Greetings from Romania where this past week we celebrated Women's day.  Romanians thought it was an international day.  We explained that in America we celebrate the second Sunday in May as Mother's day.  They were surprised and thought our holiday sounded odd.  

This is not a head stone.  They are all over Romania and tell you how far to the next city.  Here it is 4 kilos to Sibiu

 The other side says 1 kilo to Selimbar.  Since we are really close to our house we're not sure where they get the 1 kilometer.  Also this is the only one we've ever seen on a sidewalk.  Mostly they are out along roadways where there are no sidewalks.  This one was probably installed originally along a roadway that is now in a city.

P day this week was zoo day.  I had thought to never go to a zoo again since our 18 months in Uganda gave us the most amazing animal experiences.  Going to a zoo would be boring after that but Eugen (middle figure) wanted to go for his birthday and since it only cost 75 cents American we decided to humor him with our presence.

Fun taking pictures of the missionaries.  They were as animated as the animals. 

 Elder Brown with the green Python.  Good thing there was a glass between him and the man or the man would have disturbed his rest.

A very active tiger.  Maybe he was new to prison life because he was a pacer. 

Seeing and smelling these orange blossoms reminded me that even in winter you can have a touch of Arizona if you have a very large South facing atrium.  

There were no giraffes (our favorite) or elephants but they did have a very rare wolf.  I guess we didn't get a picture of it.  Ummm

Moving from upper level of the zoo to the lower level where the smaller animals are housed.  A lovely lake in the background for water fond critters.

Been teaching our friend Claudio and his wife Monica the gospel.  They always fix us an herbal tea when we come to buy and we always leave them with a new message about the gospel.  

Instead of a waffle dinner after district meeting we went to Max's restaurant.  To begin the weekend of saying good-by to Sora Trebas who will be going home soon and Elder Hubbard who we found out Sat. will be transferred to Bucharest on Tue.  Max's is famous because the President of Romania who lives in Sibiu often dines here on the weekend.

Elder Hellewell couldn't help himself.  After he finished this delectable desert he asked our permission to use his fingers to get every morsel of yumminess.  When the waiter came to collect his plate he even commented on how clean it was.  Elder Hellewell isn't so fond of vegetables however but we have been working on him.  

Relief Society card making activity.  The other three sister members of the branch were not able to come and Alexandra was disappointed but we had three missionaries and three investigators which in our mind was a success.

The three investigators were from our beginning English class.  All three of them got a certificate for being to at least 6 of the 8 classes.

 I'm ashamed to say I don't even know their names.  We had about 20 students and my brain can't remember unusual names even when they had name tags on.  We just praised them a lot and they loved learning.

Saturday thirteen of the twenty here got certificates for the beginning English class.  In two weeks we'll start again.  In Iasi many came back for the next session so we'll see what happens here.

Everyone wanted to go see Johnny's parents.  (mother only one in this picture) Even though they aren't members they are proud of their son on a mission in England.  We're all praying that some day they join the church. With only 5 seats in the car we had one elder in the trunk to make the 10 mile trip. 

Branch picture - March 13, 2016 composed of one investigator, 6 members and 6 missionaries.  It sure is hard to get the members to come consistently.  We should have at least 10 members and we sometimes do but not today.

Tomorrow the Sisters head to Bucharest.  Sister Yost will come back with a new companion and sister Trebas will meet up with her parents to spend 10 days touring the mission.  We'll actually have them back here next weekend.  Elder Hubbard will also leave us so we had a waffle supper Sunday night as our last official get to-gether at our house.

If you could see your inner thoughts all standing in a row  -  would you be proud to show them off -- or don't you really know.  Roger gave this poem in his Sacrament Meeting talk today.  I felt it was a good reminder and a good goal for the week to watch that our thoughts are something we could be proud of.