Beautiful City of Brasov

Started the day off good with free breakfast! Yay, I love free food! The nice reception lady gave us a map and pointed everything out. We decided just to explore today! It was a good choice too. Walking the streets of Brasov was good. I couldn't really believe I was there! It all felt like a dream. Everything was so pretty and colorful! The buildings are all different colors and sizes. The streets are so different from Iasi. Walking through the streets and exploring Brasov was great! The sights were beautiful. Mountains are surrounding Brasov! It's just plain beautiful! In the middle of the city there is a street just for walking and it has stores on both sides all the way down the street. Of course we shopped a bunch! I got some souvenirs. After that we tried to go to a museum but we realized we forgot to print our ID cards. We didn't go in because the price was way cheaper if you are a student. 7 lei for adult and 1.50 if you are a student! They give students great deals in Romania!

Piata Sfatului "The Council Square."The square had tons of birds on the ground. It was fun seeing kids running through them.

Biserica Neagra "The Black Church." The black church is off to the side of the square. We were going to go inside the Black church too but the price was a lot cheaper if you are student. We figured we would go back to the hostel and print our ID cards and come back later. We ran out of time here in Romania so we didn't end up going inside. We just saw it from the outside.

There were some kids playing a game outside the church.

Today in Romania is Women's Day. Katelyn had a genius idea to bring flowers to the 2 wonderful ladies at the hostel that have helped us, the one who cleans and the one receptionist. We bought flowers for them and brought them back to them. On our way back to the hostel we saw a group of random men walking down the street with flowers. They were handing out flowers to women on the street for Women's Day. It was the sweetest thing ever! People are so wonderful! These men didn't even know me or any of the ladies they were giving flowers to. It made my day getting a flower! How thoughtful of them. Here are some pictures of the men giving flowers.

Here is the flower I got!

The maid loved the flower. It made her so happy. She was just glowing! The other lady appreciated hers too! She gave us all a kiss and a hug.

Muntele Tampa "Tampa Mountain." This is the mountain that has the sign "Brasov." We decided to go up to the sign.

The walk to the Tampa cable car "Telecabina Tampa." It was a relaxing beautiful walk. Being in the mountains is so pretty! I love it. 

We took the cable car to the top and back.

The view from the top! It was beautiful.

Romanian Flag

A small walk on the mountain

Brasov's Defenisive Fortifications. The tower in this picture is a small shop owed by a sweet lady. Her store had such cool stuff! Most of it was handmade. She was selling a lot of stuff made out of rope and wood. She had the cutest rope owl. I wanted to get one so bad! The work she had was incredible. There was so much detain on all her stuff. She gave me a little person made out of rope for free after being some stuff from her. I wish I would of took a picture of her. She is standing outside the building but it is hard to see her.

After the mountain we made our way to the Old City of Brasov.

We tried to go inside the Prima Scoala Romaneasca "First Romanian School Museum." It closed before we got there. We just barely missed it.

Biserica Sfantul Nicolae "Saint Nicholas Church." This is an orthodox church.

On our adventure back to finding the center we passed by rope street! This street is one of the narrowest street in Europe! It is 1.32 meter wide. That is a little over 4 feet wide! It was so narrow.

Katelyn couldn't even lay down!

After rope street we found a mall too. We looked around inside for a bit. Later that night we went and had pizza! 

Brasov Here We Come!

What a crazy day indeed! Who knew it would be such an adventure to go to Brasov.  First off we didn't get the approval to go to Brasov until this morning. When I woke up at 7 and checked my email Aislynn emailed us saying our trip to go to Brasov this weekend was approved! I was so happy and glad. But also a little frustrated that BYU took so long to approve it. We emailed them almost 2 weeks ago. Things went a little crazy after that. We had to buy our train tickets and pack for the weekend before 1pm, thats when the train left. We got everything done it time to meet Mario at the train station to buy our tickets at 10:30. Well when we got there the computers were down and they wouldn't let us buy our tickets! They said we had to wait for the computers to work again. They didn't give us a time either that they would be up working again. Mario told us to keep checking back and left. It was a good thing we had 2 1/2 hours until the train left. The computers started working again at noon! I was so happy! We got everything put together so fast and everything was working out! 8 hour train ride here I come! We had McDonalds for lunch too.

Here is the train station! Austin I have been on 2 trains now. You would like being on one! It is a really cool way to travel. You can see everything as the train is going! I saw some beautiful places as we were traveling to Brasov. I took these pictures for you!

We made it!

We stayed at the Kismet Dao Hostel. I really liked staying at this hostel! The ladies were so nice. They helped us a ton. They gave us a map and showed us where everything is! If it wasn't for them we probably would have been lost.

This was the room! The picture doesn't show all the beds in the room but there were 12!

