THE COOLEY'S LOVE MOLDOVA

In the summer months this country comes alive. I can't blame them It is hard to have 6 months of freezing weather and only 2 months of Spring and then 3 months of medium to hot then back to Fall for one month before the deep freeze sets in again.
So during the 3 hot months they celebrate almost every weekend with a big celebration. Each village has it's own celebration with food, games, and of course the traditional dancing and music.

I was invited to a traditional talent show at the International Performance Palace. I loved all the dancing, and singing performances. A woman not of our faith invited two of the Soras and myself. What a FUN evening having the opportunity to partake of the traditional culture.  We got to enjoy the children dancing and singing at every humanitarian closing, but these professionals take it to a whole new level.

We love the missionaries that we serve with and are sad when it comes time for  transfers, which happen every 6 weeks. A person gets close to the sweet young men and women that work hard and try to keep the spirit with them at all times. Just to be in their presence gives us a lift. This is a picture of our Chisinau Zone before we had a huge transfer day and now we have several new companionship's.

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Since this picture we had five missionaries and the Flanders' leave. We have also had the Pinder's leave and until the middle of October we will be the only Senior missionary couple in Moldova.

This is Nicolette Gorgos she has been our only baptism of a member who turned 8 years old. We keep having firsts here or our PIONEER MOMENTS.

Congratulations to this sweet family!
We also found out that #4 is on the way.

We had the opportunity to go out to the country side to check on the Sunflowers and much to our dismay the lack of rain has taken a toll on them and their heads have already started to hang. We took the opportunity to take some pictures even though they had started to droop.

We have two old weeds growing among the Sunflowers.
These were among the few that had not started to dry up. Most of them had heads that were like 12" (plate size). They use the seeds for making Sunflower oil to cook with and also sunflower seeds to eat. They feed the stalks to the cattle.

Sunflowers were planted everywhere, you could see yellow as far as you could see. The view was breathtaking.



Picture of the Month

She was the cutest little thing. The Maxi Taxi stopped to pick her up and I didn't see her get on the bus and wasn't able to see her sitting in the seat. Her two bags were larger than she was, but once off the bus she took the bags and off she went down the street.

                      SUMMER IS HERE AND SO ARE THE CARTER'S

On June 3,2015 Lee and I took a flight to Romania where we would greet the Carter's as they arrived in Bucharest, Romania. We were given permission to travel with our family for 5 wonderful but short days. It was so much fun greeting them at the airport and then traveling together to the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Bucharest.

It was such a wonderful feeling to see them here in our Mission. It has been 8 months since we have been together. The children have grown and changed so much in such a short time. I enjoyed the XOXOXOXO's much better at their arrival than at their departure. The time was short since the arrival was at 11:30 pm and everyone was tired and needed sleep. Our driver and van would be meeting us at 9:30 the next morning ready to go.

 June 4 we spent the first few hours in Bucharest visiting the tourist sights. This is the Peoples Palace which happened to be within walking distance from our hotel. I told about this on one of my first posts. It is massive, the second largest building in the world and quite a spectacular inside and out.

Family reunion at the People's Palace Romania

Also in Bucharest they have an old village situated in a large beautiful park. We began our tour in a large room filled with some of the traditional clothing, they were stunning examples of their traditional fashion.

                                                  Beautiful examples of traditional clothing!

Then we visited the other areas of the park where they presented different homes that we would see in the various villages in the country. 

This is an example of the home built into the ground or hill side. Inside was very cool compared to the temperature of the other homes.

To finish the day off we toured the Pelis Castle in Sanaia Romania. I found that I could have easily  been comfortable living in this gorgeous castle.      

 Pelis Castle

 

Jake in the weapons room.

 

 

The ornate wood work was unbelievable.

Our next adventure was to travel to the fortress of none other than Vlad the Impaler, born 1431, or as we know him  COUNT DRACULA located in TRANSYLVANIA.
"Because the castle is in the mountains in this foggy area and it looks spooky, it's what one would expect of Dracula's castle." "But he [Vlad III] never lived there. He never even set foot there."
Bram Stoker the first author of Dracula in 1897, can be thanked for making Transylvania famous. He actually didn't even visit the Bran Castle before he wrote the novel.

    The Fortress of Dracula

                                       
                                         
                                              Vlad III the Impaler (COUNT DRACULA)

 This is a suit of clothing worn by Vlad. 

Presley and Jake like these shields.

    

     This is one of COUNT DRACULA torture chairs.

      Torture chamber he used.You were placed inside and when you couldn't stand up any more you hang there!

We were very fortunate that the gate keeper to the torture room liked me and took some pictures inside the room for us.

Vlad III was a very blood thirsty ruler and I think people only obeyed him out of fear. Vlad was a ruler that all people feared. He was handed over to the Ottoman Empire in 1442 he and his brother lived many years with them and the historians think this where he learned his hatred for men and his blood thirsty ways of torture.

Vlad spent most of his time living in his other not so famous castle by the Black Sea and this is where his life was ended. So most of the fame and glory of the real Count Dracula is mostly famous because of Bram Stokers book. We were very fortunate that the gate keeper to the torture room liked me and took some pictures inside the room for us.

Our next adventure too us to RASNOV. 

This is

Rasnov Fortress

Jake our knight in shining armor his comrades Presley and Spencer

The Carter's atop Rasnov

The inhabitants of Rasnov had a beautiful view of the valley and anyone coming to try and conquer them.

It is amazing that some of the original structure left by the Romans is still here.
The small opening in the wall on the left would provide cover for them to shoot at the intruder.

Even some of the ancient inhabitants are still living.

Jake being attacked had to defend himself.

                                   One happy family escaping before the gates comes down.

PICTURE OF THE MONTH

The John Deere Train  was our ride up the mountain path to Rasnov!