October – November 2015

Believe it or not we are actually starting to understand Rugby; we went to the match between the national teams of Romania and Tonga.  Both are rated in the top twenty of the world and both are going to the World Cup.  It was a great match; Tonga won by a little.

Here's our Tongan Rugby player and church member; we've had him and some of his teammates to dinner and they can eat.

Our Mission President schedules a senior missionary conference during General Conference.  Since we are 9 hours ahead of the conference we watch some sessions live and others recorded.  This year we went to the Danube Delta; it is a huge area of wilderness.  Besides the two major arteries of the Danube that feed into the Black Sea there are numerous smaller canals and swampy areas interspersed with occasional very small farming villages.  There are numerous areas of forest on the higher ground (a few meters above sea level) surrounded by 3 meter high reeds and grasses as far as one can see.  I estimate the size of the area to be about 100 km x 100 km.  We only saw a small part of it.  We did travel out to the Black Sea.  Near the entrance to the main channel, on each side of the channel, is a sunken ship; these two ships were sunk there by the Soviet Union to block the main channel to ships after the rebellion in Romania 25 + years ago.  Another ship was sunk well up the river and blocked the channel for a few years before it was completely dismantled.  We stayed two nights on a floating hotel.  The accommodations were tight but very pleasant and the food was great; Krisy even ate and liked the fish.  We all stayed up late to watch the first and second sessions of conference in order to learn and listen to the newly called apostles.

Our dining and conference area.  This is where we watched a few sessions of conference.  Watching it is great and it is even better when you can read/review the sessions after viewing the conference.  I noticed what to me were several themes.  The family was mentioned by several General Authorities.  Krisy's favorite talk, I think, was from Elder Holland; it was about mothers.  Her favorite quote was "you are doing better than you think you are".  I liked several; one of my favorites was from Elder Lawrence: "What lack I yet?"  That's a question I need to and have started asking.  Elder Oaks gave us some wonderful insight into the atonement.  I also learned a lot from Elder Anderson who told us that faith is a choice not a chance.

The passageway to our cabins.

Much of the Delta is covered with these reeds/grasses; we are well of the main channel.

One of the villages on the Delta.

The floating hotel.

Near the mouth of the river opening into the Black Sea (it's not black; at least on the surface)

Sunset on the Danube.

A ship purposely sunk at the mouth of the river by the Soviets to block the channel.

This is for Chris and Marci; we're on the way back to Bucharest from the Danube.

Krisy and I also went to Constanta on the Black Sea to inspect apartments.  On our way we stopped at a rest stop; this is how the Romanians do their rest stops:

The service personnel working in them take great pride in their work and try to outdo each other.

There was another baptism of a man we helped teach.  A few weeks after he was baptized he received a job offer in England; we hope he is doing well there and we hope to see him at Christmas when he comes home to visit his family (and maybe continue to teach his wife). 

A recent convert was married in a civil ceremony a few weeks ago (a civil ceremony is a requirement in Romania).  They were a little strapped for cash and had to pay for receptions for their family first and then their work “colleagues” (every person with whom they have some professional relationship is a “colleague”) so they went to two receptions for which they were financially responsible in the same day.  We gave them a reception in our apartment for the branch family. They will go to the temple in June (a year after her baptism; since the civil ceremony is a law they don’t have to wait any time period after that for a temple marriage) and have a formal reception for everyone then (Romanian wedding receptions traditionally last all night; I’m hoping, since theirs won’t have alcohol, that an all-night affair won’t happen in June).

The civil ceremony (required by law)

The newlyweds

Our Branch President and the wife of another Branch President showing everyone how Romanians dance.  The newly weds are visible in the background.

Some of the food Krisy prepared

The two office couple sisters have been cooking up storms recently; they’ve fed missionaries at least 5 times in the last few weeks.  The number of missionaries have varied from about 20 to over 60 so they’ve been shopping – cooking and shopping – cooking.  This hasn’t even included a baby shower which Krisy organized for a Romanian sister (Romanians had never heard of one) or the American Halloween celebration which Krisy organized; needless to say we are glad the October social month is over (I can only find so many places to hide and so much to clean before I actually have to be social and you all know how good I am at doing that).

