Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas Zone Conference in Moldova with our zone and Mission Pres. and his wife.  It was a great dinner and spiritual feast with our Mission Pres.  We traveled by Maxi-Taxi and it's always an experience of bumpy roads, no available bathrooms and long waits at the border.  This was not the most excitment however--we got stuck in our elevator in our apartment last week.  It broke down while we were in it.  Dan is my hero as he pryed the doors open, unlatched the swing door and climbed out 21/2 feet up.  I don't really want to do that again.

We went caroling on Christmas Eve, when you sing the people bring you in the house and serve food and drinks apples, and nuts and this man really got in the spirit. 

We awoke to the bells on Christmas Day.  Just like the song.  It was the first time in my life that that had happened.  I enjoyed it very much.  The bells were calling everyone to church.

This is a picture of our Christmas dinner.  We had chicken, vegetables, coleslaw.  It was very good.

Dan spoke in church as well, he did a great job.

This is soooo pretty.  They decorate the main street down town with lights and the main square with all kinds of Christmas decorations.

Sorry thats blurry.  It is very beautiful.

This is boxing day, we are on our way to dinner at a sweet lady's home who is so good to the missionaries.  Hope you have a wonderful time with your loved ones celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

We had some nice warm weather and went for a big long walk on P-day.  It was fun.  Here's some of our great missionaries in Romania.

Sora Remsberg from California, Sora Skifernets from Bucuresti, Sora Heninger

Elder Heninger feels quite domesticated.  He does dishes everyday, helps with  hanging laundry and even makes banana bread from scratch.  We live a simple life but we like it.  We haven't been here long enough to wear our shoes out but this shoe went to the shoemaker.

This lady is weighing my carrots on her scale.  I love it.  This is common here and we buy most of our produce in the open market and it is Good.  Right now the pomegranates are amazing, and delicious.  The fresh walnuts that ladies like this sit and shell in the market are the best we have ever eaten.

We are on our way to some teaching appointments.  We had some great lessons this week and are excitied about some wonderful people we are working with.  Still no snow, it has been milder than normal.  We are greatful for that.

We are busy with English class we bought our monthly pass (abonament) for the tram-vi so we can hop on the tram-vi at any time and get around town.  We thought it was going to be colder than it is.

Elder Heninger has to give his first talk in church on Christmas day and I have to speak on NewYears day.  I guess we'll have to be getting that ready.(My kids will laugh-they think thats my favorite thing to do)

Chisinau

We had an exciting time going to Moldova

This is down town Chisinau in front of the King Stephan Cel Mare

This is the two big gates and the biserica (church) right across from the government buildings downtown.  It was a beautiful sunny day.

This is a downtown store front in Chisinau, very old euoropean style.

 

We are standing in front of our church in Chisinau, it has a beautiful grand paino.  These are our trainers from Germany-they gave training on YSA Centers.

Here are some shots of Iasi

This is something we see alot,  people feeding the birds.  It kinds feels like Mary Popins.

Here we are getting on the tram-vi going to get groceries.

You may wonder if we do missionary work.  Yes we do.  We had 14 people out to Home Evening on Monday and that was not including the missionaries.  We spent all week rounding them up.

We had meetings training branch leaders and supporting branch members and we set appointments to teach the gospel from our English students. The church has only been here for a short 21 years, since 1990 and we are excited to be here in it's early stages. 

Lots of Activities

We had a great branch activity this week.  We learned how to make the traditional Romanian food called Sarmale.  It is similiar to cabbage rolls but wrapped in sour cabbage leaves or grape vine leaves.  The ladies in the branch made it to teach me and the BYU girls we have here for 4 months.

The meat filling was also put into green peppers

Every semester BYU sends 5-12 students to work in the orphanage and hospital.  This is a great boost to the branch in their musical talents and teaching abilities. 

This cute lady taught me how to preserve red peppers in jars for the winter.  They are delicious.!!She doesn't speak a word of English luckily her son does and he helped out.

Our district went bowling on P-day we had great fun.

Check out the sock covers

We had a great day this week teaching.  We actually taught 4 people with the Elders and Sisters.  It was awesome.  I hope they will read and pray. 

Lastly I will show you the Piatza where we buy fresh fruits and vegetables in the winter.  In the summer it is all outside,

Still Learning

This was a good week.  Our Mission Pres. Ned C. Hill  arrived in Iasi for a visit and interviews.  What a thrill it was to have him and his wife attend our branch for church Sunday.  He carries a huge resposibility as the mission president and leading church authority over 4 Districts covering two countries, Romania and Moldova.  This is a huge job and he is so inspiring with his big happy smile and kind words for all those he meets.

