It's All About the Food, 'Bout the Food...No Complainin'

Hey guys,

This week we had an International food night where members from the branch and the missionaries all made food from around the world! It was really cool and everyone had great taste! haha. 

homemade HOUK Tacos!!!!! Homemade flour tortillas as well (cant get or make corn tortillas over here)

International cooking night for our Thursday night activity

Perfectly stacked flap jacks! haha me and food.

Everyone here is doing great, including me, you know, if you were wondering, and we are just growing ourselves and planting those seeds for others! 

I sincerely hope you guys have an AWESOME week!

Elder Houk

BTW: Blair let me know he's on his 10th transfer, "but whose counting." ahem, I am...

Cool ice rink in Cluj

Post by Ramura din Cluj-Napoca. Click on "Post" to see a fun video of the missionaries ice skating. I think I saw Blair skate by.

Transfer 9 of 16

Hey guys,

So transfers were this week and it turns out that the city that I am in, Cluj, all the missionaries are staying here. So I am still with Elder Hellewell! 

This week we had no hot water again but luckily we got it fixed within a day! 

This week all the missionaries went on splits in the branch and visited people. It was a weird experience to not have another missionary right there with me, but yet so so cool! haha We also thought we were going to go home teaching with someone to a members house but the member we were going to go with cancelled the appt with the member but forgot to tell us. haha So we showed up to the members house when he wasn't even expecting it! But it turned out to be a really great visit and even had dinner out of it too. 

We got to play tennis this week again with our friend Doru and, like always, it was great!

 

Elder Me, Hellewell, and Doru at the tennis court.

I hope that you will all have a great week this week and I thank you for everything!

Elder Houk

Some of the best chocolate!

Homemade pizza

Cherry pie...fail.

Making Sarmale

View from a members house, in Floresti.

Hey Guys,

Today for P-Day we learned how to make some Sarmale! Good ol' traditional Romanian food! 

Making Sarmale at a members house!

The cabbage. This is how we would have to make the cabbage back in America,
because they don't sell sauerkraut leaves in America.

This week for an activity, we watched the Best Two Years! It was pretty funny, especially as a missionary and that I am a trainer just like the main character of the movie. 

Hope you guys are having a great time and living it up! Love You All!!

-Elder Houk

New Year, New Goals

Hey Guys,

I hope that your New Years Celebrations were great and that you haven't given up on your goals yet! 

I don't know what to say because I really don't have much time to say much, but we are having a great time out here and are really trying to work hard and listen to the spirit. It takes some work, but it's worth it. We tried doing this more in our planning and the day right after that we decided to start trying harder. It was one of the best feeling days I have felt in a while! We were more productive and simply more happy. 

I just want to say that I love you guys and that I hope you are all doing well! Have a great week!

Elder Houk

View from church window

Made some really good, soft brownies for a member and 3 for us.
You know, had to check if there was poison or something in there.

Mac n cheese...mmm

German pancakes

An Nou Fericit! Happy New Year!

Hey Guys,

So this week was pretty great! It was Christmas! We got to visit a lot of members and carol to them. Apparently, here in Romania, when you carol for someone, they feed you food and sometimes even a whole meal! Someone described it as trick or treating for adults, haha. We ate a lot of homemade Prajituri (little cakes) and Sarmale (minced meat, rice stuffed into a rolled pickled cabbage) (look on the internet for more info). This is some good stuff for sure! 

Sarmale

Prajituri

We got stuffed by everyone because the culture here is to serve your guests like really well and so they are always pushing you to eat more and more, haha. The holiday season was a blast for sure! 

Random thing about Romania that you probably didn't know. They don't have 90 degree PVC pipes here but 87 degree. And that is your random fact for the week! Being a plumber's son must make this fascinating. Still love you. Mom ox

I hope you all have a great New Year's and that you all lose that 15 pounds you want to lose for your New Year's resolutions! 

Love you all,

Elder Houk

Cluj River

Buses and cables

The Incredible Houk! 

Cool reflections