FUN, FACTS, AND PHOTOS

Buna ziua, to all our friends and family.  We have been so busy. We have been looking for a Humanitarian service project where our 8 missionaries can provide some meaningful service. There is no lack of need here but like almost everywhere in the world the bureaucracy is a real maze and not speaking the language is a real drawback.  We have a wonderful member of the branch who has been able to help lately, he speaks and understands english and really knows the system. He has been a real life saver.
 We have some new missionaries, and our daughter Christi and her husband Jeff came. We had a wonderful time showing them our beautiful Timisoara and traveled to a few other towns in Romania. The time with them was great and it was so good for Ginny and me to step back a bit and enjoy our family.  This was our first time in 6 months taking a trip to relax and sight see. It was good to take a little break, and we came back refreshed and excited to continue the work we were sent here to do. This is really a beautiful country, and we are so fortunate to be here.
Here are some photos and brief comments.

These are two of the students at our weekly english classes.  They have been attending for a long time and speak english very well.  They took us shopping after class and showed us this great place to shop, if there really is such a place. Those who know me know shopping has never been high on my priority list, in fact it doesn't even appear on my priority list.  So shopping is something I have had to adjust to.  As you can see my job as designated mule has not changed.  They are really great people and are examples of how gracious Romanian people can be.  We really enjoy them.

Another view of this place.  It is huge and they have everything imaginable.  Most of what Ginny bought was wearable and most of what I bought was eatable.  Hers has already outlasted mine.

OUR ROAD TRIP AND SIGHT SEEING TOUR OF ROMANIA WITH CHRISTI AND JEFF

One of the most wonderful experiences we have had here in Romania was the visit of our daughter Christi and her husband Jeff.  We enjoyed our time together and just had lots of fun.


Our tour of the country with Jeff and Christi began with a trip to Oradea where we attended a Saturday night cultural event and District Conference on Sunday.  District conference is equivalent to our Stake Conferences at home, the difference is our Stake Center is 7 minutes from our house.  We travel three hours by car or 4 hours by train, one way,  to go to District Conference here.  We usually stay over night in Oradea when we have meetings there.  So far we have traveled there four times. Below are some photos of the Cultural event that the District put on the night before our conference.  The members and many missionaries performed song, dance and stories representing their varied backgrounds.  Way cool.

Our Australian missionary and his companion doing a traditional Australian song.  Australian english is so fun to listen to.

Some of our missionaries singing and dancing to Cotton Eye Joe a well known traditional american country folk song from pre 1861.  The audience loved it.

The grand finale showing our performers and to the far right is the person responsible for the activity. She is the most vivacious, organized, optimistic and all around wonderful Hungarian you will ever meet.  She served a mission in the U.S. at Temple Square.  She speaks three languages fluently and who knows how many others.  She is a true inspiration of how one can fill a life with accomplishment and happiness.

Our little group of missionaries leaving the cultural event.  They travel by train to and from the events and they walk almost everywhere they go in the cities.  Quite remarkable young people to say the least.

Christi, Jeff and Ginny in our beautiful city of Timisoara.  We spent a day and a half here before we took our country tour.

We left Timisoara and the following photos are of some of the sights we saw as we traveled around this beautiful country.  Our travels took us to Oradea, Sighisoara, Brasov and back home again.  There were many small towns in between, but these were the major cities and our tourist destinations. There are no freeways that cross the country so the roads are all two way roads and they go through every little village along the way.  Frustrating if you are in a hurry but we loved it.  We saw so much of the country lifestyle here as compared to the larger city we live in.

A common scene as you travel through the countryside.  We snapped this picture while enjoying lunch in a sidewalk cafe along our way.

Fall is near and the hay stacks are tall and full.  Again a typical scene in the country.

This is a picture I just had to have.  It is a picture of a house with its roof completely covered with moss.  Do you think there is any humidity in this place?  This is fascinating to a boy born and raised in Arizona where Moss is usually someones last name not something growing on a roof top.

Up close picture of the moss roof described above.  So cool.  Did I mention I love this country

Lunch in a small village.  We really enjoyed our time together.

Here we are in Sighisoara a midevil town on top of a hill.  The city has grown up all around it in the valley below, but the old city still stands and is a wonderful tourist attraction, which is perfect for us because we are ace tourists.

The watch tower at the entrance of Sighisoara.

Colorful street in the old town.

