Mormon Newsroom Article about our Guide Dog Project

Mormon Humanitarian Organization Assists Blind People and Guide Dogs in Hungary

– BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

In 2017, LDS Charities, the humanitarian arm of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints approached the Hungarian Federation of the Blind and Partially Sighted (MVGYOSZ) to assess their needs and to discuss what assistance could be offered.

Through the ensuing cooperation the Hungarian organization received modern computer technology to facilitate equal online access for visually impaired Hungarians. At the same time, the Church’s volunteers conducted yard clean-up work at the MVGYOSZ Guide Dog Training Facility located in a suburb of Budapest.

“We had a great time, as it always happens when you sacrifice some of your time. It was nice to see that we could contribute a little to this wonderful work. The dogs were beautiful, intelligent, and they help a lot of people once their training is done here,” says one of the volunteers, Adrienn Csányi.

LDS Charities donated a MacBook, an iPhone, several Android devices, and two Braille displays–a 14 character pocket-sized one and a 40 character one to MVGYOSZ. The Hungarian organization in turn provides a special training to its members on how to use them, who can thus test the equipment and practice their use.

“This is expensive equipment in Hungary, and when a visually impaired person is making a decision to buy one, it’s good if they can test it personally beforehand, to see which one of these serves their needs best,” explains Gábor Angyal, the organization’s Chief Professional Officer.

In addition to demonstrating the technology to its members in Budapest, MVGYOSZ also trains the training staff at its regional centers, making a difference in the lives of the visually impaired well beyond the capital city, and across the entire country.

“We purchased equipment to train the trainers,” says Elder Moser, a senior missionary serving with LDS Charities in Hungary. “We didn’t only train 23 people, but [thus] we trained a lot more [who] can go out and help all the people in Hungary who are blind to live a better life.”

 LDS Charities operates various international humanitarian programs built on the principles of personal responsibility, community support, self-reliance, and sustainability. These include the provision of clean drinking water; international emergency response in the wake of natural disasters, civil unrest or famine; immunization; maternal and newborn care; vision care; as well as the provision of wheelchairs and various devices for those with disabilities.

LDS Charities also works with partner organizations across the world to increase the impact of such initiatives and ensure the best solutions to local needs.

May, 2018 newsletter

Family Letter

Dear Family,

            The cherries on our cherry trees have turned red!  Summer is almost upon us!  The walk today was a bit uncomfortable due to the heat.  We will have to start earlier.  Yet last week it was pretty chilly and rainy. 

            The Hungary mission is combining with the Romanian mission to form the Hungary/Romania Budapest Mission.  The mission president from the Romanian mission will become the new mission president for both countries.  He has been a mission president for one year.  Our mission president mission is over at the end of June.  Romania and Hungary combined is just smaller than Germany, with two major differences: very bad roads in Romania and two distinctly different languages!

            Last week, in anticipation of combining the missions, the structure of the mission changed.  Previously, each city with two or more missionaries was a “district”.  Then four cities in our area made up the “zone”.  There were five zones in the mission.  Now, three towns make up a district. 

Our new district.  Unfortunately the last meeting where Elder and Sister Jenkins (in front) will be with us.  They leave for home this week.  We will sure miss them. 

This means that each week missionaries from two cities get on trains and travel about 1 ½ hours to Miskolc for district meeting.  District meeting last about 1 ½ hours.  Then the missionaries stop off and buy lunch then catch a train back to their cities.  Our zone now takes in part of Budapest and our zone disappears.  This is to allow the new mission president to do less traveling to zone meetings or interviews.  Glad we will only be around for 6 weeks before going home.  The new mission president is from Phoenix, an attorney by the name of Hittinger.

We got one more project approved and working on submitting two more this week.  We are trying to use up all of our budget this month then spend the last two and a half months getting things going for our replacements, the Okeys.  They are from Calgary and from Tampa Bay!  They have been on an MLS mission (member-leader-service) to the Bahamas before.  We talked to them last night about not submitting one or two projects but have the projects all set up for them to submit.  This will give them experience in submitting the projects and allowing them to spend most of their time finding new projects for the 2019 budget year.

