Transfers

Transfers came out Saturday and two of our missionaries will be leaving Constanta. Elder Ward will be going to Galati and Sister Modzelewska will be going to Cluj. Transfers are part of a mission but we will miss them. On p-day, we all went down to the harbor and ate a seafood lunch together at a little restaurant on the edge of the sea. They will travel to Bucharest Wednesday morning to meet their new companions.



During the week we were invited to a members home for a visit. When we got there she had prepared food for us. Everyone in the branch is so nice to us. After dinner, we played charades. It's pretty hard to guess when you don't know any Romanian words.

We have not been able to find cake mixes over here, so Sister Powell has been cooking everything from scratch. She has made banana cake, apple pudding, chocolate cake and cookies which have all turned out great but cooking from scratch is so time consuming. We found a cake mix last week and decided to try it. We didn't notice that all of the directions were in French. So, we typed all of the directions into Google Translator and got somewhat of an idea of what it said. It didn't end up saving any time and didn't turn out nearly as good as the cakes from scratch.

We made some chocolate chip cookies to take to our neighbors. We have not been able to find chocolate chips so we just cut up some candy bars and they turned out great. Sister Powell looked up how to say "We are your neighbors" and we wrote it on a note with the cookies.We tried three times to deliver them and no one would open their doors. We could hear their TV's on, so we think they were home. People seem to be very cautious about answering their doors if they aren't expecting you. We have heard that this is a carry over from living under communism for so many years.


Sister Powell's neck has been bothering her when she carries her purse so we went shopping and bought Elder Powell a "geantă" which is a bag/purse that men use. Now Sister Powell doesn't have to carry her purse. It seems to be a European thing -  we see a lot of the men using them. They are actually very handy but it's taking a bit of getting used to. Most of the missionaries use them to carry their materials in. Backpacks are not nearly as common over here as they are back home.

The sisters brought one of their investigators to our home to watch the video "The Testament" and have a lesson. It went really well and was such an enjoyable evening.

Cliff graduated with his B.S. degree last week. We were so surprised when Heidi called and Skyped us on her cell phone from the graduation ceremony and we actually saw him receive his diploma and heard all of the cheering. The technology today is so amazing. We couldn't believe she could do that just on her cell phone. We took a picture of our computer screen during the graduation. Thanks Heidi.

Alina, one of the young women in the branch made Sister Powell some blue earrings. It was so sweet of her.

This morning this boat was outside of our apartment. Since the weather has warmed up, there have been more and more boats on the water. We have such an interesting view from our apartment.