Greetings from the Semlimbar country.  Last Sunday evening's walk took us to where this family was weeding their family garden with the help of a horse pulled cultivator.  Grandpa teaching the grandkids how to guide the horse.

 Only tree we've seen like this.  Hard to tell though from this photo.

Monday early, Elder Brown got the Elders to the train station in time to then run Sora Yost to the same train station.  Sora Dj hung out with us for the day as our companion.  We spent the afternoon cleaning some in the elders apartment and part of that was defrosting the Soras freezer because the door had to be tapped shut.  That was because the frost was so heavy it was forcing the door from closing.  Keeping the freezer defrosted must not be part of their missionary chores we decided.  Let the senior couple do it.  The top drawer was broken from frozen ice.  Took this picture to see if we could get a replacement once we got the frost melted.

Had to cancel FHE Monday night as our new missionary from Mihi Bravo in Bucharest arrived.  Sora Savoie is one of the sisters we took a picture of at the MTC with two other soras.  They were ahead of us at the MTC but behind us in coming to Romania.  The mission will be blessed with her here.

 Mihi is back from visiting his family and wanting us to come out to the garden for lettuce.  His attire is a little skimpy but he was happy to also share a few of the onions I planted a few weeks ago.

 Doing welfare visits we got a picture of the grapevine covered court yard of the Brukenthal residence.  Can't wait to see the grapes hanging there.

 Same picture only from above.

 Rand spends a lot of time in his Branch President's office taking care of branch business.  I do quite a bit of puttering around in my garden.  I guess you can tell that without saying it.

 The flower boxes are just getting fuller and fuller.

Bought a bag of these little blossoms last week to decorate our Hawaiian Luau dinner table.  While waiting for the gentleman to get my change a young man that spoke english told me that this is the salcam flower.  Salcam is a kind of acacia that the Romanians use to make a drink.  We went out and found these blossoms, took them home, washed, added water, honey and a little lemon.

 Now it will sit in the sun for a few days.  Will try it out the end of next week.

 Here is a commercial drink of lemon, suc and carbonated water.  We had bought it before for games night but hadn't noticed the acacia flower along with the lemon on the picture.

Rand found a dentist around the corner from the church.  We got our teeth cleaned by Dr. Teodora I. Marcu.  I took a picture of Rand in the chair but he had his eyes closed so left it off.  I seem to get that look from him often.  Bad timing on my part.  So nice to have clean teeth again.

Friday was our greatly anticipated Relief Society activity.  We kept putting it off in hopes of Cami being there.  In the end she was only able to join us for drinks when it was over.  We started out at the ground floor of the tower in Piazza mare talking about the requirements for the telestial kingdom.    Each was also given a small cookie.  

This tower is directly opposite the road that goes under "Liars bridge" that we have talked about before.  This is Piazza Mica and the other side is Piazza Mare.

In attendance were three missionaries, two branch members and one investigator.  Simona is a very sweet lady who has had a few lessons and open to our message but so far we haven't seen a lot of commitment on her part.  Half way up we talked about the requirements for the Terrestrial Kingdom and received a bigger chocolate covered cookie.

We love it when we run into our English lesson students  This is Stephon and his daughter.  Stephen graduated from beginner to intermediate and is a regular attender.

At the top of the 238 step tower we had a lot more light and a wonderful view of the city.  Here everyone received several yummy Belgian chocolates and heard how wonderful it will be in that kingdom.

Sora Craciun did a very good job explaining why we all want to be in the celestial.  At least that is what I was told.  Of course everything was in Romanian.  Luckily almost everyone spoke pretty good English so between times I didn't feel left out.   So glad Cami was able to join us for a lemonade afterward.  She got to know Simona and made friends.  That is the goal for all Releif Society activities.

Walking home after the activity Cami, Simone and I got in on a surprise festival.  Everyone else had gone their separate ways but we really enjoyed the activities.

First was some sort of tumbling performers that incorporated stilts, scary costumes, fire and confetti.  One was good at a front flip and every time he went over confetti shot out of him from somewhere.  Never got close enough to see where.  Glad we don't have to clean up the tiny bits of paper everywhere.

 Next were these dancers and a band to follow.  I was told that the performers are from all over Europe, not just Romania.

The next night Rand and I went back to enjoy the activities.  This mime fellow really drew the crowds.  Kids and parents lined up for photos with him.

 These two women were dressed in the most flamboyant costumes and they were choosing folks from the audience to have a makeover.  None of the makeovers were normal.  Outrageous is what Rand called them.  Didn't get a picture of the final product however.

Here is the snow tree covered with cherries from the backyard of the church.

 We think the cherries are not the red variety.  

 Some are pretty tasty and they are only orange.

Been watching this lily for many weeks in front of our place.  This week it finally bloomed.  So lovely.

I picked this bud over a week ago.  I can't believe it is still so beautiful.  Really cheers up our kitchen.  Natalie, does this remind you of "fire and Ice"?

 I probably didn't mention that it is still raining a lot.  We're trying to ignore that.  We did hear though that this spring has been unusually rainy and cold.  I finally got a picture that turned out of the "raindrops on roses".

My favorite conference talk from this past week was given by Sterling W. Sill in 1971.  He stated, "The religion of Christ itself is not so much a set of ideas as it is a set of activities.  The purpose of the Church is to help us translate the principles of the gospel of Christ into constructive, meaningful human experience.  And everyone should work toward this end by a daily practice of thinking of some uplifting thoughts, listening to some fine music, reading some stimulating literature, doing some good deeds, and having some great experiences every day.