Summer and song

June 4 so here we are in June, warm weather, fruit galore and cheap, and the time is flying. We had to buy some strawberries for our family activity and we paid 120 MDL for 5 kilos of fresh berries, about $6. It seemed criminal, but then we bought fresh green onions, a bunch of about 20 for 5 lei, or 25 cents. No wonder the farmers here are poor. Cherries are about 30 lei a kilo or $1.50 for fantastic cherries. Too bad Deb is not a fruit fiend but I will do my part. Yesterday we worked in a members garden for a couple of hours in a strawberry patch, it felt really good,though not so good today. There were some trees masquerading as weeds, which took two of us to pull. Again it keeps hitting us that time is getting short, and we have much to do. One of our goals is to make each Young single adult feel that they are loved; Deb went to a high school grad for one young lady this week, she was the only person or family there for her. By the way, loving them is not at all difficult. So we carry on, having 18 for dinner today- pasta salad, potato salad and taco salad, plus an odd banana pie with graham crumbs from Canada. Bout the only crumby thing we could find about home- graham wafer crumbs. What is crumby, is the lack of sleep, thinking about the future and what we need to do here. We had karaoke at FHE, began with an old Russian song and methinks -oh no, not again. But then it picked up. They all love a Moldovan group called O-zone. The song, Dragostea din tei.

Waiting at the store in Orhei, guess this counts as having the motor idling.

Lots of storks, 3 in a field and a few in a tree, which we had not seen before. 

Childrens day was June 1, the parks were filled with activities.

2 pictures of Tolic, a good friend of all of us. He is a great singer, having been in multiple competitions

did this one once before, Deb is a sucker for the tears

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Karaoke night at FHE, as you can see , some YSA and elders really got into it.  Here we have a Finn, Elder Welling, a Swede, Elder Krylborn and a Yank, Elder Housington

What they lacked in ability, they made up with enthusiasm.
Again, rather a brief blog. I had a busy medical week again, and that seems to be a trend.  Just cannot elaborate on that.

Poppies

May 28. It is truly spring in Moldova when the poppies are in bloom, in the fields and along the roads. They weem to be a weed, but a very beautiful one at that. There are other beautiful red things appearing in Moldova at this time of  year, like strawberries, cherries, greenhouse tomatoes- okay we are stretching it here, and what are truly beautiful, fresh peas. These all come much earlier than home. Any way, a drive out in the country is just beautiful to see, and poppies are Deb's favorite flower here. We had a nice dinner mix or casserole here today, fed 26 at dinner. A nice mix of new potatoes, broccoli, peas, chicken and bacon. Are pigs a spring meat? Nu știu, which is Romanian for I dont know, but sounds like new stew, which pigs are good for. Sorry. Today, there will be a lot of pictures and I will just comment on them. We are just tired. Any ideas for food for large hungry groups?

I warned you there would be poppies, Here are a few, it will be our last chance to take these. Winter wheat is in the background, a full crop

These purple flowers are lupine like, we do not know the name, but they also are everywhere right now

The country side is green , green green

City sign for the city of Bălți, a city of 100,000 that is really like a bunch of villages

I said there is a lot of poppies.

These ramps are along the highways, so you can drive up them to repair your car or truck along the road.

The next 4 pictures are from a balloon stomp, where you have 3 teams, each with a separate color of balloon. The goal is to pop the other teams balloons while protecting your own. It gets a little wild .

As a suggestion, it is hard to balloon stomp in a miniskirt. or high heels

Bubble gum blowing contest.

Zlata proved us wrong, we did not feel any Moldovan knew how to blow bubbles. She did great.

A young man, baptized on Saturday, with his sister Adriana, and Sisters Langenstein and Dusenberry

We just love these two, like our family.

A large group of all, Every one was excited for this young man.
So all is well here. We have had our last zone conference, our last mission president interview. Time is running out for us here. Scary stuff.

40 years

May 22 2017. So 40 years ago yesterday Sister Edwards and I were married in Cardston , Alberta, at the temple there. My how time flies. Now we are senior missionaries, have 15 grandkids and spend much of each day contemplating our illnesses. Just kidding on the last, who has time? We celebrated our day with 21 over for our Young Adult dinner, they surprised us with a house plant and a box of chocolates and tried to surprise us by hiding in the stair well. My, how we love all these people. One said he had been praying for two weeks for lasagna, and then we cooked it for him. It really hit me in the teeth yesterday while sitting at the front in Sacrament meeting, how much I loved these people and how very much we will miss them all. It is immensely sobering to realize how this has all occured, that it has occurred with service, and that is how the Savior loves us as He has given us the ultimate act of service, the Atonement. So a good marriage does involve a lot of service, usually more on the part of a wife. I hope our contribution has been fairly equal. Just goes to show that 2 very different people can love each other and make a great marriage. Deb and I are and have become very different people, but we believe the same, we love each other and our family and we love God. It all works, and we are thankful for 40 very good years. Anyway, I wax philosophic. Our week began with a rescue of sister misionaries in a village late Monday night, after they missed the bus. At 10 at night we hit a monstrous pothole in the dark, shredding one of our front tires. This borrowed car also had suspension problems, so we had a dark tire change, a donut tire to drive slowly home, and a car change the next day. We have our red Opel back and the other is still in the garage. Oh, and shredded means shredded. Tuesday we picked up our partial replacements, the Godfreys, from Logan Utah, who will take over part of the Cooleys responsibilities and our Young Adult responsibilities. Wonderful people, and we spent part of the week orienting them to a stange new world. Tried to go to Balti this week, Deb got very ill on the road and we aborted that trip after a few stops along the road. Darn stomach bugs. Thursday we met some real nice people with the sister missionaries, teaching English and gospel, Doina and friends. One of them , a fine young Baptist mother, takes care of a lot of young children who have no food or parents to take care of them; she is a remarkable person who shows true charity to those truly less fortunate. We promised to return and learn more of what she does. There are some real good people in the world. We were there 2.5 hours with lots of great discussion and teaching.  We had a frisbee golf game Friday night, a lot of people in this world have not learned how to throw a frisbee, and while watching is amusing, it can be dangerous. And now for the weather, wet and continuing to rain. And thunderstorms. And I got a mosquito bite, there are far fewer of those here in Moldova, I had one bite all last year. And now a few pics.

