We love Christmas!

December is a very hectic but wonderful month for the Romanian missionaries. It is the time of year that we focus even more on the Savior (if that is possible for missionaries!) and realize even more how precious the gifts are that God has given us. We long to share our wonderful message with the Romanian people. We know how this can change lives and bring happiness to people and we want so badly for these people to find the same peace and joy we experience. Seeing them prepare for Christmas and the birth of the Savior makes us (even more) want to help them understand the truth.
However, December is also a time when people are busy and often don't want to be bothered! Some of them even get mad. It is quite ironic that the very thing they don't want to be bothered with is the thing that is more valuable than anything else they could recieve, give or do!

Our Zone Conferences have consisted of a two-day conference. The first day is a "party" where we play games, eat, put on skits, exchange gifts and watch a Christmas movie. As you can tell from some of our pictures we have had a lot of fun. It's amazing how creative people can be when they have little money to spend but make up for that with a sense of humor and a lot of laughs!

On Christmas Eve and during the holidays the missionaries will spend their time caroling and visiting and leaving a special message with inactives, investigators and members.
It's interesting how all the missionaries will talk of home and the fun traditions they miss with their families but, none of them would rather be home than be in Romania for Christmas. They all love the experiences they are having. They all comment on how much their focus has changed. How they love trying to give litttle gifts and service to the people they are working with and, how happy it makes them to do these things along with sharing the messasge of Christ.

This was our first zone conference and was held in Oradea. It included the Transilvania and Occidentala zones. The little red stockings they are holding up had cute little Christmas decals sewn on them by the sweet sisters in our branchs in Moldova. These sisters wanted badly to do something for the missionaries and they made it a RS and YW service project to do this.






Elders Goodell, Abbot, Jorgensen and Selck do an interesting version of The Twelve Days of Christmas.

The first photo is of the missionaries, Elders Shawver, Armstrong, Cloward, Poirier and Sora's Brandstatter and Griffith, doing a puppet show (with painted vegetables) trying to convert a Romanian Baba and get her into the waters of baptism.