March Moments in Arad, Romania

March 1 - First Day of Spring  -----ha ha ha it is still cold although we see the sun! 

March 2 - Hosted a dinner for 22 inviting 14 from Hungary to join the YSA's here for institute and activity.

March 3 - We got our "Marching" orders to be transferred to Bucharest.
                    Assignment:  Public Affairs Directors for Romania

Marach 5 - Sora McFadden outscored Elder McFadden and the Elders in bowling!!

March 8 - Mother's Day (turned into women's day)  EVERYONE buys flowers for the women.  There are stands all along the streets and at the piata selling beautiful flowers and potted plants  ----it is BIG here.

March 29 - We will pack up our belongings and Move to Bucharest and start the daunting task of letting the public know what the church is all about.

Maybe we will take you on a little tour of the famous old Water Tower in Arad.  We went there for P-Day and it was quite an adventure.  The inside is now an art gallery and museum but the massive water recepticle at the top is still in place and we climbed right through it to get to the very top and perched ourselves precariously on a little ledge to get a few pics looking down.  Now you can see the interior of the "blocs" which are like mini yards.

Marching along as a missionary team we love working with the Elders and Sisters and they love Elder McFadden's cooking.  The sisters called and we invited them for dinner.  They told us when they got here that they had prayed we would invite them for food tonight! 

We have been blessed each day with answers to our prayers and we feel yours in our behalf.  The church will move on and the world will hear this great and important message. 

Our prayers today are for you all and your families.  We think of you often and, of course, love hearing from you.  Thank you all for taking care of our family while we are here, we miss ALL of you immensly.

Our new address for all mail and packages is as follows:

Dave and Rosemary McFadden
Romania Moldova Mission
Sos. Pipera Nr. 41 Et. 7, Sector 2
Bucharest, Romania  014254

Ledeverdere, tu iubesc
Elder and Sora McFadden  AKA  Dave and Rosemary

February Surprises in Arad

The Romanians told us that Arad is a temperate zone and rarely gets much snow and isn't that cold. BINGO! We hit the "rare" which started with our 3 days and nights of snow then the deep freezer kicked in and ICE IT IS ----pretty much everywhere. We found you can make the distance between standing and being down close and personal with the icy snow in a split second and that when snow doesn't melt it just gets moved around as you walk through it. We also found the "radiant heaters" reached their max warm a long time before our deep freeze. My best friend right now is a black down coat! We just got in and it is snowing again.......

On the warmer side are the saints here that we have come to know and love. We have visited in their homes and found that behind the "BIG" doors is a neighborhood of sorts. Most of the buildings in the Centru area are ornate and were the created when the Austrains were building in the 1800's. Some people still call Arad "Little Vienna". It was influenced by the privacy required when war was such a common thing along with communism, spys, informants and mistrust of nearly everyone. Many countries have controlled and influenced Romania. Walking along the walkways we are going to show/tell you how we get to their places. So-----starting at the big door we have to know which button to press to alert them we want "in" then wait for the UNLOCKING sound. Onward through sorta tunnel like until you reach the stairs you want; past their "posta" boxes; up more stairs and we are there being greeted and asked to come in. The family you see with the Elders has most likely the nicest place around. Roomy and lovely antique furnishings. The husband is a member along with 2 kids, but wife was not friendly with the church at all. We have finally broken the ice with her and she sat in on one FHE we prepared for them even had a Priesthood blessing. A milestone; for six months now we have been building trust with these people.

Some of the Gypsy houses we pass on our way to church are very colorful. They are single dwellings, but stuffed with many individuals. A Gypsy couple let us take their picture along the way.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, Sora McFadden had a very fun day of food, SUNSHINE, movie and a birthday party complete with beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers. You see people on the street carrying fresh flowers from the Piata. They carry them with their "heads" down for some reason we haven't figured out yet. However, to keep the flowers from freezing they put a heavy plastic covering over their "stall" and have a little heater inside. You just have to figure out how to get them home without freezing them! Just outside town there is a large area of green houses which provide fresh flowers for funerals and bouquets. Beautiful flowers!