Our hotel in Sigisoara.  I found out it is a recently renovated building.  Interestingly enough a joint venture between a Romanian and some Americans.  Very popular.  It was very nice.

We took a tram to the top of a mountain and took this picture of Brasov.  It is a beautiful town in the central part of the country.


Below are two pictures of the four of us.  We had to take the photo this way because we couldn't find  anyone available to do it for us.  I call this type of a photo a youie its the same as a selfie but different.  I'll take a picture of youie and youie do the same.

The Good Life

We have been busy little bees and a lot has happened since our last blog.  We will give you a glimpse into just a few of the more fun things that are going on here.
First a look at our great missionaries.  With this last transfer we had two go home and one transfer to another location in Romania.  We will miss them, we get so attached to these wonderful young people.  So happens that both going home are going to Arizona.  One to Mesa, and the other will be attending ASU (but we love her anyway).  Both served so faithfully and are ready for the next step in their lives.  The other missionary, who was transferred, was here when we arrived so he had been with us for a long time.  He served as the district leader and the first councilor in the Branch Presidency. He was such a help to us during this adjustment period.  We love him and he will be sorely missed.  Here are some pictures of the comings and goings.

Goodbye dinner for the departing missionaries.  We all get together and have a wonderful dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Centru.  It is such a great way for Ginny and I to express our gratitude and say farewell to those who have served with us and been such a help to us. Always lots of food and fun.

Arrival of the new missionaries at the Gara. It is always an exciting time here in the mission.  New companionships, new personalities, new city and wonderful people.  Its amazing how well planned and how well thought through every aspect of a mission is. I am so happy to just have my little part.  Can you imagine this happening every six weeks all over the world involving over 80,000 people? Noah only had 8 and look what a big deal that was.

Its a tradition.  On the first day after everyone is basically settled in we all meet at this little sidewalk cafe for the best hot chocolate you have ever tasted.  They serve it with a spoon that you actually need to eat, drink?, consume this delicious desert.  Leave it to the Elders to know every great eating spot in town. 

On the first Sunday after transfers, after church, we have the missionaries over for one of Ginny's much loved home made meals. Here we are consuming shepherd pie.  Home made meals here are very rare and hard to come by for these young missionaries so we always look for an excuse to feed them.  It is one of our very favorite parts of our mission.  Being around these amazing young people makes you realize that the future is bright as long as youth like these exist.  Oh yeah one is Australian so I guess their future is in good hands too.

This is my personal favorite picture of this blog.  The sister missionaries and Ginny and I went to visit one of the members of our branch who was ill and lives in a small village about 10 miles outside Timisoara.  When we arrived we saw these wonderful people sitting under a tree trying to escape the heat, about 85 degrees and 85% humidity.  The older gentleman, no not me, sitting on the bench was proud to announce that he was 86 years old.  We had such a great time talking to them.  This is a scene you see all the time in the countryside.  The people here are so friendly and are almost always eager to talk.  This is when having these young missionaries is so valuable.  They speak the language fluently and it makes conversing really fun.  Of course Ginny and I still need everything translated, but the people are patient and really seem to enjoy our very clumsy attempts at speaking their language.








Even though this is a country of modest means and they seem to have more than their share of poverty, I have to show you these next few pictures.  On our walk to our church building friday evening for our weekly Institute class we came across this wedding going on in the yard of one of the local residents.  I wish I could of taken pictures of the home and yard but I just wasn't gutsy enough to stand there and take pictures.  It was amazing, there were hundreds of people, they had an entire pig roasting on a huge rotisserie, big band and no place to park.  Check out these pictures.

They had this entire street closed off.  What you see here is the Cinderella carriage.  The party is happening to the right of the picture.

I thought you would like an up close and personal view of the carriage.  The driver was nice enough to let me get this close up

I could not resist this picture. This gives you an idea of the wealth there is here.  The white car is a Rolls Royce, I counted eight Ferraris a Bentley several Jaguars and so many Mercedes and BMW's that I lost count.  It was such a surprise to me.  Anyway Romania does have its upper class.

Now the best for last, if you thought looking at the Rolls Royce was something, let me really show you something.  This week was our 43rd wedding anniversary so I want to show the Rolls Royce of women and the Ferrari of marriages.  (In my humble opinion). Who wants an ol car when you can have what I have.

