1 January 2018 - Week 39

Our Christmas day began with breakfast and a walk in the woods.  There were more people out than we thought there would be considering it was a holiday.  The grass is beautifully green even though it is December.

A couple of Romanian gentlemen on a Christmas morning errand.

We decided to go to McDonald's for Christmas dinner.  When we told our daughter Jessica, she reminded her Dad that in America she couldn't get him to go to McDonald's.  It seems that going to McDonald's is the only place to go for a quick burger when the craving sets in.


When we were full of burger and fries, we walked across the street to see the Christmas market.  We walked around looking at the shops and walked up the bridge that crosses the Mures river.  The bridge railing had some locks on it like the bridge that Brent saw when he was in Frankfurt, Germany.   I found a couple of pairs of fuzzy slippers and a few wooden Romanian toys to bring home as souvenirs.  Even though it was Christmas day, many of the shops were open.  We really liked the two ladies in the photo.  They could speak a little English and their shop was filled with lots of Romanian things.

Christmas Market Shops

The next morning we received a call from the Beihns who are humanitarian missionaries in a city a few hours away.  They wanted to meet us for lunch in Timisoara.  They were closing out a project at a women's shelter in Timisoara.  We met them for an evening meal the night before and were able to walk around the Christmas market.  Our lunch date got canceled because the mission presidents wife asked us to take our sister missionaries to a doctor appointment.  We couldn't do the Dr. office and lunch.

Lots of gypsy food available at the market.

Christmas market lights

While we were having some supper at KFC, we received a phone call from President Hettinger asking us to work on a Family History project for him.  He has a vision that each of the missionaries can have a baptism in 2018.  He would like to see if we could also get names for 100 baptisms for the dead during 2018.  He wants us to help that happen. 

A picture of our kitchen dish rack with an open bottom. Comes in very handy because we have to hand wash and dry our dishes.  The plates go in the dish drainer for a few minutes and then we transfer them to this cabinet where they can finish drying. 

While in Timisoara this week to take Sora Kerrison to the doctor for a pesky rash she had, we spotted this famous (among missionaries) picture on the front of a store.  It may not jump right out at you, but the beautiful building in the background is the San Diego temple. The store is a local print shop and the sign is advertising the type of work they do: invitations: baptism and marriage,  guest books, etc. We just really liked the scantily clad bride, not quite what you would see at the temple.  The temple does make a great poster though!