Adunare in the Hungary/România Mission

We are inspecting the missionary apartments in Arad, Oradea, and Timisoara one last time before leaving Romania.  When we came out of the Arad elder's apartment this week we found a group of ladies working at the outdoor fireplace.  A mother and 2 of her daughters were making Zacusca.   The main ingredients are eggplant and paprika peppers.  They use the grill to cook the eggplant and peppers, then the meat is scraped out of the peels and placed in a bowl and seasoned.  They enjoy this Romanian treat all winter long.  They love it.  I really want one of those fireplaces!!! We took a break from our packing and cleaning preparations to take a walk in the forest.  Whenever we go out in the city early in the morning, the street cleaners are out doing their job. This a typical Romanian sweeper.  The sights and sounds of the woods are turning to fall.  We saw berries on the trees and tractors in the field cutting hay. Our branch members

This week we spent our time in Hungary teaching the missionaries about Family History. We taught them how to assist their members in reserving names for the temple.  The Europe Area Presidency has asked everyone in the Europe area to fill out their "My Family" booklet and reserve names of their ancestors for temple ordinances.  President Hettinger wants each missionary to work with at least one member and reserve at least one name for baptism in the temple.  Our assignment was to teach the missionaries how to accomplish the task.  We had 40 minutes to do it.  All 4 of the Hungary Zone Conferences were held one day after another beginning on Monday.  We made a slide show of the points we wanted to cover and role played what we each would say so we could get through it in time. It seemed like it went well and we had many missionaries thank us for the presentation.  Now we have to see if they can put what we taught into practice and accomplish the goal.   Sister Hettinger, t

This week began bright and early on Monday morning with a trip to "La țară" the countryside in English.  The Elders have been here for 3 weeks and were anxious to visit the castle ruins at Soimos in Lipova.  We wanted to beat the heat.  It is so humid here that when we get heat mixed with it, it's hard on the old folks.  Elder Andersen has climbed the hill many times, but it is steep and he gets tuckered out. Here they are discussing the trail diagram. Because I am TERRIFIED of going to the hospital in Romania, I don't even try to climb the hill.  There are lots of slippery steep spots and I have trouble on flat ground, so I opt for a walk up the street where I made a few Romanian friends.  The country folks are very friendly.   In the USA we would probably say these are free range chickens.  They live down the bank, across the stream, up the bank and over the road from here.  They were very busy. And I could not resist taking photos of they little Roman

Our walk in the woods this week reminded me that I wanted to post a picture of a typical Romanian picnic spot.  The benches are often a half log like seen in this photo.  They don't however often have a little shade over the table though.  This spot is very popular with the people who come to use the forest.  We like to park our car near here.   We had a treat of enjoying a Friday evening with the missionaries and the Istrate's.  Sora Istrate made some yummy food for us and served ice cream (ingheata) and cookies.   We enjoyed our visit.  The missionaries taught a powerful lesson on priesthood and how it can help our families. 

This week was topped off with a branch picnic in the forest.  The main ingredient in a Romanian picnic is mici (meech).  Brent says it tastes like meatloaf.  Also we brought some of our soy sauce marinated curcan (turkey).  Bread, a salad, water and some treats are all you need.  We were pleasantly surprised to note the neat appearance of the forest this summer.  The Romanians seem to be making a great effort to beautify the outdoors near Arad.  Those branch members attending were: Jany, Ana, Carmella, Lily, Cornel, Ghiti, Marianna, Marianela, Denisa, Costi ( the cook ), Lidia, the missionaries Elder Olmstead and Elder Atkinson and Elder and Sister Andersen.  We enjoyed the day.