We celebrated by leaving the car at home and walked to our favorite little restaurant where we had a wonderful outdoor dinner.  We then held hands and took a long walk through the park and to centru where we bought cherry pastry and sat on a bench and talked the evening away. We returned home about 9:30 pm.  Long three mile walk on a most beautiful evening,  we loved it.  Here are some of the scenes along the way.

Just the two of us with our delicious authentic Romanian meals.

My very thoughtful gift displayed in this expensive vase.  Well it is expensive on a missionaries salary.  -0-.

Below are the sights along our walk.  Don't you wish you were here?

 A look at centru at dusk. notice the fountain in the distance and the benches on each side of the flowers.  One of those benches is where we ended up just sitting and talking and eating the cherry pastry we just purchased at one of the many bakeries along our way.

Close up of the fountain with the Beautiful orthodox cathedral in the background.

View as we sat on the bench looking across centru. You can see the canopies of the outdoor restaurants in the foreground.  Beautiful.

How is this for a back yard landscape.  The wall in the background is about 10 feet tall and completely covered with vines.  Yes they do get more rain here than we do in Tucson.

I just couldn't pass this picture up.  It is one we see most every evening as we cross centru.  We always stop and watch the children with the pigeons, sometimes shedding a little tear or  two as we think of all our wonderful family and the great blessings of the Lord.  We often take this sight in and are reminded of the great plan of happiness the Lord has provided for a fulness of joy.  We are so grateful for his Atoning Sacrifice in our behalf.  May the Lord so bless you and your families as well.
Know we are healthy and happy here in beautiful Timisoara Romania.

Summer in Timisoara

We have been busy and so its been a longer time than normal since our last report. Below is a pictorial review with a few comments so you can see some of what is going on.  First I realized that we don't have a map of the country and that some might not have a feel of where we are in the country so here is an overview.  We are on the far west border of the country.  Immediately to the east is the border with Hungary and to the south is Serbia.  These countries are only a few miles away from where we are. There is a noticeable Hungarian influence here but very little Serbian influence.

We are fortunate to live in Timisoara which is not only in a beautiful part of the country but is also a, if not the cultural center in the country.  Below are a few pictures of our wonderful city center and one of the many summertime cultural events that take place here on a regular basis this time of year.  There is rarely a week goes by that there is not some kind of event in Centru (city center).

This photo shows the Orthodox Cathedral which stands at one end of centru and the opera house at the other end of centru. The plaza  near the opera house is where they set up for small evening events. They have a large park just out of the picture to the right where the large events take place.  They have a large outdoor amphitheater with seating for several hundred.  It doesn't get dark until 9:30 in the evening so there is always lots of activity in these two places.

There was recently a large folk dance festival here and below are some pictures of the parade that took place through centru before they went to the park for the festival.  It was a three day event.  As you can see the US was represented.  It was a clogging group and most of them were from Utah and most were members of our church.  We were happy to see them and they were really happy to see the young  missionaries.  They spent several hours together and enjoyed each others company very much.

USA

India? and Georgia.  The Georgia  group were the youngest of all the countries represented, great dancers, and were a big hit!

 This was a local group.  There were about fifteen countries represented but these are a few shots I have of the Parade.




Below are some photos of our Pioneer celebration on July 24th.  July is when, as Mormons we  celebrate the migration of the early pioneers from Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley.  July is also when the Romanians celebrate  their pioneer heritage as the earliest members of the church here.  The church has only been in Romania 25 years and all the members of the church here are first generation members so in that sense they are truly pioneers.
We had a great time with some of the early Romanian pioneers, two investigators and the missionaries. The missionaries threw the party for the Romanian members and had a menu that was half western and half traditional Romanian.  So we had rotisserie  chicken, potato wedges, mici (a fairly spicy sausage), cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, bread and some wonderful crepes for desert.  We had some live music and just an all round good time.  It was a great blend of East and West.

Some of the people and a look at the cuisine

Most of the time the Elders are very serious and hard working but every once in a while you find one  just "Fiddling around".  Here is a picture of our one piece band and musical entertainment for the evening.  This elder is a very gifted musician and played all evening long with no music.  Lots of country songs and real knee slapping, catchy tunes.  It was perfect.  He played until his left arm ached so we let him take a short break to eat and then we put him back to work.  It was fun.

The other missionaries could not resist on this one song and they spontaneously broke into some kind of stand alone dancing. It reminded me of a bunch of chickens walking around in the barnyard.  Im still not sure what it was but the members got a real kick out of whatever it was that they were doing and they seemed to really enjoy it. It is so fun being around these wonderful young people all the time.

