A sobering day

April 6 2017  187 years ago the Church of Jesus Christ was re organized on the earth. That is in itslef very sobering. However, today we found out my father has had a severe CVA and is not expected to last the day. We found out last evening. Since then we have been scrambling, trying to organize things here as we have a country wide activity. At first we thought it would work for me to go home to a funeral and arrangements, and Deb to stay here and keep things organized. However, after booking a ticket with prior consultation, we found the missionary department does not allow senior missionaries to travel alone, so we scrambled , and I mean scrambled, to find a ticket for Deb. Pricey, and it is a truly frightening thing for her to fly. But we are off tomorrow, as as of now, Dad is still hanging on. Who know how long, as the CVA is not considered survivable.What a shock. One goes merrily along serving, and a surprise. So we will be home for 6 days, hoping all can be arranged and done before our return. We were very busy, moving missionaries, finding people who were lost- some experiences are too sacred to put on a blog, and having prayers answered in things like getting easels made for an outdoor display here during the pre Easter week. Long story short, we found, after some looking, a small place which sold PVC pipe, and were able to not only order in Romanian, but have them construct the easels within 2 days. 20 large outdoor easels. Remarkable people and a remarkable thing. As the employees in the store all saw pictures of the Savior, they all stopped what they were doing, came over and watched as we negotiated sizes. It was one of our most amazing experiences here, for the help of people and how it all worked out. And to watch peoples reaction to pictures of Christ. At the end, we were all amazed. I actually made a couple of loaves of banana bread and took it  back to them for thanks. We also had some tours in the past week, Cricova which is a wine maker here, and also the Parliament of Moldova, which was very informative. There will be a few pictures, maybe over 2 posts. Hard to joke today, it will be hard to lose two parents while on a mission.

The next few pictures are all from Cricova, a wine cellar about 70 meters underground, cut into limestone. Temperature is ideal for wine. 

Bottling a sparking wine

Way too much wine, from an LDS perspective

Some beautiful pictures in the dinner rooms 

An old couple we found wandering around

A map of the tunnels, over 100 km of tunnels, Much of the limestone is used in buildings here in Moldova

A hula hoop game,  had to be careful with missionaries involved

Sometimes a mission is like this , a lot of twisting and adjusting to get things done. And it really is not easy.
More pics on another blog