We are starting to do MLS work because we are not spending our time looking for new projects.  That means we spend time visiting less active members and members with health problems.  We have to take missionaries with us to communicate with the members.  We are seeing some benefits in our visit.  We hope that our efforts will assist the members in finding help and friendship within the church.  The stronger the church becomes, the more support that there is for people in need.  That basically is one of the main purposes of the church, to help people in time of need.  It is a change from what we are doing, helping non-LDS people in time of need.  But the same needs and if successful the same results, better the lives of God’s children, no matter who they are.

We said good-bye to the Baggozi’s - the office couple and the Jenkins - the area auditors this past two weeks.  We were supposed to be the next to go, but with the extension, the Hicks - MLS couple will go home before us.  Ending this almost two years of being in the Lord’s service, saying good-bye to new friends that we have made is not a happy feeling.  When I was in Japan on my mission, with absolutely no contact with my family, other than letters, as the time neared, I wanted to stay, but really wanted to go home to see my family.  This time with Skype, Facebook, etc. and actual visits by Steven and Becca and Anne and Dee, soon to be Scott, Shaliece, Riley and Garrett, about three weeks later Marnee, Mike, Parker, Ryan and Kate.  The feeling of wanting to go home to see family is not there.

I loved my mission to Japan.  It shaped my life and made me to whom I am today.  But the friendship was only there for some missionaries only.  The memory of this 20 month mission will not have the overall effect on our lives as my first mission did - already too set in our ways.  But the memories of the friendship with the Hungarians that we dealt with will last, a true blessing.

The friendship with the senior missionaries will carry forward with visit to them as we travel to and from Utah, as they come to Arizona for car shows and golf and warm winters.  Friendships that have been forged while we were engage in the work of the Lord has solidified a long-term friendship is a short space of time.  We have cried with them, we have laughed with them, we have offered support in time of death to family members, we have offered support when things have not gone well for them in their mission.  But we have one major thing in common, we were part of the Army of Helaman and because of that, the friendships will last forever. 

The one truly sad thing about senior missions, too many people our age do not go on a mission.  They lose out on 18 months or 2 years of the most trying, tiring, exhausting, disappointing, confounding, exasperating wonderful time of our life!  We somehow stumbled into this very rich experience.  I have, since my father’s death had a desire to go on a mission with your mom.  That was the prime motivating fact why I wanted to go.  You mom did not want to go, but went to do the love that she has for me.  Do we have any regrets?  Absolutely, regrets that we didn’t do things differently in hopes that we would have had even more success than we have had.  But absolutely no regrets in coming to Hungary on a mission.  We thank God each night for allowing us to come; for his answers to come to Hungary when we were choosing the location and type of mission. 

Our advice to any couple considering on going on a mission, “GO! You and your family cannot afford you not to go.  The blessing that will come to you and your family are eternal in nature.  And isn’t that why we are here on earth, to gain an eternal family?  GO!”

Dad

Vision Screening in Miskolc

This morning we attended a vision screening event held at The Order of Malta's headquarters in Miskolc.  The vision screening was performed by the Lions Club using a device purchased by LDS Charities.  We were able to screen about 35 children in just over an hour to determine that about 50% of them need to have further eye exams.  This little device works almost like a point and shoot camera, but is able to determine if a vision correction is needed as well as whether or not there is evidence of serious eye disease. 

The vision screening was in conjunction with an annual event that The Order of Malta puts on for the two Roma communities in Miskolc that they work with, Lyuko Valley and the Avas.  There was food, games, and even a magician for both the young and the old.  Everyone had a great time.  Elder Moser and I were offered Langos as we were getting ready to leave.  Langos is basically Indian Fry Bread with sour cream and cheese on it.  

We were very excited about this event as it was a culmination of bringing two NGO partners together.  Originally when we contacted The Order of Malta to do a project, they wanted to do vision screening.  We knew that the Lions Club was known for vision screening so we contacted them.  They were not allowed to screen children in Hungary because they didn't have the proper equipment.  