Speaking of music here is a photo of our  missionaries practicing for a special musical number that they sang in out Sunday Sacrament meeting. They did a wonderful job. I have dubbed them the Timisoara Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  Ginny accompanied them and is our Branch musical everything.  I don't know what we would do without her.

To close out this blog I thought you might be interested in this.  We have a  river near centru.  Ginny and I have to cross it every time we go there.  This is a bridge across the river built exclusively out of over 157,000 recycled plastic bottles.  The Guinness organization is evaluating this as they believe this is the world record for such a structure.

Below is a photo I took of a typical weekend activity on the Bega river.  These swan boats and other foot peddled boats are popular recreation for young families and couples.  Just one of the many scenes we are privileged to see along our way each day.

We are healthy and happy and just thank our Heavenly Father everyday for our lives and the opportunity we have to serve him in such a wonderful part of His creation.

The 4th of July

We are having more fun than a missionary should be allowed to have, but please don't spread that around or everybody would want to take our job away.  

We have what are called transfers every six weeks.  It is the time when some missionaries are transferred from one location in Romania/Moldova to another.  Some stay in one place for several transfers and others are moved in one transfer, it all depends on the needs of the mission which is determined by the mission president. It is always an exciting time for the missionaries as they anticipate where their next assignment might be.  Below is a picture of our district ( group of 8) missionaries the day before some were transferred. We always hate to see the transfers go but we are so excited to meet the new missionaries assigned to our district. Two in this group were transferred and another went home after two years of faithful service.  He was an Arizona young man so I am sure he has already been out to eat mexican food, something that is sorely missed here by missionaries from the southwest.

                                Picture with all the missionaries along with our wonderful
                                friend and relief society president.

Same group this time with our entire district.  Absolutely amazing young people.

We celebrated the 4th of July with all the Amereicans we could find in Timisoara. And we even had a Romanian guest who wanted to join us for the evening just to practice her english and see how we celebrated our independence.  We had a great evening cookout in the back yard of the Church. Below are some of the scenes from our celebration.  Oh by the way the guest was totally confused by the english she heard because one of our missionaries is from Australia and another from Texas.  She said she understood the Australian ok but did not do well with Texican. Too many ya alls I think. She was lots of fun.

This is with all the new missionaries after transfers taken at our 4th of July celebration. There are three new missionaries, one is on his last transfer before he goes home and he is also from Arizona, and you guessed it, he says his first stop will be for mexican food.  The other two are brand new, this is their  first assignment.  They are both quite delightful, very accomplished and bright and are doing very well. Notice all the red, white and blue in these photos.

This is one of our family traditions at home, an american flag cake.  We did the best we could with what was available here. A little sloppy looking but you get the picture and the cake was yummy.

The missionaries always love it when Ginny cooks.

Yup! you are seeing it correctly. Bottled hot dogs.  We just could not resist trying these.  I cooked them but when it was time for me to get mine they were all gone, I guess they tasted ok because they went in a hurry.  Of course Elders eat great quantities of almost anything.

We had a church meeting in Oradea, a city about three hours away.  The soras  (sister missionaries) drove with us in our little car and the Elders made arrangements with a maxi taxi (large, crowded, van). The temps are in the low 80’s and today, for example the humidity was 94%, so you can only imagine the various olfactory stimulations available in such a van on the long ride to and from.

Below are some of the scenes we saw along our way and what we found in the beautiful city we visited.

One of the many, many crops grown here is sunflowers.  As we drive along for miles and miles there are sunflower fields as far as the eye can see.  There are also wheat fields and many corn fields.

In every city we have been in there has always been an area near the center of town that has a beautiful plaza, and Oradea is no different.  This is just one of the many beautiful scenes in the city.

The local Elders told us about a great place in Oradea to eat.  It is called the American Grill.  We had lunch there and as you can see our server was more than happy to pose for a photo in front of this small cafe.  They specialized in hamburgers and hot dogs, american style.  The food was surprisingly good, if you are like me and like big, juicy, runny burgers with total disregard for calories or nutrition.

This little equation says it all.  We really had an enjoyable time in this little place.

Know that we are both healthy, happy and excited about our time here in Romania.  It is such a pleasure for us to represent our Savior Jesus Christ and The Church  of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints  in this far off place.