MARCH IS THE MONTH OF THE MARTISOR

What is a Martisor and what is it for? This is a an example of some of the Martisor's that I have been given.They sale these all along the street in the center of the city.

There are many different legends which tell about this beautiful holiday. One of them tells us that on the first day of March wonderful Spring came out to the verge of the forest. The Spring looked around and saw in the blackthorn little dainty snowdrop appearing from the snow. A kind Spring wanted to help the snowdrop and started to take away the snow and thorny branches. The Winter saw this and became angry. She brought severe wind and snow to wipe out the little flower. However the Spring covered the flower with her hands. as she did so, she pricked her finger and hot blood dropped onto the faint flower. Thanks to the warm blood of Spring the snowdrop came to life again. Thus the wonderful Spring won the Winter. Since that time people wear little martisors which symbolize red blood on the white snowdrop. This is one of those beautiful legends which tell about how this holiday started.

Another legend tells that there was a time when the Sun used to take the shape of a young man and descend on Earth to dance among folk people. Now a dragon found out about this and followed the Sun on Earth, captured him and confined him to a dungeon in his castle. Suddenly the birds stopped singing and the children could not laugh anymore but no one dared to confront the dragon. One day a brave young man set out to find the dungeon and free the Sun. Many people joined in and gave him strength and courage to challenge the mighty dragon. The journey lasted three seasons: summer, autumn and winter. At the end of the third season the brave young man could finally reach the castle of the dragon where the Sun was imprisoned. The fight lasted several days until the dragon was defeated. Weakened by his wounds the brave young man however managed to set the Sun free to the joy of those who believed in him. Nature was alive again, people got back their smile but the brave young man could not make it through spring. His warm blood was draining from his wounds in the snow. With the snow melting, white flowers, called snowdrops, harbingers of spring, sprouted from the thawing soil. When the last drop of the brave young man's blood fell on the pure white snow he died with pride that his life served a noble purpose. Since then people braid two tassels: one white and one red. Every March 1 men offers this amulet called Martisor to the women they love. The red color symbolizes love for all that is beautiful and also the blood of the brave young man, while white represents purity, good health and the snowdrop, the first flower of spring.

Then on the 31st of March you tie your Martisor to the limb of a tree and later in the summer this limb will bare the most fruit.

Our most exciting news for the month is that we were able to go pick up our car. We are truly bless and spoiled. This is it a new 2015 Opel MOKKA.

We LOVE our beautiful new CAR.




PHOTO OF THE MONTH!

This house was not only built upon the rock but was built out of the rock also

OR
 would you like more color!

THE LORD'S WORK GOES FORTH

Our last Blog told you about how great and busy our missionaries are. Now I would like to share with you our PA (public affairs) campaign here in Moldova. Since we set foot in the Romanian/ Moldova mission last November one of our top priorities has been public affairs. President Ivory has the same vision Elder Ballard had-that there will be stakes here in Moldova. So our PA program is trying to bring Moldova into the light, not just for the people, but also for the church.  President Ivory wants the church to take note of our little country- that against all odds it is trying to survive on its own. Some of the older people still want Russia to take over and just take care of them. But in the younger people we see HOPE, a desire for freedom and a need to show the world, "we are HERE, LOOK at us, we want freedom, we want a PLACE in this world, we want to SUCCEED" and with a little help they can do it!

Moldova has the most fertile, rich soil in the world. If you drop a seed it will grow and produce the best of what ever is planted. We have people who don't give up even after being held down by their corrupt government. They are strong and they want to be able to survive to leave land for their posterity.

Some of these little villages are ready for the missionaries, but the mission only goes into cities that have certain criteria. I know that we don't have enough missionaries to go into the villages, also the villages are so small they would have every person visited in a week. It is sad because we have met some of the sweetest, most humble people in the villages, but if they joined the church they would be hours away from the chapel. So many of these village people are already MORMON at heart, they just don't know it. Their values and way of life fit perfect with the church standards. We are praying that there will be a way to include them in the Lord's work!

Our English classes continue to be a great influence in spreading the gospel. Our second sign-up took place last week and we have another 450 students in our classes. Elder Bateman told us in our last district meeting that the missionaries taught as many lessons last week as was taught the whole month of February and right now they have 3 committed to baptism. We are truly blessed to see the Lord's work going forth.

We have 53 just in the one class of beginners.

Our first Self-Reliance workshop took place in Chisinau on the 7th and 14th of March. We took the advanced students in the English classes and 25 signed up. We found that these students were by far the smartest and most interested than any of our classes thus far. They all have a desire to be some type of a professional. We had various doctors, architects, media, event planners, general mangers and others. They asked questions and were interested in the whole presentation, they even gave Elder Cooley a round of applause at the end of each day. We are happy with the fact that they mostly wanted to speak English to practice so it made the days go smoothly.