Mission picture from last year, could not remember if I ever got a copy before.

Dinner at the Edwards- from L Chiril, sticking his face in, Big Chiril, Elder Forsyth, Eric and Elder Godfrey

Sister Godfrey and Caroline Brinkman, an ex missionary visiting. It was great to see her, one of our favorites

Iulia at the sink, where she loves to be and Victor, who has come out a a shell and is now a loud teenager

From L , Jacob Johnson, an ex missionary, Mihai and Zlata

Far right is Tolio from Balti, visiting. He is a gem and a very deep thinker

A couple of pics from helping Regina Patis, a Dutch charity. Elder Vashchenko and Eder Housington doing mattresses

Missionaries attending to Attends

FHE, with Elder Welling and Sister Dusenberry posing

Sister and Elder Godfrey at their first FHE

Tatiana and Sister Langenstein in the forest, where we played Frisbee golf.So it was a good week, mostly, except for the illness and the shredded tire. which were dehydrating and deflating, respectively.

Transfers, parades and service

May 15, 2017   It is a beautiful day in Moldova after a day of heavy rain. They do get a lot of moisture in this country,but it is so beautiful here in the spring, green everything. Already the land is recovering from the onslaught of snow and the crops look great. Radishes are here, cucumbers from the green houses are for sale and the first strawberries from southern countries arrived. We can hardly wait for the Moldovan produce, it is fabulous! Well, we learned this week, or rather a sister missionary learned this week that having bullets as souvenirs on a plane is rather foolish and is not looked upon favorably by security. I had taken 3 missionaries to the airport early  Tuesday morning, to catch a plane, one to go home to America. She has packed a couple of bullets in her luggage, they were found, she was detained questioned, her luggage was taken out, and in the end, she and the other two missed their flights. We did some scrambling to get her on her way home, and to get the other two where they needed to be. I guess we all bit the bullet, that trip was shot and they were all a little shell shocked. Just think, kids. We have a few new missionaries again, we now have a Swede and I am sure his pictures will soon grace the blog. He spoke some Swedish to me, to see how good my Norwegian memory was. Answer,not that good. I was going to speak some Norwegian and it all gets mixed up in my old brain with Romanian. It was Victory day on Tuesday here, so the country had 2 days of holiday, there were parades on Sunday and also Tuesday, we got pictures of one of them. It was a commemoration of the Victory over the German army in WW2. It was very Russian though, but it seems here that all politicize the day for their own purposes. Have not seen that in Canada on November 11. One interestng tradition- people take flowers to the monument area and there was a huge pile of flowers at the remembrance area- flower of choice- a red carnation. We took members and missionaries to a school, to do some service, painting and tree trimming. I did a lot of hedges with an old pair of hedge clippers, but still enjoyed it immensely. It was a good branch activity, we just could not let that one get away. It seemed to be a week of a lot of driving here and there. We had a trip to Dancu to see our friend Fratele Paduraru, we just love that man. We bought him new glasses this week, he was like a kid in a candy store, could see again.  So there will be pics from the service activity, and some from the parade.

Here is Deb and Sister Langenstein, picking up leaves. This is how grass and leaves are picked up here, with a blanket.

Deb with a Moldovan broom, they seem to not realize that a long handle is a good thing. This is the size you see people on the streets and sidewalks sweeping with.

Just could not leaf this alone.

Young Bobby Covali, who knows all about attitude.

His dad, Sergei Covali, the district president.

Zlata, spelled wrong , a cute little girl who we  love. She can eat and eat and eat, but look at her slimness.

Evgeny Bekker, ex missionary and Elder Soloviov

Was it hard to see me with the camo?

The next several pictures are of a parade on Victory day, sponsored by the Democratic party of Moldova. Many of these parade participants are paid.

The band was very good.

All along the route, there were guards and police on the edges, to keep control. Any public event has huge nmbers of police.

The question is , do any look happy? I thought they needed to throw some candy or something.

3 flags, the Moldova flag, the EU flag and the Democratic party flag.  Again, see the guards.
In the background of this parade was a band, O-zone, apparently a famous Moldova band. If loud is fame, then they were good.