Feb 9 2016 So I will follow the usual format, explain the pictures and then tell what has happened. The first is a picture of a small flower shop on a street in Chisinau, one of many on that street. there must be hundreds of them all thru the city, all with beautiful flowers and all cheap. How they get so many is beyond us. We have yet to buy a vase, but once bought, I doubt it will be empty. Second, Deb allowed a pic of here on a nice cobblestone sidewalk in downtown Chisinau, just down from where we applied for a visa. Third, a open market with thousands of nesting dolls, all very reasonable; most expensive the equivalent of $20- that is a big doll with 10 inside. The sellers are very aggressive, but that makes it rather fun. No buys yet. Fourth, inside a "mall" called Gemeni in downtown Chisinau. All the stores are small closet like and there are hundreds of them. We were looking for sheets. Last is a typical store with a cheese selection. I think we could try one a day and still be trying new ones in a year. Mmm good. The food here is unbelievable good and cheap, Deb has lots of choices. Each larger store must have 30 kinds of bread or more. Fruit and vegetables are cheap and tons of choices. These also have many sellers on the streets. We are keeping walking to avoid any spreading of our assets. Well, we have an oven now, and today got our internet hooked up, so we now can contact family again. It was not fun to have no contact, amazing how we depend on that stuff. We applied for our visas today, the Church uses an office of Ernst and Young here. An amazing lawyer and again cheap, the process was about $30 total. I dont know haw they all survive. We as senior couples ate supper with our mission president last night as well as Walter Plumb, a Utah business man who is going to be contacting businessmen here for the Church as well as the University of  Utah. He is a famous lawyer type. We will get along fine, although he asked for something to disguise the taste of his salmon-blasphemy! There are a number of projects of humanitarian relief the Church is involved here; they are trying to get involved in funding cataract surgery. I may get to shmooze officials here because of my background and suave character- hard to believe eh? We have most of what we need for our apartment but it is a work in progress. We went to a Metro store- like a Canadian Costco. Deb was in heaven. We have had to use the Romanian a few times- photographer with no English, store owner of blanket place also. I am really flunking out of the Russian, where are you Dirk? Today when the internet was hooked up, there was one Russian speaker, one Romanian worker, the landlord who spoke Russian and Romanian and me struggling in English and the occasional Romanian word. All we needed was the UN building. We feel quite content and finally have everything we need to function-except a car. We ride buses with the unwashed masses- there is never a bus too full that 5 more cannot squeeze on. It is an experience. What is fun is to laugh out loud, makes everyone turn their head to see the crazy one-nebun! Tomorrow I go to the hospital with a young 13 year old member with a brain tumor to discuss treatment options with the doctor mom and branch president. We may also be teaching some medical type information classes , it is being considered. The busier, the better. Hey family, keep the letters coming, we love you all!