November 4, 2013

This week was great. Our English classes are a smash success. We had about 50 people show up to the first class and probably around 30 came back on Saturday! We completely filled the entire church, there wasn't a chair unused. Were crossing our fingers over here, hoping they stay going well and we might even get some investigators out of it. One of them even came to church on Sunday! We were able to give him a Book of Mormon and he said he would study it at home. We are really trying to get more people to come into the church more often, and that was why we have weekly branch activities on Friday nights. The only problem is no one shows up. Were going to try to make them more enjoyable and well defined so that people will want to come and then they can meet members and grow an affinity for the Church. Our original plan was to have a munch and mingle at the end of our English classes, but so many people showed up that we cant possibly do that. So we are trying to think of more ways to get them to stay and talk afterward. Dad suggested a while ago that we do a culture-like type deal for English classes and activities, which I totally loved, but my companion at the time wasnt a huge fan of (probably because hes not american). But my new companion is all for it, so were going to try it! Were really trying to make our English classes and weekly branch activities as enjoyable as possible for these students and investigators. Speaking of which, the awesome couple that came to our Halloween activity invited us over to their house and she even showed me pictures of it and her son. Her son is absolutely incredible. He is only 25 and hes a professor for engineering at the university here and he works for a firm in america at the same time. We are really really really hoping that we are able to make it over there, since they only invited us over tentatively, and didnt set up an exact date. During our spiritual thought during our first English class, we started with a prayer, obviously, and then when I finished praying, one of our students came up and gave us an orthodox prayer book. At first we thought he wanted us to pray from it, but then we realized he was just being nice.
In other news, we had another lesson with Valeriu this week, and it went alright. He seems to believe everything that we believe, only he has a hard time understanding that we actually are talking about the same thing. He has been reading in the Book of Mormon though, so I can see some progress coming from him.

November 3, 2013

Well, this week was cool. We had a Halloween party for our branch and two of our English students and one of our investigators showed up! It was great. The English students that came are a married couple and they have a son who lived in America for a bit with an LDS family and he was able to speak some Romanian with a returned missionary who went to Romania. Also, the husband went to England in 1975 and he visited the temple there! He said it was a very powerful place. They are a great family and they even gave us a little ceramic pumpkin and invited us over! They aren't too interested in the Church right now, but that's okay. It was awesome to have them come to that activity. Also, this week was Craiova Week or something like that and there was stuff going on everywhere. Pretty cool. There were a lot of stands with hand made stuff like vases and plates and other cool stuff. We have English classes coming up this week, and we've been getting a lot of phone calls and talking to a lot of people so I hope they'll be really good this transfer.

We saw this guy in the park who made a little chair for his dog on his bike, and his dog loved it up there!  It was crazy!  Sorry, the picture kinda sucks, but it's the best i could get since he was far away and it was dark.  Also, there was a mime in Centru who wouldn't do anything unless you paid him, which was pretty funny.  Anyway, have a good week and I hope you don't get sick again!

October 26, 2013

October 14:

Welp, it's transfer week, so goodbye to Elder Lex my Austrian brother.  I'll get to stay here in Craiova but I'll get a new companion, Elder Mayans.  I think he's only a transfer or 2 ahead of me, so that'll be perfect.  The funny thing is, I asked for a companion who could help me with the language, but instead I got someone with only a little more experience than me.  Hopefully, this is a blessing in disguise.  

This week was great.  We had the opportunity to finish listening to General Conference, which was absolutely inspiring, as always.  I also had the opportunity to do some area book work, which helped me with my language skills a lot, since I didn't have someone to fall back on if I didn't understand.  Also, we got a lot of potential investigators out of that work.  Sadly, no investigators yet.

One of our district goals was to visit a recent convert or less active member each week.  We tried to visit one of our less active members, and on the way, we met with one of our investigators who we hadn't been able to meet with for a while.  He explained why, and hopefully we'll be able to meet up with him again soon.  When we arrived at the less active member's apartment, no one was home.  We were somewhat discouraged as we returned home, but then the cleaning lady on the bottom floor stopped us and asked about why we were here.  We then had the opportunity to share a bit about the Gospel and even give her a Book of Mormon.  The Lord blesses us in ways that we never think of.

Also this week, we went up into a bloc for a meeting with the branch president, and we all got into the elevator, except one elder was too slow and was outside when the doors started closing.  So one of the elders inside put his arm out to catch the door before it closed, only this door didn't want to stop closing.  Once the elder realized this, he quickly pulled his arm out just as the doors would have crushed it.  Welcome to Romania.  

We also got to go bloc-knocking this week, which was a good experience for me.  I haven't worked that hard in a couple weeks.  We went through 3 blocs and got to pass out 1 Book of Mormon, which was really good.  Most people wouldn't even say anything when they opened the door.  They would just see it was us and then close it and lock all 25 locks on their door.  So I guess people really do that.  I thought that was just a mythical missionary tale and that didn't literally happen, but it does.  

