First days back in Iasi

Well I have lots of time to write today. I have been sick since yesterday, so I’m taking a second day of rest to make sure I feel better for the orphanage on Wednesday. I GET TO SEE MY KIDS ON WEDNESDAY!!! It’s all I’ve wanted to do since I left in July, and I can’t believe it’s less than 48 hours away now. I’m so happy to be back in Romania, even with the snow and slush and cold.

Sarahy, Megan, and I left London early Wednesday morning with a flight to Bucharest, the capital of Romania. We get through security and exchange our money and have plenty of time, so my stress level is very low at this point. That lasted about 20 minutes because I looked at the departure gate board and our flight was delayed an hour. Normally I wouldn’t care or be stressed about this, but we only had two hours from when we landed in Bucharest to when our train left the station and we had to get through customs, get our bags, find Katelyn somewhere in the airport, take the 30-45 minute bus ride to the station, and find our train. So I was freaking. The next hour and forty-five minutes brought a host of emotions, people around me probably thought I was schizophrenic. Being the facilitator is so different – you feel responsible for everyone and for how things happen (although most of them are out of your control). Anyways, they finally evacuated the dog from “quarantine” and we finally boarded the plane. And yes, it was frustrating that it took an hour and a half to get people off a plane completely and make a huge fuss about a dog being evacuated from an airplane, BUT who am I to judge, the only info I got was the announcement – “We are deeply sorry for the delay, but we are waiting for the plane to remove the canine from the aircraft, which is being quarantined right now. We will alert you when we are ready for boarding.” Repeated 4 times. Only because of his delightful British accent, did this announcement not elicit full frustration from yours truly.

I tried to relax on the plane, but it was hard to do when I kept getting out my phone to calculate how soon we’d land based on the speed of the plane and the distance left to travel. Nerd alert. I finally changed my prayer from “let us get to our train on time,” to “help us to be comforted if we need to change our plans and be ok with it and to somehow get to where we need to go smoothly and safely.” With that and the acceptance that we definitely weren’t going to make our train and would have to purchase tickets again, I relaxed. Maybe too much.

So we found Katelyn, thank goodness. Then we went outside and of course were bombarded with all the taxi drivers wanting to take us somewhere. In the back of my head, I knew that taking a taxi from the airport would lead to getting ripped-off, but the girls decided they wanted to do it and that maybe our train was delayed a half hour and we could still make it and it might be worth it. Our driver was nice enough, but of course, charged us way too much money. I would have argued, but I was so tired and nervous about what we were going to do when we got to the train station, that I didn’t really try. I feel bad about that.

I know many of you who are reading may have different religious beliefs than I do, and I hope you won’t be turned off of reading my blog even though I will refer to my beliefs quite often. But you know, I believe what happened next was a little miracle in my life and I am amazed at how Heavenly Father answers prayers. I do not believe for one second that it was a mere coincidence that we were there and needed help on mission transfer day, when all the missionaries from Romania/Moldova were gathered at the train station to travel to their new areas. I almost cried. Not that I wasn’t confident that we could figure things out or that I could buy tickets, I was just relieved to see familiar faces and know that if we did have a problem, there were people that I could trust and get help from. They recognized us about the same time and some of them walked over. I was so excited – Elder Slemboski! I had met him last time in Sibiu and there he was, ready to help and remembered me and as it turns out, he and the others who came over to us are the missionaries serving in Iasi! They let us use their phone to call Mario, but she didn’t answer. (I ended up FB messaging Teo from the orphanage asking her to call Mario and that is how Mario knew we would be coming on the night train instead. Teo saves the day as usual!) They were also getting on the night train to Iasi, so they offered to get our tickets when they got ours, which was a relief. Elder Slemboski even tried to get us a refund on our other tickets, but they wouldn’t do it. It was so nice of him though.

We spent about 5.5 hours at the train station. I spent most of my time trying to get in contact with people in charge at BYU and Teo and Mario and my family. But I also got to talk to a lot of the missionaries, ones that I knew from before and also ones I met for the first time there. Sister missionaries rock, by the way. I want to go on a mission so badly (Although, if I don’t end up going, you’ll definitely read more on this blog about how I feel strongly that this time in Romania is my mission in a lot of ways). I got caught up on how all the members are doing from the missionaries and in return, updated the missionaries on people at home and stuff like that. It was a good time.

Elder Eaton

Elder Jones

Mario and her best friend’s husband met us at the train station and got us to our apartment.

Across the street from our apartment - 6am

 Since then, we’ve just been exploring and getting settled in. I took the girls to see the orphanage, church building, and other places in the city. 

Piața

Their first covrig!

We went to Palas (the big mall) and they really liked it – I forgot how nice and how huge it is… and how it is America in my backyard. 

 

(clitate at Palas)

 We also went to kiss St. Parascheva’s hand at the Metropolitan Church. She is considered the protector of this region and people go to kiss her hand (her bones are there in the church supposedly) and offer a prayer. It is such a neat experience to see how people worship here.

I cannot wait to go to the orphanage. I don’t know if I have enough room in my heart for the emotions I’m going to have on Wednesday. I hope I don’t cry the whole day because of happiness. I need to pray for my heart to expand because I want to fully enjoy every moment these next three months!