I turned 25 in 3 countries!

we were traveling, which makes it difficult to plan a celebration. Therefore, we started celebrating a little bit early. The night before we left our contacts in Romania, we had a Fiesta! A team that came from Texas had generously brought us taco shells, taco

sauce and taco seasoning! My dear teammate Pam made all the fixings for tacos, as well as a homemade birthday cake for me. We invited all the missionaries to come experience Mexican food, to have some birthday cake and to say good bye since we were leaving the next morning. One of the families brought me a box of chocolates. Another took me to the grocery store and let me pick out ‘anything I wanted!’ He kept making me pick out more. Ha!

 Another of the families brought me a bouquet of flowers. They sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me in English and in Romanian. Our train from Bucharest to Odessa, had a layover in Chisinaw, Moldova. It turned out to be longer than expected so we ended up spending the night in the train station hotel. We ventured out and found a Mexican restaurant in a

mall, called Don Taco. The girls I was with sneakily told the waiters that it was my birthday. In the middle of our meal, Zorro, carrying a desert in one hand and a pistol in the other hand, set a sparkler on fire, said ‘Happy Birthday’ and was off. We

didn’t even get a picture of him because he was so fast!  The next morning was officially my birthday. One of my teammates had gotten the whole squad to write me notes that began with “I see God in Bonnie when…â€� She also had been in contact with

my mom who got some of my friends back home to send me notes and pictures as well. She is writing all the notes down by hand so I get a couple new ones each day…so my birthday marches on! The other team that was traveling with us gave me a balloon that looks like a bee and a bunny mated, suckers,

and a couple scrunchies! They sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me on the train 🙂 That evening, to finish off the official day, we had hotdogs in our hostel room and I drank one of the many Dr. Peppers I received for my birthday! I am incredibly thankful for my team, my squad, my family and my friends who worked very hard to make this past week very special for me. So far I was able to