Visit to Galati

We left the mountains of Brasov and traveled to the city of Galati to visit the branch and speak in their sacrament meeting.








We love the fields of sunflowers and wanted a picture to show how tall they are. Elder Powell walked out into the field for the picture and all of a sudden a dog came after him. We didn't know there were sunflower guard dogs. We ran for the car and were lucky to get this picture.





Galati is north of Constanta on the eastside of Romania. It is located on the Danube River which is used for shipping - lots of ships and barges going up and down the river.







We stayed in the Vega hotel which was very nice.









There was a severe thunderstorm with microburst type winds while we were there. Our car was parked in the parking lot and apparently something blew off the roof of one of the high-rise buildings and landed on our windshield. We have been using our best Romanian language skills trying to get the windshield replaced this week. We hope it has been ordered.

The branch meets in a rented villa that has been remodeled so they can hold meetings in it.

This is the type of portable baptismal font that is used in small branches.








There were 11 members that came to church on Sunday.

This is their Relief Society.

These are the missionaries serving. Elder Ward (left) is serving as the Branch President.  We worked with him in Constanta and it was fun to see him again. They are hoping to get some sisters assigned to Galati next transfer. There are about 20 new sisters coming to Romania this summer. Everyone is very excited about it, the sisters add so much to the mission.

We ate dinner at one of the missionaries favorite Chinese restaurants.








On p-day we went with the missionaries on a hike in the Transylvania Mountains to a place called "seven ladders".  The assistants and training sisters stopped by for p-day on their way to Sibiu.

It was beautiful and reminded us of the mountains back home.

We didn't make it to the top and the missionaries picked us up on their way back down. We aren't as young as we used to be but we really enjoyed the day.







This is the road to the Pavel home in Robtov. It is a small little town in the countryside and most of the people use horse carts to do their farm work.







We had a nice lesson and one of the investigators agreed to offer a prayer. Everyone was so excited.









The lesson started a little late because they had been chasing their cow and new calf for 2 hours. The calf was hiding in the grass and they had a hard time finding it.







When they found the calf, they tied it up and brought it back in their horse cart.









They have a large garden and raise chickens, pigs and have a milk cow. They are quite self-sufficient and work so hard.









It is so nice to have a regular chapel in Brasov.

The church always builds such nice buildings.