Our agenda this past Saturday and Sunday

I kept forgetting what the different Romanian words meant.  We finally wrote in our own language so that we could figure out when we would be serving dinners.  On Sat. the Elders were excited to buy pizza at Dominos, a new restaurant from America that just opened.  On Sunday we brought food for the branch members that we made.  

Saturday was really busy.  We not only had English and Self Reliance class with the Craciuns but took the Elders shopping for the ingredients to make a chicken, spinach lasagna that they were excited to make for Sunday dinner.  We were also planting flowers along the West side of the church property.  It will be so beautiful in a few weeks.  In the mean time I'm not going to depend on rain for their success.  It's suppose to be a warm week with no rain predicted for over a week.  I have my bucket for watering by hand.

Sat. at five was the Romanian rebroadcast of the Women's Conference from the previous week.  We had 30 minutes for our Pizza then we had Sat. morning Conference from 7-9 pm.

We had three investigators and several branch members.  

But for now lets go back to the first of the week.  Monday Mihi wanted all the missionaries to help him in his garden.  He is the older gentleman with half a foot that bikes around and is always in need of service.  When we woke up to rain the other missionaries found other things to do.  We decided to see if we could find Mihi to tell him another day would work better for everyone.  He must have decided that himself because we never did find him at Liars bridge.  We did get some interesting pictures however.

View from the street that goes under Liars bridge which used to be a river of sewage.

Monday night is Family Home Evening with the Browns for those who don't have a family.  We weren't sure of the turn out but were pleased that three members came and the Elders who didn't have other commitments.  One member, Alex we are hoping to help prepare for a mission.  The members don't know the Book of Mormon very well so we feel like we are doing what we did in Uganda, helping them learn to read, understand and love the Book of Mormon..

Wed. drove the three hours to Cluj for Zone conference again.  It works well to go there as it would be 6 hours to Aradia, the other town in the zone.  Cluj is the middle town.  

 We weren't checking books or have any other assignment which gave us a chance this time to learn and be inspired by the conference speakers.  Our featured speaker was a business man from SLC, Bro. Walter Plums (far left).  He and his wife were helping refugees in Iraq.  What hair raising experiences.  He was also mission president a few years ago in upstate New York.

Zone activity was walking up to a stranger and have a meaningful conversation with the goal of getting their phone number.  These missionaries did well.  They've had a lot of practice.  I learn every time we are together.

 Mihi at his garden.  We finally were able to connect up with him on a beautiful Thursday afternoon.  Heavy coat time is over.  It was such a lovely day with a warm breeze.  Love it. There are no out buildings at the public garden but Mihi has put one together to store his tools and seeds in.

 Mihi needs a cain to get around.  He lost part of his foot in an industrial accident many years ago.  It would probably only cost twenty American dollars to have the whole area plowed but to Mihi that is really expensive.  He limps along swinging a big hoe turning over the ground.  Here he got Rand to dig an area for him.






Teaching me what he wanted me to do with the onion starts was a little comical.  I remove the weeds in my garden and he didn't want me to do that.  Not speaking any english and our limited Romanian it got a little strained till I finally got what he wanted me to do.

 Rand more than doubled the area Mihi has to plant.  We're all committed to go again this week.  There weren't many onions left to plant so not sure what he'll have us doing.  He got the missionaries in trouble last month helping him dig seedling trees at the park to move to his property.  Mihai claims they are just cutting them down so why can't he have them.  Hmm   

 Thursday we had a cooking class and I taught the Sister's how to make Arick's Italian lasagna for Sunday dinner.  We made one lasagna for our lunch.

With spring now in full bloom we are needing to weed.  The edge of the property was turning into an eye sore so we dug weeds leveled several sections with rocks to keep the soil in place so we can plant flowers on this steep drive down to a basement garage.

 Ready for the flowers.  Hope we can find what we want Sat. morning.

Thursday and Friday we were here without the junior missionaries who stayed behind to do splits with missionaries from Cluj and Aradia.   Feeling like we needed a break we went to a restaurant called, El Gringo.  I actually ordered a burrito.  First one I've seen here.  It was pretty good except the beans were on the cold side.

There sign even has a saguaro cactus in the design.

Now we're ready to plant with some fun bulbs and a pretty smelling plant I never heard of.   One of our English students came  while I was planting and we laughed about the different plant names and how similar their names are.

 This cherry tree is just starting to flower.  It grows in the back yard over the sunken patio.  It is going to be almost impossible to pick anything as it has grown way to high.

Sat. between the Relief Society Conference and the Sat. morning conference we had Dominos pizza from the new restaurant just opened.  We had a good turn out for a Sat. night.  Our session ended at 9pm due to the 10 hour time difference.

 So the english speakers watched conference in the Branch President's office on our laptop.  The members watched the Romanian translated in the chapel.  You can see the Craciuns through the open door.  Priesthood session started Sunday at noon followed by the Sat. session.  Rand and I were worried members would show up at 10 forgetting it was General Conference so we came early to welcome and invite to return later.  We had four but only one stayed.  

