My dear Elder,
You seem one for great subject lines...how about this one!
At first it was going to be something about "Drop" and "Goals" (since that is two of the things you talked about in your email) and then...like inspiration...with angels singing...and lights swirling all around me...it came. The subject line of awesomeness. J/K. I am in kind of a silly mood right now :) (I just re-read this letter. Remember Grammar Boot Camp and those examples about how not to write? Well, I think I need to take the class again. This letter is full of random thoughts interjected...at random :D. Good luck!)
LOVE YA!
I think it is because I actually got almost 8 hours and woke up on my own. Weird. And no one else is around. My introvert side is having a party. So I thought I would have you join :D!
Okay, that is just super cool how your investigator that lied up until his baptism date "happened" to confess when the member was there so the member could communicate more directly to him in Hungarian!!!! (although I believe if it was just you and your comp there, the Spirit would have made it happen; see note*) It is doubly cool because the member could see how his presence was beneficial and instrumental in God's work so he wants to come out more!!!! You rock, Mr. Missionary :D. Yes, very crazy week for you!
It is a very real fear to invite people along to do things. I feel that way whenever I set up a group or go visiting teaching with new companions or have new people to visit. I am glad that you are feelings support and love there in Pápa! (And still feeling a twinge of jealousy about your keyboard that has the Hungarian strokes as I cut and paste "Pápa" over from your email so it has the accents :P.)
So what does the keyboard look like? Wait. I'll google it. (Not bad for an old lady, eh?) Hey. That is pretty cool. So do you just type like "Alt" or control, push the number with the right accent...before or after? A little jealous. Actually just super happy that you are over there in the coolest mission in the world (sorry, Avot :D!). J/K I don't believe one mission is cooler than another just like I don't believe one person is. However, I do have a soft and tender spot in my heart for those grumpy and stand-offish Hungarian people with hearts like gold inside if they ever let you in :). You just need a bunch of cute little kids to tract with you, right? That is what one elder said. "If I could take Binks tracting with me, I bet we could get into every house!"
So, couple things that you might like to hear about. Poor Binks got his first series of immunizations :(. Super sad. We also found out their levels of lead in their blood (Spooner's and Binks') are elevated. It may be the water we are drinking. Kind of scary. You can't really get rid of it unless you do intense treatment. The only thing we can do to try and help is over-load them with Iron and Calcium which will compete with Lead for the same site in your body. There are some possible behavioral indicators associated with high lead levels that we can see in Spooner--whose is the highest by far of the two--but we are hopeful. Fortunately, they are not in the extremely dangerous level, but it will be important to keep it monitored to make sure it is not going up. Do you know what that means? Intravenous blood tests. Yep. Suckin' the blood out of their poor little veins. Little Binks has a huge bruise from yesterday. Super sad. I feel peaceful that we will know the way to help. We all must experience trials for many reasons. This one is totally do-able. We will pray and hope and do our part. Maybe I will have Daddy give them a blessing.
Maybe it is time to move to the farm.
So, the house is feeling super homey. I wish you could have experienced it before you left. It feels like somewhere you want to sit and laugh and read and play and sing and love. True, we are not finished, but there is something that happened. Maybe it was me accepting the timeline of our lives and being content in God's will and my capacity. Maybe it was me accepting the leadership of Dad and following his timeline. Maybe it was putting up the bookshelves and no longer having any boxes we were living out of :D. Maybe it was me finally going up into the attic. Did you know that until about November of last year I had never been up in the attic? Crazy, eh? Then we had to put presents up there so I had to make sure that there was room :). Hmmm...maybe I went up before then, but I know it couldn't have been much before it. Silly me :).
The Goob is benching his own weight now. He is pretty stoked about that. Chugger-dude is actually getting up every morning and running! He used to just walk slowly. I remember how I tortured you (and particularly Avot) with always pointing out how you could do this or that to help you speed up or make yourselves faster. The Spirit has shown me that that is not the way :D. (Sorry, my beloved guinea pig.) I find that if I just walk beside and do what I feel I need to do for myself, support and love the other...the Spirit and their natural desire to improve does more than I can ever do.