One of our YSA is Hungarian and wanted to make Hungarian Goulash for the group. We took her shopping and bought all the ingredients then came to our place and started cooking. We had 8 here for evening of food and instutite lesson. Elder McFadden is still cooking up good things for our group and the Elders and Sister Missionaries.

We have a new baby that we are aching to hold and love! Porter was born to Jamie and Tyler Hansen on January 29. The Sisters brought over a cake with the announcement written on it and the Elders stopped by to join in the grandparent celebration and brought a "sparkling cider" type drink that when uncorking it Elder Mc hit Sister Cottam smack in the middle of the forehead from the far end of the table!!

We are grateful for your emails, letters and skype which helps us to know what is going on in your lives. Thank you so very much.

Tu iubim,

Elder and Sora McFadden

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

Christmas in Arad

First Christmas (Cracuin in Romanian) away from home is a completely new experience; traditions, family, entertaining and friendships renewed through cards and greetings are thousands of miles away. However the birth of Christ is the focus and we have been able to feel of that spirit in our humble home and with our branch members.

Dec. 1 in Romania is big celebration as it is their Revolution Day. Three days of entertainment in Centru----parades of tanks and military and 40 shops set up selling all kinds of food and goods celebrating over 20 years of freedom. We had quite a day of it as we were invited to attend a "pig celebration" at the home of our proprietor. This time we got to see the entire pig in all parts and pieces they had cut up, ground, and were making sausage and other delicacies not wasting a single part. The "celebration" comes when all it done and each item is cooked, fried and "sampled". We "sampled" it all! What an experience! Elder McFadden got to chew some pig skin and we both had a hard time with the 4 inch thick slab of jowl and throat fat. This is their meat for the entire winter and they really have the process down. When we returned home later that evening the live entertainment was still going and we were excited to see Romanian dancers, musicians and singing. We also got to sample our first "Kurtockalacs" which were soooooo yummy. As we walked by it reminded us of the aroma you sense when you walk thru the Mall and smell the roasting nuts they sell at ChristTimisoara Nordmastime. Kurtockalacs are a type of bread dough wound around a 3" in diameter wooden skewer then roasted over coals until brown then coated with a coating of sugar and nuts. When you pull it off to eat it, it comes off like a slinky. Elder McFadden was so taken by this new and exciting food product that he had to research it and then search Arad until he found and purchased 2 skewers. Look out St. George as you are in for a super treat when we get home. The events go on as the Day of Revolution ended with fireworks and WA LA the next day they had a gigantic Christmas tree and were putting lights and decos everywhere. Each night English Christmas Carols are being played over the loud speaker and the entertainment and food booths with traditional food and goodies are there for our sampling which we have enjoyed very much. There are Christmas tree lots, lights in windows, live creche, and stenciled fake snow images sprayed on windows. They seem to know how to celebrate.

Christmas Zone parties are going on for the missionaries through the country and we hosted 1 of 3 in the mission covering 2 zones. Elder McFadden was in his element as we prepared food and party for 38 at the church. The Elders and Sisters came from 4 cities by train, maxi taxi and bus arriving at the party at 3:00 and going until 9:30 that evening. Our Mission President and his wife came as well. We spent DAYS gathering product and cooking. Sora McFadden made goodie bags for each one; it was very fun to see the Elders and Sisters gathered and having so much fun together. The Mission van arrived filled with packages that came in from Bucharest. There was even some for the McFadden's!! Thank you all so much for the packages and letters, we can't wait to open them on Christmas.

Our branch Cracuin Saratori will be this week featuring a nativity narration and singing--we are building a stable this week---sounds complicated, but we have limited resources so we will improvise and make it work. Can't wait to sample the Saramalies that the sorias in the branch make for the party!

Saturday the city sponsored a Santa Run; which was 3 km around downtown and the first 200 to be there got santa suits to wear. The 2 elders, 2 sisters and 2 YSA all ran while we watched over their belongings and took pictures. It was a hoot to see all these "Santas" running, last year one of the Elders won a 1200 lei prize and donated it back to the shelter. Our elders didn't do as well this year...it was SOOO cold.