 We had several investigators who joined us for the sessions and some stayed for our lasagna dinner provided by the missionaries.  We do a lot of eating at the church these days.  The girl on the far left is Emma.  She is from Brashov and knew the YA we knew in Iasi.  She just came to visit before taking a job in Spain.  She will be gone 6 months.

 We had to move outside to take advantage of the wonderful spring weather.

The Elders made a chicken spinach lasagna.  They are quite the cooks.  I need to get their recipe.

Mihi was at the church almost as long as we were.  He was one that came for church at 10.   The last session was over again at 9pm.

These large blossoms are all over town.  Haven't found anyone I can ask what they are but we're all so glad we don't need our winter coats any longer. 

 We were told there are still wells in Romania but mostly in people's back yards.  We went to buy honey from a neighbor who sells from her home and there we spotted one right in her back yard.

We still have one more session of conference to watch.  We didn't want to stay up till 1pm to catch the last session.  We're so fortunate we can watch it at any time.  Check it out at: 

 http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/news-media-resources-186th-annual-general-conference.            

There were many wonderful speakers.  It's hard to chose just one favorite but I think my favorite was hearing Pres. Monson announce the new temples that will be built.  We're thinking the members of the church in the country of Equador  along with our grandson Bradley who is serving there as a missionary are celebrating.  We also cheer for another temple in Africa.

Happy Easter from the East to the West.

Romania does not celebrate Easter till the first Sunday in May which is the Orthodox day for Easter.

Our week started out cold but clear and quite beautiful.  

Our Front yard has so many spring flowers that I remember from Utah where we lived over 30 years ago.  Phoenix has daffodils whose bulbs don't cook in the summer.  But everything else lasts for only one season there.

Our front entry banister is not white.  We got a late spring snow on Thursday.  We woke up to many flowers bent down to the ground with the weight and many more trees looked like they had white blossoms.  At least for a few hours.

We had just bought a few more flowers to go in the church planters but decided not to plant them till it warmed up and dried out a little.

By evening the snow had melted and the flowers survived beautifully.

Opening a 30 pack of eggs often reveals items you'd never find at home.  I've scrubbed and scrubbed on what looked like manure on an egg.  I guess they let such things go because you simply can't get it off.  We think it is cooked on or something.  But to find a brown feather, that was a first.

English classes started this week instead of next.  We did not have sign ups and the word may not have gotten out to all our past students who were expecting classes to start next week.  Tue we only had 6 in our beginning class and the other classes were equally small.  We loved it having such a small class.  Each student got much more individual attention.  (no picture)  Sat. was the second class and turned out to be a beautiful day.  Our numbers were down even more. It will be interesting to see if we get our usual turnout this coming Tuesday.  We'll take whatever we get however.

Thursday was a ward activity.  At home we have two puzzles of the United States that we have competitions with to see who can put them together the fastest.  Here we found two puzzles of Europe and the ladies challenged the gentlemen to a contest.  

 We won, as you can see.  It was a good way to learn a little about European geography.

Refreshments were doughnuts.  The Sisters had fun learning how to cut out and cook.  The elders had fun eating and creating odd shapes, at least for a doughnut.

Surprised to find this grave yard so close to our home in Selembar.  Selembar (pronounced She lem bar) is mostly new homes.  The head stones were gigantic compared to those at home unless you pay a lot of money.  Sat. many family members were planting and weeding their family's "spot".  

Last week's hair style isn't as severe.  Back to my usual look.

Went with the Sisters to visit this 81 year old gentleman in their neighborhood.  His wife died about 5 years ago and he is so lonely.  We showed him the Easter initiative film.  He said he felt such peace with us there.  We didn't understand a lot of the hour conversation but it was a sweet visit and the sisters translated a little for us.  We love making a difference in people's lives.

At the base of the bill that contained the original mote for the city was a beautiful spring tree.  Sat. was clear, bright and so cold but fun to try and capture the beauty.

The Craciuns are our experiment.  This was our third week of the twelve week Self Reliance class.  Because they speak English well we are priming them to be able to teach the class after the material is available in Romanian some time this summer.  They both have a business and say they are really learning some great things to help their businesses grow.

Sunday we had a District visitor for Relief Society.  I didn't think to get a picture at church with  Monica Kiss and the Relief Society sisters: one Relief Society President and three missionary sisters.  Here we are dropping her off at the bus for her ride back to Cluj.  Monica has been a member for 16 years.  She was introduced to the church in English class.  She has three children and says next time she comes she will bring them.  I told her to give us enough time to prepare a Primary for them. 

This Easter we want to share this video with you 

https://www.mormon.org/easter?cid=HP_SU_3-13-2016_dMIS_fSPC_xLIDyL1-A_.  

Let us all find new Life through Jesus Christ.   - Hallelujah.