Actually, that lesson has been more deeply applied to me in many ways beyond exercising: missionary work, fellowshipping, visiting teaching, parenting. I have not deeply believed in an individual's ability to be moved by the Spirit and by an individuals drive towards godhood. I believe we all sense the spark of potential within us...we just don't know how to act on it.
And having someone push or direct forcefully just gets in the way of their listening within.
Super funny about your companion's goal! I like him. It sounds like the two of you are the breath of fresh air that Pápa needs! (And Heavenly Father apparently knows what you two need as all your "hot girls" are actually...well, as you said, scary.) That reminds me of something an elder said last night. He said, "People here in western New York seem to really get into routines and we are here to shake things up!" Our missionaries really are. Our missionaries are super cool. And I think Hungary is very similar to western New York. We talked a bit with the missionaries about how when things are hard or seem out of our control, we can take great comfort in routines. It can be hard to get out of them. But you missionaries are truly a breath of fresh air!
Speaking of missionaries, yesterday we had dinner with the missionaries scheduled and then last minute we found out about the baptism of a gentleman who has three adorable kids. (Super cool!) Anyway, I asked the missionaries (and the recent convert, Daniel Zimmerman, who was coming to eat also) if we could move dinner earlier and then head to the baptism, all in our big white van. I really feel the Lord gave us the van to do his work and fill it in bringing people to Christ...and it is working! They all agreed (Daniel is super low-key and rolls with anything...and eats anything...sweet guy). So we had an amazing dinner (see next note**), I grabbed the melt-y brownies (same recipe with white chocolate chips and butter for part of the oil...amazing) and then we were off! In our big white van, driving to support our most recent brother!
The font wasn't full enough, so they had to baptize him three time to get it right but it was so cool! You could feel the confirmation that the third time was right. During the baptism talks, I was able to help take care of Dante's kids (isn't that the coolest name ever??) so he could listen and they were super sweet. He has a cool experience with gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon (see other note***) and the baptism felt so joyous. We have another one tomorrow for twin kids that recently moved into our ward. Their family has two sets of twins!! We have had two families move into our ward in the last month, good strong families with abiding testimonies of the Gospel. One even moved here "because they felt prompted to." Isn't that super cool? I mean, who does that :D? It was a great evening.
I fell asleep last night putting the monster...oops! I mean Binks.... to sleep the only way that doesn't take hours: in bed snuggling with me. Super spoiled cute little fat guy. He is getting bigger but that doesn't keep him from taking advantage of us with all his cuteness in being the youngest :).
Sorry this is super long. I guess you will read it if you have time or as much as you need as led by the Spirit. It was nice to feel like you were on the other side of the screen, me imagining you hunching over and reading, smiling and maybe laughing a little :). Love you, son. Thanks for your example and enduring faith in continuing on when you don't see measurable progress in those around you. You are truly a hunter as Jeremiah saw, finding those amidst the rocks and the hills. And sometimes they need to be found more than once to finally recognize what it is they are looking for. Sometimes you are the fifth or the first to extend that invitation...and they need twenty invites! Keep laughing...especially when you see those eyelashes.
That reminds me of the Elder who came over when I had hair in the food and then I licked someone else's spoon and completely grossed him out. Maybe that lady was just having a bad day and happen to use the wrong dish for that left-over. I think that is crazy that your comp ate it, though!! Well, Joey Shetka licked the grocery store floors as a toddler and is the healthiest of Heidi's children. Maybe there is something to it :S? I am not going to count on it, however :).
LOVE YOU! Have a wonderful week. Let us know if there is anything I can write, do or send to make your life any more awesome than it already is. Maybe a music cd of mission approved music?
:) Anyuci
p.s. (before all the end notes) I almost walked away from learning Hungarian the other day. I was crying, I was so frustrated, trying to understand word order and emphasis. So hard! It gave me great sympathy and admiration for your determination to learn it well. And I kept trying. I guess it will just take me, well, forever, but I am already recognizing many words more readily, can hear the accents better, and am having a few correct word orders come more naturally. Slowly but steadily, right? When I go visit, I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited to be able to communicate more with those dear, dear people in that land of Hungary. God bless you, son, for consecrating your time and energy and love to serve them. They don't realize how lucky they are to have you.
