Cetatea Fagarasului

 

I had to share this with you! Monday we had zone conference in Arad and then were scheduled for appointments all day Tuesday. Unfortunately, the appointments cancled and we left a day early. Since we had to travel to Brasov for another zone conference on Wednesday, we now had an extra day to get there. We decided to explore a little and found this castle in Fagaras. It was so fun! We spent the night in a little inn and the next morning we went through the castle. Romania has many old fortresses and castles. The fun thing about exploring them is that they are not commercialized yet. What you see is what you get! They are trying hard to update and rennovate many of them but it costs lots of money and they haven't had the resources to do this very much. Things are changing though and I think we will see a lot more tourists and tourist sites in the future.

 

Hundreds of years ago this was a big fortress but by the 1500 - 1600's this castle was given to a queen by her husband to be a lavish residence for her. The castle has a huge mote all the way around it and is completely surrounded by a big, thick wall.

 

Today this is used as a "city" building. There is a big library in the castle (and many school children went in and out the library while we were there), a museum and a restaurant in the huge cellar. We climbed up on the walls and saw remnants of a life lived long ago. The walls are about 8 feet thick. In the courtyard was a big stand where you would hang a person! We had a great time touring this and chalked it off as one of our few "Preparation" days.

Front Porch Visiting

 

Spring is coming and you can always tell as you drive through the villages and see the people out on the benches by their gates.

 

When the weather warms up they all come outside, sit and watch the traffic and wander over to each others benches and have a good visit. It is so fun to watch them and it reminds me of the old days in America when everyone had a big front porch and would come out in the evening and visit with their neighbors. It's a wonderful tradition and one that I envy.

 

A typical peasant. You can tell by his hat that it is still a little chilly!

In every Village...

 

...there is at least one and maybe even two or three Orthodox churches. We are always amazed at the opulence of these churches in even the smallest of villages. This one is a church in the middle of Bacau. We took this picture on our way to Zone Conference in Iasi.

 

One day we stopped at this masoleum. There are 5,074 soldiers from World War I buried in this crypt. We have never seen such a large tomb anywhere! One of the most interesting things in this country are all the monuments to fallen Romanian soldiers. Just as there are Orthodox churches everywhere they honor their War heros and there are all kinds of amazing statues all over the country.

 

Elder Green has surgery! (This is for you Brother and Sister Green!)

Even though we pray for the protection and good health of all our missionaries, every now and then we have a little emergency! Two days ago Elder Green started feeling pain in his side. He called me yesterday just as we were starting a RS Birthday party activity in Iasi. "Sora Ashby, my side started to hurt under my ribs two days ago but it has gotten progressively worse and now it hurts to walk," he said. This didn't sound right to me. I immediately called our doctor in Germany and we decided he needed to get to Bucharest for some tests. Rather than risk the over-night ride it would take from Cluj-Napoca to Bucharest, we put he and his companion, Elder Dabbling, on a plane and got them there within a few hours. When they reached the Euro Clinic and did several tests, it was confirmed that Elder Green did indeed have appendicitis. To make a long story short, they operated today at about 2:00 pm and everything went perfectly. The only glitch in the whole thing was that he told them he wanted to be put out and they misunderstood him and only numbed him from the waiste down! He got to watch the whole surgery. He was a little nervous at first but then said he found it quite interesting. And no, he did not experience any pain! Just so you know, we are extremely careful about who we have take care of our missionaries. This clinic is a private one and is immaculately clean and is staffed with very good doctors. If there was ever anything really serious or technical we would fly them to Germany. The health and good care of these elders and sisters is very, very important to us!
Elder Green after his surgery. His companion is staying with him night and day and is making sure his immediate needs are being taken care of. As you can see, he also has a cute nurse and this is the closest he will be to a cute girl for the next two years!

 

17 New Missionaries!

Wow! This is the biggest group of missionaries we have ever received at one time! It was a crazy day with 10 missionaries departing and these 17 coming in. We thought we had everything organized until we found out our new missionaries had plane problems in SLC and all had to be rerouted. Instead of arriving all together they came at three different times during the day. Not only that, we had numerous pieces of lost luggage! I think the worse thing that happened was when one of our innocent elders got pulled aside by security in SL, taken to a room and strip searched for suspicous luggage. That was definitely an exciting beginning to his mission! However, once we got them all taken care of, interviewed, fed and their Visa appointments done we all breathed a sign of relief. They were so excited to be here. Figuring out the Transfer board was a big job this time and it took lots of prayers to decide where the Lord wanted these new warriors to serve! Wednesday afternoon we took them to transfer meeting and asigned them their new companions. This is a very musical group and we had them sing two songs to introduce themselves to the other missionaries. Our new Elder Williams has a gift of accompanying music by making great beats with his tongue and cheek. It was really fun and the missionaries loved it. There was a lot of energy in that transfer meeting. The group is now dispersed throughout the country! They have great companions and are into the work! We are so thrilled to have them. Everytime we lose a great group of missionaries (when their missions are over), we are so sad. They have developed into such powerful teachers and leaders. But then we get the new group....we see how eager they are to serve and it is really evident that this is the way it is supposed to be...the Lord is really in charge.

 

One hour before Transfer meeting they all "crashed"! Jet lag had definitely set in! There were so many of them they spread out where ever they could find a spot. I don't think a single one of them cared whether it was on a bed, the floor or a chair! All they wanted was a few minutes of shut-eye!