days 92 & 93

song of the day: alaturi de ingeri (along with angels)

things are just zooming along here. nothing super exciting has happened at either the orphanage or the hospital. we are working on our brigance tests with our kids right now and starting to write instructions to the next group about each kid.

i am reading a book entitled the odyssey of a romanian street child. it is really interesting and humbling, but also inspiring.

we played a never ending game of musical chairs tonight at outreach to some great romanian music. we had the sisters over for dinner last night. sora betham has a mini-missionary companion. she is a romanian who is serving with her for half a transfer. haha poor thing, seeing them together adds a tally under the con side of the list i am creating.

i got hit on today by a lesbian lady at the hospital. it was the creepiest experience of my life. its times like that i am grateful i can say, "nu inteleg, im pare rau" and make up little songs in english like, "go away creeper, and quit talking to me".

well. two weeks from right now i will be walking around austria on my first leg of the trip home. crazy.

days 90 & 91

if you see a frowny face, change it to a smile,

make the world a better place, by smiling all the while.

well, i am back to work and back to smiling. today was a wonderful day with all my kids getting hand prints and foot prints on everything in sight and a few pieces of paper. all my favorite workers are on this week and our flirty arrogant physical therapist left for his vacation. sang a few rounds of the good morning song to the smiliest baby ever, and enjoyed a lovely fhe.

to end the day, we decorated eggs with wax we melted from crayons as a romanian craft. another highlight of my day: having this beauty as the background on my computer. if you came to visit romania and saw the mannequins in the store windows, you might understand.

anyways, mom, hope your open house went well. good luck with your first day of kindergarten tomorrow.. you are all grown up, i am so proud. just kidding, but seriously, those kids are so lucky to have mrs. scott as a teacher.

p.s you should get those books for your classroom... and the berenstain bears. and where the wild things are. and of course the giving tree, and the places you'll go, and the love you forever, like you for always one.

best news ever!

marius leaves for america in seven days!!! sea world and disneyland watch out! we are all so excited and are grateful for the answer to our prayers.

days 88 & 89

the goodbyes have already began. this is going to be harder than i expected and i thought i was expecting the worst.

friday was elisa's last day at the orphanage, and i had to leave when she said her goodbyes to the kids.

we had a branch activity on friday and the best part was sora maria's song. she wrote and sang a song for us, and it was very touching.. and i'll have everyone know that she started crying first!

after the activity we went to our neighbor's house to visit. she is so sweet and she is leaving to go to america for a year to live with her daughter who is going through a divorce. she is cute and makes sure that she speaks really slowly so we can understand. she started crying when she said this. i wanted to cry as well.

"daca nu este dragoste, nu este nimic"

the more strangers i get to know, the more my faith in good people, doing good things is restored.

speaking of good things. we gave teo her going away present today. hopefully her and marius and ionut will leave for america this week. she also gave us pictures of our kids, but i have decided to not post any on here. no offense, but they are too special to me. but if i came home with nothing else, but those photos i would be so so happy. teo is an amazing person who has taught me a lot.

sorry, i haven't been in touch with anyone lately. there is just not a lot of time left here and it has been hard to be motivated to write. none the less. thanks for the support and prayers.

elisa leaves in three and a half hours. she will most definitely be missed.

wisdom from roberta

It takes strength to be firm; it takes courage to be gentle.

It takes strength to stand guard; it takes courage to let down your guard.

It takes strength to conquer; it takes courage to surrender.

It takes strength to fit in; it takes courage to stand out.

It takes strength to feel a friend's pain; it takes courage to feel your own pain.

It takes strength to hide feelings; it takes courage to show them.

It takes strength to endure abuse; it takes courage to stop it.

It takes strength to stand alone; it takes courage to lean on another.

It takes strength to love; it takes courage to be loved.

It takes strength to survive; it takes courage to live.

HAPPY PIONEER DAY

even though i am a million miles from the salt lake valley, this year's pioneer day will stand out forever. we had no bar-b-ques, or fireworks, but i have been thinking a lot today about how much i am going to miss this branch.

the branch members here are the pioneers of romania and i have truly grown to love them and have learned so much from them!!

love love love

day 85

"true saints of God love life; they enjoy themselves. they are lighthearted and upbeat despite the realities of life. they have a larger perspective that keeps them going and helps them focus on everlasting things. because of Christ and the great plan of happiness, we can have joy in this life- even in the midst of trial and heartache."

i love the daily bits of wisdom my mom sent me with.

this morning when i got to the orphanage they had brought all the kids outside except for my three loves. so i snuck upstairs, shut the doors, turned off the soap operas, turned on some muzica and held and loved those archy back, scabie covered dolls. luckily i got caught by the nice worker and she just laughed and walked away.