Minge

Minge is ball in romanian. Today at the orphanage one of the workers brought in a new toy! It is somewhat like a ball pit. It is like a see-through tent in the shape of the circle but the top is open. Then inside there is a lot of balls! The kids loved it. Well most of them. Some of them are afraid of it, Denisa is. I think she doesn't like it because if someone is leaning against the wall on the inside of from the outside the walls can move in. I think it scares her. I'm going to work on getting her to like it though! So many people came to look at the ball pit. Workers in other rooms, Dr. Ciobanu, big Teo, the physical therapist, speech therapist and others. It was a hit with the kids and adults.

Mihai is as cute as always! The ladies in his room said he is leaving to go back to the orphanage tomorrow. That is great news! Big Eliana fell asleep on me! That is one of my favorite things. I held Eliana for a long time today! That was really nice. I also spent time with Ion, Alexandra, and little Eliana.

"Live the life you love, love the life you life."

Ce Faci

Ce faci, ce faci, ce faci, ce faci! That is about all I heard today at the orphanage. Denisa says "ce faci" now! It is so cute!! She will say it to me, the other kids, toys, the workers, just everyone! All of a sudden she was just saying it! I have never heard her say it before but today she did! About a 100 times! Iza still gives kisses. I'm working on her kissing my cheek but stuff animals, dolls, and my hand she has down! I want to show the worker that she kisses now. I just don't know if they will think it is as cute and cool as I do.

Today at the hospital we gave small Eliana a bath! She wasn't too sure about the whole idea. She really needed it though. Her hair was really dirty. She also has some hair in the back of her head that is longer than the rest. It is just a small section, a few strands. Well after her bath I cut the hair even with the rest of her short hair with nail clippers! haha clever right? She looked so good after her bath! She really is a cutie. Ion was sleeping and we decided since we spent a good amount of time bathing him yesterday to let him sleep. Alexandra's dad wasn't there today. I am so happy he came yesterday even if he isn't here today. I hope one of them comes back to the hospital again. Mr. Girl is gone. There is no one in his room! That was so weird to see. It is good that he is gone but also sad that I won't see him again.

This is Mr. Girl. What a beautiful baby!

The 7th floor had 4 kids. Eliana as usual, Mihai came from the orphanage, and 2 older girls. Mihai is in my room and is such a cutie!!!! I could play with this kid all day. He is adorable. Mihai is in the hospital because he has kidney problems. I hope he gets better soon so he can come back to the orphanage! Big Eliana was happy as usual! She didn't have her flower in her hair though. I don't know where it went but I was hoping the nurses would leave it in her hair. I danced and colored with Eliana today. We also blew a few bubbles too. Here are some adorable pictures of Mihai and a really cute video too!

I noticed at the orphanage that Mihai likes to copy what I do. He will copy the sounds I make and also when I shake my head. Here is a video of him copying me!

"Let your smile change the world, but don't let the world change your smile."

Kissing, Flowers, and Aurelia

Iza gives kisses now!! It is absolutely the cutest thing ever! I don't know if she could before but I heard her the first time today. She is such a loving baby. She is very sweet. One of my favorite things to do with her is get a stuff animal and hug the animal and move my shoulders up and down. Then she reaches her arms out for the animal and copies me. Yesterday after I hugged the animal I gave it a kiss "pup" and then had the animal kiss her before she could hold it. She started coping me kissing the animal. Next I moved to my hand. I would kiss my hand and then she would kiss my hand! It was so cute. I would kiss her face and then put my face close to hers but she didn't kiss me. I don't think she knew what to do. But I am pretty sure that she did kiss my cheek at least once. I could of imagined it but I am almost positive that I hear her kiss my cheek! I hope that if I keep working with her then I can teach her that "pup" means to kiss and that she will kiss when someone says it. I'll see how it goes!

Eliana LOVED her flower! She was so happy when we gave it to her and she got mad whenever we took the flower out of her hair. Such a simple thing made her so happy! She smiled so big when we showed her a picture of herself with the flower in her hair!! Just look how happy she is!

Look at how adorable we are!

Something very exciting happened today at the hospital!! We gave Ion a bath! We have never gave any of the kids baths before. I was so happy when the nurse told us we could give the kids baths. I think the nurse was a little nervous though because she watched us the entire time. I don't know if they have bath tubs but we washed Ion in the bathroom sink. We didn't have soap because we weren't expecting to bath the kids but from now on we are going to! You could tell he hadn't had a bath in awhile so just him getting rinsed off is better than nothing. After his bath we put on lotion. He smelled so good after! Just like a baby. Alexandra's dad was at the hospital! That made me so so happy! It is the first time he has came to visit her too. I am really glad he did.

