New and Interesting Experiences

Hey Guys,

making bread

To start off the week, last week I dug my hands into some dough and made some delicious homemade bread, with the help of Sora Bair, of course. The bread turned out so great I needed to take some selfies with it haha. (I only have half because I gave the other half to my companion.) 

bread selfie 

We also had Zone Conference this week. It was in Ploiesti. President and others gave some great inspiring words to us and then we were on our way back to Brasov. 

Romania Central Zone Conference

The next day we went "La Tara" (Country Side) and helped out a member with some some service. We chopped some wood and organized it into a wall. "They used to walk 12 miles to church every sunday before the senior couple here started picking them up. We got to chop a ton of wood to heat her house and help her cook for the winter. Her name is sister Miron and she lives in a little Gypsie village with her daughter, Emma. Her daughter is just about to go on a mission. They are an awesome family! The town they live in is really cool, too. Its tiny and almost all Gypsies... They all get around with horse drawn carriages. We have to get there and back in this random guy's car that goes back and forth from the countryside to Brasov. He charges 4 lei and took us back to the city."   -excerpt taken from Elder Bateman's letter.  

 Random experience of the week: We were walking to KFC after contacting with the district one day and this man with red hair and a red suit invited us up to his apartment. We went into this alley way where a sign was hanging that said "Tea Spot". After which we went up 3 flights of swirly stairs with rainbows painted on the walls. We then arrived and went into his apartment which was more of a Penthouse. One of the first things I noticed was a big Bob Marley poster and then a bunch of famous paintings. We then noticed that they had a huge treasure chest in their bathroom. I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty cool, but sketchy nonetheless, haha. He was promoting a church of his own. He handed us an encyclopedia named "mic dictionar"(small dictionary) and this thing was like a foot and half tall, haha, it was huge. He told us we could come back and study it whenever we wanted. haha. As we bid our farewells, he dropped a flower, that he had kept in his suit jacket, beneath the Bob Marley poster and casually mentioned that we shouldn't forget to bring flowers for Bob. haha! What an experience, haha.

We climbed up to the Brasov sign today and went down the other side of the mountain. It was a fun time. 

That's it for this week, Love you guys,

Elder Houk 

The weather is already getting cold in Romania. They have had snow in the mountains but not in Brasov yet. With winter coming Elder Houk is already requesting some Christmas jingles.....seriously.

They have been streetboarding and playing music, even in the rain, to promote their English classes.



Sora Bair has taken some photos with some interesting facts.

This is the way they build a home. It is not a quick process! Most of the homes in the villages are out of brick and cement. The trusses are cement as well. When the outside construction is completed, it is covered with what looks like white Styrofoam and then stuccoed over the top of that. These two homes are currently being worked on, but several are at this stage and we have seen no action on them the whole time we've been here. 

They are full swing into the beet harvest. Lyle has been really interested in their digger which is different than what we have in Idaho. They pile all the beets at the front of the field then a front end loader loads them into a truck to be hauled off.