Our LAST Zone Conference Tour

These photos show all of our missionaries in their zones and the places we held zone conference during the last couple weeks of May 2008. The conferences were wonderful and the spirit was very strong. For our parent's sake, I am showing every conference and every missionary! See if you can find yours! Cluj-Napoca Branch building was the location of our first zone conference stop. This is the Transilvania Zone.

Tradition has it their that Assistants and President always wear the same Zone Conference tie. Elders Jepson and Rigby show off this Transfers tie.

Brother and Sister Mihai Iepure are expecting their first baby in July. These two are a strength to the Cluj Branch.

On our way to Arad for the second zone conference we stopped in Oradea and had a wonderful visit with Branch President Florin and Isabela Gembasu. Both are returned missionaries and are dedicated to building and supporting their branch. After arriving in Arad we held our Occidentala Zone Conference in the Arad Vila.

Sora McKnight, Petersen, Ashby, Jessee, Taylor and Harrison pose for one of our elders.

No, this is not a nuclear power plant! These are the towers they heat all the water in before they pipe it to the cities for thousands of homes. The government controls the hot water available to people.

President Fotea and his wife, Claudia, are the Branch President in Deva. (Our next stop on this zone conference route. We stopped to visit the branch and drop off supplies.)
It's fun to look at the church cemetaries and check out all the unique headstones. We finally arrive in Sibiu. It's a hot day so after interviews, we take the Sibiu elders advice, go to Centru and buy us each a 1 Ron ice cream cone....cheap and good!
Heading towards Brasov we go through Fagaras and can't help but take a moment to look at the beautiful old castle there.
The Brasov Zone....a great group of missionaries! This conference was held in the Brasov chapel.

Our special musical number was done by Elder Haddock, on the piano and voice, and Elder Harwood on the guitar. They sang a special farewell song to us and then did their own rendition of "We Are The Army of Helaman"....very talented!

That evening, after zone conference, our "past" Elder Banu :( took the Hanson's and I to a little house in a nearby village to visit a man known all over the country for his amazing sculptings.
His home alone was very entertaining but then we found......
a (very) Romanian Nativity set! We were so thrilled as many of the missionaries have looked for nativity sets here and they are just not to be found. Of course we each ordered a set from him and this treasure will long remind us of our time in Romania.

As we travel we stop in different cities to do interviews with the missionaries and deliver mail and supplies. On our way to Iasi we stopped in Bacau and while President Ashby was doing his interviews the elders challenged me to a game of ping-pong.....I did pretty well, considering!

After a day long drive our next stop was Iasi. Much to our surprise, the zone leaders chose this little gazebo in the middle of a lake for our conference. The Iasi zone is our biggest zone now and despite our best efforts we have not been able to rent a larger vila to house the branch and our missionaries. It was a rainy day but that too was a blessing as there were no people on or around the lake. It was very peaceful and quiet and a wonderful setting for our conference.



Quiet and peaceful. A beautiful place to feel the spirit.

The Rom-Est Zone missionaries. (Also includes our missionaries serving in Moldova)

Elder Stinson and Elder Toomey make me laugh as they try to pull off a stern look for the camera....so not like these two!
After leaving Iasi we drove to Galati to do interviews and speak in the Galati branch. This photo is of the Danube river. It is huge and we watched big oil tankers go down the river past our hotel.

Galati Branch President Prada, with his wife.
The Galati Branch
Evening on the Danube river
This tower overlooks the Danube.
Back to Bucharest! Zone Conference for the Sud-Est Zone.
Sora Poulsen, Lovell, Ashby, Kiss and Montague pose for Elder"Paparatzi"!
Next day in the mission home for interviews and cookies! Elder Johnson definitely had his share!
Elder Zemp teaching himself to play piano.
The cookie-brigade munch in the "garden" (a very tiny garden I might add!)

The Nord-Vest zone at the Mihai Bravu chapel.
Elder Platt learns how to make cookies. My zone conference talk was on the Word of Wisdom and missionaries eating correctly. I asked them all if they had their orange (or other fruit) for breakfast and if not they had to eat some before the cookies!

Elders Grant and Hale leave the mission home full (of cookies) spirit, and ready to work!