Beautiful Doina Stepenanco

Doina may be smiling because her husband just got released as the branch president and now he can sit by her in church meetings instead of sitting up front conducting the meetings. She just had her hair done...isn't she gorgeous!!?!

73 year old Valeri is baptised today

Valeri with Genadie and his wife Tonya.

Piata (Pee-yat-sa) Shopping again

It was an absolutely beautiful fall day. Perfect for outdoor shopping. We were gathering things to help Galina in the Balti area in northern Moldova. She is a widow raising 7 orphans on about $118 a month.

Tom is hauling this 60 kilo bag (132 lbs) of potatoes to our little Opel Corsa. Then he went back and got a 32 kilo bag of onions. Then he went back and got a 29 kilo bag of cabbages. Then he went back and got 30 kilo bag of carrots. And then he went back and got...

Love from Home!

Got a package of love from Julia and Jason today. Julia had a hardbound photo book made of Ada (3 yrs) and Lincoln (1 yr). I LOVE IT!!! Thank you Julia for being such a wonderful mom to my grandchildren and a loving wife to my son! You are the best daughter-in-law anyone could ever dream of having!

Remember Tom's "holy" socks with holes in them?

Julia bought Tom 9 pair of police socks! They should last forever! He loves them. Our package of love also had a couple of silver hoop ear rings for me since mine literally fell apart on me. Thanks again Julia and Jason. We love you and appreciate you so much!

Galina and son Vlad baptised October 30th :)

Galina and her son Vlad were baptized by Elder Stapleton. It was so special. We had a great amount of members there to welcome them into God's Kingdom. We missionaries were busy that day: we had a ton of awesome food (of course!), we took photos before the baptism and while they were changing from their wet cloths we printed this photo and put it into a picture frame-we put it on the refreshment table and total surprised Galina and Vlad when they saw it! I had made them "baptism towels" too. It was a very memorable day. We told Galina that the next time she was dressed in white she would be in the temple! We understand that 14 year old Vlad will be the first, and only, teenager to be passing sacrament in our branch. He is the only teenage boy in our branch.

"Organize Thyself" - "Create a House of Order"

No matter what anyone says-we are convinced that we are on a SHOPPING MISSION! We shop and shop and shop for the items that people in our projects desparately need. We can give them goods but not money directly. So we shop and gather all the items they need in our little apartment. To say everything got a little out of control is putting it mildly...

Our foyer was full too.

Extra clothing from the flood assistance-in our foyer-of course-where else?!

The sun porch, aka "the storage room" was full.

Really really full! Did I say really full?

So we broke down and ordered some shelves and cabinets.

They fit into the sun porch perfectly!

Aren't they pretty?! We got them from Veltex Plus, one of our favorite suppliers.

And EVERYTHING fit!! Even the 60 kilo bag of potatoes!

Amazing, heh?!!

There is even room for the load of things we are going shopping for tomorrow!

We have our living room back! Yeah!

The foyer is nice when it isn't full of bags and boxes.

We have a pretty nice apartment when it's cleaned up.

We are sooo grateful to be be able to work in a house of order again!

We Love the Pets of Moldova

Every yard has at least one of these.

Instead of a barking dog you have a crowing rooster.

Even in the city where we live we wake up to the roosters.

"walking the goat"

"walking the goatssss and sheepssss"
All done without leashes.

Where there's a chicken there's a goose or two.
The geese walk freely in the yards and the streets.

If not a pet donkey then a pet horse.

And I thought the pooper scooper was big for our black lab...