Screening for a Brighter Future

The following is a PowerPoint we put together for our supervisors to provide them with information about one of our projects.  LDS Charities will be providing the Lions Club in Hungary with a device which will allow them to do vision screening on children.  This device will be added to their other vision screening devices for adults and will travel throughout the country in their mobile van. 

We are very excited about this project as this device will afford hundreds of disadvantaged children the opportunity to be screened for vision problems and allow them the possibility of a "Brighter Future."

Zone Day

 If a Zone has at least 4 baptisms during a transfer (9 week period), the Zone earns a Zone Day where all the missionaries in the zone come together to spend the day playing games, eating a good lunch and watching a movie.  Missionaries from Miskolc, Debrecen, Nyiregyhaza, and Eger, as well as our mission president and his wife enjoyed the fun filled day.  

Our Zone had 5 baptisms - all in our branch in Miskolc.  Unfortunately, we were in Arizona at the time of the baptism.  We were really happy to be home, but so sad to miss the baptism of 2 women and an 8 year old girl, 9 year old girl and a 10 year old boy. . . . but we did get back in time for the celebration with the Zone!  I don't have pictures of Sara and Monika, but here is a picture from primary of our three newest members.  We are up to 8 children coming fairly regularly to primary now - up from only 1 about 3-4 months ago.  Check out the Primary blog post for more pictures and information about our primary.

Erasmus, Jasmin, and Lila
our newest members

President and Sister Szabadkai

December Newsletter

Family Letter

Welcome from slushy Miskolc, Hungary!

            It snowed for the first time on Wednesday and the snow lasted all of about four hours.  Now, is the second time for the snow to fall.  It is getting cold!

            Yesterday we traveled up to the border of Slovakia to a town called Ozd.  Pronounced, Oz’d as in the Wizard of Oz.  The Lions Club had visual screening activity up in this small town, particularly aimed for the Roma.  It was an hour drive up to the town.  We took the area governor for the Lions Club with us.  He speaks fairly good English and told us about some of the history of the northeastern part of Hungary.

  

            When Hungary joined the EU one of the requirements was to shut down all coal mining.  So now, the people of Hungary just burn wood!  I don’t know which is dirtier, wood or coal.  The use of gas as a source of heat is limited due to the high cost of gas.  The EU’s position was a lot like Marie Antoinette who said let them eat cake when she told that they did not have bread.  The EU said in essence,  “Let them freeze to death so that we can say that we are not causing global warming.  The towns and villages that had the coal production are all ghost towns or major pockets of abject poverty.  But what is a few 100,000-people living in poverty in Hungary, when the EU can save the world from pollution from Russia, China and India? 

            I wore one of my Christmas ties to church today and go a lot of comments.  (Good ones) This week is part 1 of Christmas.  On December 6^th, St. Nicholas comes to the homes and bring small gifts and a lot of chocolate!  This is all done in the homes of children.  December 25^th is the other Christmas.  Oh, by the way, they don’t call Christmas, “Christmas” or use his name at all.  It is “Karacsony” meaning yule, noel, nativity and the csony means Christmas, but no mention of Christ (Jézus Kristus).  But we are not missing any Christmas music in English.  It plays non-stop in all the stores! 

            This next week we will be in Budapest on Monday.  We are being honored as helping with 9 communities to get micro grants for projects in their villages for the Roma people and going to a Roma kindergarten with the Red Cross at 10 am tomorrow morning (early start from Miskolc - 7 am).  Tuesday, off to the city of Gyor (jer) that is on the western border near Vienna to make final plans for buying new beds for an organization that takes care of the mentally impaired adults that houses 50 people.  Back to Miskolc for Zone interviews on Thursday. On Friday we are off to Nyiregyhaza and Debrecen to do apartment checks (about 1 3/4 hours from Miskolc and 45 minutes in between each city) and back in time to go to a fund raiser with the Lions Club that night.  Saturday is get ready for going home for two weeks!  Sunday is church and Monday back to Budapest and stay in a hotel near the airport.

            We are excited about going home, but missing Christmas in Hungary and especially missing 5 baptisms on December 16^th in Miskolc will make us think about Hungary while back home.  We have been part of the teaching of the two women being baptized and very much involved with the three children being baptized.  And we thought we were on a Humanitarian mission!