Through LDS Charities, we were able to provide that essential piece of equipment.  This made the screening for the Lyuko Valley and the Avas possible.  The best part was that for about the same amount that the screening in these areas would have cost, LDS Charities was able to provide a device that can be used on the Lions Club van that travels throughout Hungary serving a much wider base of beneficiaries.  They even travel into Ukraine on occasion to do screenings.  The Lions Club screenings have no additional staff costs since all the labor is donated.  Win/Win for all.

Family Letter

April 29, 2018 and May 6, 2018,

Sorry for the long letter, it is two weeks’ worth of events in our life.

Tomorrow is Steven’s birthday.  Today, the four of us ate BYU brownies as his birthday cake with two candles, “3" and “8"!  It is very good to have Becca and Steven here with us. Mom made Csirke Papikas, Chicken Paprika for Steven’s birthday dinner, no it wasn’t his favorite, mash potatoes and gravy, this is Hungary!

            Friday, Steven, Becca and their friends, the Millers, arrived in Budapest from their week long travel through this part of Europe.  That night we went to Buda Castle and saw the lights of Pest from Buda hill and enjoyed a Hungarian dinner near the Saint Matthias Church on Buda Castle hill. 

Saturday morning, Steven and I drove out to the airport to see if I could get added on the car rental then extend it until after Anne and Dee leave.  The extra room for the baby car seat is well worth the money.  After that, your Mom and I went to the Guide Dogs for the Blind open house where the new dog clinic was showcased. 

The equipment and the cabinets that LDS Charities paid for were on display.  Some of the highlights was a group picture in the form of a heart taken by a drone, sitting in the hot sun with nobody to talk to, eating the equivalent to a Costco hotdog with four gallons of mustard on it, then 15 minutes later being given two more hot dogs to eat by the director’s wife who spoke English, but didn’t understand that one Hungarian hot dog was about ½ of a hot dog too much, so we ate the second hot dog that this time only had 2 gallons of mustard and a pint of catsup on it.(Catsup in Hungary is not scarce, but to get Catsup on hamburgers, french fries, hot dogs, you get charged about $0.35 to $0.50 for the catsup, so we didn’t complain about the excess on the hot dogs!

We drove from the open house to the mission home.  We parked the car in the mission home and took the subway back to St. Stephen’s Basilica to meet  Steven, Becca and the Millers.  They had just finished climbing up to the top of the cathedral when we arrived.  We ate an early dinner then took the subway back to the hotel to get the rental car and off to Miskolc.  The drive up was pretty much in the dark.

Sunday morning was off to church.  Steven and Becca allowed us to stay because neither of the other members of the primary presidency was at church. 

After church we took them sightseeing to Lillafured, a hotel up in the mountains next to a small lake, very beautiful.  Then we drove up to Edeleny to the garden site.  We were planning on driving by just to show them, but there were about 10 people there from the gardening group.  We stopped and talked via Google Translate, took pictures and introduced them to our family.  It was a very good politically correct trip for LDS Charities.  The Roma group now more than ever, know that they are special to us and that we took a 30 minutes drive up to Edeleny to show our children their garden.  We really appreciated Steven and Becca going with us to the garden.

The next day was an opportunity to see more of Miskolc, then back to Budapest.  We were able to walk to the Jewish synagogue, which is one of, if not the largest synagogue in Europe. 

The next morning, Jane and I got up and drove to the Keleti Train Station to pick up Anne, Dee and Max.  The good news, by the time I was able to find a parking spot, Mom had  found the traveling trio and was walking to the parking lot. 

Max has grown and his smiley disposition is something that this grandfather will miss for four months!  Max either thinks that I am very funny looking, or he and I hit it off very well.  I already miss his smile.  However, I will have a very long talk with his older sister Hannah about teaching him how to squeal!  That sound will not be missed.  Hannah is in big trouble with Hepa!