Great Self-Reliance workshop group!

This self-reliance group is now in their 2nd week of the My Foundation lessons, which goes for 12 weeks.

March was filled with some interesting invitations. One of which was an invitation to attend a reception of the new U.S. Ambassador Jim Pettit. This was an informal gathering of many Americans at his home. It was very interesting to see his home and where our tax dollars are going. He lives in a 3 story home alone because his wife is currently the ambassador in Latvia.

They served some light hors d'oeuvres in a very large dining room. I loved the large table we could seat all 38 members of our family at it for dinner, wouldn't that be wonderful!

Couldn't resist having my picture taken at the pulpit with the Ambassador's seal.

We are Proud to be AMERICANS here in Moldova!

So Elder Cooley what do you want to drive to town today!

                                                                        

SOCIAL MEDIA MIRACLE

On January 12, 2015, Elder Bateman (our 18 year old boy wonder from Florida) came up with a great idea! He is always thinking about what we can do to improve our missionary efforts in Moldova. They had been teaching English classes on Tuesday and Saturday, with about 50 students. So, Elder Bateman (also our District Leader) decided that we should have a Facebook page and to advertise the classes. He had it up and going in just a couple hours.  He set January 19th as the sign up date at 5:00 pm. The missionaries also handed out cards and hung posters around town.

They were having lots of people call and ask about the classes so they expected a large turn out. Lee and I went to help do a little crowd control and set up. By the time we got to the church the missionaries had the tables all set up, marked with the classes they would sign up for at each table. They had sign up sheets and pens all set out and ready to go.  This was a well planned event.

We waited and it wasn't long before be had a steady stream of people coming. By 4:25 they started coming and by 4:45 we had a line of people waiting at each table and by 5:00 the room was packed.  There was still a crowd outside and more coming.

 Most of the people had signed up by 5:15.

We had 6 different classes the people could sign up for. At 5:30 we had all classes filled and the other people on a waiting list. What just happened? We went from 50 students to a mob in a matter of minutes. Now, what do we do with them?  We only have 140 chairs in the whole church building. This meant that English classes had to be taught several times a week.  By the time the dust settled Elder Bateman announced that 450 had just signed up for our English classes.

Who would have ever thought that Social Media could be so powerful in Moldova! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!

This was only the first day. On Saturday we had a late sign up that added another 50+ to the list. Do we believe in miracles?!

The most exciting part of all is that all the companionship's received people to teach the gospel to from their English classes. I was told that just last week we had more lessons given than the whole month of February. We could even lead the mission in the number of contacts and lessons given. To add perspective, Moldova has only 10% of the people in the whole mission.

Elder Ballard's dedicatory prayer is coming to pass. Chisinau is coming out of obscurity with nothing other than English classes. Each class ends with a spiritual thought, the students don't have to stay but we are finding that they want to hear those uplifting positive messages their missionary instructors deliver each class.

Another wonderful experience last week was a baptism.  Deanna was baptized and we had 51 people there to witness. We had 17 non member,s most of them from-you guessed it, English classes. On Sunday March 1 we had 41 come to Sacrament meeting ANOTHER RECORD.  So small by US standards, but for us big.  This is a 30% increase in the average attendance since we arrived just 3 months ago.

BY SMALL MIRACLES SHALL LARGE MIRACLES COME TO PASS!

Our English classes have worked so well that the other two cities with missionaries (Balti and Orhei) are also advertising their English classes. Good luck Balti and Orhei! Romania is also getting their Facebook page ready.

Our last amazing news is that Elder Tita came from the MTC after 9 weeks of training for the Russian  language. He is Romanian and was so happy to come to Moldova for his mission. He told us that we were "the talk of the MTC" and everyone was already excited to get out and start English classes in their appointed foreign missions. Chisinau English Classes are famous!

To all you parents and grandparents who have missionaries out in the field, DON'T worry. These young ELDERS and SISTERS are absolutely amazing and meet every challenge head on. We marvel at the willingness and energy that they portray each and every day.  May the Lord bless them all for their efforts in bringing others unto Christ.

 WE LOVE YOU MOLDOVA MISSIONARIES!

This is our Romanian district (minus Elder Cooley he is always off somewhere else). 

Top left: Elder Bateman, Elder Daland, Elder Weaver

Middle left: Sora Cooley, Sora Bischoff, Sora Elliott

Bottom left: Elder Brown, Sora Bray, and Sora Barrera.