Bucuresti

On the next leg of our trip we went and visited Nate's mission in Romania. Since this was sort of his part of the trip I am going to let him write it although we are not sure how to do it under his name yet so I am letting you know that this is Nate speaking starting... now:

I would have posted these sooner but Alayna keeps giving me rules on what I can and cannot say, Ironically Romania just threw out their dictator who told them what they could and could not say but I have no such freedom. This is the Bucuresti skyline, I am going to write Bucuresti, when all you anglophile out there will want to read Bucharest, that tends to make the English say Byoocharest which is one of my pet peeves so forgive me if I spell it properly.

The pyramid that you see here in the foreground is a monument to Martirii revolutii (The martyrs of the revolution) the balcony in the background is the balcony from which Ceasescu gave his final speech. Two funny stories about that. Right before Ceausescu gave his speech, the whole country was in an uproar, and I mean everybody. So Ceausescu is so sure of his divine right to govern that he believes his advisors when they tell him that all he needs to to do is make a public address and people will calm down. Turns out they were wrong. The second funny story is from my mission. While I was there President Bush came and gave a speech to Bucuresti about Romania entering the EU. We thought it might be interesting so my companion and I hooked up with a another companionship and went and listened. Bush gave his address standing not far from this balcony, standing next to him as he gave this speech was Ion Iliescu, the president of Romania at the time, also the prime minister of Romania under Ceausescu, turns out the people have a very short memory. This is funny because in typical Bush fashion he made the comment that "a decade ago a dicator stood in this very square and you threw him down and paved the way for democracy..." or some other similar statement. The advisor who was standing by Ceausescu while he made his final speech to the Romanian people, was the same man standing next to Bush as he gave his speech. (editors note: I do not mean this as any type of comment on the current administration) Casa Poporului (The peoples house). This monstrocity is the second largest building in the world by square footage. The only building larger is the Pentagon. I heard a rumor, but I have never seen it confirmed anywhere that Ceausescu emptied all the granite reserves in Romania to build this thing. Only about a third of the offices are air conditioned, because only about a third of the offices are ever used, for any purpose at all. We liked it because its really big. It takes about an hour to walk all the way around it.

This picture is very near and dear to my heart. While I was serving in sector 5 we met in a little house that the church had bought. There was a chapel in Bucuresti but it was for other branches. One day while I was walking by this empty lot with my companion I remarked to him that it would be the perfect spot for a chapel. I later repeated my sentiment to the Mission president in my weekly letter. 5 years later... there is a brand new chapel on the lot. It was dedicated 8 months ago. It may seem like a minor thing but that to me is a miracle.
This is the aforementioned House that we met in before the chapel was built.
This is a picture of what used to be "the Congo" or the place where we'd go to play basketball on P-day. Its on the grounds of the local college, but has now been turned into a a soccer field. We loved it because it had stadium seating and was completely surrounded by trees and you had to enter through a hole in the fence.
This is the hill in Cismigiu Park where Romania was dedicated for missionary work. You come here on your first day in the mission and your last day in the mission. It is a sacred place.
From that hill you can see what looks to be a huge tree (15 ft in diameter) that has been cut off. On your first day in the mission they tell you that Ceausescu cut the tree down in an effort to market tooth picks to the world. It's really just a storage shed made to look like a tree stump. Not many missionaries fall for it. Alayna fell for it.
Ok Pretty much every missionary falls for it including yours truly. What can I say you are at the very least disoriented when you get there. The remaining posts about Romania will all be done by me so you can enjoy my little tidbits of information, or wait until Alayna starts posting again when we post Vienna.