June 27, 2016 we were happy to see the rain after a week of no rain.                 Never thought that would happen, but after watering the church flower boxes by hand it was a welcome sight to see the rain again.

What,  saplings leaning at each gate in the neighborhood?  The Romanians celebrate the Holy Ghost on Monday the 20th.  Banks were closed and many went to church.  The cut tree represents something about spring and or new growth.  Not sure why they cut the tree and place it by their gate.

Went back the next day to take a picture once we found out about the tradition and the trees were gone except for this one that had been tossed across the street.

Love taking pictures of flowers in odd places.  Anything that replaces a weed makes me happy.

Lots of grass being cut and stored for later.  They don't grow alfalfa in Sibiu.  

 New wild flowers blooming as we do our morning walk.  Reminds me of a bachelor button.

 This may be the hay they tried to bail behind our house a week ago.  It doesn't stack well when it isn't bailed neatly.

 Electrical and light poles here are cement.  Rand Wanted this picture.

Circus came to town the same week of the terrible incident in Florida, USA.  We didn't get to go though.

P-day adventure for June 20th.  We drove to then hiked the Citadel at Cisnadioara

 Originally built in the 1100's.

 German names around the alter.   The brochure was in Romanian and German so can't say a whole lot about the place.

 Looking the other way

 This door wasn't used by visitors.  

 Arch at Cisnadioara

 Rand is on walkway along outer wall.

 Enjoying the view

 Mihi's garden.  Since now there are no Elders, Mihi had to wear clothes when he insisted the sisters come help him weed.

 There is a tiny walnut tree by this stick and the one in the distance.  They are the trees Mihi had Elder Brown help harvest from the public park.  Pretty hard to keep track of them when the grass tries to crowd out everything.

Gerber daisies really were beautiful this week.  I watered them every other day and they didn't wilt.

 When to mow was easy this week.  The trick became how to get the automatic sprinklers to water.  It rained before Elder Brown figured out what he needed to buy to get it working.  He and Toma make a good team.

 Did I mention that caring for the garden is so easy.  Love that I don't have to bend down to the ground.

 Arizona is featured on this travel agents view of famous places.  Hint, it's the only one in red.

 Had to take a picture of these dogs.  We first noticed them when their owner was riding around Centru.  Surprised to find them guarding the bike at the grocery store.  I wasn't the only one taking a picture of them being so patient.

 After Elder Brown and I make a friend then we have the sisters go back with us to make appointments to teach.  Mihaila is quite the talented lady restoring furniture and artwork.  She took us on a tour of her studio while we waited for our food at the restaurant she manages across the street.

 Sora Savie and Djahanbani enjoying the delicious dinner at Mihaila's restaurant.

 Games night was moved earlier and it didn't attract many participants.  These four sure ate the watermelon though.

 Sundays, when we go to Deva, are really busy.  We left home at 8:30 for church first in Sibiu and got home about 12 hours later.  The lettering on this hill on our way to Deva says Hollywood but is spelt the Romanian way (we were told.)  

 This time I took a keyboard to play for the singing in Deva.  This keyboard didn't work with the plug but when we bought batteries it worked.  I'm always the one to take the pictures of the groups so to show that I'm also there I asked Sora Savie to take my picture.

 We had as many members at the Deva meeting this time as we did at the Sibiu meeting.

On P-day today, Ion invited us out to his family home to meet his parents and see their garden about 20 miles from Sibiu.

Rand was fascinated by their outdoor oven that they cook bread in.  They want us to come back and they will make us bread and have a dinner.

They were hoping the rain we got in Sibiu today would make it out to their area too.  There garden was beautiful.  They also had a trained dog that could dig gofer holes and find the varment.  Just not today but fun to watch how fast he could dig.

Onions for our church dinner we'll be having.

 The well in their back yard that they have pumping into a sink.  Their home was in the process of being renovated. Original part of the home was very old.

 We really hope that we can teach Ion's parents.  They said they were orthodox but that we could give them a spiritual message.

Another citadel/church to visit on P-day.  This one was a surprise and just down the street from Ion's parents home.  Ion found the person with the key and we got to do a tour.  Again the literature was in German so we just looked around.

 The lady with the key had two cute little children that the Sora's had fun making friends with.

 Ion says that they sometimes still use this cathedral.  See at the back of the room the organ pipes.

