Visiting

We had a busy week getting ready to leave for Brasov next week. Sunday we had the missionaries over for dinner. They have asked us several times to show them some of our pictures from our mission in Mongolia so we showed them an abbreviated version of our pictures. It was fun to reminisce and realize how many good friends we left in Mongolia. The missionaries were surprised at how many things in Mongolia were similar to Romania.



Someone is developing the property next to our apartment building and hired an animal control business to come and catch the stray dogs that had made the property their home. We have watched these 5 dogs from our balcony for three months. They have had two litters of pups and it has been so interesting to watch them (safely from 5 stories up). We know they needed to be removed but we felt sad as they were caught and put in the truck - didn't think you could get attached to stray dogs!


This is Sammy the Seagull - Sister Powell named him. He stops by for a visit on our window sill quite often. We keep trying to feed him pieces of bread, but he doesn't seem very interested in bread. We are going to miss living on the shore of the Black Sea.






On Tuesday, President Constantinescu took us in his car to visit several of the members that live in the country side. Along the way we saw these fields of sunflowers. These are the giant ones that grow the seeds we eat. They were so pretty.






They also had wind farms to generate  electricity.

This is Maria, she lives about 30 miles outside of Constanta in a small community. They have a large garden and fruit trees.







Her son, daughter-in-law and their 3 children live with her. Maria is the only member of the church in her family. We had a nice visit with her. It is difficult for her to come to Constanta to church because of the distance.

 

Maria told us that her grandchildren are her greatest happiness in life.

We also visited the Olteanu family. They only live about 10 miles outside of Constanta.

Lucia is expecting their third child this fall. They are such a good family and really strengthen the branch. They had three dachshund-mix pups. This is Alex holding one.




They also raise rabbits and got one out for us to hold.









We asked them if they raised them as pets??

They pointed at the wall on the other side of their garden and we think we got our answer.

Elder Powell remembers eating rabbit when he was serving in the Air Force, stationed in Mississippi. He says it tastes like chicken.



This is Grandma Vitel. They are the 1st generation of a 4 generation family in the church here in Constanta.








They are such good people but have to work so hard every day. We forget how lucky we are to have indoor plumbing.

Our grand-parents remember having out-houses but most of us don't even think about how nice we have things.

Wednesday we had a branch birthday party for two of the young women in our branch. Anca (left) and Elena (right) They are best friends and their birthday is the same day, June 20th. This is their "golden" birthday because they both turned 20 on the 20th.





They are really good girls and help out in the branch all the time.

They are great examples to the other young women.








This is Anca and her mother Mihaela.

Mihaela is the Relief Society president (Sister Powell has been serving as her counselor).

Anca is getting her missionary application ready to send in - she will be a great missionary.






Sister Powell made a chocolate cake for their birthdays and brought a large bowl of whipped cream to put on the cake as it was served. We got to the church a little early and put the bowl of whipped cream in the fridge. When Sister Powell went to the fridge to get the whipped cream this was all that was left! Looks like someone really likes whipped cream.

The cake tasted great even without the whipped cream.