Halloween cake walk.

Check this out; one of our missionaries, Carson McCallister, who helped teach a couple in our apartment, was just engaged to Whitney Carson of DWTS fame.  The Youtube video of the engagement is out there (it kinda reminds me of the way I proposed to Krisy – not).  Needless to say I’m hearing much more of “my” proposal to Krisy after this former Elder’s video surfaced.

You may have read of the night club disaster that occurred in Bucuresti a few weeks ago.  This event brought about the fall of the national government and some local government officials.  It appears the night club bribed some people to put in very flammable insulation and when the heavy metal band set off some fireworks the place went up rapidly.  At least 3 members of the church that I know of had tickets for the concert but didn’t attend; one would have certainly been killed as he is hampered with physical disabilities and uses crutches.  We’ve had several demonstrations; the prime minister of the country and his entire cabinet resigned [the prime minister was already under suspicion for corruption (he used to be the country’s president)].  The sector mayor of the area has been jailed under corruption charges for allowing the event to take place without a safety inspection by the fire department.  The people are trying to organize a million man march for their national holiday 1 Dec; hopefully they will because this event could open a door for the church and more freedom for the people as they still suffer from the remnants of communism.

Elder Ballard, one of our 12 apostles from Salt Lake City, visited our mission last week.  He first went to Moldova and then came to Bucuresti.  All of our missionaries were able to meet him.  Elder Ballard was accompanied by Elder Kearon (of the Seventy), the Europe Area President, and Sister Kearon.  They all spoke to the church congregation and visitors as a whole Wednesday evening and then to a meeting of just the missionaries Thursday morning.  I think our Mission President (and his dad) had a lot to do with arranging the visit.  Elder Kearon told us to stretch even further and Elder Ballard told us that we’d have to be even better teachers as the world is moving further away from what we know to be the standards of God and distractions vie for the attention of everyone.  Elder Ballard is a relatively short man with a giant spirit.

Krisy is shaking Elder Ballard's hand.

Thanksgiving is coming up followed by Christmas; we’ll cover these next time.

August - September 2015 Blog

A little over a week after the EQ/RS HT/VT event Krisy and I hosted in our branch (reported in the previous blog) the entire mission (- 2 couples) went on a retreat in the mountains of central Romania (Transylvania).  One couple was leaving in a few days and was trying to finish a lot of humanitarian work and couldn’t leave their post and the other couple has a son in our mission and couldn’t be at the same place as their son so they watched the mission office (the mother is Romanian and all of them speak Romanian).  It’s a tap dance for the president to keep them apart with assignments, etc.  There were about 120 of us total.  The object of the conference was to learn of and accept the President’s challenges for the next 2 transfer cycles (84 days - before Thanksgiving for us).  He asked us to read the Book of Mormon in 84 days and challenge our families and friends to read it by Christmas; consider yourselves challenged. So I’m still trying to read my page a day in Romanian [1/2 hour to 1 hour a day depending on who wrote it (Helaman = ½ hour, Captain Moroni = 1 hour so far) plus the 6 plus pages a day for the challenge plus two Sunday lessons, office and home work, evening discussions, etc.].    It is tiring for this old man but worth it.

This is what our marked Book of Mormon should look like before we give one away.

It was a tremendous 2-day event mostly sponsored by the donations of the Mission President and his wife.  Krisy and I were responsible for a bus load of 50 young missionaries.  Because they were missionaries they didn’t take a lot of supervision (although it did remind me of 20 years as a coach supervising teams on a sport’s bus) so we spent much of the time “friendshipping” a sponsor from the tour company; we hope to start teaching her and her husband in the near future as she was very impressed with the doctrine she heard during the retreat and the behavior of the missionaries.

OK; there are a few goofy looking missionaries here but they are really nice looking  and good missionaries.

We are climbing; the road didn't last very long; much of the "climb" was along a path with a lot of washouts from recent storms.  It rained that day but this old Seattle boy enjoyed the cool damp weather.