That night we visited Aurelia again at the hospital! She was doing so much better today. She was sitting up and playing cards when we came. We visited with her and took some pictures. We also played some games! That is until the nurses got mad at us for being too loud and kicked us out. I don't think we were that loud but I guess we were. The five of us do get into the game a lot! It consists of slapping the deck, so it is a bit competitive. The game we were playing was a version of war that you can play with more people. 

 

We had a good time with Aurelia!

"We would do well to slow down a little, focus on the significant, lift up our eyes, and truly see the things that matter most."

Beautiful Day!

Church was good today. Most likely I will only be in the Iasi branch 2 more sundays! That is so crazy and sad. The traveling we have planned will put us out of town on sundays. We have March 17th left and the last sunday we are in Romania, April 14th. I can't believe I'm starting my 7th week here. It is unbelievable how fast time is going by. After church the three of us visited Aurelia with Andreea and Sora Stoica (Andreea's mom). Aurelia seemed to be doing better. Her cheeks are still pretty swollen and bruised. She really enjoyed us being there! I'm glad I could make her day a little better.

After we visited Aurelia's, Sora Stoica invited us to have lunch/ dinner at her house. We ate probably around 3 or 4. Andreea's parents made tai food! It was delicious. I loved it! The food was foarte bun! While they were cooking food, her dad invited us to his brothers house about 30 minutes away. His dad wanted to BBQ us some food for dinner. As you can tell I was very well fed on sunday! Most of the food was delicious, some of it was very interesting. I was so full that night from all the food I ate. Being stuffed did not make squishing into the Stoica's small car any better. The five of us all had to fit. I ended up laying across Sarahy, Andreea and Katelyn in the back seat and her parents sat up front.

Andreea's uncle and aunt's house was beautiful!

It was so pretty there!

Katelyn and me!

This is where Andreea's dad and uncle barbecued the food.

All the girls eating food! The first food they fed us was some fruit and ice cream. The ice cream was so good! It tasted like pecans to me.

This is the rest of the food I ate! The bowl with the red design on the left of the picture has all the barbecued meat in it- chicken, pork, sausage, probably more but I don't remember. There is bread at the bottom of the picture in a bowl with green napkins on the side. The silver bowl in front of it has pork liver "carne de porc ficat" inside. Yes I ate porc liver, which by the way was gross. It reminded me of the treats that my family use to give Lilly.  Nu îmi place! I do not like. The 2 bowls next to the liver and bread is pickled watermelon "murat pepene verde" and tomatoes "roșii murat." I didn't try the pickled tomatoes but the pickled watermelon I don't really care for. The flavor of the watermelon was so zesty! It was so powerful. I did not like the mix of pickles and watermelon. The bowl on the far right corner of the table has the weirdest food I have ever tasted. Imagine jello texture flavored with meat and vegetable juice with chunks of meat. The texture was like jello but it was not jello. They take the juice left over from boiling the meat and vegetables and make that the jello. The jello had pieces of meat in it and was probably the weirdest thing I have ate here. Also it did not taste well. At first it tastes really really salty and then all of a sudden there is a really strong flavor that is not good. I don't know how to describe the taste but I did not like it at all! After all that food, it was a second dinner really, we had cake. Great way to end the night with dessert! Andreea's family was so nice. They were very welcoming. She has some great family.

"Be patient, sooner or later the clouds part and the sun comes shinning through."

Societies of Caregivers

"You will be strengthened and yet inspired to know the limits and extent of your ability to serve." -Henry B. Eyring

Today I visited Aurelia in the hospital again. She seemed to be doing worse today then yesterday. Her face is more swollen and bruised. She also looked really tired. She told us she hasn't been sleeping very well. It made her really happy when we stopped by though. I'm really happy we did. It was good to keep her company and bring her some soup. Andreea came with us too. I hope she gets better soon! We let the missionaries know she was there and I'm hoping the elders will have time today to go give her a blessing.

So the whole time I have been in Romania we have talked about going to the hospital on saturday but we never actually have. Well today Katelyn and me went to the hospital. It was weird going on a saturday. The hospital was less busy. It didn't have as many people visiting and stuff. It also didn't feel like a saturday because we were at the hospital and normally we don't go on saturdays. Katelyn and me met the nicest people on the 8th floor. When we first got there the baby was crying and the 2 adults in the room were trying to find a nurse cause they thought the baby was hungry. They were right the baby was hungry. The nurse told us they aren't feeding her until 4 though. It was good to see people in the same room as the babies without moms concerned about them. The 2 adults in the room were visiting their niece, who was in the hospital. The grandma of the little girl was there too along with her mom. It was good seeing a family support each other. I don't think I have seen that since being in romania. That family definitely loved and supported each other. They were very nice. They asked me and Katelyn where we were from and what we were doing here. They asked if we were mothers and we both said no. The grandma told us we are very good with the kids. She was very sweet of her and what a nice compliment. It was very nice to meet this family. Big Eliana is on the 7th floor. She was sleeping when we got there. We left her some stickers and some coloring pages so she knew we were there.