Tuesday was May 1 or May Day.  Being in a former communist country, May Day is a big thing.  The whole family Steven, Becca, Anne, Dee, Max, Mom and me, went on a walking tour of the Jewish Quarters.  The tour was good, but on the streets of Budapest was a formula 1 race going on.  Talk about noise!  The guide had to change where she stopped and talked due to the noise level and all the heads turning to see the cars speeding by.  After the car race, there was an airplane show that also got our attention.  At the end of the tour, our resident certified dietician - Becca, demanded that we eat lunch at a hole in the wall place whose claim to fame was the langos hamburger.  Langos is nothing more than Indian fry bread, or what I grew up calling scones.  The hamburgers were very good.  However, our dietician’s hamburger was very raw in about a quarter of the meat, so she was forced to pay penitence to the dietician gods for eating deep fried dough hamburger buns!

We walked down to the Danube to where the memorial of the shoes on the Danube was.  This is where the Germans would line up the Jews, have them take off all their clothes, then shoot them and have their bodies fall into the river.  Please watch the movie, “Walking with the Enemy”, to see the full impact of the memorial.

 

Then off to walk across the “Chain Bridge and up to the funicular train to get up to Buda Castle hill.  Steven and Dee walked up the hill while we waited in line to buy tickets.  Up on the hill, we took a tour of the “Labyrinth”, caves inside of the Buda hill.  This is where Dracula was held prisoner for many years.  We can’t wait to have Riley, Garrett, Parker, Ryan and Kate to go down inside the caves.  We had to use lanterns due to the darkness!  We ate dinner at the Fishermen’s Bastion on Buda Hill, then the walk back to the subway and to the hotel.

Mom and I drove Steven and Becca up to a hotel next to the airport where they stayed.  Their flight left at 6:30 am.  We didn’t read their text that they made it on to the airplane until about 9:00 am, we were fast asleep, very tired.  Anne, Dee, Max, Mom and I went down to the “Great Market” to meet the chef for our Hungarian cooking class. 

The market was full of fruits, vegetables, beef, chicken, pork, fish, dogs, cats, some type of pig that looked very closely to a javelina and the other things that come out of animals when they are butchered that we normally only eat when we eat non-koshered hot dogs!  The thrill of the tour was a cow’s esophagus!  About a yard in length and three inches in diameter.  We asked how that was cooked?  With much comfort, “It is only for dog food!”  So we went into the class with small comfort that we were not eating cow esophagus. 

The cooking class was a good break from the long walks all over Budapest.  Did I ever tell you that cobble stone walks are very very bad to walk on, even in tennis shoes!  If not, now you are so informed.  We spent the rest of the day seeing other sights of Budapest and keeping Max happy.

            The next morning, Anne and Dee went to see the House of Terror, a house where both the Germans and the Russians/Hungarian police and military took the political prisoners and tortured them and many never came out alive.  Nema and Hepa stayed behind and “worked” on LDS Charity projects to submit, but also ended up playing with Max.  After about 3 hours, Max let everyone know that it was time for mom to come back to the hotel and feed him, which she did arrive about 10 minutes later!  Then off to Miskolc. 

Since it was daytime, they got to see the landscape of Hungary.  The yellow fields of rape (canola oil) were faintly visible.  The flowers were mostly fallen off.  We had Mom’s now famous Chicken Papikas for dinner.  The same meal that we served Steven and Becca when they were here in Miskolc.  Then drove around Miskolc and stopped off at the church and introduced them to the branch president, Heinrich Jozsef and our interpreter Spisik Edina. 

The next morning we went to Lillafured and walked around, we passed the brand new large soccer stadium, whose first game was on Saturday, then headed off to Budapest.  Almost into Budapest the traffic leaving the city toward Miskolc, Debrecen and Niregyhaza was backed up about 5 miles long.  The drive down, I was really hurting with sleepy eyes, but the other three adults in the car were fast asleep!  We toyed with the idea to staying in Budapest and not coming home, but decided to be cheap!

We drove to the mission home to pick up the mission car and then drive to the “People’s Park” , which as a block away from the bus station that Anne and Dee were going on later that night.  Then back to Saint Stephen’s basilica to visit, stopped off at a souvenir shop for Anne and Dee.  Hepa and Max waited outside on a bench next to the cathedral.  We got a lot of attention.  Max was in his smiley and laughing mood and many people would point at us or come over and say what a beautiful baby!  I wish I had the language to reply, he looks just like me, but I don’t so I took the compliment and said “Közönöm” - thank you.

