1st Week in Brasov

There are several famous castles in the Brasov area. On p-day we went to see the Peles Castle with the Heningers and our district. It was Monday and when we got there we found out that it is closed to the public on Monday. We still enjoyed the afternoon.






This is our new district, left to right. Elder Covey, Elder McAllister, Sora Case and Sora Drotar.









The walk to the Castle was beautiful and the Castle grounds were very nice.









We had lunch at a Romanian/Turkish  restaurant where we had Shawarmas and Gyros. They were delicious.









It was so refreshing to be in the mountains - temperatures were in the high 60's - low 70's.

Elder Covey has a thing for bears. He was told that Romania has many bears and he keeps looking for them.







On Tuesday we had a new member lesson with the Pavel family. Ioan, Elena and Patrick (12 yrs old) are the only members but some of the others have attended church and listen to the lessons.

This is most of the rest of the Pavel family. They live about 10 miles out of town in a small farming community called Robtov.

This is their home. They built it themselves. There are 15 people living here with 3 babies under one year.

We then drove about 10 miles out of town the other direction and gave Sabin a new member lesson. His father is a member but is working in Germany. His mother is in Italy and so Sabin is staying with his aunt who is not a member. His aunt was very friendly and we had a nice visit. Sabin did not have a Book of Mormon so we left one with him. We are trying to see if another member family would be willing to pick Sabin up on Sundays and bring him to church. He was so excited to see the missionaries.

The next day we went to see Raul who is 10 years old. He is the only member in his family but his mother drives him to church and sometimes attends the meeting. She is a medical doctor with a family practice.  She gave us a drink made from "pine syrup" and told us it was very healthy. 





Most of our lessons have been taught outdoors sitting around a table or in the shade.










We have been to this house twice to teach an older couple who are investigating the church, the Apostles. They keep having emergencies and have to leave before we get there for the lesson.

The elders thought they saw brother Apostle and ran after him but it wasn't him. We found out later that a neighbor's cow had fallen into a pond and was up to it's neck in water/mud. They thought it was going to die so the whole town turned out to help.

Grandma Szeclee joined the church 10 years ago then moved out to Feldioara which was too far to go to church.  Over the years, she remained faithful but became inactive. Recently the missionaries were walking down the street and she invited them in. Since that time, several of her family have joined the church. The branch has arranged for a bus to pick up them up and bring them to church.

Last week she was knocked down by one of their goats and broke her leg. She is in her 70's and everyone is worried about her leg healing. We went to visit her and gave her a blessing.