This is the picture of the Day missionaries who visited us last Aug. on their way to Arad.  Elder Day was President of the Arad Branch when he passed away of a stroke/aneurism Jan. 17th.  Needing another branch president and with Sibiu now under the leadership of Pres. Craciun we were assigned to move to Arad and take over for the few weeks we have left.  For this cause we have not had time to update our blog in the last couple weeks.

 Sora Day and I at her husband's memorial service in Arad.  We spent the weekend in Arad and Timisoara branches then went home to pack up and spend what little time we had left with our Sibiu friends and missionaries before the next weekend when we needed to be moved to Arad 

Alex on the left is the PR person for Romania.  She is the Facebook expert and does a lot of advertising for English classes on the site.  Julie is her roommate and the expert pianist.  They got to know each other when they served a mission in Hungary and have since developed an internet bookkeeping business. Both of these ladies from Oradia were at the memorial service.  

 Back in Sibiu these wonderful missionaries helped us with cleaning and moving some of the furnishings to the church to be used by other senior missionaries coming in the future.  

 Soras Strader & Andersen and Elders Dixon & Hanson.  

 No more early morning (or late night) trips to the Gara (train station) where the road passes under this crazy building.

 Last time to make waffles in Sibiu.  Good memories for after District meetings.

In all our travels the odometer passed the 15,000 kilometers mark and it was at the gas station we got this photo.

 Saying good-by to some of the Sibiu members.

 Florin gave me a beautiful red rose plant.

Florin's certificate for completion of the self reliance class came so Rand got to give it to him before we left.

One last visit to our friend Mariana's.

 It is standard that you take a gift to someone you are visiting and since we were trying to pack we came up with dried fig as her gift.  She loves her garden and was impressed that we brought these from home that we had dried as fig leather.

 Google translating did not give the right wording for what we gave her.  After a lengthy discussion she wrote out what we had given her.

We did find the Anca we were trying to find when we happened upon Mariana last week.  Glad we couldn't remember where Anca lived so that we could find Mariana.  This week we thought we were going to Mariana's and we found Anca.  Those blocks all look the same.

Traveling the 4 hours to Arad was beautiful.  Most pictures didn't show quite how exquisite it was.  Snow is gone but the humid frost on the trees is what caught our attention.

Waffles with our new district: Soras Roberts & Purtschert and Elders Dixon & Wilstead.

 Our new home is at Adora Park, 3rd floor and our parking spot is #24.  Quite different from our cozy home in Sibiu

 This is the Arad missionaries in our living room watching the Missionary broadcast.  Yes, our apartment is brand new and very comfortable.  We'll love being here for the last few weeks of our mission.

Elder Brown taking notes of the broadcast from our own TV.

There are many elaborate churches in Arad and Timisoara.  This is the one from the center of Arad.  The teachings of these churches has turned off many in Romania and they are not interested in being religious.  Quite an obstacle we have to overcome as missionaries who have so much to offer.

So far I've learned the names of the Arad sisters/soras: Alexandra, Andrea, Lidia, Ana (RS president) and Christina.

Dana and Olga did not get in the first picture.

After the 10-12:00 am block in Arad we head the 50 minute drive to Timisoara for their church that starts at 14:00.

If it weren't for these lovely ladies this branch would not exist.  They are strong, tithe paying, temple attending members.  The missionaries work hard to find the less active and new investigators in Timi.  I can't remember last names so I have a ways to go in getting to know them.

 Timisoara is where the revolution started in 1989.  It is the 3rd largest city in Romania and is full of the ugly Communists blocks.  However I think their churches are the most beautiful.  Too bad they don't bring happiness to the people.

 Unlike Arad, Timisoara has fabric stores.  While there on Monday the Elders helped us find those stores so I could buy supplies for our RS activity.  Flower pins again.

 In this huge city there are only two missionaries; Elder Dunkley who serves as the branch president and Elder Winder with whom we served with in Sibiu.

The fabric store just happened to be next to the famous Timi theater. 

We stayed in Timi Sunday night so we could get the car serviced.  (15000 kilos is what we were told for an oil change).  We bought our first papanas (papanash) which is some sort of cake with pudding/yogurt and blue berries drizzled over it. Romanian deserts aren't very sweet so we liked it a lot.

We heard about Sorina and Sonya Berlin before coming on our mission.  Janet Broderick, my sister-in-law serving a mission with my brother Dennis in Portugal wanted these two cute newly baptized girls living in Portugal to have the fellowshipping they would need as they moved back to Romania with their parents.  Wed. we visited their home, about 30 minutes from Arad and taught the parents the first discussion with the Arad Soras.  Sorian and Sonya were excited when we told them my brother and his wife were missionaries in Portugal.  Sorina got out her baptismal certificate to show us and we became immediate friends.

Elder Holland spoke of Diedrich Bonhoeffer, “a bright German young theologian who was growing up in Nazi Germany in the '30s.” Bonhoeffer came to America to study at the Union Theological Seminary in New York just immediately before Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. Even though he was encouraged to stay in America where he would be safe, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany. “He went back and joined the underground against the Nazi regime, was captured and kept in prison, and … was executed two weeks before his camp was liberated by the allied forces.”

While in prison, Bonhoeffer wrote remarkable letters to family members and friends in Europe and the United States. Elder Holland quoted one of those letters, saying, “We must follow Christ with every ounce of our being in every moment in every part of our life. Christ must be brought into every square inch of the world and its culture. One’s faith must be shining and bright and pure and robust.”

Elder Holland then asked the students, in good times or in bad, to “follow Christ with every ounce of our being in every moment.”

Both of these men are some of our heroes.  They set a great example for us all.