Par of the program (about 2/3 of the way up)

The waterfall; that's as far up as we had time to climb; earlier, one of the busses was very late so we had to compromise.

Yes; we are at a castle and we're going to eat there.

Shortly after arriving in Romania I read an article in the news; it stated that Romania is the best kept secret in Europe.  Hopefully, you can see why.  This is view from the castle.

The wall of the ballroom.

The restaurant with the performance of the Office Elders and Assistants; I just realized we didn't take a picture of the outside of the castle other than the entrance.  It was big and beautiful.

As you may have surmised from my previous blog posts Sister Nelson and I occasionally go out to restaurants; a recent date took us to a return visit to one of our favorite restaurants.  This one is situated on the top of a hill within the city near one of the major city parks.  We walked through the park and enjoyed the atmosphere of the locale and, most specifically, the people.  Romanians spend a lot of time outside during the summer; they enjoy the outdoors and I’m sure they are escaping the stifling heat of the concrete block houses (most without A/C).  They stay out until way past 10 PM.   Our restaurant has a veranda on the 4^th floor so it overlooks much of this area; the view was beautiful and it was particularly interesting because 1000’s of birds were coming to roost in the trees of the park for the evening.  A couple at a nearby table must have been celebrating a birthday or anniversary with a lot of friends; in the states something like this may invoke feelings of dread as the participants get drunk but we saw none of this.  They were just enjoying each other, their friends and the wonderful atmosphere of the restaurant.  The food (Lebanese) was great!

Two weeks ago Krisy and I went to the home of an acquaintance of hers to deliver a “Meet the Mormon’s” movie (in Romanian); we took the Metro a ways and walked a ways.  Unfortunately work was being done on a major road nearby so our walking route (which would normally be placid) was full of cars.  We delivered the movie and had a delightful meeting with the very nice, well-educated brand new mother (we also delivered Carey-made gifts to the newborn and her older sister) and promised to return the following Sunday to see how things went with the movie and deliver a BOM.  We didn’t want to walk back via the busy road so we decided to walk a different way; we ended up walking about 10 miles that day.  With each taxi we saw one of us would say “are you OK?” and the other would say “I’m OK if you’re OK” so we’d continue walking.  Needless to say neither of us was OK by the time we reached home; it was 2 aspirin and bed for me; that bed felt oh so good.  We took a car the next Sunday to collect the movie and deliver the BOM to this wonderful Romanian woman.

We are currently trying to juggle about 12 different “entities” (singles or couples) that we hope to teach.  Each “entity” is in a different stage of development (aren’t we all?) from an old-time member needing some strengthening and fellowship to new members to investigators.  These people are wonderful and are searching for the truth.  It is exciting, fulfilling and sometimes frustrating as these potential leaders in Romania make their choices and decisions.  One of these teaching opportunities involved introducing the concept of Family Home Evening with some new members.  We ate dinner, had the event (the sister missionaries did the short lesson) and we played a dumb game called Rump-di-Dump (sp?) involving cups that get passed along.  We had great fun and I think everyone learned simple things that kids do can be fun for adults, too.

"Rump-di-Dump (ask Krisy how to play it; I was one of the first to be eliminated).

We now have been on our mission a year; sometimes the days in the office drag but the evenings teaching and the experiences with the young missionaries and the Romanian people (non-member and member alike) make the time pass quickly.  I am now done (almost) with counting time that has passed and will not count the time remaining.  Yes, we will so love to see our children again and our grandchildren and hope to see them much more often in the future as a retired couple that can drive to Utah or Montana on a whim and fly to New York whenever; who knows we may even become pains to them (turnabout is fair play after all).

Krisy and I were assigned by our Branch President to conduct the 5^th Sunday of the month joint Relief Society - Priesthood meeting and talk about tithing; here is the what I wrote as an introduction:

Do we believe?

Do we believe we have a Father in Heaven who loves us and has a plan for each of us with His Son, Jesus Christ our Redeemer, as the center of that plan?

