Josh, The Artist

Because of Joshua’s school schedule, he and I won’t always be able to attend all the zone conferences. However, we arranged our schedule this time so we will make 4 out of 6. He and I travelled on the train Friday night after school to Brasov where we were met by President Lundberg and the assistants. We were able to attend a wonderful zone conference the following day.

Joshua keeps busy during zone conferences at a table in the corner either watching a DVD with headphones, putting a puzzle together, or playing gameboy. During the afternoon session, Joshua went to the back of the dry erase board that the mission and zone leaders were using for presentations. He did his own sketching on the back. When he finished and turned it around, this is what we saw. Thanks, Josh.

Dinner with Sora Gorzo

Sora Gorzo is a wonderful member of the church and attends one of the Bucharest branches. She loves the missionaries and they love her. She has them over to her home for meals quite often. Few missionaries ever leave the mission field without going to say good-bye to Sora Gorzo.
Sora Gorzo invited President Lundberg, Joshua, the assistants and me to dinner the night before her birthday. The food was traditional Romanian and wonderful. There were so many courses and we were so full by the time we left. Everything was delicious. What a great lady.

Sora Gorzo and Joshua

Sora Gorzo shows us pictures of her baptism day three years ago

Joshua enjoyed the fun night at Sora Gorzo’s as well as extra time with his Dad.

September Interviews-

The missionaries come for their 6-week interview to the Mission Home. I always try to have cookies and a drink there for them. However, I am struggling to make decent cookies. They always seem to spread out flat all over the pan. I have asked questions, bought the best quality butter, and added extra flour. When I tried making cookies AGAIN, they went flat AGAIN. However, the missionaries said they didn’t mind at all and seemed to LOVE the cookies. They scraped that dough right off the pan and ate every last bite. I guess they like homemade cookies! (PS-I did keep experimenting and if I turn my fan over to about double the temperature, and add a lot more flour to the recipe, the cookies are starting to stay rounded like a cookie. Elder Bringhurst had suggested that I just add yeast!)

Elder Bringhurst, Elder Smith, Elder McKinley, and Elder Rigby enjoy flat, homemade cookies

First Day of School

Joshua had his first day of school. He is attending a private school called, “The International School of Bucharest.” His teacher, Ms. Pickett, is from England. Most teachers are from England or Scotland, and the school has a British curriculum. Joshua wears a uniform every day and rides the bus for over an hour each direction. What an adventure!

Young Single Adult Conference

The Young Single Adults had a fun conference, staying at a sports center near Piteşti. Several of the Senior Misisonary Couples helped plan, run, and chaperone the conference. President and I were to be the opening devotional speakers on Friday night. However, we didn’t arrive until 9pm, an hour later than our scheduled time to speak. Fortunately, the bus from Moldova also met with traffic difficulties as well as finding the facility, and they arrived 5 minutes before us. So, everybody ate a late dinner and the devotional was postponed until morning.

The activities included workshops, waterballoons, games, dance, Mr. and Miss Contest, etc. Everybody seemed to have a great time.

President Iachimov’s (branch president in Bucharest) daughter, Olivia, kept trying to get Joshua to pay attention to her. She told her mother that she loved Joshua. Her mother told her she didn’t know what it was to be in love and she said, “Yes, it like you and Daddy in your wedding picture.” Olivia is not quite 4!

End of Summer Activity

Joshua read the book “Indian in the Cupboard.” It gave us the idea to make an Indian scene. We used our limited supplies of cardboard, paper, markers, and a few popcicle sticks we found in a drawer and had a creative afternoon. It was fun.

September 3, 2008

More Elders go home! Four elders left us again. It is hard to see them go, but we are grateful for the work they have done in Romania and Moldova. Elder Magleby, Elder Toomey, Elder Armstrong, and Elder Kozlenko will be greatly missed. Elder Kozlenko left from Moldova to return to his home in Russia.

Elder Magleby, President, Sora Lundberg, Elder Toomey, Elder Armstrong. We will miss these great missionaries.

New missionaries arrive from MTC!

They are tired after a long flight, but excited to be here. We’re thrilled to have them.

Elder Benson, President, Sora Lundberg, Sora Benson, Sora Gibbons, and Joshua in front!

Sister missionaries drop off new arriving sisters at Chismigiu Park for Orientation Events. They pose for picture before they leave.

Sora Tayler, Sora Dillon (new office senior missionary), Sora Lovell, Sora Peterson, Sora McKnight.

Mission Council with Zone Leaders and 2 Soras. Great councils help make great missionaries!

Joshua enjoys his new Wii Game System. There aren’t always a lot of people around to play with, so thank goodness for a video games that can participate in tennis, baseball, and bowling!

Sights of Romania!

We have loved seeing many different things here in Romania that we never see in Utah. They make Romania very special and unique to us.

The wagons from the country can often be seen on the country roads. They have recently been banned from coming into the bigger cities. However, we still see them carrying hay, produce, and people.

On our first zone conference trip, we had to travel many hours in the car on long drives. We noticed at the top of poles a very unique sight. There were big cranes sitting in nests the size of washtubs. Joshua started to count them and saw 37 such extraordinary sights.

Postcard perfect! I love to see the sunflowers when they are all in bloom. There are many rolling hills covered in such beautiful splendor. The people grow a lot of sunflowers to make oil from the sunflower seeds.

Old aircrafts by the side of the road!

"Stop Dorel, Toaleta. Our family will appreciate this one from our first trip to Romania. It was the only phrase we could communicate with our van driver! Where was this outhouse then?