HUNGARIAN CULTURE CONTINUES

Another busy and amazing week in the mission. This week the students Are back in school and Fall Institute started. We had a few more YSA attend that hadn't attended in the past and we were excited  for that. Also this week Paul Cardell came to our Stake center and presented a Fireside/ Concert, it was great. There were many investigators there and they were not disappointed.
We had an opportunity to attend a concert in the famous Matthias Church this past week.  This historic church is over 700 years old.  The church was the scene of several coronations, including that of Charles IV in 1916, the last Habsburg king.  It was also the venue for the great Hungarian King Matthias' two weddings, in the 15th century.
Today the church is one of the most visited sites in Budapest, sitting atop Castle Hill

The beautiful Matthias Church on a clear night. 

Inside of Matthias church

The Burial chamber of Franz Joseph and his wife Elizabeth. The King and Queen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Enjoying the concert with an orchestra and choir seated in the organ loft above our heads. Klara and Elder and Sister Simkins attended as well.

This has been our ongoing construction since we have arrived in January.  We walk past this daily doing errands.

A higher and more panoramic view of the construction site.  The former Moscow square is being renamed and rebuilt to add beauty to this area.  Completion is expected in Spring of 2016

This monument is a tribute to those who lost their lives in the Revolution of 1956.  We are reading the book, "The Bridge at Andau"  right now so we can better understand the things they went through and had to overcome.

We leave you with a quote from the book," The Bridge at Andau" by James A. Michener
"But by an accident of history it became, for a few flaming weeks, one of the most important bridges in the world, for across its unsteady planks fled the soul of a nation.  Across the bridge at Andau fled more than 20,000 people who had known communism and who had rejected it.  They had seen this new way of life at close hand, and they had learned in sorrow that it was merely ancient terrorism in horrible new dress, for it not only robbed and cheated a man of the material things to which he was entitled; it deprived his mind of every challenge, every breathe of new life and all hope.  It was at Andau that the refugees from Russian terror finally told their story.  It was here that the world learned, in unmistakeable accents and dreadful clarity, how bankrupt communism had become as a system of government."