Happy Thanksgiving

 We were given an assignment by the mission president to drive to Bacău /bahk-o/ to have Thanksgiving with a dozen missionaries serving in the area. Shortly before the upcoming Thursday, we were asked to deliver some supplies to Iaşi /yahsh/ so we borrowed the mission van and drove the 6 hours up near Moldova. We stayed in a nice hotel, but didn't see the city because we arrived at night and left before sunrise the next morning.

I was glad that the hotel had a long table for assembling 12 treat boxes for the missionaries. This year I was able to make peanut brittle, gingerbread cookies, caramels, Mexican wedding cookies, English toffee, and peanut butter fudge. 

It's one of my favorite parts of the holidays. And although there are some treats I can't make due to lack of ingredients (butterscotch chips), I am learning how to do new things like pandolce genovese.

We picked up 2 companionships from Iaşi and drove to Bacău, which was about 2 hours. They had a district meeting at 10am at the rented space and then we walked to the restaurant I had booked for the lunch.

The Lake House is situated in a park, surrounded by a moat, and decorated for Christmas. They were ready for the 14 of us and were very attentive. Most ordered delicious pizza and hamburgers.

They were excited to receive treats afterwards. Many had long bus rides home, so I'm sure they were happily snacking.

Thrifting in Bucharest

 We are having great success thrifting in the city. There are many sweaters to be found. I just had to find a Woolite product and a washing bag for the machine.

The light colored wool sweater is from Uniqlo and the bottom right is Benetton. The rest are unknown, but the whole batch was about $12. Paul found a big wool overcoat for Vienna that was only $5. I spruced it up with some steam and it looks amazing. I also have been using my fuzz shaver to clean up the sweaters.

We enjoyed sitting behind Jay at church on Sunday. He is now at the age to interact from four feet away.

Mission Conference

We were excited to have Elder Jack Gerard and his wife visit us in Bucharest for a mission conference. They were just coming into town from Azerbaijan. You may remember him from something he said in April General Conference: 

    A number of years ago, Elder Uchtdorf was assigned to reorganize our stake. During our interview, he asked me a question I have not forgotten: “Has there been anything in your life that, if brought to the attention of the public, would be an embarrassment to you or the Church?”

Wow, that is something that stuck with me. He was generous with his praise for the missionaries, but especially with the senior missionaries. He had us stand up and be recognized from the back of the room.

We enjoyed an uplifting conference, but Paul had to run back to the apartment to meet with a repairman. It was wonderful to chat with Sister Gerard and hear about her 8 children, 2 of whom were twins adopted from Guatemala and are currently serving missions. 

It's always fun to gather with the young missionaries and for them to see former companions.

Trafficking Shelter

We had the privilege of visiting a women's shelter dedicated to helping trafficked women in Bucharest. It is the only one who takes in women for long term housing and training in the country. The director is a loving, tough-as-nails woman of experience. She has a team of attorneys who shepherd the legal cases through to sentencing for the traffickers. The stories are as horrific as you can imagine. The result is a woman who may not be able to look in your eye. A result of "transactional love" is that she can't imagine someone (or God) loving her just because she is a child of God. 

The team at the shelter really act as parents: teaching them how to cook, clean, and parents their own children. They must learn how to treat their belongings since they haven't had much. They need to treat the other women with kindness and respect. Some leave and don't return, claiming there are too many rules. Some stay for two years.

We were thanked profusely for help that the Church gave, but certainly nothing we had done personally. On the way out, Paul told the director something we learned from Dallas Jenkins who created "The Chosen." You don't need to feed the 5,000. You just need to provide the loaves and the fishes.

Wheelchair Needs

 Our first day with snow began with an hour drive to Motivation Romania to see their organization. The Church donates hundreds of wheelchairs through this NGO every year. We were impressed with their attention to detail in fitting, supporting, and training individuals in their new wheelchair. They even conduct summer camps with groups of youth and adults to help them become more self-reliant.

One of the toughest needs to fill is a supportive wheelchair for Cerebral Palsy patients. The cost for these wheelchairs make it prohibitively expensive for families because it is just one cost of many for parents. 

God bless these wonderful people. They are helping those who can be transformed into self-reliant individuals as well as those who will be cared for everyday.

Trip to Bacău

After a day of recovery, we went with the office missionaries to get Paul's residence visa. Unfortunately, I woke up with a migraine. I know because I can't comprehend anything I read. The pain doesn't really happen until the next day. We were asked to take a group of district members to a conference in Bacău which was a 4-hour drive away. In order to get there at the right time, we drove to the Mihai Bravu building at 10am. Paul drove the whole time and we chatted about all sorts of things. We stayed at the Fiald Hotel which has a gym and pool. 

