Feb 7 2016. There is a lot to report from this week. We have been without internet so are reporting from our Church in Chisinau. So first , the pictures. The top 2 are of our new apartment building, which is in Ciocana, in the NE part of the city. The 3rd pic is of our neighborhood, looking down the road on a Sunday morning; little traffic. Pic 4 is of the Moldovan flag, Pic 5 is of a dog, of which there are hundreds and probably thousands on the streets. They help keep down the cats which are even more numerous. For those who know Deb and her great love for all animals, especially dogs and cats, it is a lot of fun. The saving grace is that they are all afraid of humans and do not approach us usually. At times we have seen packs of them running and barking. So far, no bites and we have not adopted one yet. Well, last post we were looking for an apartment and said we would look for one in the center of the city. Well, we spent 2 days looking in the center and saw some rather interesting places. The most interesting part is the exterior and the stairs, which are seldom maintained. The interiors can be beautiful with some of the wildest colors ever; like can we say sleeping with sunglasses? We came close, but Deb was not quite happy with any. On Wednesday we used an agent from a site called living.md named Eric, an American who was in a word, fabulous. His assistant[who in any other country would be a fashion model] showed us around, and we picked one in Ciocana. They showed us how to get into the center without dying and were unbelievably helpful. We also got to take part in Moldovan bureaucracy ; rental agreement notarized after much arguing and yelling, as we needed a formalized agreement to get our visas. It finally all happened on Friday night after 7 pm and we got in to our place. We had no dishes, no oven yet and no rugs. but the place is gorgeous and looks high class USA stuff. We will take pictures when we get Wifi in. So Saturday we were buying things like towels, Deb said I needed a shower or something like that, and other things like a drying rack. There are no clothes dryers here. We are on the 8th floor and have a terrace. 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom and fabulous tiling thru out. We are both happy and have managed to make the other couples here covet- shame on them. There are a number of things to buy, and that will occur next week. But we are settled in and can now get to work. Church wise, we went to a Russian Institute class- a nice young man named Ben Giles translated for us. Thursday we taught our first Institute class. It needed to be in English as part of a program they are enrolled in. One young lady, Alina, travelled 2.5 hours to get there. It was truly wonderful and we fell in love with all the people there. They are special individuals. Saturday we began to be brave and use the buses. It costs 2 lei, or 10cents to use. We did not get lost and managed to find the office in the center of the city. There we managed to finally meet our mission president, Pres. Clark Ivory, who is an amazing individual. We talked with him for almost 90 minutes and he gave us each some challenges to fulfil. He was so uplifting that we felt good just being around him. I even got to give some medical advice. Right now we are sitting in the Church or vila, waiting for a service. We have some missionary meetings with President Ivory later in the day and are looking forward to them. We are adapting to the city; we are happy to be here and are ready to get at it. Now we have a home base, and maybe even a car this week. We will see. By the way, we are so happy Dad made it thru surgery and are so thankful for all the family at home supporting him. Hey Brendan, we are super proud of you, just get that visa.