Thanksgiving to New Years’ blog

Our Thanksgiving celebration included all of the missionaries in our immediate area plus some from some surrounding small towns.  The 5 senior couples from the area spent most of their time in the kitchen (or annexes thereof), behind the food table or cleaning and helping the younger missionaries enjoy something of a home away from home atmosphere.  Half of the “men-men-men-men” were outside cooking something like 9 turkeys in a deep-fat fryer (and I helped); the turkeys were good and moist and the air was very cool and moist.

And what did we do in between Thanksgiving and Christmas on our "preparation days"?  What else; how about some Lebanese food?

The other Nelson couple in the mission went home in early December.  Much of the time in the office for the past month has been spent in helping the new couple adjust to the office routine and living in Romania.  They are a great couple and will do very well in the office.  Elder and Sister Majeran are from Canada; he is of Romanian heritage on both sides of his family and her roots are not far from the Romanian border.  He hopes to learn about his roots.

I don't think I've ever seen a city that decorates itself as well as Bucharest.  Every main street is lighted with Christmas lights and this city is HUGE.  The lights come on by early December and stay on until well after Christmas and Epiphany (visit of the Magi).

Krisy decorated the Mission Office for our missionaries.

Christmas was wild.  Krisy spent much of the week prior to the day baking cookies and preparing meals for the big day.  We had initially planned on a lunch/dinner for the Panduri Branch missionaries (about 14) but a few days before Christmas President Ivory said they could watch one of a few selected movies; our group chose “Inside Out”.  They then planned the day.  “Let’s have breakfast and then the movie and let’s start at 10AM; we’ll bring the breakfast”.  Have you ever seen what mostly male people bring to a “we’ll bring the breakfast” breakfast unless there are assignments made?  That’s right; we had lots of juice and milk.  Fortunately Krisy anticipated this and had sausage and egg casserole and old country pancakes with all of the trimmings ready to fill in the many blanks.  

We then watched the movie.  Shortly after the movie, lunch/linner/dinner (pulled pork sandwiches) was ready along with leftovers from breakfast (I’m still eating the casserole) and lots of cookies. 

The missionaries then opened their gift exchange presents and Christmas stockings filled with goodies and handmade whistles (we thought they’d use the whistles to “serenade” President Ivory with some great music).  After a little practice some of them showed some promise.  

The missionaries left around 2PM to visit investigators and branch families so Krisy and I cleaned up and sat down for, at most, ½ hour when the doorbell started ringing.  The Mihai Bravu Branch missionaries (about 12) and others from out of town started to drop by and, of course, eat.  That went on continuously until about 9PM.  We opened our house for young missionaries to Skype their families from 6-9PM.  We thought the wonderful, but tiring day was over about 9PM but we received a last minute call (“Is it too late to come over?”).  The last missionaries left around 10PM, we cleaned up one last time and then went to bed.