What's New in Arad

This is a pic of the entrance into our flat which is gratefully on the ground floor. There is a grape arbor over the entrance and curtains in the entry which makes it quite nice. We walk everywhere and the grocery bags get rather heavy especially as we are feeding the 2 Elders and 2 Sisters often. Church is a 25 min. walk and grocery store is 20 min. We have learned how to use the TranVa and it is tricky....just walking and looking and familiarizing and searching for places and things.

We have been doing the activities and teaching for YSA and met with district councilor today. There are several in the leadership who speak English. We just hug and love the members as we don't know what they are saying to us unless someone intreprets for us. They all give a kiss on each side of the face..... We can understand words as they speak and give lessons but no enough to get it all together.

Shopping has been a revelation in how different things are...pounds, of course does not exist. We take a dictionary with us and search and search for things as items are not placed as we do in our stores. Everything we attempt to do takes 5 times longer than we are accustomed. The piata is close to us and has locally grown produce and lots of other things. I have to tell you that Dave stands out like a lightbulb in his clean white shirt and tie. Everyone looks at us and either doesn't want to make eye contact or their eyes go straight to our missionary badges which we wear all the time. Another thing we wear all the time is our "pouch". Dave has one that attaches to his belt and is worn inside just below the waist; mine is attached by a shoelace type drawstring which is worn around my waist and hangs between my hips and tummy. Makes the straight skirts look rather ridiculous, but these contain our passports, driver's license, leu, us dollars (for emergencies) and ATM cards. We were instructed to wear them at all times. A few days ago as we were walking to the church (which is called the Villa because it is one) we saw beside us a gypsy cart pulled by a horse and further down the street a herd of turkeys under an old truck. We nearly jumped to the moon as we were walking home almost dark the other night and a big dog attacked the screen that was just my head height with all his bark and might. We can get homemade pretzels which are quite good at the little markets and even soft serve ice cream cones that are delicious. We spend hours and hours each day studying the language; sometimes we think we have words and phrases down until we try them out on a Ramanian and they let us know better. They are very proud of their language and will not let you have a hair of pronounciation wrong or congujation for that matter. We are still trying to "hear" the language and are making progress. We have a neighbor who speaks a little English..and one who is so sweet, but just blabbers on in Romanian like we can understand her. She is nice as well. This is getting long, so we will catch us next week.

Ma bucur aici