Anita's baptism

 Anita was baptized by Branch President Misi and assisted by Elder Whiting.  She is in a wheelchair and it took two people to baptize her.  It was pretty sweet and humbling.  Anita is a sweetheart and has born her testimony twice already in testimony meeting.  We hope her husband Janos will follow soon.

July

 Sister Rupard is an artist and likes to teach using her drawings.  She taught a FHE lesson on the world happenings leading up to the restoration of the gospel.

 Hungary is famous for cold fruit soup.  I tried making some cold cherry soup and it was pretty good.

Michael went home to Taiwan for six weeks and we had a Hungarian meal before he left.  I made the cherry fruit soup, the elders made rockott krumpli, and the sisters made palascintas for dessert.  L-R in the picture is Sister Jensen, Sister Rupard, Michael, Chin, Demi

 This is the gathering upstairs on the branchhouse after Anita's baptism. The branch always has a little get-together after all baptisms and everyone brings a little food.   For some reason the baptism picture did not show up so I will try again.  Anita is in the wheelchair.

 Anita with her husband Janos.

 Back at the Steels--We had these four lovely ladies to Sunday lunch--newly-baptized Eszter, Kristineni, Otillia's mom, Otillia . 

 Our last Steel lunch with wonderful Sister Rupard. 

 Our last Steel/transfer breakfast with Sister Rupard. We always get together for breakfast while we wait for transfer calls.  Sister Rupard has served in Debrecen for 5 months.We have been around her for about 10 months of her mission.  She served for a while in Nyrigyhaza when they were in our same district so we have known her for a long time.  She is a great, hard-working missionary and we will miss her. 

 Sister Rupard in front of her apartment at 5:00 am.  We are taking her to the train station.

 A great companionship--Sister Rupard and Sister Jensen.

 Elevators in Hungary are super tiny--especially the ones in the 10-story communist buildings.  The four of us can barely squeeze in.  We are on our way to visit Eszter with Elders Oaks and Whiting--our two awesome elders.  We really have a great group of missionaries.

 Pioneer Party--Sister Abrok is setting up the bograsc in prepartion for making guylas for the party.

 We decorated the multipurpose room for the party.  Pioneer day normally isn't celebrated here, of course, but it was a good excuse to have a party and teach them a little about pioneers.

 Back to the bograsc--it's quite a lengthy process. Sister Abrok and her daughter Barbara are in the background.  They were so kind to cook for this big group.

 We had the program inside. The missionaries talked, told a pioneer story and sang two pioneer  primary songs.

 They were joined by Dori and some primary children for one of the songs.

 Sister Jensen is telling a little about what life was like on the trail to the SL Valley.

 Brother Balough is lending a hand.  It's ready to eat!

 We all moved outside to eat.  Delicious!

 Lilla--one of our cute new members.

 Szilvia, another cute fairly- new member with Elder Whiting

 One of our new missionaries,  Sister Schnoor has been in the country 2 months and is 19 years old.  She is from southern Alberta Canada.  We are so happy she and Sister Sholly are here!

 Sister Sholly is our other new missionary (also 19--that is so young!) and she is really new.  She just got here this past week and Debrecen is her first area.  She is from Ogden, Utah.

 Could anyone resist this trio?  They will probably have a million baptisms.

 Otillia--one of the branch members that Virgil loves to joke with.

Ildiko, the piano player, we always call her.  She is the only branch member that plays the piano.

More

 For Sunday lunch, we invited Anita and Janos, two investigators of the sisters.  Anita has a bap date for next week.  Hopefully Janos will follow soon after.

 Sister Jensen and the Katys.  I like to invite branch members to Sunday lunch also.  The Katys are members who Joshua Kreitzer (my nephey) found about 12 years ago.  They are a mother/daughter duo both named Katy.  They are great to come to everything.

Fuzer Castle -- The Jensens came back from America and we decided it was time to take an excursion.  This was a great one! We headed to Fuzer castle and made a few stops along the way.  The above picture is of another castle in a pretty town we drove through.

 Elders Jensen and Steel relaxing.

 This was another beautiful, well-planned city.  I didn't expect Hungary to have such beautiful cities with beautiful landscaping and city centers.  The above is a nice, very big  church.

 A fountain in the middle of the town square.  I don't recall the name of the city--it has one of those really hard  Hungarian names.

 Fuzer castle as we approached in the car.  It is in the Zemplen hills, close to Slovakia.

 Jensen's making the climb.  It wasn't a very long hike but it was steep.

 View from the top.  I love to hike so I really loved this.

 Steelek

 We thought this would make a great zip line.

 Who is that granny with her sun bonnet and tennis shoes carefully inching her way down the rocky trail.

 July 10th  was the year mark for Elder Whiting and Sister Jensen.  Our year mark was July 8th so we all went to town to celebrate.

 The big yellow church is the main landmark of Debrecen on the main square.  It has had scaffolding around it for months, but it is finally down and is beautiful--all freshly painted.  There are four sisters in the picture because the sisters were doing splits that day.  Our two Michaels joined us.

This was outside the restaurant where we ate.  I want this in my backyard.

June

 For our Friday night activity Szilvia cooked paprika Krumpli in the bograsc.  It is a very Hungarian way of cooking and a very delilcious Hungarian food.

 All the helpers

 We set up the volleyball net that night.  It was a perfect night--lovely weather and people and good food.

 My Garden--I have a window box outside our apartment on the deck.  I planted two cherry tomato plants and a few geraniums.

 The first tomato, ready to pick

 Picking Cherries--Elder Whiting always asks people what we can do to help them.  When he asked his landlady she said we could  pick cherries for them..  We followed her to the outskirts of town to their garden spot.  It took a while but it was beautiful in the country and we loved it.  She even fixed us lunch.

 They live in town in an apartment but have this little home that they built on this piece of ground where they have the garden.

 Here are the pickins'. She gave most of the cherries to us.  They are sweet cherries and sour cherries.  We spent several hours pitting cherries back at home and freezing them.  Cherries must be a favorite fruit here--there are cherry trees everywhere.

 Elder Miller returned to Debrecen with his family about a week after he left.  There was his mom and dad, his two sisters, and his 91-year-old remarkable grandmother.  I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of the whole group.  Elder Miller wore his "U" shirt just for Virgil.  Virgil had a lot of fun teasing Elder Miller about going to the U.  He tried to convert him to the Y but no luck.

 July Fourth--It was nice to remember America on this day.  It made me miss America.  For our Friday night activity we had an American Party.  Our opening song was American the Beautiful sung by the Americans.  Our meal was potato salad, baked beans, watermelon and cherry pie.

 After dinner we went outside and had relay  races and foot races (I came in last) then played a game of baseball.  Baseball is not a sport that is played in Hungary but they were good sports and played it anyway.  It was a little hard to explain but we made it through and had fun.

 Another baptism!! Demi was baptized on July 5th.  He was baptized by Michael.  In the photo are Sister Jensen, Michael, Demi, and Sister Rupard.

 The week before Michael also baptized Johanna who just turned 8.  Everyone loves Michael in the branch.  He has performed two baptisms since he was baptized in February.

 Our new awesome member--Demi.  He is from China and attending the university here.

Asian Michael and America Michael in their new suits.  There is a lady in Nagykello who makes custom suits.  All the missionaries love to have a suit custom-made. Michael and Michael recently had new suits made.