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*About the Spirit making communication happen, remember that phone call that Dad had with that lady when we were in Hungary? How he was trying so hard to listen to her and she was speaking slowly, quickly and non-distinctly? She was sharing all these problems in her life, very personal questions and issues about God and her life and Dad was praying like crazy to be able to both understand and be able to communicate with her. When she finally paused after a long, long time of her talking, waiting for Dad to say something, with the Spirit in his heart (and a lot of insecurities about his ability to both understand her Hungarian and communicate back to her in Hungarian) he began to speak. After he finished, there was a pause on the other end. "Oh no!" Dad thought, "I have blown it now." Her soft reply came: "You have seen into my heart." Super cool. The Spirit totally helps transcend barriers.
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**okay, imagine this: first you cut up yams/sweet potatoes into little squares along with chicken...wait. Here is the recipe:
Chicken and Veggie Quinoa Bowl 400 degrees
For the bowl:
1/2 large sweet potato, peeled and diced
1 head broccoli, cut into florets (or one bag of frozen broccoli)
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, divided (any oil will do and we added a little butter for part of the oil measurement)
Salt and pepper
2 ounces precooked grilled chicken breast, sliced thin (we actually just cut raw chicken in cubes, and cooked it at the same time as the sweet potatoes below)
1/4 cup quinoa, cooked (this is actually SUPER healthy for you and with all the textures in this recipe, you don't notice it.
For the dressing:
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 tablespoon tahini
1/2 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more for garnish)
(I didn't actually have tahini, so I just added onions, garlic and crushed red pepper--you could use spicy paprika--when I added the quinoa and broccoli)
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Place your cubed sweet potatoes on a baking sheet, and toss with 1/2
tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil plus salt and pepper. Roast for 20 minutes.
2. After 20 minutes, add your broccoli florets to the same baking sheet, and toss them in the additional 1/2
tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. Season again with salt and pepper and roast for an additional 20 minutes.
^^3. While your vegetables are cooking, whisk together all your dressing ingredients. Set aside.
4. In a serving bowl, add the precooked quinoa and roasted vegetables, then top with your precooked chicken.
Drizzle with your tangy tahini dressing, sprinkle the extra red pepper flakes (if you wish) and enjoy!!!
^^I just put everything else in here, seasonings and all, and didn't serve it up separate. Much easier.
So this recipe would be SUPER yummy and healthy for you. You could make a big batch on p-day and eat it for a few days later that week heated up or even cold. I would recommend 6 times it:
Shopping list:
3 sweet potatoes
3 breast chicken (if you can afford it, less is fine)
1 bag frozen broccoli
onions and garlic if you don't have them)
1 cup quinoa (dried measurement. You will need to cook it. You can make more and freeze it in smaller baggies to use later. I just put on enough that you could see it, but it wasn't the dominant ingredient.)
Oil and seasonings if you don't have them.
I 12 times-ed it and have plenty of leftovers after feeding five adults and then all the kids, to give you an idea.
Did I say it was yummy?? I added soy sauce, but you could add Worcestershire sauce or anything yummy to the chicken and sweet potatoes. I think you have all the ingredients. although quinoa might be hard to get. You could add a small pasta. It only took 40 minutes start to finish in the cooking time and about 10 minutes of prep (for serving 14 people). And you would have nutritious yummy meals for one week, if you made enough. Your companions would love you :D. I served it with some Hungarian-ish type bread from Aldi's, which complemented it perfectly.
I am going to try and be better at sending you recipes, my son! This one really wasn't too hard and the 40 minutes of cooking didn't require me to be there while it was cooking or prepping.
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***Dante's cool experience with reading the Book of Mormon. One of the hardest things, the missionaries say, is to get people to read the Book of Mormon. Dante wouldn't, but then one day picked it up and his answer from it was to not go to Texas (as he planned) and not join the Baptist church there (again, as he had planned) but to stay here with his kids. He showed the missionaries the verse and it didn't make sense to them why that verse told him that but it was evident that God was talking to him through the scriptures as we know is true: we ask our questions through prayer and God answers us through the scriptures, right? (among other things, but moving on...)
One day his power and heat was turned off. He turned to the Book of Mormon and read in it. 10 minutes later he received a call telling him that someone had paid his bills until the end of the month! Crazy answer, eh? He was baptized and I know he felt the light and warmth that came with it. Super cool.
