MOLDOVA OPEN! 12/29/06

We are shouting for joy today! (President Ashby, Elder Stokes and Elder Jackson) Moldova has officially registered the church and is now open to us and our missionaries! President Verlon called us tonight and said that he had received a call from the Minister of Cults this afternoon asking him to come down to his office. He went with some trepidation wondering what they wanted from him this time. The Minister handed him a formal document, offically signed, granting our church the right to be recognised in Moldova! President Verlon called us the minute he got home and was in tears as he recounted his experience. We are so happy we can hardly contain ourselves! The interesting thing is that we got our first Russian speaking missionary this last transfer and in March we have 17 new missionaries coming, some of them Russian speaking. All this was done by chance.....ummmm......not really chance, the Lord is truly in charge! We had to share this good news and want to thank everyone for their fasting and prayers! It worked!

Merry Christmas 2006!

Merry Christmas from our missionaries!

Elder Nicholson and Elder Sperry with Sora Bowman in the background.







Elder Selck, President Ashby and Elder Goodell enjoy dinner at Bela Musica together. These elders won "dinner with the president" for winning a missionary contest last transfer.

Elders Selck, Toomey, Stokes, Suckow, Jackson and Sperry pose during the Christmas party.

The Best Little Christmas Pagent Ever!

During our Zone conference tour we stopped and watched the Christmas pagent put on by our missionaries and the Brasov Branch. It was a combination of Romanian carols, the Christmas story and Santa dropping in on the Nativity....very interesting! It was so special and tender. Every time Mary held her baby it screamed as loudly as it could! When she would pass the baby to an angel it quited right down! It was so simple and sweet and truly brought the spirit of Christmas to all of us privileged to witness it.





Mary and Joseph (Vasile Miron, his wife and baby) gaze tenderly at their new little one.











Our missionaries posed as Shepherds (with their blown up baloons for sheep), wise men and angels! They sang hosanas to the new little babe.

Elders Johansen, Valentine, Sens, Suckow and Soras Durfee and Nettersheim. 

The Skinniest Santa alive!

Santa visited the Brasov Branch and I'll tell you this, HE NEEDS TO EAT MORE! However, he made in jolliness what he lacked in chubbiness!
 

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.