Spring has definitely come to Romania

If I remember right the bush behind me is forsythia.  Grandma Howlett liked that bush.  Forsythia branches often made it into her early spring flower bouquets for church.

We bought transplants at Leroy Merlin to begin a garden in the planters at the church.  We planted gladiolus, dutch iris and frassia (SP?) bulbs for later in the season but for now we have a lot of small pansies.  Church faces North so sun loving plants won't thrive here.

People don't have to water their gardens here.  The soil was already wet.  Lucky them

Finished for now.

Beautiful day on P-day for a drive up to the local ski resort.  As you can see there is very little snow.  They didn't have much the whole winter except maybe on this North facing bunny hill.

Elders Hubbard and Hellewell drove up with us and we ate at a restaurant with a very nice view where we told each other crazy stories from our past.  They especially like hearing about our adventures in Africa.  We aren't sure if the corn ears hanging from the roof of this patio are decorations or just the way they dry them.

We're about 30 kilometers from Sibiu and we think that is the city we could see from this view.

Two signs to Santa and one to Sibiu.  We should have gone to Santa just to see what it was. 

Wish we could capture on camera the lovely scenery that we worked so hard to take.  As dad always said, "make sure someone is in the picture".  It does make it more interesting especially when you can't portray the view like you want.

The oldest working swimming pool in Romania is called the Neptune.  It is within walking distance of the church so that is the one I have started working out in.  It was built in 1904 and been remodeled at least once.  It isn't open on p-day or Sunday to give the system a chance to catch up on cleaning.  It is quite cheap and thus popular.  Each swimmer get their own dressing room which limits how many can swim.  When I get there I often wait 5-10 minutes for someone to leave and free up a dressing room.

The sea shell decorations along the side give it an old feel, maby even medieval 

 Starting at 10 every day teachers come to teach the children swimming.  As you can see one narrow side is partitioned off for the instruction of over 20 children.  It was interesting meeting the instructor.  He says he is "orthodox" and had never heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I hope to have more meaningful conversations in the future.  Glad he speaks some English.  Their website says that all children in Sibiu that learn to swim do so at this pool.

Decided to even up my hair on my own.  Then when I got to the back I couldn't figure out how to cut so had Alexandra make an appointment with her hair stylist.  This what she came up with.  I guess I'm not growing my hair out after all.

I was given the assignment by the District President of keeping up on a branch face book page to be used as the branch history.  With the help of Alex from Cluj we had contacted the instigator of the original page as it was locked as to who could post.  Johnny, or Elder Cernat as he is now called is a missionary in England never responded to our requests to make posts to that page so this week Alex helped me start a new page.  You can follow us on Ramura din Sibiu.  This is the picture I took for the front page.  Parking is at a premium and it took some time before we could park our little green Opel in front for this picture.

Last week we wrote that we were getting two new missionaries as Elder Hubbard was going to Bucharest and Sora Trebas was going home.  Here we have Elder Cochran who is from Mesa and Sora Djahanbani who is brand new to the mission and from Utah.  Our waffle dinner after district meeting is continuing strong however at this point we were cleaning up when I thought to take this picture.

One picture I didn't get is of the Craciuns, Alexandra and Sandu are meeting with us weekly to learn the self reliance material.  They both are working on starting their own businesses.  Once they have gone through the material they will help us teach the branch members.  We hope the material will be available in Romanian this summer.

Saturday night activity was really fun with a great turnout.  Sora Trebas, who is touring the mission with her parents came and we enjoyed getting to know her parents, Cheryl and David Trebas.  They were able to attend church with us on Sunday and we fixed them a meal to eat at the church before they headed off for Bucharest.

Two lines as you can see with your back to the other person.  The last in the row were given an object to draw on the person in front of them.  This was passed on then the one at the front of the line drew what they thought it was on a white board.  The team whose picture matched the original object the best got a point.  Never realized how hard a drawing on your back is to feel.  YSA below is drawing what she thought she felt.

Good bye Sora Trebas from the Gang.  Several are investigators, some are members and most are friends we found in English class along with the missionaries of course.

Sora Trebas with her parents, her last companion, Sora Yost and Sora Yost's new companion Sora Djahanbani (Jahanbony)

 Elder Cochran is a jewel.  This is the second batch of dishes he has done without any assignment given.  He'll make a great husband some day.

 Sibiu sister missionaries Jan. 2016 thru March 21, 2016.  Sora Trebas and Yost, love you.

We are loving the Church's new video on Easter.  One advantage we have here in Romania is that Easter is celebrated first Sunday in May (Orthodox Easter) so we get 7 weeks to share this video.  The missionaries have a small booklet that they can carry up to three videos on.  We've been with them when they sat down with an investigator and showed them a video on the 4 inch screen.    Hope you are preparing for the real purpose for Easter.  Thank you to our Savior for his infinite sacrifice on our behalf.  We are forever blessed.