He taught me great things this week as I watched him speak in church in English with a missionary translating.  I learned that as he spoke in English his spirit was strong and powerful and came across beautifully even though he spoke in short phrases and waited for translation.  It is better to speak what I know and can say than worry about trying to say something I wasn't trained for and cannot possibly say.

We rode the train to Bucharest to get our visa's, 14 hour train ride but they were not ready.  So we will make another trip. (you can't call first) This time we had a new train and it was quite pleasant.

We saw the Romanian countryside and enjoyed getting out of town for the day...and night.

This is a sight we see often in Romania.  A wooden wagon pulled by horses.  I wanted to get a picture of the shepherds that we see with their sheep, here as well in the country and alongside the road.  I was unable to get a picture but we saw two groups of them that day.  I cannot see a shepherd without thinking of the Savior.

This is just me walking to church.  We are very excited to attend church in Bacau this Sunday.  It is a town 2 hours away where we will travel once a month to support the branch.  The branch President is a young elder missionary called to serve there and there are 7 active members.  He has hopes to be at 12 members by the end of the month.  We will travel by Maxi-Taxi or( mini bus).  Thank you to so many of you who have written emails and posted comments.  We love you and miss you.

A Good Week

This is the view from our apartment at sunrise.  It was actually an orange sun and it was so beautiful.

On Prep-day we walked through the old gate into the city.  It was a cool gate and is right down town.

We were walking to one of the only two McDonalds in Iasi on our day off. There are very few places you can order a hamburger in Romania. 

We had a special baptism this week.  The elders taught a man who travels an hour by train to attend church every week.  He said that when he was challenged for baptism it was in very broken Romanian by our newest Elder, he could not deny the spirit he felt or the faith of this young missionary.  It was very wonderful.  This is a picture of our district in Iasi.

We are begining a new class of English students this week, we have 8 in our advanced class. Middle class has 25 and the beginning class has 60. We have set up several appointments to start teaching the gospel this week and we are very excited about the wonderful people we have to work with. English classes are one of the very best way to meet and start teaching discussions quickly. We have a great time teaching english as well.

 We work closely with the Elders and Sisters with teaching discussions and reactivation of the members. I'm always amazed when they turn to Sora Heninger and I wanting our input into the discussion when it has all be in Romanian and I don't know what they are talking about but have had very clear impressions on what I'm to bear testimony of. The spirit is very strong and I love working with such wonderful missionaries. They are in turn amazed by the relevance and spirit of our testmonies.

35th Wedding Anniversary In Iasi

Today is our 35th wedding anniversary and we decided to celebrate in two ways.  First we asked a new member of our branch  who is an artist to paint us a picture of the Romanian countryside.  He was pleased that we asked him and we were pleased with the pictureThe farmers field is growing beans and I love the red poppies.  It looks nice in our apartment. 

 Next, I got a new winter hat, called a cachula and we went for dinner with our district.  We actually found a chinese food restaurant and it was very good.

We spent some time passing out english flyers for our next session starting this week.  Teaching English for free is a great way to meet people and we always have a spiritual message after each class.  Of course we teach the advanced english because we don't speak Romanian.  Did I mention that they drive their cars and park their cars on the sidewalk.  I don't think I will ever get used to this.

Everyday this week, either the power or the water went off for a couple of hours.  Have you ever put your makeup on with a flashlight?

This is a pretty church we walk past. Iasi is the city of 100 churches, unfortunately they are all orthodox or catholic but we keep trying.  The gospel must be preached to all the world. 

Wanderers in a Strange Land

As we were doing our scripture study last week we came across a fantastic scripture in Alma 26:36-37.  God has been mindful of us as we have been wanderers in a strange land.

We had a wonderful Seniors Conference in Brasov where we got to see the beautiful city and tour the area.  Even got to visit Dracula's Castle which was great fun, and got some important training on our work.

Dan is standing by the opening to the secret staircase.  It was a wonderful day.

I thought you might like to see the pictures of the castle.  It was built in 1420 and the King of Romania lived there.  If you want some fun you can research Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula stories.

It's tricky here in Romania-this week while I was doing my wash the city just shut the water off-and kept it off for several hours.  Apparently this happens quite frequently and for that reason we store water in our apt. , the laundry will just have to wait. 

We had a wonderful missionary lesson tonight with the sisters and with a college girl they were working with.  She accepted the challenge to be baptised.  She made a profound statement, she said I wanted to read the Book of Mormon to gather information, I quickly learned that this book is much more than that.
 I'm gaining a new testimony of the Book of Mormon everyday here in Romania.  It is truly the word of God.