January "cold" from Romania

First off, may we say we now know what "cold" means. In Romanian the word is "frig" pronounced freeg and that it is. Okay, that done we will move on to hoping this New Year finds each of you continually working on your goals for the year. We are grateful for a time to renew and recommit.

There are many churches here in Romania----mostly Penecostal and Orthodox. Every village has a beautiful church that stands in a prominent place among the little homes and in the city there are many along the main streets and scattered throughout the blocs. We have been inside several, but most interesting have been the Monestaries we have visited. One was an older one and the other a fairly new one, both are outside the city and have grounds with landscaping; quarters for the nuns and priests and, of course, the central church. On P - Day we set out in our Skoda with one Elder in the "trunk" and 5 of us up front going out of the city and into the countryside over frozen and bumpy roads in a heavily wooded area touched with snow. Thought you may like a peek inside as they are very ornate taking many years to complete the figure painting and gold leafing. Check out the well that is still in use. (The pic with the wheel)They have been very cordial to let us go inside and take pictures as well. On our return trip we saw a very LARGE boar running across in front of us along with 6 others following! Quite a sight and we were glad to be in a car as they are known to charge people. Then a magnificent deer was standing in a clearing beautiful against the stark white landscape. Another adventure, another day in Romania.

It is still foggy and cold, but we are out each day visiting, meetings, YSA activities and doing some real estate work to locate a new "vila" for our branch to meet in. We have located two possible locations that are near Centru and would be easier travel for the saints around Arad. Taking pictures and sending them and info off to Germany and trying to compute in our heads the price per sq. meter as opposed to sq. ft.----asking the right questions about the properties is challenging, however there aren't too many differences in the way they do business other than very little paper work, lots of words! Romanian words! Walking to meet agents, trying to understand their Romanian phone calls----who said we weren't busy?

Elder McFadden went "bloc knocking" with the Elders last night while I gave one of our YSA girls a French Manicure. She was thrilled; it would have taken 3/4 of her monthly income to have it done professionally.

You may have heard the news about the protesting in the streets of Bucharest and all around the country. It seems people are upset with the President and want him to step down. There are Politia in groups with their riot gear on in many areas as we walk through Centru. They haven't become violent here yet, just noisy.

We had our first snow on January 5, not a lot, but it was pretty for a while.( the pic of Elder McFadden was as we were leaving our place to walk to church.) Everyone tells us this has been a mild winter; can't wait for the real thing! J K! We are traveling up to Oredea tomorrow and will most likely encounter more snow......go Skoda!!!!!! Can't even begin to express how many "tender mercies" that have been given to us and our Father in Heaven's watchful care constantly. We so hope the church will continue to grow here. The people are really struggling with the economy and so many can not pay their bills...they could use your prayers. Thanks for your support and love you send our way.

Tu iubesc si levedere

Elder and Sora McFadden

Happy New Year from Arad

La Mult Fericite 2012! ! !

We welcomed the New Year with many thousands of other Romanians by walking to Centru and seeing the magnificent fireworks. One custom we didn't participate in was breaking your wine glass against another to drive off the evil spirits in the new year! The streets and walkways were loaded with broken glass and debris today...BUT we woke up to sunshine and blue skies! That is monumental for us as we have not seen the sun for many weeks being in cold and wet fog. The cats and kittens that live under our bloc came out to get a little sun on the bench out front when we left for church.

Of course, Christmas was so very different for us, however celebrated much the same in Romania. We had our first Sarmalies which is a traditional dish here. They are made with pork, rice, onions and spices rolled up in pickled cabbage leaves then boiled in broth and paprika for hours and served with sour cream and bread. The sisters from the branch got together and made at least 150 for our branch party. We designed and built a stable out of large cardboard boxes for the Nativity part of the program and Frate McFadden made a great wiseman while I played the piano for the singing. (They have 2 Romanian Christmas songs in their green hymnbook that I had to learn really fast!) Santa and Mrs. Santa came with goodies for everyone. It was a good time together for the branch.

On Christmas Eve afternoon we stuffed us 3 Sisters and 3 Elders into our little blue Skoda along with the 15 goodie plates we had prepared and set out to deliver to most all families in our branch throughout Arad. We found places we didn't know existed and tried to "sing and leave" but NO "come in and eat" they were all prepared and waiting with food even though the 6 of us could barely fit into their places. We were so stuffed full of goodies and food that we didn't even want to eat the dinner we had prepared when we got back to our place hours later! They were all so sweet and hospitable. We were also loaded with goodies they sent home with us then our neighbors came with more sarmalies and sweets most of them drenched with rum flavoring---look so good then WHOA!

We thank you all so much for the cards which made opening our post box so exciting as we opened greetings from home. And the packages! They were more than fantastic and actually made it to us, even the one Crystal sent to Arad. We sat down and had a very emotional "opening" of sweet and thoughtful things we received wrapped in lots of love. Thanks again.

Between Christmas and New Year's everything stops. No English Classes, no Institute and no YSA Activities. A few branch and district assignments, but some days found us making applesauce and cracking walnuts! And, of course, walking places like to see the new movie "Sherlock Holmes" at our very nice and modern red velvet seat theatre. We also spent an evening dining at the Continental Hotel while listening to our former Branch President and his band play. Very enjoyable...very good with a large reportoire of English Songs. Wanted so badly to dance, but these boots are just not made for "dancin'"!

We added another city to our district and the district was changed to Ordea which means we will have to travel 3 hours to Ordea for District Meetings.

We are also in the process of trying to "find" everyone listed on the branch roster to clean up the records which are years old and no more accurate. The days are full and never two alike here in Romania. Thank you for including the saints here in your prayers, we feel the help and spirit of it all. We have been blessed so richly and you all are a part of enriching our lives. Tu iubesc!

We send our love and know that we also love hearing from you; rosemarygourds@gmail.com gets to us very quickly : )

Ladeverdera pentru achesta zi,

Sora and Elder McFadden