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.