Back to the bus station for the 9:30 pm bus trip to Croatia.  We left and Mom got to drive the church car to the airport.  Almost to the car, we got a text that the food stand at the bus station did not take credit cards!  So Anne and Dee went hungry in Hungary.  On our way to the airport, we kept our phones on so that I could tell Mom when I was changing lanes and which lane to be in when the roads split.  She did a very good job of driving in Budapest at night.  I think she now realizes why I come home so tired after a trip to Budapest. 

We made it to the gas station next to McDonalds.  Filled up the rental car with fuel and got food to eat on our way back to Miskolc.  (By the time we got back on the road after dropping off the rental car, the food was cold!)  We arrived home just after midnight!

Much to our dismay, we got up at 7:00.  We needed to be in Debrecen for apartment inspections by 9:00 am.  We didn’t make it!  Forgot to turn on the voice directions of the GPS and missed the Debrecen turn off, which meant an extra 30 minutes of drive time!  I think a clear mind was also missing on the drive to that city.  We arrived at 10:00 am and after two very quick inspections, left Debrecen at around 11:30.  Back in Miskolc, we stopped off at Auchan, the big grocery store to buy food.  We had invited a member of the church and her non-member husband to dinner on Saturday night.  Then rushed home to start the house cleaning and food preparation. At 2:45 pm off to the church for a baptism of a lady that we have helped teach, then back home to finish cleaning and cooking.  After all had left around 10:00 pm (a set of missionaries where there to translate for us), we barely had energy to put the food in the refrigerator, forget the dirty dishes and off to bed.

 Somehow, we made it to church on time.  We both taught our lessons and did not fall to sleep once!  After church we were asked to go with the Elders to teach a lesson.  So we went home and started to clean the kitchen before we picked up the Elders for the lesson.  The appointment was “dogged” meaning he was not home.  In church, the 1^st counselor in the District Presidency asked me if we had talked to a Sister Hajdu.  I had never heard of her before, but a strong impression about driving out to the falu (village) and seeing her.  She and her parents were once very active.  So with being “dogged”, I suggested going out and visiting the family.  The short version, we will be going back next Sunday to start teaching them the gospel again. 

Finally home, we had left overs from last night for our break the fast dinner and then went to bed to take a 30 minute nap that extended into 1 ½ hours!  The kitchen is now finally clean, we have read the scriptures in Hungarian and I have finished this letter and it is only 12:00 am Monday morning!

Tomorrow - Monday, we are off to Eger, about 1 ½ hours south of here to meet up with two other senior missionaries to sight see the wine country of Eger and then go visit the baths of Egar.  Our sore legs and knees will welcome the warm water of the baths!  After that, we will go home to do apartment inspections for the two set of missionaries here in Miskolc.  The next day is transfer day and we expect to see at least 2 if not 3 missionaries to be gone. 

No rest for the wicked and the righteous does not need rest!  Regardless of what we are, we are busy.  Our only regret, time is going too fast.  Tonight, we submitted our Rotary project where we are helping fund rape examination equipment designed for children to two centers, one in Budapest and one here in Miskolc.  We wish we didn’t even have to discuss this topic, but the world is not a pleasant place and we are attempting to relieve the injured child from additional painful intrusion during the medical examinations after being raped and abused.  A new meaning to Christ’s words, “Suffer the little children unto me.”  This is a very emotional project for us.

Then this next week we have two more projects that need submitting and we should be close to using up our budget for the year.  We will now spend time in getting the equipment and projects up and running withing the next 2 ½ months.

Sorry for the long letter, but it is two weeks worth of our lives here in Hungary.  As I said in my testimony today in Church, “I know that Jesus is the Christ.  I know that he is our redeemer.  I know that we are doing His work here in Hungary and that we are affecting the lives of many people.”  We thank Heavenly Father for the opportunity He afforded us to come to Hungary and to have the success that we have had.  Our lives have been nothing but full of blessings while here doing His work.  For that I leave my testimony for you.

Dad