Pushing Norm's comfort zone

March 15 2010 Norm: Today is a national holiday. 1848 Revolution Day to remember the uprising against Austrian rule. Stores are closed. The Elders have put together a little celebration at the branch house at noon. Yesterday we spoke in Szolnok, a church unit 200km to the northeast. It is of interest to note the growth of this unit. Elder Hay, now serving with us here in Pécs, tells us that Szolnok was his first area some 20 months ago. At that time there was but a handful of members. At yesterdays meeting there were about 40. Next Sunday it will be officially made a branch. In fact Szolnok even have a missionary serving in the field. He is Elder Hays companion Elder Német, a great young man making a difference with his fellow countrymen. Still on the topic of growth we also learned that our neighboring Kaposvár Branch who have outgrown their little rented facility will soon be moving into a larger space formerly occupied by Citibank on a very pretty walking mall. We speak again next week in Kapasvár and again the week after in Szeged and Békéscsaba.

Had some fun with our last YSA activity. It was movie night. We showed the movie that you North Americans would remember as "8 Below". That play on words doesn't translate well. In Hungary it is called "Kutyahideg" which means (Dogs Cold). We could not resist serving Hot Dogs with Cold Dogs. Had 8 young adults, 2 were new investigators.
We have been struggling with an approach in starting a Young Adult Family Home Evening program. Putting the emphesiz on Home we have created and outfitted a living room (that used to be our bedroom) in our little apartment. We have in our branch a rather large group of single parents with small children who we feel need our help with their families. Their needs are very different from the regular Young Adults, so our plan is to hold two FHE nights per week in our home. We want to recruit the Elders to help us as well so as to cordinate their reactivation program with ours. Besides we need their language skills for the lessons.