Christmas Zone Conference

Christmas shops!

 

Our turn for our Christmas Zone Conference finally arrived,

so we traveled to Budapest a day early so we could take a much needed PDay. 

The first evening, we had fun checking out the Christmas Shops in Budapest.   

 

 

Sister Weberg, Sister Hanson and Sister Cummings love to shop!
Sister Hanson found the three Hungarian Christmas ornaments she was looking for!
Sister Cummings found a cute hat.  And, Sister Weberg decided she was just looking this year. 

Elder and Sister Cummings enjoyed all of the different things displayed in the booths.  

Lots of amazing suti displayed here!


Buda Castle

On Thursday, we took our PDay at Buda Castle. 

 

We knocked on a castle door and tried to leave a pass along card, but no one was home!  ;)

 

 

 

The Prime Ministers home was beautifully decorated.

 

I loved the regal looking lion guarding the outside of the entrance to another portion of the castle . . . 

 

 

and the roaring one defending the inside. 

 

After walking around a bit, we went into one of the museums. 

I paid 500 forints extra to wear a sticker saying it was okay for me to take pictures.  :)  

 

 This is a picture of one of the artifacts from a dig going on inside the castle walls where the ruined Buda castle lies. I didn’t realize that was what they were doing in that area. I thought it was just ruins that were there to look at. But, they are actually digging in it.  How fun! It was really cool to see.   This one is a fragment of a fountain from the ruined Royal Castle from the 1400's. 

 

Sister Hanson is sitting on a royal window seal resting her feet.

 

 

Leaving the 1400's behind, we worked our way around the corridors to see art work from the1300’s.

I liked this one of the Virgin and Child because she looked so happy! 

 

My favorite part of the museum was the Hungarian exhibit.  It had gorgeous paintings depicting everyday life and their fight for freedom.  It was really cool, but I couldn't take pictures of those, not even with my special sticker. :)   I would love to find a book with those pictures in it! 

After finishing at the Museum, we walked down the back of the castle to the Duna to catch a Villamos across the river to the Nagy Piatts.  (We were very tired of walking!)  It was a really pretty section of the castle that at first I thought I hadn’t seen before.  Then, I saw a section that looked familiar and remembered that this was the way we came up to the castle on my first visit on the August 20th holiday in Budapest.  It was lined with shops and a bunch of people that day.  I was glad to be able to see it's beauty without the shops and crowds.     
 

Through this archway, you could see the coolest wall!

The very cool wall!

Another beautiful, old section of the Castle walls.

After finishing our tour of the castle, we went shopping again, only this time, at the Nagy Piatts.
Then we headed back to our Hotel to rest our aching feet.  It was well worth it!


Christmas Zone Conference

When we first arrived at the Mission Home, I found one of our YSA's working hard.  She is always helping!  She helped at our Zone Conference last year as well.  It was so much fun to see her again!

For Zone Conference, we had instruction from our District leaders, followed by the AP’s.  Then, President Smith had asked me to share a Christmas story and my departing testimony.  So, I shared a Christmas story that happened when my children were little while living in Utah. It was a time when life was very hard, but fun.  The kids and I had decided to be Santa’s Elves for another family who was having a hard time also.  They had fun crunching through the noisy snow to deliver our annonomous gifts.  The felt not only the excitement, but a special feeling that comes when you do something good for someone else. It made them want to do it again and again.  :)  We were also blessed that year with service rendered to us as well.  We had some special Santa’s visit us on Christmas Eve!  It was the biggest Christmas my children ever had!  It was made more special just knowing that the people who served us that year didn’t know us, but still loved enough to serve us, and make my children’s Christmas a special one.  I shared how it showed how much our Heavenly Father is aware of us and wants to bless us.  I have a strong testimony of that!  Then I shared my testimony of Heavenly Father and the Savior and of their great love for us.   Following my testimony, Sister Smith and then President Smith shared some wonderful thoughts with us.  At the conclusion of our Conference, we all went into the CES room for a wonderful Christmas dinner. 

Our dinner was Chicken Stroganoff, vegetables, rolls and Raspberry Pretzel Salad!  Yum!

Dessert was a variety of items brought by all of us Senior Sisters.

 

After dinner, we played games.  This one was Christmas Bingo.

This one was called 'Name That Christmas Carol'.  It was very hard!  You needed a huge vocabulary for big words!  Those big words sounded like nonsense to me.  :)  It gave a clue to a Christmas song and you had to try to figure out what song it was.  Two examples were:   Quadruped with Crimson Proboscis and Perambulating Through a December Solstice Fantasy.  And the answers were:  Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and Walking In a Winter Wonderland.   Crazy hard!  :)  We also played a version of the game Mafia, sometimes called Vampire, that Sister Cummings and I came up with.  Instead of a Vampire we had Santa who was choosing who was naughty or nice.  :)  The naughty ones were the ones who had to leave the game, unless Frosty the Snowman convinced Santa they were really good. The elves (policemen) were Santa's helpers who could help him determine who the naughty ones were.  The remaining ones were the children (citizens).  Elder G. was a great narrator since he had played it a lot.  Sister B. was Santa and Sister M. caught on to her and convinced everyone else to vote for her to be one of the naughty ones.  They did, and so the game ended and we took our Zone group picture. 

 

Then we played our White Elephant Gift game.

 

 

 

 

Elder DV ended up with my gift of cute ear muffs, softy socks and Nesquick.  All the girls had already played, so he was going to be stuck with all that girly stuff.  So, feeling sorry for him, I stole my gift back, and he got to choose another one.  :)

 

We also had a visit from Santa - one of our AP's - who passed out our 2012 Mission video, EFY Music tape, Mission key chain and a toothbrush.  Elder C. made a funny Santa.  Following Santa's visit, we all sang Christmas carols together.  Very fun! 

 

 

At the conclusion of our evening, since I was stuck with some very cute ear muffs I would never wear, I decided to see if Sister M. wanted them.  She of course said "Yes!" and they looked much cuter on her than they ever would have looked on me.  :)  And that ended our very fun day.  It was time for everyone to catch their trains back to their areas.  As for us, we packed up our car again and headed back to Debrecen.