We just returned from a concert put on in the Cultural Palace behind the Pri Maria which is that beautiful white building you keep seeing, it is the City Hall and all things revolve around it in the heart of the city. The concert was very impressive especially for a high school. They had a full chorus, orchestra and brass ensemble. One of our YSA girls was performing so it was fun to see her as well. I kept pinching myself saying, "Can you beleive you really are sitting here in Romania at this moment enjoying this beautiful music?" No, still can't quite comprehend it all as each day brings new adventures and experiences and closer to our Father in Heaven as we see the need for more converts and strength in members; it is still all so new to them, but we are making progress and they are sweet people.

We love hearing from you.... and LOVE you............ emails are great!

Fericite Cracuin....tu iubim

Elder and Sora McFadden

P. S. Don't know how that print got on top of the pics, but I don't know how to fix it!!!! Sorry

Thanksgiving pictures

Giving Thanks in Romania

Thanksgiving is our ultimate favorite holiday and we will be having a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner with Elders and Sisters squeezing around our small table to give thanks, eat and play a few games. We found a pumpkin at the piata, came home and cooked it up for Dave to make pumpkin pie....can't wait. Finding the spices we need for this special occasion has taken a bit of footwork and guessing at the stores, but we think we are about there. As far as the turkey goes, they are way too expensive and look like the wild ones. A big chick will be fine! We have such yummy bakeries that they are making the rolls this time! These little pasteries shops are located along the streets and bake fresh all day long. They have the filo dough goodies down really well. It could be one with meat or cheese or something sweet and delicious, but hot out of the oven is great on these cold days. My favorite is sweet cheese wrapped with filo dough and Kelly instructed me to eat one a day to try and gain some of the weight back that I have lost! We will have an update on Thanksgiving after we celebrate. For now we are trying to hold off the Christmas music as they are starting to celebrate already. The lights are up in downtown Centru and staging for booths and other entertainment are getting built and the stores are full of decorations and goodies.

We have, of course, become very attached to the Elders and Sisters here in Arad and have had them in our home for dinner and district meetings often. We will be going through withdrawal this week as one of the zone leaders goes home and we get a new set of Elders and a new Sister. I have to say they are doing a fine job here in working with the members, inactives and bringing new ones into discussions. Very dedicated and hard working and sooo loving and kind.

Something that has come to be a great form of communication is mail. Yes, we actually have a "Post" and you can view the pic....had no idea what that beat up red thing on the street was until we had been here for a few months! Our address is:

Rosemary and Dave McFadden

Str. Simion Balint

Nr. 7 BL B Sc B Ap 3

Arad, Romania 310019

I also included a pic of the essentials we do not leave home without as we have quite a lock system here. Three deadbolts fall into place on the bottom of the doorjam when we lock to leave and these gigantic keys are turned three times to unlock. We seriously doubt anyone will ever break in! And the cell phone.....had to relearn how to use this old time baby! But we are grateful for it keeping us in touch all over the country.

Had our first delicious Romanian dinner last week as a surprise to us. We had to go to a village called Curtichi about 20 min. away to pay our proprietor our rent and they invited us in. Wow! They raise everything...animals, garden the works and everything had been harvested and cured for winter storage. Asked if we would like a drink we said yes.....it ended up being hot chocolate as the other choices were not allowed! The Mothers of the husband and wife were in the kitchen cooking up a storm and we found ourselves treated to the most delicious food in 4 courses. We were planning on leaving after each one, but it just kept coming. All prepared there from their property. It was such a treat and one we had not expected. Very nice visit with traditional set-up of married children and parents living in same place, Grandmothers taking care of little one and doing cooking and gardening and all else. The Mom is a doctor and her husband has a little business. Delightful people that spoke fairly good English....how refreshing for us. Came home stuffed with unusual and delicious food. The meats have various parts of the animal we do not usually consider eating, but it was all tasty. Didn't have my camera with me.....bummer!

Our Branch seems to be progressing, we were so encouraged to see more saints coming and our Young Adults had a conference in Hungary this weekend. One small step at a time we keep telling ourselves.

We send our love, and again ask for your prayers in behalf of this " so very new in the gospel" country. Thank you from our humble hearts for your packages (that eventually get here) your letters and the treasured memories of each of you. Thank you for watching over Jamie & Tyler and our home. And thank you for being such great examples to us.

Iubim sa atunci

Elder and Sora McFadden