What every missionary is looking for.  This was sent before Christmas.  Because we don't have an address here in Sibiu it goes to the mission office and the AP's bring it with them to the next zone conference which was Feb. 24th.  

Thanks Kara and Kensie

Attendees at Zone Conference in Cluj.  It was a full day driving 3 hours from Sibiu, checking the missionary companionship area books to make sure they included everything they should and are kept up to date. Then driving home.

President Ivory had their neighbor in the USA as our special guest and speaker.  The Nelsons are the owner/president of Cafe Rio.  Pres. Nelson was also a mission president so he and his wife had lots of good advice for the young missionaries and were very complimentary to us and the Sobergs who traveled like us from Arad.  Fun to see Sister Wyatt who we served with in Bacau and Elder Oak who was here in Sibiu when we first arrived.

Sister Trebas will be going home the middle of March and she was asked to bear her testimony at the zone conference.  She is such a wonderful missionary.  We will really miss her.

On the home front, our yard is starting to blossom and shoot bulbs out of the ground.  Can't wait to see them in full bloom.

Our new kitchen addition.  Can you guess what it is?

Not wanting to drill a whole in the lovely tile we suspended our magnet with string.  That way we can take it home if we want.  Love finding a knife without having to shuffle through our one drawer.

Playing spoons with the YSA.  Deirdre, we also had a hot game with the dice you gave us for Christmas last year.  It was definitely a favorite but it didn't accommodate all 18 of them.

Sunday was busy.  After church here in Sibiu we drove to Sebes to hold church for Roger Quinten up in the hills above.  There were 9 of us who drove up and Roger had 4 investigators.

Roger is quite the ham.  After church Sister Trebas played her guitar to some of the few songs she and Roger had in common, very few.

                        Elder Hellewell and Hubbard with Marios & Roger with Sora Yost and Trebas.

We thought spring was coming a month ago but the last two weeks have been so strangely cold.  The temperature isn't the problem.  It's often in the 30s and 40s but the wind and humidity are really miserable.  Our main problem is that we think it is warmer so don't wear all the layers we could be wearing.  
 In this branch I have had the assignment of food, one of my least favorite jobs in life.  This past week we had a family for dinner, a desert for the YSA activity and a dinner after church.  We usually have a district meeting waffle breakfast but last week was zone conference so we didn't have district meeting, whew.
 My favorite part of our mission is teaching English on Tue and Sat.  We have the beginning lessons learned but are adding the spiritual thought for the advanced class.  This is 10 minutes at the end of their class where we've been teaching the restoration lesson one segment at a time.  I got the idea to include stories about our ancestors and teach how they learned about the church and what an impact it made on them and thus on us, their progenitors.  We hope that the spirit is there and the good news of the restored gospel will bring those the Lord has been preparing into the kingdom to help build the church here in Sibiu.  It's quite a responsibility but our young missionaries are really working hard.  The branch is so small we wonder how the church can justify keeping it going.  The same was true of Bacau.  At times these branches have had a lot more members.  When members move to other countries where they can make a better living that leaves the branch struggling for existence again.  Our goal is to swing the pendulum back in favor of a lot of strong members.  

We thank you for your prayers and now you know more of what we're dealing with.