            Our flight is very early Tuesday morning.  Then about 18 hours later we get to see seven grandchildren (one brand spank’n new one named Max!)  So who’s excited about being home for Christmas with grandchildren? 

November Newsletter

Family Letter

Dear Family,

The traffic light system in Hungary reminds me of certain aspects in life.  We have previously posted on Facebook pictures that show a red light, a green arrow light, both next to a red stop sign.  Which one gives the proper traffic signal?

  Lehi, in his farewell talk to his son Jacob states, there must be opposition in all things, if not, righteousness could not be brought to pass.  Then Lehi says that all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. 2 Nephi 2.  Life, like these traffic lights, give us oppositional directions.

We are here on earth to learn wisdom.  Not wisdom of the world, but of God.  The world puts up street lights with red lights, green arrows lights and stop signs in almost every aspect of life.  There is no instruction on what to do when all three conflict with each other.  In too many situations there is not a clear “good v bad” option.  That is one of the major conflicts of life; what is correct by societal opinion, what is correct by traditional opinion and then what is correct by God’s commandments. 

At night after 9:00 pm (21:00 Hungarian time), the red lights become flashing yellow lights on all four sides of the intersection.  Only what they don’t tell you is that one direction has the right of way and the “right side” is not always the one with the right of way.  How do you learn this rule per street?  Almost get into a couple of collisions until you learn to not care about the blaring horns being honked when you slow down and enter the intersection slowly! 

Again, another aspect of the world.  Flashing lights warning people, but what is the warning light for?  No one likes it when you want to slow down to make sure the decision you are making is the proper decision.  The opioid drug problem is bad, but marijuana and alcohol is cool, but let’s not allow smoking of tobacco!  Which is good, which is bad?  The world has to rely on society to tell them, because if not, they might offend some group when they continue to believe in a position that has not changed for 4,000 years.

The one traffic light that has me wishing it was used in the U.S. is the yellow light prior to the red light turning green.  The U.S. uses only the yellow light to warn about stopping. Europe uses the yellow light to warn people that the red light is about to change to green.  The opposite street light has a delayed system built in so that cars are out of the intersection before the yellow light appears.  The U.S. uses this system in all types of races, “On your mark, get set, go!”  

Won’t the world be better off if there was a caution light that would appear, just before we started something good or bad?  Stop and ask yourself, is this the right course?  Will my efforts be positive?  However, we have warning as to hurricanes and tornados, but how many people elect not to heed the warnings and lose their lives?  How many people ignore the flashing signs about not entering in to a dip in the road during flooding and lose their lives?  So, does warning really help a society that doesn’t want to face reality?

We have most the prophets in the Old & New Testament and in the Book of Mormon giving us the yellow light of Christ’s second coming.  These signs are now being fulfilled.  But are we missing the signals because we are looking too much at our cell phones or what others would think of us attempt follow God’s commandments?

I hope that we learn what Satan correctly told Eve about eating of the forbidden fruit, “You will be like the Gods, knowing good from evil.”  But just like the world and the flashy yellow lights at night, they lie about who has the right of way.  Satan, lied to Eve when in the same statement about knowing good from evil, he told her that she would not die from her actions.  Let’s be careful, the world with all of its signals give too many false signals.

Opposition to all things was planned before we came to earth.  It is there to allow us to learn wisdom.  When we mess up and make the wrong choice, we have Christ’s atonement that negates our mess-ups.  But in so doing, we learn wisdom.  We learn the difference between good and evil.  What Satan told Eve was a half-truth.  What he didn’t realize was his choice to tempt Adam and Eve lead to humanity coming to earth.  He needed a flashing yellow light before he tempted Eve, but like a lot of people, he ignored the warning and messed up his attempt to stop God’s plan.  In this case, Satan’s cunning was no match for God’s knowledge of the past, the present and the future.  My point is that the same thing will happen at Christ’s coming; Satan’s cunningness will fail.  Let’s make sure we are heeding the right signals and are on the same road as Christ.

