March 2015 Blog

Another transfer (10 new missionaries plus almost ½ of the mission moving around; next month will bring 15 new missionaries) has come and gone and the panic associated with the office move in conjunction with all of the other activities [branch president conference, apartment inspections, missionary leader training, youth conference planning (Europe-wide in Germany), young single adult conference planning (Europe-wide in Romania), zone training, 2 major Relief Society activities (Krisy’s, of course; see below for more details and pics), etc.] is over.  One would think it is time to step back and take a breath but that is not the way our Mission President works.  He is one of the most intelligent, motivated/driven, energetic men I know so we just nervously try to plan for and wait for the next series of events to be promulgated.  It’s all good.

Our walk to “work”, the office.  Not pictured: parks, river, lake, piata (piazza) and traffic (we miss most of it but do have to walk near it for a block)

Relief Society: Sister Nelson volunteered to plan and execute a branch RS function last month.  She spent many nights making little cloth hearts with little help.  Over 30 sisters came.  A great time was had by all and, hopefully, many strong relationships were created.  Another RS event involved making many potholders and a few quilts so the sisters could learn to quilt.  Another senior couple sister taught the sisters how to paint flowers on personalized cards.

A visiting teaching get to know you knitting hearts (see below) together conference.

Ploiesti, Alexandria and Craiova: Sister Nelson and I took separate 1-day trips out of Bucuresti to the cities of Craiova and Ploiesti and town of Alexandria.  These are agricultural communities as far as I can tell; agricultural land is all around Bucharest for at least a 2-hour drive in any direction (there is some industry left from the Soviet days but many of the factories are now empty).  Romania still has some oil left under these fields although much of it was taken by the Germans and Russians.  We inspected the missionaries’ apartments and then took them out to lunch.  Working with the younger missionaries, particularly teaching the gospel, is our favorite part of the mission.

Alexandria Missionaries (I think Krisy just wanted a picture of the shop)

An Alexandria home (not in a bloc-house)

A typical house in Craiova (JK); it is beautiful (the missionaries took the pic).

EQ class (Benson): I taught the Elders’ Quorum class again last week; this time I did it in English because when I tried to do it in Romanian last time I don’t think anyone (Romanian or English speaking) understood me.  A good Romanian speaking young missionary translated for me.  I taught lesson 5 out of the Priesthood/Relief Society manual about the Prophet Ezra Taft Benson.  I was surprised by how much President Benson quoted and referred to the scriptures (I probably shouldn’t have been surprised because I knew about his love for the scriptures) but I decided to highlight the quotes of the scriptures in red and his discussions about the scriptures in blue.  Most of the lesson was from one General Conference talk and most of the article was highlighted.  It emphasized to me the great import of using the scriptures when we talk or teach.  See the picture below.  I hope I can use this as a lesson for me when I prepare any lesson or talk.

Sunday School class: Our class has grown; 3 Samoan/Tongan rugby players who live here for almost 6 months of the year playing rugby for Romania now come to class.  We were talking about a story of some rough school classrooms and I mentioned that the rugby players play a rough sport and probably get beaten up a bit during a scrum; one said “no, we do most of the beating”. They added a lot to our class.

We asked a member family (recent converts) to come to our house for dinner; they said “no; you come to ours”.  Well, we went last week.  They exemplified to us what we have experienced every time we've gotten to know a Romanian family; they are some of the most generous, courteous and genuine people I have ever met.  We ate and talked for almost 4 hours [the picture below only includes the appetizers (various cheeses, meats, vegetables, nuts, breads and fruit drinks)].  When our glasses were about 2-3 cm from empty they’d get up from the other side of the table, come over to us, take the fruit juice bottle (that was in easy reach of us) and fill us up.  They did the same thing for the main course, traditional Romanian food-national dish [sarmale (cabbage rolls stuffed with ground meat; cabbage leaves pickled for 3 months) and mamaliga/polenta (corn meal mush)].  They just kept the food coming; we were amazed.  We ended the night with a cheese cake.  You could tell they really loved one particular missionary who was instrumental in their lessons/conversion because they must have piled over 20 sarmale on his plate (fortunately he is about 6’6’’ tall and could handle it).  We are still trying to figure out how he ate everything and did most of the translating while we ate.

Spring starts in the beginning of March for the Romanians.  Traditions dictates that everyone picks a day in the first 9 days of March; the weather that day dictates how the year will unfold for the person.  I picked a day with a snow storm and Sister Nelson picked a nice day so we’ll have to see.  They buy and hand out these trinkets and give out flowers to celebrate.

I’ll try again with another blog next month; until then…