Do we believe that his Son Jesus Christ, under the direction of our Father in Heaven, created this world, was the God of the Old and New Testaments, lived a sinless life, atoned for our sins, was crucified, died and returned again as a resurrected/perfected being to continue directing the course of His church?

Do we believe that we are literal spiritual offspring of our Father in Heaven and He and His Son Jesus Christ, our Brother, want to bless us as we are obedient to the commandments but will not deny our agency?

Do we believe that Jesus Christ restored His church through the Prophet Joseph Smith who, through inspiration, translated the Book of Mormon and explained/brought forth much true doctrine lost over the last 2,000 years?

Do we believe that we are guided by a Prophet today who continues to instruct us in how to live the most abundant, happy life?

Do we believe the promises of the Lord contained in the scriptures and given us by the Prophets (old and new) that will come to us if we are obedient to the commandments?  Do we believe the commandments in the scriptures from our Father in Heaven through His Son and the Prophets are given to us as a way of life (not just 3 hours every Sunday) to best achieve the joy that is promised?

Do we believe enough that we have had a “change in heart” as recorded in Mosiah 5:2 and can “cry with one voice, saying: Yea we believe all the words … and we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually”.  Does this mighty change direct us to the service of our fellow beings or, as the scriptures attest, in “the service of our God”?

If we don’t truly believe all of this can we say that we have a desire to believe and will try the experiments as recorded in Alma 32 and many other scriptures and that we are crying for help for our unbelief as described in Mark 9:24?

What would we do if Jesus Christ was standing here today in this chapel as He appeared to the New Testament members after his resurrection or at the temple in Bountiful in the new world?  Would we worship Him as they did?  Would we bath his feet in our tears of joy to be with Him and tears of sorrow for our weaknesses?  Would we pray to Him without ceasing?  Do we love Him as Peter?  Can we say as Peter said “yea Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee”.  Do our actions prove that love?  If we love Him do we keep His commandments?  If we love Him do we feed His sheep as recorded in John?  Or, do we think we are the sheep who need to be fed or beings to be served?

Later that day Krisy was off to a birthday party for one of the most cheerful, humble members of the branch; see the pics

.

This is one of my favorite presentations from one of my favorite speakers; Elder Holland.  It is one of the most powerful testimonies of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and the Church I have ever had the privilege to hear; I hope it inspires you:   https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/10/safety-for-the-soul?lang=eng;

Yes; we are still going to Rugby matches;  here is how one team celebrates:

Here is the reason we go to the games (a note from a humble returned missionary rugby player from Tonga): 

I would like to take this moment to thank you for the good time we have together yesterday i enjoyed being at your house and the good meals i appreciated everything no word can explain how i feel and thanks you again for your care and love for me from the day we first met at church up to now you care for me like one of your real son i appreciated how happy my families when they see the pics yesterday and they said as a member of the church where ever we go if i keep the commandment of the Lord he will prepare someone to help me while im away from them i was feel im still at home while im met with you guys thanks for that and hope you like the gift i gave you it not much but i appreciate your love for me ..ofa atu (love)

Here is a picture of our current AP's and OE's; we love them:

and that's about it for now.

July August

July August blog

On a walk to a Japanese restaurant

Same walk as above 1 metro stop from our apartment

OK; another restaurant visit, this time a Japanese restaurant.  If you ever go to one don't eat the peanut; they are pretty old.  The next pic - the Japanese have the most luxurious toilets.  The toilets will not wash the dishes or do the ironing.

An American restaurant; may I recommend you try peanut butter on your burger?  In the proper proportion it is great.

