April 20, 2015

So this week was pretty fun with getting transferred and whatnot.  The thing about doing transfers from Chisinau is that the phones don't work in Romania, so you kind of just have to go with the flow and hope everything works out because no one can contact you at all.  Well, on the day we were supposed to go back to Chisinau the guys I was supposed to go back with weren't at the train station, so I wondered if they knew when the train was.  I had the tickets so I wasn't too worried.

They finally show up an hour before the train is supposed to leave, which is plenty of time.  But then they go, "so where are our bags?"  And that was when we knew we were going to have trouble.  The office has been doing some weird stuff recently by not helping people out at all like they used to, so for this transfer day, they made all of the new trainees carry their bags all around town to the train station which is a huge pain.  There was a reason the office elders used to just take all the bags to the train station for them.  But anyway, the trainer thought that they would bring the trainee's bags to the train station like they always did in the past, but this time they didn't.  And this was happening at rush hour so it was highly improbable that they would be able to make it to the office and back with the bags before the train left.  They called the office elders to see if they could help them out, but then nope of course not.  Oh and another thing is that there is only one train that goes to Chisinau and it only comes to Bucuresti every other day.  So if we miss the train, we'd have to stay in Bucuresti for another 2 days, and I had already been there for 2 days, so that would mean 4 days in Bucuresti.

Anyway, they take off to get the bags while I just waited at the train station hoping that they'd make it in time.  With 5 minutes to spare, they made it and it turned out that they had to take a sister's bags as well because for whatever reason the office decided it was a good idea to fly her to Chisinau but have us take the train with all of our stuff PLUS hers.  Anyway, we got all the missionaries at the train station to help us carry all the junk and we just took off running.  I show the tickets to the guy at the train and of course, he tells us that our wagon is the one at the exact opposite end of the train.  So we take off again trailing all the stuff for everyone going up, and when we made it about halfway up the train, the conductor blows the whistle and the train lurches forward.  We just opened the first door we found and threw all the bags up into the train and climbed in ourselves, with the train moving.  It was definitely an adventure.

Then I figured when we got to chisinau we would just go home, but instead we went to the other elders apartment to drop off them off with all their stuff and then I got to travel the whole city the rest of the day in just my slippers.  And the senior couple that picked us up and took all my stuff with them went to orhei that day and didn't get back till that night so I didn't have any clothes or anything at all until that night.  But you know we still went to the youth activities and all the other stuff that happened that day.  It definitely was an adventure.  So lessons learned from the story: Don't micromanage things.  It doesn't work out.  And then when things don't work out your way, you've got to just go with the flow and things will work out.
Have a great week!