 I asked Ion to climb up to the "rameumpton".

 First lizard I've seen in Romania.  

The view from the tower was spectacular as usual. 

 Rand couldn't help himself.  The bell sound was just beautiful.

One whole side of the citadel wall had bee hives.  That is what you can see in the picture below.

We were all checking out the wooden pegs that held the beams together.

 Stairways here are all pretty spooky.

 We were so pleased that Robert (a previous investigator) showed up for FHE.  He told us stories of his grandfather who was forced to fight for the Germans in WW 11.  He said the grandfather abandoned the army in Russia then escaped to Iasi where he was discovered by his wife in a hospital there.  We all told family history stories in hopes of helping members feel the spirit of Elijah working in them.

This Blog entry is pretty long but I wanted to post a thought I've been thinking of all week.  In some aspects I believe it is true but not sure about all aspects.

Finished is better than perfect

My goal is to endure to the end and at that time I know I won't be perfect so I'm saying the above holds true.  To finish perfectly should none the less be the goal with as many things in our life as possible.

 We made a good contact this week with a branch member.  Maria has struggled but we're hoping will come out on top.  She is about to open a beauty salon in her home and we were the first to be shown inside.  Missionaries have been trying to meet up with her but she has not been interested.  She asked us to pray for her that the property she inherited from her grandfather will be awarded to her this next week in the courts.  

 We didn't know where she lived.  On our walk to market we saw her on her patio.  When we waved to her she invited us in and showed us the sign that will be outside her salon as soon as she gets all the government paperwork completed.

 Another visit we made was with the missionaries to a member's home to help him write a talk for church.  He is very timid but allowed us to take a picture of the red poppies he had picked at his garden.

 The International Festival of Sibiu continued this week and we had fun in the evening checking out the crazy performances on Centru.  The Scottish band followed by dinner at the Scottish Pub.  The co-owner told us when she had time she would meet us for dinner and give us some time to tell her about our church.

 I used to want to be a trapeze artist.  Don't ask me why.  I think I was 6 or 7.

 Our neighborhood is full of families.  One thing we often see are grandparents taking the grandkids for a walk.  Most parents work and grandparents raise the children.  Many toddlers have this kind of trike we've never seen in USA.  It is a cross between a trike and a stroller as the adult has control.  The child can chose to peddle or just get pushed.  

This was the third performing group on stilts.  He didn't seem to have a special talent.  Just walked around with some of his buddies (not pictured).

The Rotary club was in Uganda and here in Sibiu.  We didn't see the Lion's club in Africa but it is here.  Rand's dad was a member of the Lion's Club in Grantsville, Utah.

 

Cute little Puppeteer with music to dance her little puppets to on piazza mara during the celebration

 An interesting older gentlemen's band.  The leader looked like our former Stake President, Kyle Hettinger but only from the back.  

 We thought we were coming up on more performers on stilts, not so.  

 Saturday was our hardest day yet.  Pres. Gembasu really wanted us to come to the District Family History training in Oradia.  We had two members we were taking with us and they could only get away for one day so we left at 5am.  The trainer was a guest from Germany who is over this district of Europe.  He spoke pretty good English with the District President doing the Romanian translation. Glad he didn't speak German or we wouldn't have understood very much.

 This is such a powerful promise.  We hope we can get our branch members to participate and thus qualify for the promised blessing in their life.

 The Lord blessed us and our return trip went well.  We were spiritually fed and enjoyed a lovely trip.  Glad we were now traveling in the bigger car with more comfortable room for everyone.

 I want to take pictures of all the sheep herds I see.  This one came out pretty good.

 One village we passed through is full of gypsy homes.  Never seen so many.

 First prize rose for this week.

This week we got a new manual, "Teaching in the Savior's Way".  We had just heard of it last week while skyping with our daughter Kara and I had just downloaded it from the internet.  Have been studying it and loving the wonderful information contained therein.  Since the manuals we got were all in Romanian I didn't waste paper printing ours in English.  It will be well read by Elder Brown and I.  Then this week while reading the conference talks from past years I found the talk that Elder Haight gave introducing the "Teacher development" manual.  That was something like 45 years ago.  I taught many classes from that wonderful manual as inservice leader in Primary.  So fun to make these connections and improve in our teaching ability.