On Saturday morning, Robert and Katya walked to the car rental place nearby and picked up our car. We rented from Sixt, an intermediate SUV. Picture below...it was definitely a European INTERMEDIATE SUV-haha. But it worked for us with our carry ons!
We had no easy way to do see a bunch of places where Katya served without renting a car, unless we wanted to take the train...which we did not. Our drive to Iasi was quite long--around 6 hours. It was the first time Robert was driving in Romania (obviously) and it took us a bit to get used to the weird "2/3 lanes" that the highway had so you could pass when safe. I took a few videos where you could see the whole set up as it was pretty crazy! You always had to be on the offensive, and there is absolutely no way you could be texting or distracted in any way if you wanted to survive.
We got to Iasi and found our apartment...I feel like sometimes it's like going on a quest to figure out where the apartment is and then find the key! This particular time, the key box was on a random tree by the apartment building entrance.
That evening we first stopped by the grocery store to get some snacks/fruits/veggies for us as well as treats for the missionaries. We heard that they were having their activity night that evening, so we stopped by at the church building.
They were so happy to see us!!! Being a missionary anywhere is hard...but it's very hard in Romania where even in a place like Iasi, a big city, they have just a couple dozens of members, it seems. It's tough to stay motivated and faithful....Katya spent a few months in Iasi.
Iasi is super close to Moldova. It's probably the most communistic looking city in Romania, with lots of Russian speakers and Soviet cultural remnants. Even these scary elevators were Soviet-like. Katya had one like that in her actual apartment in Iasi.
We timed our whole trip to make sure we got to go to church in Iasi. We walked to church as it was easier to do that than look for parking.
Katya back in Iasi.
Sunday morning.
The Sacrament meeting was interesting, and quite different from what we have in the states, yet, of course, based on the same principals as everywhere else in the world. I played the piano, which was awesome as they usually have an electric piano just playing the hymns or something.
After church we took a picture with pretty much all the people that were present. Isn't that crazy?
Katya and some of her favorite sisters.
And Katya supporting sister missionaries serving in Iasi.
Right now they have a set of elders and a set of sisters. At one point during Katya's time in Iasi, they took away the elders from the city and had just two sets of sisters...So Katya ended up basically running the branch, it was hard. This is also the time of her mission when her companion had to, unfortunately, go home early for health reasons and Katya was transferred to join the other set of sisters in Iasi to be a trio.
We treated all the missionaries to some Luca sandwiches.
It was an exciting day for all the missionaries! It gets lonely here...
We walked home, changed and continued our exploration of Iasi.
We walked a lot and made our way to the Palace of Culture, a beautiful building there in the background.
It is indeed a pretty building built at the beginning of the 20th century that stands as a symbol of Iasi in the middle of the city.
And now with all of us together.
We went inside for free to look around.
I truly wish we got a bit more into the history of this building and all the exhibits inside, but we were a bit on a timeline as it was closing soon.
Oh, not the end! Here are Robert and Lyana, presenting a new pose in front of the Palace of Culture.
We walked around a bit more through the beautiful streets with Katya telling about some memories that happened there. The missionaries get to know the city very well quickly, so it helped a lot with our explorations that Katya knew her way around half of the time.
For dinner we went to the Big 5 American restaurant--haha--because Katya said we absolutely had to as that was the most exciting place to go to do any sort of celebration. It tasted pretty good, but did seem a bit healthier than what we actually have in America-haha.
Speaking of health...Mark started feeling poorly and suddenly felt super tired and feverish. He was supposed to play tennis the following day with one of the missionaries who was actually pretty good, in a city on the way to our next destination...but we had to cancel everything because as it turned out on Monday morning....
Mark had Covid....
Yeah, well that threw a wrench into our trip, right? What were we supposed to do? We had to keep moving! So we literally loaded everyone up with Vitamin C fizzy drinks for immune support, made Mark sleep a lot in the car when we drove and had him wear a mask. Katya was worried she would get sick too in the backseat with Mark and Robert was right in front of him. Miraculously Katya did not get sick! But we are pretty sure Robert got sick on the last day of our trip....
And so now we were on our way from Iasi towards Brasov!
No comments:
Post a Comment