Pre-visit

Sept 4 2016 We have been greatly blessed to find out that President Uchtdorf will stop in Romania and Moldova on his way home from the Freiberg temple dedication. On Tuesday this week, President Uchtdorf will come into Moldova with President Ivory and Elder Kearon , visit with missionaries and then with members in a meeting that evening. So we have great anticipation. Moldova is getting spoiled- last year they had a visit from Elder Ballard. The meeting will be in a hotel, the Church building is just too small for a crowd. So we anticipate a great week. Friday we prepped our YSA with a talk from Pres. Uchtdorf, English and Russian and then had a competition with paper airplanes, distance, accuracy and flight time. We had over 40 take part and it was amazing to see these adults,mostly, have fun like kids. The ice cream and fruit did not hurt either. We got yelled at severely in Russian this week, trying to retrieve treasure hidden in a sandpile near a house. It was on the street, but as we tried to find the remaining treasures, a lady came out and yelled at us for several minutes as we just left. Between the heat and the politics, it is just better to be careful. So many angry people. We picked up a new sister missionary on Thursday and just about had a severe car collision, 3 minutes after getting her from the train. A BMW ran a red light, it was close. Deb got to be companion to Sister Nicol for 2 days in between transfers, she stayed over at our place. Nice to have a third person to pray. Yesterday I was in a village, Dancu, near the border of Romania. We were asked by a member to come help at a graveside service for a suicide as none of the priests in the village would help.  So I took a member and 2 elders, met the member in Dancu  and went to the home. The body stays in the living room for 2 days, then goes to the grave yard. No funeral home prep here. We were greeted with a lot of suspicion and they kept asking if we were Orthodox. Ruslan kept explaining who we were, but it did not help. I finally let them see the prayer I had written, my cheat sheet, for the dedication of the grave. As soon as they read the name of Christ, Isus Hristos, they were fine. Very interesting. The only beverage was white or red wine, no help to us. We did do the trek to the cemetery, a place where goats would struggle, but we were of some help to a family in need. Gheorghe, the member, was very nice and very grateful. By the way, I thought I was beginning to understand spoken Romanian, but that village dialect was a killer, almost no understanding for me. Other interesting thing, if ground is hard, 6 feet not mandatory, this was barely 3.So no pics of that, understandably, but a few of our activity.

Elder Paterson just made a bad throw, this was the accuracy part.

Elder Sanchez trying, also very bad.

By the time we were done, there were planes everywhere.

This was for flight time, Corina just let her plane go

The ice cream, did I mention it comes in a plastic bag?

Sevghi in the middle, Elder Sanchez on the R. Sevghi leaves on a mission in 10 days , to the Ukraine
So we have a busy week, but it should be very special, to talk with an apostle of the Savior.