All of my love,

Dad

Family Letter

The Parliment Building

Morning fog over the Danube

My dear family and friends,

We have been in Budapest for the past three days meeting with two projects, 1) the head of the garden project to introduce her to the missionary couple from Slovakia and with the Red Cross’s family shelter.  We had about 15 children surround us Friday night for a special evening of sharing Hungarian breaded desserts and Grandma Moser’s chocolate zucchini bread!  They are so excited about getting a new playground.

In addition, we had two senior missionary couples here from Romania and Slovakia to spend time with them; discussing projects, the good and the bad and how to find new projects.  It was good to meet and spend time with them.  For the first time on our mission, we were able to spend a full day sightseeing and visiting the tourists’ attractions of Budapest!  Found places for the family to see next year!

Yesterday, we went to a museum called the “House of Terror”.  Sadly, it was not a Halloween theme museum.  It was about how children of God start to focus on “me” and it builds to great proportions in which the once small minority becomes the voice and control of society.  The results: over 6,000,000 Jews and millions of non-Jews being killed in World War II.  Over 25,000,000 Russian and non-Russians murdered through starvation and hard concentration camp work details (gulags) with Stalin’s reign of terror throughout eastern Europe.

Each movement began as a small splitter group screaming for “rights”.  We all know what was the result.  “Rights” that were always there, but Satan knows how to create conflicts.  How “caring” people allow the small vocal groups take control.  Being PC is more important than being a human.  Saying “No” in raising a family is important.  Saying “No” in society is just as important.  But in today’s world (including 1930's forward), the world views the Church as evil for not throwing out moral standards that have been around since Adam, all because such stands are now politically incorrect.  But in whose eyes are they not correct?  Not Gods!

Paul, while under house arrest in Rome wrote to the small branch in a town called Philippi, which is situated in the country of Macedonia, which is not too far from Hungary.  In his letter he states, “Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.” Philippians 4:5.  It should be noted that also included in this small part of the letter from Paul (chapter 4) is the basis of the Article of Faith 13, which is the standard on how we should act in public and toward all people.

“Moderation in all things.”  Be careful in today’s world.  We are in a situation where Europe was in the mid-1930's.  Small little groups being organized demanding rights, demanding that the majority of the people make room for their cause.  A small group in Austria became a world evil called the Nazis in a very short period of time.  Here in Hungary, as Germany was months away from defeat, Hungarians assisted the Germans in a rush to send 500,000 Jews off to Auschwitz in just two months to be put into the gas chambers.  Their payment for such crimes?  Millions of Hungarians were taken to Russian to work and never returned, all due a small group of intellectuals preaching communism from Switzerland when they hadn’t lived in Russia for over 10 years.  We are still feeling that evil Marxism through this part of the world.

Satan has plans, but most of the time he goes back to the same plan that has worked.  The phrase, “history repeats itself” is simply Satan reusing the plan over and over again and it works!

Lehi’s dream of the Great and Spacious Building was a forewarning as to what was to come prior to Christ’s second coming.  When people start to become focused on the “cause of the day” and allow it to become the focal point of their daily thinking, that is when society becomes corrupt.  Here in Hungary, neighbors turned on neighbors knowing that so doing would result in the death of the neighbor.  Why, because the cause of the day became so politically correct people actually were “forced” by societal demands to accept the dictates of the cause of the day, or worry that if they didn’t turn someone in that they themselves would be taken and killed for not accepting what is now the “popular” cause.

We hear a little about the scandal in Hollywood right now.  It is my opinion that what is not being reported is what the majority of America is thinking, “We all knew that young men and women were choosing to throw away their morals in exchange for a promise of becoming a movie start.  So why all the “surprise” and denial by the “stars” of Hollywood that such things are and were happening?”  Being PC in the entertainment world if you, like the Hungarians, want to succeed, is to shut your mouth and ignore the evil taking place.  The same can be said about America today dealing with all the “rights” movements.

I am not going to list all the “rights” movements that are currently in American news.  I will simply say, follow the example of Lehi, Sarah, Sam and Nephi.  Partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life, keep your eyes focused on Jesus Christ.  Serve him by teaching your children and grandchildren the same.  Each week do something for your neighbor, for the poor and the needy.  Let people see by your actions that you have the image of Christ in your countenance.

