January 26, 2015

Well, this week was mildly interesting.  We had transfers on wednesday so I got to bring back the crew for another one.  I got to ride first class on the sleeper train which was super intense.  They give you a toothbrush.  For some reason, I always sleep amazingly on trains, probably due to the back and forth rocking, so that was really nice.  I'm at that point in my mission where all of my friends are now leaving.  It was super weird seeing people for maybe the last time out here.  Oh another thing, the sisters in our city got removed, so now we have no sisters in this city, which is pretty unusual, since we have almost as many sisters as we do elders.  But since they left, we got to move into their apartment, which is basically a grandma apartment.  We have chandeliers and really nice beds.  It's kind of weird since I'm used to dude apartments with broken couches and spider-bros and nothing in the kitchen.  I'm not sure how I feel about it.  Anyway, remember how we have no branch president?  Well, I got asked by the district president to be the "temporary presiding elder" in the branch, so that's something.  It basically means that I have to do all the things that a branch president would do, but I don't have the calling.  We're waiting for a guy to move in here from the states to take over as branch president in February.  Anyway, that's the news for this week, hope you guys have a great week!

January 19, 2015

Well, the exciting news of this week is transfers.  Actually, I'll keep you suspended a bit and tell you a different story first.  You may proceed to the edge of your seat.  So on Friday, we held an activity at the church where we invited our english students because we haven't been having english classes this transfer due to the back to back holidays in December.  So at this activity, an english student brought over her xbox and kinect and we did some games on there.  We played this dancing game where you dance along with the songs they play and you get points for doing the moves correctly. Classic.  Anyway, we got to dance to "in the summertime" and "prince ali" (from alladin) and other classics.  There was an elder in the district who loves the song careless whisper by george michael and he just HAD to dance to it, but he couldn't do it alone so he got me and another elder and a super cool english student to do it with him.  Little did we know it would be a partner dance.  We just went with it anyway, and it we pretty funny, since we had to dance with dudes and we were all super uncoordinated and just really bad at dancing.  Well, near the end of the song there's a part where the girl character (me) had to do a twirl and then do one of those backward lean things that are so dramatic.  I decided that it wasn't dramatic enough though so I lept into the twirl and threw myself back, thinking Miroslav, the english student would be able to catch me easily.  Not so.  He tried, but the floor did a much better job.  Needless to say, we both ended up on the floor and then out of commision for the rest of the song.
Alright, so back to transfers.  We found out that I'll be...staying.  However, everyone else in the district is leaving.  I'm the only one staying.  It'll be weird, but change is good.  Also, since we had a missionary branch president and he got transferred unexpectedly, so we don't have a branch president.  We don't quite know what we're doing with that yet, so it'll be an interesting week figuring that out.

January 12, 2015

Okay well the week was pretty good.  We went up to Oradea about 4 hours away for an exchange with the zls.  It was pretty normal, I mean I got to see my best buddy Brown but you know.  Anyway, it was the return trip that was noteworthy.  So we get on the train, and then after about a half hour the conductor comes and checks the tickets.  He sees my companion's bag and starts talking about it.  He wasn't really paying attention so he thought the guy wanted him to open it up and show him what was inside.  So he starts doing so and then the conductor is like, noooo I'm looking for a bag to use in my work and I want one like that, how do you like it?  My companion chills a bit and talks a little and then the conductor is like, you're not romanian are you?  Nope.  He then goes, ohhhh you're mormons aren't you? grabbing my companion's jacket to reveal his nametag.  He just chuckled as he left the cabin.  Later, the train stops in the middle of nowhere and just stays there.  Conductor-bro then comes back and tells us the train is broken and they need to fix it and we'll be up and running soon.  An hour later, we start moving again.  So that's another hour on the already 4 hour long train ride.  After about half an hour, our train stops yet again.  By this time, night had fallen.  We were informed by conductor-bro that we broke down again and that a new train was coming to get us and he would tell us when to get off.  Soon another guy with an official looking uniform and a beefy stache to match told us to get off so we could get on the new train.  So everyone on the train got out into the freezing and snow.  Then, the conductor approaches us and says hey I told you guys not to get off until I told you!  We explained that some guy told us to get off, which in that moment sounded pretty lame, but then he was like, which one?  That guy there on the left?  We answered to the affirmative and then conductor-bro goes over and chews the guy out for making us get off the train early.  As we waited in the snow for about 20 minutes for the new train to come, conductor-bro walked by us, looked at us, paused, shook his head and moved on, as if to say "you were the chosen ones."  So then our new train comes up and it's straight out of the Soviet Union.  Imagine a super old and rickety train with plastic seats.  Yep, that's what it was.  So after we get going on there, it is announced that our train would only go to Arad, a city that is not Timisoara.  So after about another 2 hours of riding in the train, we make it there and had to get off, then get new tickets, which we refunded, and then wait for and get on the train back home.  It truly was an adventure.  The train ride only took about 3 hours longer than usual!
In other news, we found the college campus this week.  Not that we didn't know where it was before, but now we know WHAT is there.  Donuts.  Huge, nutella filled, donuts.  Needless to say, I'll be fat by the end of the week.
Have a good one!