District Conference

We were able to sleep in our new apartment one night and then we had to leave for the quarterly District Conference in Bucharest. So once again we had to pack up and take the train back.


The bed in our apartment was quite hard so we decided to try and find a mattress pad. We knew there was an IKEA in Bucharest so we stopped there on our way to the Saturday meetings. We didn't think we could find one but we did! It's about 3" thick and is like memory foam. Of course we had to take it in a taxi to the chapel for the District Conference. Not everyone gets to bring their mattress to church. The conference was wonderful, with a visiting Seventy Authority from Finland. It was the largest district meeting ever held in Romania. So many of the branches are small and so bringing everyone together was a great benefit. One branch brought 50 people on a bus (20 of them were investigators). They thought they could find member homes for them to stay in overnight but it didn't work out. They ended up sleeping on the floor at the Church.

After conference, we took our mattress and spent the night in the mission home. President and Sister Hill have been so kind to us. The next morning after the 10:00 session of the conference, we made our way to the train station with our mattress for the 4 hour ride back to Constanta. We got back last night and had a great nights sleep - we decided the mattress pad was worth all the trouble.

Last night we also tried to connect to the internet in a different way and finally made it work!!! It is surprising how isolated you feel when you are so far away without the internet. We were also able to get the Vontage phone working we brought with us. You can now call us on the phone as if you were dialing us in Lehi - our number is 801-901-7001 and we can talk with unlimited minutes. We tried it out yesterday and the quality was as good as if we were home. We are 8 to 9 hours ahead of you (depending on daylight savings time) so you may want to check the time difference before calling - and we will try and do the same.

We are doing fine, although there has been a lot of adjusting for us getting used to the culture. We have been able to get around fairly well by writing addresses down and showing it to the taxi drivers. It usually works to use our dictionaries when we go shopping.

There are a few American stores in Bucharest: IKEA, KFC and McDonalds. Although they are a Romanian version and not quite like back home. Monday we stopped at McDonalds - the drive-thru is called the "McDrive".  We ordered a sandwich and they asked if we wanted sauce. We said no and the person waiting on us said "It's Free".  They seemed quite put out that we didn't have sauce so we said "Ok, we'll take BBQ sauce". They handed us the sauce and then charged us an additional 2.00 Lei for the sauce. Guess we have a different understanding of the word "free".   Many of the younger people are trying to learn English and like to practice when we ask questions. Most of them say they learned English by watching "The Cartoon Network". Maybe we will have to start watching cartoons in Romania.


We see a lot of things here that remind us of Mongolia.










The playground probably wouldn't pass a safety inspection.









We will be in our apartment for 3 nights and then back to the train station for a ride back to Bucharest and then onto Brasov for a 3 day Senior Missionary conference. There are 10 senior couples serving in Romania but we are scattered all over the country. Twice a year they hold a conference and get together. It will be nice to meet and get to know the other couples. Hopefully they can give us some suggestions on how best to help our little branch.