Week 8

Our week began with the appearance of huge digging equipment outside our apartment.  Brent asked some questions and found out that the owner is planning to put in the walking and bike riding paths for the park that will be part of the complex.

We learned that a factory used to be on the property and that a big investor has big plans to put in a bunch of apartments. There is only one building now, that's the one we live in, but there will be more as you can see in the 3D model below.  Our building is shown in the lower left corner.  BIG dreams, but they seem pretty confident it will happen. 

The most exciting thing we did this week was to take a road trip to Cluj on Friday.  We got up at 4:30, picked up the Sisters at 5:30 and arrived in Cluj for the Zone conference at 9:45.  Just in time for the 10:00 meeting. President and Sister Ivory will be leaving the mission in a month and are working hard right up to the finish line. President Ivory taught that the Lord has prepared people for each missionary to find.  The challenge is to find them. We should talk about baptism early in our relationships with people, saying, "When you come to know that what we are teaching is true, we will invite you to be baptized."

Sister Ivory talked about what she has learned in her three years in this mission.  She included teaching about what it means to gain the world and loose your soul. She told the missionaries to take advantage of this time in their life where they are unencumbered by the things of the world and create a space for higher thought. 

The sisters who live and work in Arad are Sora Alger and Sister Anderson.  They enjoyed the lunch.

And our dear Sora Simmons from Soda Springs, Idaho was again in the kitchen fixing food after a week of preparation at the Senior Sora Biehn's apartment. They served a mexican chicken, black beans, lettuce, tomato on a flour tortilla and some cake and cookies. 

Because we were done with the meeting early in the afternoon, we were able to travel home in the daylight and we could take some photos.  We did stop at Pizza Hut, awwwh - American food.  I did my best to get them on the fly- if Brent stopped everytime I want to take a picture, we would never get home. 

On the mountain passes, many little stores like the one shown below are set up to sell tourist items to travelers. 

There were little villages along the way nestled in the trees.

The hills up on the mountain pass were terraced.  Brent thinks it is from grazing sheep, but we don't have a for sure answer about that.

One town was dotted with many Gypsy palaces.