Trip to Oradea and Cluj

We took a four day trip to Oradea and Cluj. They are located on the west side of Romania.  We traveled through many small villages and saw some beautiful country.  Along the way, we saw the ruins of many castles.  It seems like most of the cities were built around a castle.

In Oradea, we met with the Oradea District President, Florin Geambasu, his wife and son.  After taking care of mission business, we went to dinner together.  President Geambasu served a mission in England, speaks excellent English and is a translator for the church. 

This is the building the church rents as the Oreadea chapel.  We attended church in the branch and each bore our testimony in their sacrament meeting.  It's a small branch of about 30 members.  There is a strong Hungarian influence in the city since it is on the border of Hungry.  Many of the branch members speak Hungarian.

Monday morning we left for Cluj, a three hour drive from Oradea. Cluj is an old city and has many historical buildings. Along the way, we saw this sign which is encouraging people to slow down...we don't think it was working because everyone drives very fast (except Elder Powell, which is very annoying to the other drivers).

We saw these plants growing on 12 foot high poles.  There were fields of them.  They might be "pole beans" but we're not sure.

Most of the small farmers cut and rake their hay by hand.  Then they haul the hay with their horse carts. They drive on the roads and you constantly have to watch out for them while driving.

This is the Cluj chapel.

Most of the apartments in Brasov do not have air conditioning or screens on their windows.  There are only a few weeks of the summer that are really hot.  This last week was one of them.  We had to open the windows to try to cool the apartment down and we have been eaten alive by mosquitos and other insects.  They especially love Sister Powell.  This was the morning kill.