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.

It's been over a months since our Iasi gym membership expired.  We're feeling the need but haven't found the right gym to join yet.  Many high end hotels have gyms but they are a little out of our price range.  Going from Romanian lei to the Euro to the American dollar keeps us on our toes trying to figure out actual costs.

The Elders and Soras invited us to go with them to Astra village.  Reminded us of the Pioneer village in Phoenix where old residences and business have been restored in a new area for tourists.  Many of the homes and businesses here were older than our country.

Some of the descriptions were written in English but very minimal.  Visuals were our best descriptions. Rand took this picture of Elder Hellewell, Sora Yost, me, Sora Trebas and Elder Hubbard.

Took pictures of several of the many wood carvings.  Anyone have any idea what this could be? Few had descriptions with them.

Sign said "triptic orthodox" Any guesses?

Hand carved canoe from a very large log.

Standing in the canoe.  They had to moved it hear by crane.  Hope it was originally made next to a body of water because size made it extremely heavy.

Another view of the carved out log.

This felt very dutch.

 Windmill with sails.  Not quite as tall as the one above.  

Peasant village inside a compound.  

Many of the exhibits were some sort of mill.  Wind and water was their main source of power. 

These were the most unique paddles in a close up view.

 Even today the hay stacks have a pole up the center.  We're told it helps the hay dry evenly.

I really liked how they used limbs to weave this fence.  We could do this at home when we cut out the china berry tree every fall.  This is another peasant homestead. 

Some sort of drying or storage building made with the same woven limbs.  

These peasant homes must have been from a different part of the country by the looks of them. My directions are all mixed up here but in this area I could tell North because of the moss growing on one side.

This was labeled an orchard homestead.  Bet it smelled like apples all winter.  

This was an oven for drying plums.  Plums are a staple around here.  We keep some on our counter.  Doesn't really remind me of my dehydrator at home except maybe for the shelves. 

 Heading back to the parking lot.  We think the structure in the center is a well that hasn't quite been set up yet.

 We hope to come back in the summer when they have some sort of program here.  Oh wait, it will be in Romanian.  Dang, that is so frustrating not knowing much of the language.

Side view of the bleachers.  Looks like the play/action takes place out on the lake on some sort of raft.  

P-day over, time to get to work.   

March is a special holiday in Romania.  Besides being the beginning of spring celebration the men give the women in their lives little gifts as shown here.  Shops selling these trinkets are all over town.

Our land lord (proprietor) gave me the hybiscus and Johnny's parents gave me the smaller flowers.

 Some of our English class student's gave me these items.  You are suppose to wear them all week.

Mihai gave me this bouquet of crocuses.  He is an older gentlemen in our ward.  Don't you just love the vase?

We've started a new class on Thursday.  The Soras taught the beatitudes from the Book of Mormon and Bible.  They are such creative teachers.  We had a good turn out from the Branch (four is a good turn out) but no investigators came.

The Soras and I met with Alexandra the Relief Society President in her home to plan our next activity.  Just know that I was there too.  Haven't figured out how to take a delayed picture.  Some previous renter painted an interesting design on her wall.

 Sat. night activity was designing the most creative obstacle course for the ball.

 It was the Elder's turn to create the activity.  They had a ball (pun intended)

 Getting the building ready for church the next morning took some time.

 President Brown wanted us to have a "break the fast" luncheon after church.  Some had to leave so we had a lot of food.  Again the bread was my favorite.  So delicious.

 Mihi on the left is our most recent convert.  He has plenty of service projects for the missionaries and President Brown.  He had a lot of trees that he needed help moving and his one foot is missing so can't walk very well.  He's the one that gave me the crocus as a "happy spring".

This week in our advanced English class we taught them about the Book of Mormon.  At the end of the first class one girl asked me if we believed the Bible. That gave me the direction for the second class.  I started out asking if they had a favorite scripture from the bible.  They didn't so then I shared my favorite scripture:  John 3:16  God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoso believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.   Then I told them my favorite scripture from the Book of Mormon:  2 Nephi 31:20 Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life.  One way to believe in him is to love God and your fellow men.  I told them that this was also my father's favorite scripture and that he was a good example to me of pressing forward, feasting upon the word of Christ and enduring to the end.  We love sharing the message of the restored church and the Book of Mormon which was written to us.