Nothing like a good first Sunday back to get things back to normal:
-Woke up around 5 am with Spooner, the little chunky-monkey. He sleeps pretty well when he falls asleep without nursing to sleep, but, when he nurses to sleep, seems to dream about milk all night long and keeps waking up. Sigh. He's a cutie! At least this way he is all "tanked up" for the journey to church :).
-Hava, who had fallen asleep around 7 pm the night before, was up and spry by 6 am, and managed to keep her passionate voice to what would pass as a whisper for her and normal volume for everyone else. "Mom!" she whispered, "I'm up because I am a light sleeper." Pointing to the rest of her sleeping siblings, "They are all
dark sleepers so they are still asleep." Four year old logic is always very unique.
-Pipalicious, showing slight signs of "queeziness" this morning, vomits on the bus en route...
...caught it all on her dress, and was able to change her since we were the only ones on the bus.
-We leave Avot at the next bus stop to catch the bus back home with Pipalicious while we carry on to church. Whew!
-We realize we didn't send the keys to the house home with Avot, so call Landlady Zsuzsanna and let her know that our daughters are locked out and, if she could let them in, that would be great. Zsuzsanna was already planning on dropping by to let the roofer look at the roof, so it ended up being a good thing that she was there so she could let Avot and Pipalicious in. Apparently, Avot was able to climb our high fence (it goes up to my nose) in a levi skirt,
and get Pipalicious over, too. I would have liked to see that one.
- We get to church with plenty of time to get all the toys out in the nursery :).
- I pick the opening hymn. I think, "We'll sing 'You can make the pathway bright' since we have been practicing it at scripture time this week as a family," not realizing that, apparently, the Hungarians in our branch are unfamiliar with it. Q-dawg is leading the music since Avot is home sick, so he stands up to lead, while I play an intro (accidentally starting a little too fast). Q-dawg starts...and we're off! It's a race to the finish. Q-dawg is getting faster, and faster, and faster! I whisper during softer parts, "It's too fast! I can't play this fast!" I try to slow it down, but it feels like we just keep going faster. No one is singing that I can hear, and I am messing up all over the place. I think this is just Q-dawg making one of his points about how church songs should always be played up to tempo. Q-dawg chortles as he sits down. When I get next to him, after the Sacrament hymn, I lean over and whisper, "We need to have a little talk about tempos." Apparently, he thought he was just trying to keep up with me! He hadn't heard any of my whispers, and had just felt like
I was the one going faster. And the Hungarians probably just sat back and wondered, as they watched this crazy American couple racing to the end of the song :). We both had a good chuckle about that one.
-Lek bore his testimony in Hungarian! The branch president smiled the whole way through. He had asked if Lek could do it a couple weeks ago, and Lek had his dad translate it for him so he could share it. He was tokjo! (Awesome!)
-Chugger-dude threw up twice in the bathroom...sorry, fellow church goers! Apparently, Pipalicious's illness was not an isolated incident :S. Hate it when that happens! I told him to keep washing his hands and try to stay away from everyone else....
-I make it through nursery, singing songs, and giving out lots and lots of cookies. Hey, I know how to buy the love of little ones :). The Spirit was there, so that is what matters, eh :)?
-Made it to all our bus stops with a little breathing room, and Papaya only kicked two ladies on the bus in her final "throws of passion" before passing out into blessed slumber on my lap. Thank goodness!
Then it was a day full of food, resting, skype, and family home evening. Liliputian gave a great lesson on the creation that she prepared all by herself. Avot shared that she had translated two hymns from Hungarian to English during her time at home, and had uncovered the mystery as to why the Hungarian version of "Come Thou Font of Every Blessing" has four verses in Hungarian and only three in English. (Apparently, because Hungarian just generally takes so much longer to say things, it took them another verse to get in the gist of the entire song. Go figure!) Hava was thrilled that her assignment was to gather everyone and used our recorder as a gathering call. (Q-dawg loves recorders...or not :).) Papaya was upset about something when we told her she was leading the music, but, when she realized we were going on without her help (heaven forbid), she stormed back into place at the front of the room, and waved her arms enthusiastically.
(Side note on Papaya: I think we made it through home evening with only two time-outs for that little one. Sweet. I keep thinking "two" is not too bad and just cute, and then get one like this and wonder if one or the other of us is going to survive. Tonight we caught her escaping through a hole in the fence,
behind a tree, into our neighbor's yard. Earlier today, when we got on the bus on our last leg to church, she charged to the back of the bus ahead of us, and, when we were all settled and had been going for some time, she came back to join the rest of us where we sat half-way back, unfortunately oblivious to the fact that she was not with us. Nice.)
Back to FHE, for sharing time, Lek shared his gospel immersion experiences for the week: bearing his testimony today and spending 18 hours home teaching, six on one night visiting one family, and twelve hours yesterday (Saturday) visiting 5 families. Not bad...only an average of 3 hours per visit. As Q-dawg said, it is a good thing that they are doing it to serve, and not for their personal convenience :). Uphill, both ways, on bikes borrowed from the missionaries again. Lek's still doesn't have a seat on his :). Missionary work, right?
The Goob shared his testimony (one of my favorite parts) and we will have treat and games tomorrow night. Apparently, we didn't do Pipalicious's game last week ("Duck, Duck, Goose" or "Kacsa, Kasca, Liba" as we say it in Hungarian), so we will do that one
and Chugger-dude's request: wrestling with music. The latter is not the most spiritual of activities (the music is "Eye of the Tiger" and "Rocky" and some other one I can't remember right now), but the kids love it! Avot and I are "referees" and "medics" as we watch the general melee.
Q-dawg is giving a talk in Stake Conference next Sunday, so that will be a treat! I also heard the following story from Avot today: Last Friday, at a youth activity, she was being introduced to a senior couple. After a brief conversation, the sister missionary says, "Oh! You're
that family." Smiling, I think :). I can only imagine what
that means...
It's good to be back!
