Bright Lights of Bucharest

On New Year's Eve, we hopped on public transit to find some of the pretty Christmas lights. Our first stop was Piata Unirii.  In the summer the boulevard is a series of fountains. At Christmas they look like this:

Even the buildings took on a festive glow. We enjoyed watching this building change color:

Can you find the golden arches?

You can tell that it was quite pleasant outside that night.

Not many skaters out though.

This is a bumper car pavillion erected here for the holidays. Next stop: Universitate and Park Cismigiu:

The snowflakes looked beautiful as they swirled around on this building.

This is the national military building. There were several pictures that were projected onto the front of it. This one turned out best.

These kids liked crawling into the igloo. Next is a small sampling of the lovely lights gracing many of the main thoroughfares:

Back in our cozy apartment, when the clock struck twelve, the whole city was ablaze with fireworks! Our paltry photos couldn't begin to do it justice but here are a few shots that we caught from our balcony:

Just down the street from us, these people shot fireworks from their window for at least 30 minutes!

We had heard there were going to be two big New Year's Eve celebrations downtown, but these fireworks were in the south of town. The same sight could be seen in every direction!

Someone was setting off fireworks from the top of the apartment block across the street. Oh, I wish I were a better photographer!  Happy New Year!

Christmas Day Humanitarian Missionary Style

What could humanitarian missionaries do on Christmas Day to make a difference?

We arranged for all the missionaries in Bucharest to visit an orphanage after church services. Randy MC'd the event with the help of Elder Johnson as translator. Mission President Hill, Sister Hill and their son, who is working in Egypt, and was in town for the holidays looked on.

First on the program was a classical guitar solo by Joseph Hill. The smiling lady behind him is the director of the facility.

Next, a member of the Church here in Bucharest and an excellent cellist favored us with a Romanian carol.

One of the residents, this young girl is attending music school and studying the violin. But she wanted to play the keyboard for us today.

All the missionaries gathered to sing a few carols (all in Romanian).  We sounded pretty good! This little girl wanted to join us up front as missionaries and children all sang together for our last song.

President Hill then shared a sweet message about how God knows and loves all His children and that we can all go to Him in prayer.  Pres. Hill had given Randy and I the OK to prepare gift bags for each of the children. We had the pleasure of shopping and packaging them up earlier in the week.  So at this point all the young missionaries passed out the bags to the kids.

Up till then the children had been pretty shy and quiet. But now they got warmed up and wanted to perform for us before we said goodbye.  We got many smiles, thank-you's and hugs. Our hearts were touched by these children who are longing to be loved. Here are a few sweet moments we managed to capture:

We are not sure who brought who the most joy that day, but for us, it was a wonderful Christmas.