May 26, 2014

Well, this week we had zone training meeting in Arad, which is only an hour away by train and yet it's like Mexico.  Super hot and dry and no trees.  Amazing what an hour travel time can do.  I don't remember if I told you guys about my smoothies, but my companion and I made a goal to get totally jacked this transfer, so we're working out like crazy and drinking tons of brotein shakes.  We've been doing a lot of contacting for our English classes this week, and we've gotten so many more people interested than usual.  It's been great.  Hopefully our English class turns out well.  We've also befriended a really cool guy in a camera store and he's been giving us tips and whatnot on cameras  and photography, and hopefully he'll come to English next week.  We've been over to his store a couple times and last time we met his coworker and now we're buddies with him too.  We might be able to get him to come to our class as well.  I love doing missionary work in a kind of friendly and non-confrontational way.  It works really well and you just have a great time while doing it.  And you make great friends along the way.  All around a wonderful thing to do.

Culture Tip
Romania is famous for having beautiful women.  That's pretty much the one thing that all Romanians are super proud of.  So we start talking to a guy and he asks us if we like the girls here, and my companion goes nope.  I don't like them.  Girls are more attractive in Texas.  And this guy could not take it.  He apparently had never heard of anyone ever not thinking Romanian girls were attractive.  He just stammered for a minute, then tried to make a counter argument.  He said that yeah, maybe they're not ALL attractive, but there are some beautiful ones.  My companion just goes, yeah, I'm sure they must exist, I've just never seen them.  At that point, it was game over.  This guy's argument totally imploded in on itself.  He started talking up American girls for us and then comparing the words beautiful and attractive.  He determined that Romanian girls are beautiful, but they're not necessarily attractive.  So there you have it.  The difference between attractive is better than beautiful.

Pictures

May 19, 2014

Well, transfer week was pretty good. It was nice to see all my buddies again and go to a new area.  My new area is called Timisoara (Tih - mee - Shwahr - ah) and it's on the very west side of Romania.  We had to take a sleeper train here, which was fun, since we were given seats instead of beds.  When my new companion bought the tickets, he asked for a cabin with 6 beds.  Instead, we got seats.  Luckily, we were able to upgrade to beds since there were six left miraculously.  However, we did have to ask two dudes to switch cabins since there were 4 empty beds in one cabin and two in the other.  That was kind of a hassle, but no real issue.  This wasn't my first time riding a sleeper, but last time, we were living the dream in our communist luxury where I slept like a baby all night, well, until 3 when they woke us up to cross the border.  Anyway, this train was not communist luxury.  It wasn't normal luxury either.  It was actually just kind of alright. Nothing too exciting about them except for the fact that the sisters had WAY too many bags and we had to sleep with our bags and the fact that the beds weren't even long enough to fit my little 5'6 body, which was super surprising.  So back to Timisoara.  It's basically the most beautiful, well it actually IS the most beautiful city I've been to here in Romania. There are tons of parks and trees and the streets are clean and there are no huge blocs, just little ones.  And the ones that are here aren't ugly either, they usually look pretty good because they're old and therefore cool-looking.  My new companion is great, his name is Elder Speyer and he was in my MTC group, so we already knew each other.  Anyway, I don't have time for a culture tip or two truths this week, so expect them next week!  Hope you have a great week!

May 5, 2014

Hey guys!

Well, this week started out pretty normal and then it ended quite differently that usual.  So I'll just focus on that part.  We read the story of Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby in our English class and they absolutely loved it.  You know, the one where he gets thrown in the briar patch?  We practiced doing southern accents and I got to explain to everyone what a tarrypin was, so it was a blast.  We also held an English game night, where we invited all of our English students and played some board games.  I ended up playing monopoly with some of my Moldovan investigators, and it was the most insane game I've ever participated in.  There was so much wheelin and dealin going on that I had no idea what was happening or who even owned what.  I was sweating bullets for the longest time, but then once the smoke cleared, both the moldovans had all the money and properties and we americans were left with nothing.  I guess they know how to convince people out of their money haha.  Anyway, we also tried to have a family history activity where we helped people fill out little my family pamphlets and get them set up on FamilySearch and also tell them about the Romanian archives and how to find their ancestors.  However, some returned missionary came back and stole the show so we got little done, but it was still good!  A lot of people got set up on the site and started filling out those books.  So it's something!  It was also our first class ever, so we gotta start somewhere right?  Hopefully, we'll be able to build success and other good stuff out of classes like that in the future.

Culture Tip
So here in Romania, they're a very touchy feely society.  They really like human contact.  And one of their favorite human contacts in grabbing on the back of your neck and rubbing it.  They do it alllll the time when you're their friend.  It takes a while to get used to, but I don't actually mind it anymore.

Two Truths and a Lie
The answer to last weeks was getting hit on by the gay dude.  That did not happen to me, but did actually happen to the other elders in my district.

So for this week:

• I made gumbo
• I dropped my bouncy ball down the stormdrain and it was tragic
• I got my arm stroked by a guy who works at a fast food place who really likes me for some reason

Pictures