i am going to go back to my black sea post and add pictures right now

day 84

today was monday and it should really be called funday.

i was so excited to go back to work. the trip to the black sea was fun, but it made me really trunky and homesick. i have been so lucky in iasi - i haven't really gotten too down or homesick. i think it is because of my lovely kids smiles and kisses.

anyways, work was wonderful as always. haha vlad fell off the swing today.. it was funny but he was tough and we were good. vali, our deaf gypsy boy was so so happy today it made me so happy. his laugh is my favorite because it is really quiet. you can only hear it when he gasps for air when i pause from tickling him for fear i might suffocate him. at noon, we hurried to elder barclay's last request before he gets transfered tomorrow - to play frisbee. original teams were brought back and of course go go go gogosi stomped.

we stopped at home for a sec and ran off to the hospital where i spent time with this lovely lady:

this is the second time leah has been brought to the hospital and she is adorable. please see below: (also, as a warning. this video has graphic sounds of everyday life in the hospital. o and also a sick nasty whitney who had just walked up literally hundreds of stairs in an unairconditioned hospital after walking for thirty minutes outside in 87* weather. sorry.)

after cuddling with her and talking with the moms in her room i headed out to my family portrait appointment with elyse and our child.

as parents, we don't look amazing, but we got marion to smile on the first try and so it is staying.

elisa and i went to the mall this evening and found the best surprises.

we had dinner with our friend from andrieseni, teo, the priest's daughter, and she came to FHE with us and had a really fun time. the lesson was great and our game of mafia somehow turned into a water fight and it was wonderful. we walked home in the rain, said noapte buna to the misionari and had a little group meeting. we presented teo with a journal where we all wrote little notes and put photos inside. sorry and thank you grandma, we used the journal you gave me. we couldn't find a nice one here and knew they would love it. and she did and almost cried when we gave it to her, and she said the village is going to love it. so gracias, multimin, merci frumos, and thank you.

well i am foarte obosita and need to get some somn.

hahaha don't worry, there are car alarms going off everywhere from the piercing lightening that just struck. i la la la la love thunderstorms almost as much as jumping into puddles or the ocean. mom and dad remember in texas, when it would thunderstorm, all us kids would get scared and ended up in your room? i hope my kids aren't too scared tonight at the orphanage.

days 79 - 83

day 79: wednesday

i was really bummed to wake up smelling like yucky scabex cream and having to reapply it and wear it all day.

i found out the story of my new little boy i talked about a few days ago. he is a gypsy boy from a family with six other kids. none of the kids ever wore any clothes. he is deaf and frustrated not being able to communicate, so he has major behavior issues. anyways, it is common in romania that physical disabilities are considered the same as imbecility and so he was seen as a curse and was kept isolated from the rest of the family. and like we assumed he was physically abused. i am so happy he is at the orphanage now! (update: today is really monday and he was so so happy today! we had a great day together)

also: i love marion! and here is proof that he does smile around me:

we got on a torturous not sleeper train around 10 pm and had a long uncomfortable trip to the black sea.

day 80: thursday

we got to our cute little hotel thing, took a quick nap and headed off to the ocean. spent the day there.

day 81: friday

whitney and i decided to wake everyone up to beautiful day by U2 this morning and i don't think they appreciated it.

we got up and went to the ocean. highlight of the day: riding behind a jetski on a banana tube thing, even though we got dumped off out in the deep water and was scared of big giant fishes.

another highlight of the evening: dance party/dance off. there was definitely some soulja boi lessons and bootyliciousness. haha we have the best 3.5 minute video that i will probably get in big trouble for posting, but am considering it.

day 82: saturday

another day at the beach. highlight of the day: playing beach volleyball. low point: the creeper at the gogosi stand.

look at kenzie playing ball with a romanian... haha

it started pouring and we had fun

day 83: sunday
another 10 hour train ride but this time in the middle of the day with no air conditioning and a fat man sitting on my lap. true story, if you want to know more youw ill have to skype with me or wait till i get home, because visual aids are needed. i la la la love i pods and church music, and poor president monson got sat on too when the man sat on my ensign when i went to the thing they call a toilet.

preview

i la la la la love the ocean and have had a wonderful time here at the black sea. the internet is super sketchy so i will write more tomorrow night, when i get home. (which means sorry family, i won't be home in time to skype with you on sunday morning, but i love and miss you more!)

