving in the same mission as Brandon) caught his attention. Not only that, but Greeley, CO also has a missionary serving in Gilbert, AZ, which is where Ryan will be headed. :-)  Small world!