Unfortunately we didn't know that so we didn't bring any accoutrements. We stopped by a kebab restaurant in a local mall and then went thrifting. Humana has thrift stores everywhere and this one was particularly good. I found 6 sweaters and Paul found a big overcoat. Price: $21. Score!

The black one in the middle has cream block sleeve ends. I love wool sweaters. Later we stopped by the Selgros because it was next to the hotel. We walked around looking for corn syrup and laundry softener. The next morning we left for church.

We have some rented property next to some retail shops. It was a little bigger than the location in Shushufindi. Speaking of that, we saw pictures on facebook of their new rental space there in the Amazon. I'm so excited for them!

Sisters Pack and Baril sang the most beautiful song during Branch Conference. The room was very full and had members from Galati and Iași (pronounced yash--rhymes with Bosch). I looked down at my watch and saw the following heart rate data:

I am feeling good now! 

We enjoyed watching the children in primary and met a visitor from the US. He is on a book tour to sell his book about Romania's Holy War during WWII. Grant served a mission here a few years ago before joining the military. This is more of a textbook.

President Fowler is the master of selfies. We can rely on him to capture these moments.

Well, the ride home took 6 hours in the rain. We dropped off our passengers and arrived home after 8pm. We touched up a PowerPoint presentation for Monday morning and hit the sack.

Trip to Frankfurt

 We were excited for an opportunity to visit Frankfurt and receive humanitarian training. It was so fun to meet all the people who have been helping us to past few months.

The Bates from Olympia are serving in Croatia and Turkey, the Canfields are serving in Rome, and we are in Romania. Since Sister Bates was an ordinance worker, we have friends in common. And I recognized Sister Canfield from the numerous books she wrote in my youth about self-esteem and the LDS woman. They are also on their fifth mission.

We loved visiting the Frankfurt Temple with our group. While we were there we met a group travelling from Croatia and Slovenia. The distance they had to travel was more than 15 hours long.

They have a little visitor's center across the plaza that was hopping.

After the session we walked to a nearby restaurant called Cafe Klatsch which had Belgian food. The potatoes were so delicious that we were too stuffed for dessert. We almost forgot it was election day. Living in the future means we would have to go to sleep without knowing the results. Almost like 2020.

Our hotel room was fantastic with tall ceilings and a large bathroom. The view out the window was charming in the morning.

I woke up at 3:30am and thought I'd check the election results. I knew the day wouldn't end until after midnight when our flight landed in Bucharest, but it was quite exciting.

We walked next door to a Chinese restaurant and enjoyed lunch with everyone in the department. Paul is so picky about his Chinese food now.

Since we had many hours before our flight, we went with the Canfields to the My Zeil mall. A kind employee in a cinema stored our luggage while we walked inside the mall and outside in nearby shops.

We found this pair having a showdown right next to this cute Amazon delivery vehicle.

At 6pm we called an Uber and went to the airport together. It was funny to talk to all 5 of our Uber drivers over the past 3 days. Each was very interested in talking about President-elect Trump. They were from Pakistan, Syria, Casablanca, and Germany. 

First Trip to Constanta

 We drove to Constanta on Wednesday, the 30th to check on a project the Church helped with in 2023. It took 3 hours and a toll pass to cross the Danube. The weather was delightful. We stayed in a hotel on the Black Sea.

I was channel-surfing and found a documentary on architecture in English. I think it was LaVar Burton narrating. Then I heard the name Brigham Young.

The Salt Lake Tabernacle is renowned for its acoustics. It's so-called “perfect” sound is revealed when a pin dropped at the pulpit can be heard at the back of the hall, in a balcony nearly 200 feet away.

The next day we drove 90 minutes outside the city to a small family where we had donated a greenhouse. The families that the NGO helps all have a member with AIDS.

Between 1986 and 1991, at least 10,000 children contracted HIV in Romania. The rapid spread of HIV among Romania’s children can be directly traced to the policies of Nicolae Ceauşescu, the country’s then dictator. As hospital and orphanage staff struggled to keep these children alive, they relied heavily on antibiotic injections and “microtransfusions,” under the mistaken belief that small transfusions of blood would boost infants’ nutritional and immunological status. 

But Romania did not begin screening blood and blood products for HIV until 1990, and hospital and orphanage staff often failed to properly sterilize needles to prevent transmission of HIV. According to records from this period, it was not unusual for children in some hospitals and orphanages to receive 120 injections during a four-week period.

Now these children are adults with children of their own. The NGO supports the families with donations from many organizations. The Church is only one of many groups that are helping. When I look at this pup on the property it reminds me of the little family living here. Five little children and not much to go around.

We spent the day traveling many miles to different families that have been helped. It wasn't until we were home that evening that I started crying.