leaving, once more

after sorting out the pros and cons, and canceling our trip to bucharest, we have decided to take our last trip to the ocean! well the black sea. we leave tonight and get back late sunday night. i am bringing my computer seeing that i will have room in my backpack of a swimsuit and pajammas - sophomore summer relived! the plan is to get a lot of course work done while trying to get rid of this farmer's tan. i am not sure if internet will be available, but don't forget about me either way.

also, i am on my second round of scabies... woop woop

days 77 & 78

"welcome back to iasi, where no one cares about you" - mindy as we got off of the mini bus that slammed its doors shut early and tried to kidnap half of the girls.

it has been bittersweet coming home from our little vacation.

saturday afternoon was zone conference. no i am not a missionary, yes i was there. de ce? melissa and i were asked to be in charge of the branch's sports day, so we were told to be at the church at three. we got there right as the conference was ending and were invited in to eat watermelon and meet the new mission president and his family. they are 100 percent perfect for this mission and are going to do great work. the missionaries are all pumped and it is fun to see them that way.

the conference continued on sunday where president and sister lundberg spoke to the branch in romanian! and good romanian. and we, the byu girls, sang and it was my favorite meeting this summer. don't worry i also had a class full of primary kids. it was quite the adventure trying to keep these kids entertained for two hours. there were five kids, the youngest was four, the oldest 12, and the lundberg's son, joshua was there too.. so i had to try and teach in romanian and english which doesn't go over well with short attention spans. but i was grateful for the opportunity and also for annie for helping me.

monday sent us back to work. we have a new boy in our room at the orphanage and he makes me so sad. it is evident that he has been abused in the past because he flinches if you barely reach to touch him. he just sits and cries and i just held him and hugged him for about an hour, and it made me feel good when he made eye contact with me. i hope that he knows he is safe with us.

we had the sisters over for lunch today and we dyed sora betham's hair. it is always fun to be around them. at the hospital, elyse and i spent a lot of time with "our child" aka marion. haha he is getting so big! and we also spent an hour with ali.

fhe was one of my favorites, but i will talk about that later because i need to go to work right now... to be continued later

...

okay it is later. so elyse and mindy gave an object lesson and they used our really long spoon. they talked about two rooms. both rooms had a table in the center with a big bowl of food. surrounding the table were people with really long spoons. there was a dramatic difference found in the appearance of the people in the two rooms. the first room was full of hungry skinny people, and the second, was full of healthy satisfied people. why was it this way? well the difference was that in the second room, the people used their long spoons to fed each other because it was impossible to feed yourself. anyways, i wish you could have seen sora genoveva trying to feed herself with that long spoon. it was great.

then we played charades which was just as entertaining and after we wached narchiss and ionut arm wrestle.

then back home for quantum leap and beddie bed.

day 75 & 76

welcome to the village from heaven, andrieseni. so when marion passed, the girls went out to his funeral in the village that he is from, and the priest's family invited us back. we spent the weekend riding around on the back of a horse buggie, visiting all the neighbors. at each house we were showered with homemade treats, hand picked veggies, delicious saremale, immediate friendships - the bee man fed us fresh honeycomb, the vegetable lady gave us a bag of carrots, the librarian a bag of books. everytime we thought things couldn't get any better, the sweet villagers surprised once more. for example, we were all tucked into our bed of, no joke, twenty blankets on top of the grass outside of the church when mr bee man, brought us 5 liters of honey!

this village really was a little piece of heaven on earth. everyone was so kind and welcoming. it is a very traditional village so there were hardly any cars, and everyone had their job and they all lived happily together with only the drunkards causing a few problems every now and again. we felt overwhelmed with kindness at each house we visited and tried to thank them by singing to them. nearer my god to thee was their favorite and the one the priest kept requesting. here are some of the wonderful faces and places i wish to never forget:

day 73

it is always nice to go back to work after even a day of absence. yesterday was especially nice because cristi was back! and we found out that he had been picked up the day before, so that means he wasn't alone all day while we were at the monasteries worrying about him... tender mercies.

the dancu apartments were as crazy as ever with our for lack of a better word, psycho little girl. elisa and i have gotten pretty good at tag-teaming her.

anyways, today is actually friday and we are leaving to go visit the priest's family and camp in his yard. it should be fun. i will leave you with some lovely group photos that i got from whitney lerie alexander.

day 72

today was our day of fun with dave. he took us out to the medieval painted monasteries. it was about a two hour drive out to them in the back of a taxi. after handling those roads in africa last summer, this bumpy ride was a piece of cake. anyways, it was a lot of fun and the monasteries are beautiful. highlight of the day: one of the monks gave me a noogie and laughed as he walked away. here are some photos:

o, we also went to a romanian zoo things consisting of deer, reindeer, lots of birds, buffalo, and a brown bear?

i don't know why, but i think that last picture is really funny