A lot has happened in the intervening month and a half (assuming I get this online in a reasonable amount of time).  We recently had three weeks in a row with lessons scheduled in our home or some other commitment at least 5 of the 7 nights of the week (in addition to our regular "day jobs" in the office.  A few of the commitments dropped but we felt the weeks were very successful and fulfilling.  We had new member lessons with recent converts; they have had some visa problems and are currently out of the country; hopefully they’ll return soon.  We were invited over to our proprietor’s house for dinner; it was enjoyable and we left him with a Book of Mormon and had a subsequent gospel discussion of sorts.  It doesn’t seem like anything will come of it but we shall see.  We had the last few discussions with a prospective member followed by her baptism (she is on fire having also just come from a single adult conference).  We invited a friend of Krisy’s to dinner at a restaurant (they ended up paying); Krisy met her at the grocery store through a short conversation with her young daughter.  We hope to continue the relationship and introduce them to the gospel.  We had another of Krisy’s friends over to dinner; she works with Krisy making air travel arrangements for the missionaries and we hope the professional relationship blossoms into a friendship and an introduction to the gospel.  We are also working with a rugby player (member) and his girlfriend (non-member) from Australia but they currently are also out of the country with visa problems. We have also had a Filipino member with her non-member husband over for lessons.  Educated young families are the lifeblood of the church here; we need many more.

Our wonderful Mission President, Krisy and me at a bookstore in "old town" Bucuresti 

Some friends for life and beyond

It's his birthday

At the baptism of Simona

RS - PH working on Visiting Teaching and Home Teaching

Relief Society Presidency

Krisy and I also went to Chisinau for a few days to check out missionary apartments and meet with our financial representatives there (each country requires that a local “pay” agency reviews and supervises our financial situation).  Both countries are well behind Western Europe in their finances and everything involves soooo much bureaucracy.  The trip was pleasant; the best part, as always, was working with the missionaries. 

Fruit in Chisinau, Moldova

Orthodox Church in Chisinau

We’ve both been busy with our callings [teaching Sunday School (I teach Gospel Doctrine with spells by Krisy when she is not substituting in the youth class) and counselors in our respective RS/EQ orgs).  We recently had the RS/EQ presidencies over to the house to set up Home and Visiting Teaching. 

Krisy at the Mission Office

We just came back from a short trip with 4 of our daughters (a sister trip; unfortunately one could not make it) to some of our favorite places in Romania (Sinai, Brasov, Sighisoara and Sibiu; check these cities out on the internet) and Italy (Rome, Amalfi coast and Pozzuoli); we ended up in Venice visiting Krisy’s sister (she has a “condo” there right in the middle of the old city).  Of course being with our daughters and seeing Krisy’s sister were the highlights of the trip.  But closely behind were our experiences in the town of Pozzuoli near Naples, Italy.  It was there, almost 40 years ago, that we were “tracted” by the missionaries, studied with them for several months and later baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  They say “you can’t go back”; I can say it’s probably true in most cases but when we went back we found the town even more beautiful.  We went to our old apartment building; it was in great shape.  Krisy and the girls went to the door of the building (to get in one must have a key or be “rung” in by one of the residents) and saw some people coming out of the building.  She told them we used to live there and explained where our apartment was.  They got the biggest grins on their faces and told us they lived down below us then and still lived in the same apartment.  It was then that I recognized the same smiling eyes I remembered back 40 years before.  We asked if our old neighbor still lived there, knowing that she must be in her 80’s by now; she did!  We went up to see her; it was a great reunion for all of us and great experience for our daughters for they could see that we were “cool” at least for a few years of our lives.  It was great to hear that there was a chapel of the church nearby and a number of Italian people on the street recognized our badges (even though they were in Romanian) and greeted us.  The hospitality of the southern Italian people was also a great experience and reminder of our few years there.  Here are just a few examples of why we love Southern Italy.  One woman about our age stopped to ask us if we needed directions (we were trying to get out of the port to go to our old apartment); she said “follow me children” and took us about 10 minutes out of her way to our old neighborhood.  Later, a man heard us talking about a restaurant (our favorite one had closed down); he told us of one and then said “I’ll show you”.  He called the owner, took us there (15 minutes in the opposite direction he was traveling) and set us up with everything.

The sister trip (minus 1)

downtown old Pozzuoli

We were responsible for a branch activity yesterday (8 Aug) to promote the Home and Visiting Teaching program and assignments.  It went well; see the pics.

Our wonderful Branch President