On the 5th floor I found out more about the little girl with beautiful red brown hair. The little baby that Katelyn knows her mom. The babies name is Alexandra and her one foot is broken, along with her hands. I don't understand why the doctors haven't done anything for her. She is in so much pain whenever she moves. She has a really sad cry. The ladies in the room told Katelyn yesterday that the mom just left her there. They also said that they don't think she is coming back. That just breaks my heart. I don't know how anyone could ever do that. I hope with all my heart she comes back for her baby. If she doesn't I at least hope she will relinquish her rights so the baby can be adopted. If they can't find her mom again then that baby can never be adopted. I do not like that in Romania they have to find their parents and have them relinquish before they can adopt. What if they can't find their parents and the child does not have any family visit them? I think after a certain time of no contact from family the child should be able to be adopted. That is what is best for the child- to be adopted. Not to stay in a placement center, hospital or some facility. I hope sometime soon the law for adoption here in Romania will change. This little girl is so precious. I think all three of us would gladly take this baby girl home. I know I would. Little Eliana is also on the 5th floor. She was sleeping when got to her. Me and Katelyn decided not to wake her up so we just left diapers for her. Ion was asleep too. We didn't wake him either. There is a little baby boy with down syndrome in the ICU. He is really small and has a box over his head. The box has oxygen blowing inside to help him. Every time I am in the ICU I am drawn to him.  He is such a precious little boy. I spend a lot of time while I am in the ICU with him. I will rub his belly or hand and hum primary songs to him. I also will touch his cheeks from time to time. I wish I could hold him. Who knows the last time when he was held. It has probably been awhile. I'm happy whenever I get to see him though!

Alexandra

I am starting to realize that we are all caregivers and together we make up a society. Especially here in Romania. All of the people that have came on this internship make up a society. Caring for these children takes a team, a loving and unified society. The Lord loves me for any part I play. 

"Whenever you have cared for someone for even a short time, you have felt love for the person you have served. As the time to provide needed care grew longer, the feelings of love increased... Our evidence of His appreciation is that God allows you to feel increasing love for those you serve. That is a reason why you weep at the death of someone you have served for a long time. Losing the chance to care for them can feel like an even greater loss than does the temporary separation."

Martisor!

Martisor means"Little or dear March." Martisor is a celebration of the beginning of spring! And today really felt like spring too. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shinning all day! Shortly after I arrived at the orphanage Ada gave me a martisor amulet! That made me so happy. I can't even describe how I felt when she handed it to me. She told me its for spring and life and that she hopes mine will be good! It was so thoughtful of her. It meant so much getting a martisor from her. The martisor came with an A. I think it is an A for her name, but I'm not sure. Today at the orphanage was just so good! Everyone was so happy today. People were exchanging gifts all day. Felicia came and gave me something today too! She gave me a little sample bottle of perfume. I could not help but smile all morning! Today was just so happy. I found out that Teo knows how to do pinkie promises. It's super cute. I put my pinkie up and she wrapped her pinkie around mine. Then I turned and kissed her pinkie and she kissed mine.
Also Denisa is still in my room! I was really happy about that. That girl is too cute and loveable to let go quite yet. I need her these last few weeks I have left. I got a huge hug from her today and it made my day even better!

The martisor I got from Ada

The little sample bottle of perfume I got from Felicia for Martisor.

The hospital was good today too! The three of us were able to go into the ICU again. It is always good when we can go into the ICU. Today at the hospital on one of the floors was a little girl who was 5 years old. She was so so smart. We have started bringing the iPad with us to the hospital. We downloaded some Romanian games and she did so well on all the educational games we have on the iPad. She knew how to work the iPad so well too. What a smart little girl she was. Both Eliana's were so happy to see us. Little Eliana kept making the weirdest faces ever while we were in visiting her. Sarahy gave big Eliana some chocolate, which by the way she loved. She kept whining for more. We ended up giving her some pretzels to stop the whining for chocolate. The little baby on the 5th floor with beautiful hair seemed to be doing better today. She wasn't crying as much as she was yesterday. I hope her mom comes to the hospital soon!

After we were done at the hospital we went and visited Aurelia again at the hospital. We saw her the day after she had her surgery on her mouth. Her mouth was really swollen and starting to bruise. She has a hard time eating the food at the hospital so we brought her soup. The food has to be really soft because she can't open her mouth big or chew on foods. We ended up helping her eat and watching some video clips of "So You Think You Can Dance." She loved the company. I am glad we were able to go visit her.

This morning I also facetimed Nana. It was so great talking to you Nana! I love you so much!! Thanks for talking to me.