Orhei and Bălți

July 9  It is an early Sunday morning, very early, and I am trying to get a few pictures together of our friends and associates in Orhei and Bălti. We have been travelling to those cities almost weekly as part of our CES assignment and have grown to love the people there. The city of Bălți is very poor and to us , has seemed like a large village. The members and friends we have made there are some of the most sincere people we have ever met. They express emotion openly, they come to learn, they are warm and friendly. The missionaries call it the promised land, and love it. So do we, despite the preponderance of Russian. Diana from Orhei is a dear friend , and we visited with her every two weeks in her flower shop. That is also one of our treasured memories, teaching in a flower shop. Orhei is not a kind city to members or missionaries, and she deals with a lot of difficulties , but stays faithful. We will miss the members, the beautiful drives, and even the incredibly bad roads. Hard to doze off on real bad roads. So this is a more personal group of pictures to us, thats just the way it is.

Diana Gogu in front of her flower shop

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The sign that we have left Orhei

The sunflowers are out , and are beautiful

A church , Orthodoz church, that we passed each week. Very beautiful, but when you get close, the paintings are all peeling. 

Nice old wagon, with a wine barrel

Last group together in Bălți. We missed a few, like Olga and Ana

Nikita and Dima. who are amazing.

Sasha and Daria. Sasha is another one of our daughters.

Anatoli Cosmin, who we watched grow. He did love our cookies.

Another Anatoli and Valia. We were able to serve them in a few ways. She does give juicy kisses.

Nelly, who came out of inactivity.  We love her dearly. She came to Institute on her dinner break

the elders, from left, Kohler, Sargsyan, Volcov and Griffeth. We have watched Elder Griffeth grow into an amazing man, Elder Kohler was amazing the first time we met him in Bălți.

Roma, who became our translator there.

Alina and Doru, both non members

The Alemans, who are amazing people.

Leaving Bălți with tears
So we have closed the door on one of our stories here. Of all we did in this country, this felt like one of the best, travelling and teaching in Bălți and Orhei. It was amazing for us.