People we love and going home-1

July 13 2017- I write this blog about 24 hours after arriving home in Canada. We left Moldova with heavy hearts early on July 12, leaving many people that we love. We had a lunch after church on July 9, having both branches meet with us and Sister Godfrey made a lunch for everyone, I made a few cookies. It was truly enjoyable to us to meet with and love everyone. Frankly, we were surprised how much some people will miss us. We knew we had made attachments, but they ended up much stronger than we ever thought. We found especially it was hard to say goodbye to the young people, and we had a lot of hugging going on.  We had a few dinners the last few days as well, meeting those we truly love. We had a dinner with the Bezedes, who we love dearly and Inesa taught me much of the Romanian I did learn. We met with the Stepanencos, who we dearly love and are good friends with. We had an Institute get together, and Nina made a short video of many people saying goodbye to us. It was heart wrenching, and we had a lot of tears. What did we learn? We learned that when you serve, you develop a lasting love for those whom you serve. It takes effort and time, but the rewards are so great for all involved . We love these people, and so these last two posts will be of some more of those we love immensely. Some of the expressions of love surprised us, but we rejoiced in it all. So there are a lot of pictures of people, for the memories for us to have. I will say a little more on my last post. But this is about people, which should be the case for all of us. For we learned in Moldova that God loves all of His children, everywhere. He does expect us to do something about this as well, to let them know of His love. As we do this, we get a small taste of that eternal love.  We did have a final interview with President and Sister Hettinger, our new mission president. That seemed to be the theme for us, that and work. Those things we can do. So thanks for the memories, Moldova.

Deb and Mariana in their primary class

Eric , a very nice young man we got to know well, he is now 15.

Evgenie Canskii, a fine young man, who is fluent in 4 languages and just began a journalism job

Elder Olmstead and Morgan. We knew Elder Morgan most of our mission, we just love him and his off the wall sense of humor.

Who else, Mariana and Nina, our daughters.

Add Mihai in the mix

2 views of our farewell lunch. This lunch , like so many, was mostly observed by us. I had many getting a final medical opinion from me that afternoon.

The Ceban family

From left, Vitalie ARgint and Chiril Busila

Kira, a wonderful young girl who we got to know well in our last month

Stricklan family plus Elder Forsyth

Elders Rybyskyy and Vashchenko, both from the Ukraine

Victor Piuligen

Tatiana

From L, Elders Savage, Huntsman and Winder
Oh, there are so many we love in Moldova!