Small and simple things

Andrew is taking a nap right now (this almost never happens!), so maybe some of the teasing (see post below) took root.

Have you ever wondered if maybe you were an answer to someone's prayer? I don't very often think that I am, but today I couldn't help wondering. . . .

I went to Deseret Book (I don't think I've ever been to the one in town before) looking for a mother's day present, even though truth be told I'm a little under the weather and thought about going Saturday morning instead (but decided not to, figuring it would be swamped by others in search of mother's day offerings). The book I wanted was out of stock, but I browsed around for a bit anyway (anyone who knows me already knows that books are my fatal Achilles' heel).

While I was there, I overhead a couple of women talking about a boxed collection that included some of Jane Austen's works, Jane Eyre, Little Women, and, of all things, The Scarlet Pimpernel. The two women were talking about the last, trying to figure out what it was about. I finally spoke up and told them a little about the plot. Then I added (since a friend had recently read it and complained about the florid language) that the language was hard for some people to get into, since it was written by a Hungarian woman (and the Hungarian language is, I think, more ornate than English). I explained that it didn't bother me, because I'd served my mission in Hungary and when I read it I could hear echoes of the same idea in Hungarian (although the author wrote it in English, I think some of her native linguistic flourishes persisted).

At this, a woman near the check-out stand got really excited. She came over and asked for my contact information, explaining that she worked with the Family History Center in town and were working on a Czech extraction line, but that nearly half of the records were in Hungarian, and they didn't have anyone who could translate them . . .

Funny. Two coincidences (deciding to go to a store I almost never go to, and then speaking out when I usually hold my tongue around strangers) and the opportunity to use my mission language, something I haven't done in years. Was this just coincidence? Maybe, but I'm not so sure . . .