February 24, 2014

So this week was pretty eventful.  It all started with Monday, when my investigator called me and said he wanted to get baptized... this Friday.  So we were like yeah we can do that.  (mental fist pumps)  So the problem was the baptism would take place in 4 days, and it was transfer week, so my companion was leaving.  So I had to do all the preparations on my own.  I had to call the ZLs up here to do the baptismal interview the next day, I had to go over the interview questions with him beforehand, I had to call people to be speakers and conduct the meeting and such, I had to make the programs and print them out, make sure the font was filled, do some reinforcement lessons, and somehow move my old companion out and move the new one in.  So basically, it was a pretty full week, but we did it.  We had the baptism on Friday and the confirmation on Sunday.  Success.  The baptism went really well.  All smooth and no issues.  Afterward, the baptizee, Alex, got up and bore his testimony as part of the meeting, and said he wanted to go on a mission!  I didn't even know that before!  Man it's crazy to see the Spirit work in people. A few months ago, he wasn't even interested in the gospel at all. He was too wrapped up and preoccupied with his girlfriend and whatnot.  But then he started getting interested and we gave him all the lessons and kept trying to give him a baptismal date, but he was always unsure.  Then out of the blue, he dumped his girlfriend and then asked to be baptized in 3 days.  Absolutely crazy.

Culture Tip
So in Moldova, they say weird things since there's such a huge Russian influence.  So here in Romania, any type of soft drink is just called suc, which means juice.  But in Moldova, there's people there that call it "apa dulce" (sweet water).  One of my investigators told me about this since he's Moldovan, and so I joked about it, saying "if it's not vodka, it's water" and he's like yeah pretty much.

Two Truths and a Lie
The answer to last week's was getting chased by wild dogs.
hopefully this one is a bit harder.

• I saw a guy sporting a hoodie pocket on the front of his sweatpants
• I was featured in a play as the lion from the Wizard of Oz
• I contacted 7 different guys with mustaches and ALL of them were drunk

Pictures

February 17, 2014

February 17: 
Alright, so this week was pretty good.  This past week we went bowling for P day, and that was pretty fun.  So after bowling, we were supposed to go to a part member family's house for FHE.  However, we were late. And since we were wearing our pday clothes, we had to change. So we called a taxi and he came over and we ran over to our apartment (well, in a taxi) and then we started running up the stairs to our floor (4th) and I was behind sookhoo, but I had the keys.  He was on a staircase right above me, and I had a perfect shot, so I threw the keys and told him to catch!  and he tried.  The keys bounced off his fingers and started to fall, and so he reaches out with the other hand, but by then it was too late.  They keys plummeted through the hole in the middle of the stairwell down to the bottom floor.   So I had to run down and get them, so anyway, we get in, change, grab our cake, and get out.  Then we ran as fast as we could to the raducanu's and we made it there in 15 minutes from the time that we actually left.  World Record holders, right here.
So later in the week, we went bloc knocking and met this interesting girl with a crazy accent.  We could not understand her at all.  She kept asking us if we knew Romanian because we had no idea what she was saying.  But yeah we had a good conversation with her despite the language barrier.  I don't know on whose side was more of the barrier, but it was definitely there.
Also, I'm going to start doing a new thing on here and you'll see in a minute.

Culture Tip:
The word for beautiful in Romanian is frumos (frumoasă)
So basically everything in Romanian is "beautiful."  They say "te rog frumos" (pretty please) and "nu mai faci aşa, nu e frumos." (Don't keep doing that, it's not beautiful)  or "sta frumos" (stays/sits beautifully).  So EVERYTHING is beautiful all the time.

Two Truths and a Lie:
Now here's part of the show where you guess which 2 of the following 3 things actually happened to me this week:

• An investigator interrupted another investigator's closing prayer for our genealogy activity by yelling at her and telling her not to tell God details that she's grateful for because "He already knows!"
• I got chased down by a pack of wild dogs.
• I ate straight pig fat.

Pictures:

February 10, 2014

Well, this week, we got contacted by some Jehovah's Witnesses, which was weird, but now I know how it feels for some random dude to come up and talk to you on the street.  And we also met the queen of Orthodoxy in that same hour.  We knocked on her door and she opens up and we tell her we have a survey for her, and she just goes into this rant about how she's Orthodox and how everyone in the whole bloc was born and raised Orthodox, and they're christian, and they're not looking for another religion, and so on and so forth.  So I was like, great!  This survey is made to help us get to know Romanians better!  We want to know more about Orthodoxism.  And she's like, what kind of survey is this?  So I said, for example:  and then said the first question.  She answered and then I moved on.  It took her a couple more questions to get fed up and slam the door, but it still felt like a success to me.
We did a less-active visit to a guy in the branch who likes to make things out of wood.  First of all, his chandelier is made out of wood and it's really intricate and cool, and he's also working on the Washington DC temple right now.  Apparently, in the past, he used to take requests from missionaries and he'd build them temples.  But he doesn't do that anymore because of his feet hurting.
On Saturday, we had our English classes and we had a bunch of new students this time, and at the end I invited them all to church and they all seemed super interested and we even got some potential investigators out of it, but then none of them came.  Normal.