Our mission has come to an end, it's hard to believe that 18 months has passed. What a wonderful experience for Wendy and Bob, we fell in love with "our Moldovan Family" and we will miss them very much. We had a wonderful Sunday, on February 14th, the YSA were there and showed us so much love. Much to our surprise, they were at the airport in Chisinau at 3:00 in the morning to see us off, which is indicative of the kind of love they have always shown to us. They gave us a photo and a DVD which we will always treasure. Our Family was waiting for us when we arrived in Sacramento. It was a wonderful, joyful and loud reunion. We are so happy to be back with our children and grandchildren. We are grateful for the opportunity we had to serve in Moldova, we will never forget the friends we made there. It is now time to move on to the next phase of our lives.

Last Week

It is hard to believe that 18 months have past, and we are spending our last week on our mission. This will be the last blog from Moldova with one more to follow on our return home. The photos are of the last couple of weeks. A photo of our district presidency that I was honored to serve in for the past 10 months; One of our many Karoke Nights with Young Adults and missionaries; One of our Family Home Evening February 1st; One of the last baptism we attended on February 6th; One of the Virlan Family (our district president) where we had dinner on February 6th; and finally one with two of our Elders.
How can we ever explain the feelings we have from being here in Moldova with these wonderful people. We have grown to love our friends here and we will miss them very much. We feel so blessed to have been called to serve the Lord here in this part of his world.
We will spend our last week of our mission in Bucharest, Romania attending a Seminary and Institute Faculty meeting with our conterparts from all over Eastern Europe. We will return to Chisinau Friday evening, February 12th, pack up and leave for home at 5:00am Monday, February 15th arriving in Sacramento at 10:00pm. We are excited to be runited with our family and meet our two newest grandsons.

Christmas 2009 was wonderful, we had many wonderful experiences this year, for our last Christmas in Moldova. As you learned in last weeks post the Women's Shelter project was a wonderful start for our Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we had a party at the church for our missionaries and our Young Adult Group. We had 50 people attend and had a great time. We ate Pizza and lots of desert, we watched the movie, The Nativity Story, and had a wonderful evening.
Christmas Day we invited the missionaries to our apartment to make their Christmas calls home, using our Skype. I remember how I looked forward to our Christmas talks with our son's when they were serving missions so it was fun to see these missionaries call home. Wendy made waffles for them and it was a great day, (as great as it can be away from home). In the week after Christmas we visited the school for visually impaired children, where they put on a show for us that was wonderful, and we were able to pass out some candy to them. We also visited our friends in Balti, the Colon Family and Christi and his mother and grandmother. All in all it has been a great Christmas and we have been able to ponder the true meaning of the holiday, the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Serving these wonderful people here in Moldova has been a great blessing in our lives.
We are looking forward to the New Year when we can once again be with our Family at home. We are scheduled to arrive in Sacramento on February 15th.
Wendy and I wish all of you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. We are thankful for the support of our family and Friends over the past year.

Christmas Service Project - 2009

Today, December 23, 2009 we were able to complete our two family Christmas Project with the help of some of the Young Adults from our Church. We learned of this special home last summer after the LDS Church Humanitarian Missionaries (Elder and Sister Hinson) provided new beds and mattresses for this women's shelter. It is a home for women rescued from human trafficking and women escaping violence. It was very disturbing to see mothers no older than some of our granddaughters. The women are taken in and allowed to live, with their children, for up to six months while they are being rehabilitated back into society. Our family and friends along with the Hinson family donated the money necessary to provide five indoor toilets, and gift bags and food for all of the mothers and children. Wendy and Rodna Hinson did the shopping and we gathered at the church and our young adults put together the gift bags. Then we travelled the 3 hour drive to spend a few hours with these wonderful women and their children. The women and children had worked for two weeks putting together a program for us. We helped them decorate a tree, then read the Christmas Story in both Romanian and Russian, and sang Christmas Carols with them. It was a wonderful experience for everyone involved. We are grateful for all those who donated money, and time to this project. We know that the Lord will bless all of you for your generosity. We are grateful for the opportunity we had to participate in this project. The joy on the faces of the recipients warmed our hearts and you will want to know that the children LOVED the teddy bears. The local television station came and took video's of everything and interviewed us and asked "why do you do this?" It was an easy answer to tell them that God loves all of his children, and it is a blessing for us to be able to provide a little happiness to just a few of his children. We encourage all of you to remember the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of the Savior of the World, even Jesus Christ.

Winter 2009

Winter has come to Moldova with a vengeance! Saturday evening (December 19) it was 0 degrees Fahrenheit! We had to walk to our apartment from the church and I thought my glass frames were going to freeze to my cheeks. On Sunday the high temperature was +1. It snowed for 5 days straight so we have over a foot of snow on the ground and the sidewalks are like ice skating rinks. They don't have snow plows here so the streets are pretty treacherous. We are looking for a warming trend, tomorrow it is supposed to get up to 30 degrees.
We had to re-schedule our women's shelter project until Wednesday the 23rd because the roads were to dangerous to travel on. We are looking forward to Wednesday, then Thursday night we will have Christmas Eve with the missionaries and our Young Adult group. We are anxious to see the New Year come knowing that we will be home with our family on February 15th.
We wish everyone who reads this blog a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New Year.

Italy was everything we hoped it would be and more. We were in Milan where the scenery was beautiful with the Alps to the north. We were there for training for our missionary responsibilities but had the opportunity to see some of the sights. The Duomo is the second largest cathedral in the world. It is fantastic. It was started in the 13th century and took over 400 years to complete! We also were able to visit the restored castle, Castello Sforzesco, also built in the 13th century. It houses a wonderful museum with art work and carvings from the 13th through the 17th centuries, including an original Michelangelo. The Italian food was fantastic, real Italian classic pizza, spaghetti and gelato. Shopping would be fun in Milan, every designer store you can think of, with prices out of this world. Fortunately no time for shopping.
We were with wonderful people from Southeastern Europe. Senior missionaries serving in Greece, Poland, Czech Republic, and Albania and Wendy and I from Moldova. The full time Seminary & Institute faculty were from Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, and Hungary. They were the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. We thoroughly enjoyed our week in Milan.

Worldmade Wheel Chair Project

By their fruits you shall know them. This is the scripture that came to my mind during last weeks Humanitarian Project here in Chisinau, Moldova. Our church brought in experts from America and Australia to train local disabled Moldovan's how to prescribe and assemble wheel chairs. They also provided the parts to assemble 250rough terrain wheelchairs to be given to handicapped people here in Moldova. The Society for the Disabled, a Moldovan organization, suggested handicapped men to be trained and receive certificates in either the prescription or assembly of wheelchairs. The prescription training was very involved, each wheelchair would be customized to the recipient. This project provides jobs for the handicapped as well as chairs for those who need them. Wendy and I were gratified to be involved in this project mostly to have the opportunity to see these wonderful people learn a skill and use it for the benefit of others.