It is Christmas time in Bucuresti; they do it right.  There doesn't seem to be as much commercialism here as we have in the US.  They really decorate the main streets; I've placed a few pics below. They have a few great Christmas fairs (see the pics).  We've been to a few malls; they may not rival the "Mall of America" but many of them put our malls to shame.  I already posted pics of the cars the kids drive in the malls (they don't go very far but they are cool).  Toy stores have people assigned to play with the kids; Lego tables are particularly popular.  One mall had a small roller coaster, ice rink, bumper cars and boats and much more.

We are trying to concentrate on making this a good Christmas for the young missionaries.  Sora Nelson (Krisy) made a full blown Christmas dinner (she and I enjoyed it Christmas Eve) for missionaries who will come to our apartment Christmas day to Skype their parents.  She feels that the dinner is for her pretend children (missionaries) provided in her pretend home (apartment) and kitchen during this "pretend" Christmas (it was over 60 degrees F yesterday); the cooking keeps her from thinking about the real Christmas she'd like to have with her real children in her real home (Manson).  I'm working on breakfast sausage but that will have to wait a bit this year (Romanians are big on sausage; I just haven't had the guts to buy any, yet).

In addition to our normal routine and preparations for the dinner we enjoyed listening to the Christmas service in the Orthodox Church just outside our window.  It sounded like they had a boys' choir.  We also prepared our Sunday School lesson, studied Romanian and then spent quite a bit of time laying out possible scenarios for our daughters' "sister trip" to Europe this coming summer.

We've had a "teaching" dry spell recently; we've been down to one night a week for the past few weeks.  I think some of it is because of the Christmas holidays. The country basically shuts down from between 9 and 19 days depending on the employer.  We have been working hard to prepare for our office move that will occur in a few weeks.  We are moving to a much nicer building that will represent the Church well; our current offices are in a business area with some block apartment buildings (hard to tract); the new offices are in a neighborhood with some very nice houses.  The Church is, of course, footing most of the bill for the move.  Our Mission President will probably foot the rest of it himself.

Our Mission President is incredible; I've not seen many people who can keep up the schedule he maintains.  He is trying to have zone conferences (we have 5 zones in our mission) once a month. One zone is in Bucharest so that isn't too draining but the other 4 are either 4-hour drives or plane flights away.  The Bucharest zone conference involves us; we go, listen, provide support, make lunch happen and usually share our testimony.  The young missionaries are great.

We went to the annual "Doctor's Christmas Concert.  A doctor many years ago noted he had several compatriots in the hospital that were very good with musical instruments so he started this annual free musical concert.  The musicians aren't all doctors; they are professionals.  It was in the coolest theater (see below).  The music was fabulous (very professional, at least to these amateurish ears). They played a lot of classical music and Krisy and I were amazed at how many of them we recognized until we remembered why we recognized them.  Some of them were in the ballroom scene of "The Great Race" and we had heard many of the rest in cartoons.  So much for our culture.  One of our missionaries sang a solo.  Needless to say it was a highlight of the season next to having 15 or so missionaries spend some of the day with us.







Here are some more pics:

carolling missionaries

a beautiful missionary in front of an orthodox church near piati universitate

The Christmas pig at the market; no I'm not talking about me

The Hobbit Dragon coming through to a mall in Bucuresti

The sock maker at a fair

You name it and they'll pickle it

A small part of the fun at one mall.

2 months

We have just passed the two month mark; I still feel like a boot camp.  A new couple just came into the Mission; they are going to Moldova so we won't see them very much and this is their second mission.  They seem very nice; Moldova will be blessed.

The last 2-weeks have been crazy; I thought I knew crazy but I didn't.  The experienced couple in the office had to return to the states for a medical procedure (they just got back Friday; yea!) so it was me trying to fill his and my shoes (let's just say my shoes were mostly ignored).  He is the Finance Clerk. We had a 3-Zone conference during this period; that means we had more than 60 missionaries here.   Most of them wanted money.  I thought that I brought enough money to the zone conference; I was wrong.  I ended up borrowing money from two other senior couples and me.  I got all of the people paid that really needed money and spent the next week (last week) trying to catch up.  Next week I'll be showing the other Elder Nelson (the real finance guru) all of my successes, things I think might be right and things that we're going to need forgiveness for; I think it will take another two weeks to catch up before I can get back to my job (can you believe both office couples are "Nelson's"?).

Last Sunday I spoke in Sacrament meeting (in Romanian).  I had two different sets of missionaries and one native Romanian correct my discourse (it looked like my first edition of one of my master thesis papers except the corrections weren't in red.  This week I taught Priesthood class in Romenglish (a missionary translated my Romanian parts into English and English parts into Romanian); I don't think they'll ask me again for a while.

Krisy's experiences were just as crazy except she didn't get any warning.  Two weeks ago we had a baptism of someone we had fellowshipped (she's the one that corrected my discourse).  Well, Krisy was just sitting in the back listening to the speakers when the conducting member of the Presidency mentioned that she would be the next speaker; it really didn't even register with her until another senior couple sister elbowed her and told her to get up.  She walked up to the podium, looked in amazement at the mission president who was smiling a big old grin and bore her testimony in Romanian.  She thought it was over.  The next week she was asked to speak in sacrament the following week and then at the beginning of the meeting the branch clerk came up to her and told her she'd be speaking now instead.  She grabbed the new convert we fellowshipped and brought her up to the front to translate what she couldn't say in Romanian; the new convert was more nervous than Krisy.  Krisy's remark to her after the meeting was "Welcome to the Church".  At least then Krisy knew that it was over (or so she thought).  The following Sunday the District President (Mission equivalent to a Stake President) grabbed her as she was going to Sunday School and told her he wanted her to teach the youth in Sunday School.  Krisy asked him when he'd like her to start; "Today" was his answer so off she went with no lesson book or clue.  It looks like we will be teaching the class together; the Branch President told us he'd tell us which book he'd like us to use.  "Welcome to the Church in the mission field"; Krisy will most likely be tasked to teach the RS for a Sunday too, in a few weeks.

We are continually impressed with the people (except when they are behind the wheel) and country of Romania.  They are a wonderful, hard working and family oriented people.  I just wish we could get more to listen to the missionaries; sometimes I think they are just too busy.

A reminder from Xander of why we are here

Hand painted eggs from a street market

How the little kids get around in one fancy mall

3-Zone conference; guess who did the table decorations

Sister missionaries correcting elder knelson's Romanian sacrament talk

Presents to Sister knelson as she was visiting some very poor members

a few of our Sunday School class