Remember, regardless of the political party, regardless of what “appears” to be a good cause, when our daily lives are overtaken by a “cause” we have committed what Paul warned, not having “moderation.”  Even inside the church, if our sole church experience is center on one cause, we lose focus of Jesus Christ.  We partake of the fruit, then cast our eyes and look at that spacious building-the world, and its’ mocking of us.  If we are not careful, we will become embarrassed to stand for what we have been taught, for what we know to be true and we lose grip of the Iron Rod and fall into the filthy water as seen by Nephi.  We become just like that Hungarian neighbor who abandoned years of friendship and turned in the Jewish family for deportation.  We become filthy just by association.  Please, “let your light so shine for the world to see.”

Seeing the cruelty of society was not a warm and fuzzy experience.  But seeing society today marching straight into the same pattern is even more unsettling.  However, with all the foreboding of the revelations by John, Nephi, Jacob, Isaiah, et al, they all stated one mitigating fact, “Faith in and adherence to Jesus Christ’s teachings will give us the blessings of Eternal Life and “all that My Father hath”.  Mom and I are here to help relieve some of the pain and suffering.  Christ said that we will always have the poor among us.  It is up to us individually how we personally treat the poor and the needy. Government plans will always fail to “fix” the problems of the poor.

I believe in Jesus Christ.  I know that he is the creator of this earth.  I know that he is in charge.  I know that all mankind, especially those that are desirous to combine all their efforts to stop Christ’s plan for this earth, will fail.  We must make sure that we hold on to that rod of iron, the Word of God.  We must make sure that we teach our children and teach our neighbors (by example) that in Christ, we shall find eternal happiness.  No one in the world can ever offer that.

These are my thoughts of the day.  Mom and I love you dearly.  We miss you, but know that we are where we are supposed to be at this point in our life.  We know that we are making a difference in the lives of many of the poor and needy here in Hungary.  We thank our Heavenly Father daily for allowing us the privilege of so doing this work.

All of our love,

Mom and Dad

Red Cross Temporary Family Shelter Visit

On October 20, we went to the Red Cross Temporary Family Shelter for our first cooking class.  We expected to be teaching or at least observing a cooking demonstration, but that was not the case.  When we entered, we were proudly escorted to the “community room” where the tables were neatly set, complete with decorations and several plates of confections which had been prepared by the children, the mothers, and the staff.  What a pleasant surprise!

The children had set the tables and had already had a "manner class."  They had been given a role play card to either demonstrate “good manners” or a “bad manners.”  We were so impressed by all the children’s manners, that we had to ask which ones were the supposed to be demonstrating the bad manners.  Of course they had chosen the girls that were always very polite.  We suspected they might be the ones that were supposed to be the "bad examples" but I don't think they could quite pull off the "bad manners."  

One boy showed up with a nicely ironed shirt and behaved like a real gentleman.   We were super impressed at how clean and well prepared all the children were. 

We were also entertained by one of the mothers who sang a few gospel songs to us in English.  She did a very good job and the children were all very quiet and respectful as she sang.  She does not speak English, but you would never know it from her singing.  She sang one song in Hungarian and had the director translate it for us.  It was very touching for her to make this effort.  We suggested to the director that she teach the children to sing several songs for our closing dinner.  She liked the idea, so we will see where that leads. 

 

Elder Moser even entertained the children with his “dumb” magic tricks. 

 

Victor, who introduced himself as Spider-Man, surprised me with a gift as we were leaving.  He gave me a fan, glow in the dark stars and planets and a notebook.  I was overwhelmed at his generosity.  I was a little afraid that he might change his mind after we left so we asked him to keep the notebook and draw some pictures for me for next time.  We’ll see if he does. 

 
 I asked if they had group dinners like this very often.  Erika, the director, said no, but thought it was so successful that they felt they should do this more often.

Even though this was not quite what we had expected, we were thrilled with the results.  It was so nice to see this group come together in a common cause and to see all the efforts that they made.  We could tell they were proud of what they had accomplished, and we hope to be able to continue to see more positive results. We are looking forward to returning.