October 21:
 This week, I got my new companion, Elder Mayans.  He's really cool and I think we're going to work well together.  We've mostly been advertising for our English classes, which are coming up, so that's been keeping us busy.  We've met some really cool people through that and hopefully, they'll show up to our classes!  We're putting posters up throughout the city, putting ads in the newspaper and online, and handing out little cards to people.  We're trying really hard to get some good success from this, and hopefully it pays off.  I absolutely love teaching English classes, which is weird, since never before have I loved teaching at all, but it's really fun to talk to the students and make mistakes and learn together.  We're having a halloween activity this saturday and we have 3 of our previous english students coming, and they seemed really excited about it so hopefully it'll be a great success!

We went contacting in the park (2nd biggest urban park in europe, aww yiss) and decided to go a new way out to the road, and we stumbled upon this crazy hut thing in the middle of the woods!  It's super cool and just kind of out there in the middle of nowhere.  We also found this crazy communist sign which was really cool.

September 30, 2013

September 23:

Last week, we went over to our member's house to do some service.  Afterward, we talked and they gave us desserts and we gave a spiritual thought.  these members are really cool and have been members for about 20 years now!  they live in an old house that I think Sora radulescu's father built, or at least lived in.  It's so old that they have very little insulation, so they just covered the outside with styrofoam.  Apparently, that's a pretty common practice here in Romania.  they also have about 5 bajillion plants growing in their backyard, with tons of different fruits.  The plant they have the most of, however, is fig trees.  They grow tons of figs, and sora Radulescu makes preserves out of them.  She was even nice enough to give us a jar.  They were fantastic.  I think it's basically just figs and sugar, and orange peels.  Last time, I accidentally ate on of the orange peels because I thought it was just a dried fig.  oh well, more fiber.  they also have a dog named Rocky, who I'm pretty sure is Trixie's soulmate.  He's about the same size and has goofy little short legs just like Trixie and he barks at anything that moves.  he loves human attention and is always begging for food from the table.  He even does the crazy dog run when he gets wound up.  

We went to Bucharest for district Conference on saturday, which was great.  We had the temple president from Kiev come down and speak.  It was a little weird having church in english, but I got used to it.  while we were there, we had to travel by metro.  We were with the zone leaders and going to get some dinner during rush hour, so there were tons of people around.  we were waiting for our train when the one going the opposite direction showed up.  One of the ZL's decided that we should go on that one instead just because he was tired of waiting for ours.  So we all hurried over to get on the train, but by this time the doors were already closing.  The train was really full already, but we just barely squeezed on.  Then we turned around and realized that one of the ZL's didnt't actually make it on the train.  There was just not enough room.  He had to wait for the next one to come around.  Later, when we were taking a tramvai back, there was a car accident right in front of us, one of the only car accidents ever in Romania, they just never happen.  Anyway, so that held up traffic really badly, so we decided to walk.  However, we were in the middle of a giant street, so we just walked on the tramvai tracks.  Then we noticed that it was getting lighter out.  We all thought that was strange until we heard the horn blare behind us.  we turned around to see the tramvai coming straight for us.  There were cars on either side of us, so we couldn't get out of the way; we just had to start running.  We were running away from Death and just made it to the station in time.  However, the same ZL who missed the metro decided he didn't want to run, so his imminent death was much closer than the rest of ours.  Of course, we were totally fine, and the tramvais actually have good enough brakes to have stopped before it hit us, it just seemed like a very perilous situation at the moment.

On my exchange with Elder Hickenlooper (yes, he is related to the governor of Colorado), we took a shortcut through a graveyard.  It reminded me of the cemetary in Paris with the bridge on top of it, although it wasn't as nice.  However, there were some really ornate and well-kept gravesites there.  One was a multi-stoned sculpture of an angel crying next to a pillar.  We read some of the poems and sayings on the headstones, and they were all really sad a depressing.  they all said something along the lines of:  In life you forgot us, and in death you left us.  Some were really short, like "eternal regret."  All in all, a really depressing place.  It's sad to think that as a culture and people, that death is such a sad thing.  Of course, death is sad, but as elder Hickenlooper explained it, it's really just like saying goodbye to a friend who's moving or going on a mission.  You are sad that they are leaving, but happy that they are moving on to better things, and that you will see them again after a few years, and you'll be even happier to be reunited with them at that point.  I'm so glad that we have the knowledge that we do about the world after this one and about families, and it's such a great blessing to be able to share that knowledge with my brothers and sisters here in Romania, who don't have that knowledge and joy yet in their lives.

September 30:

Okay, so this week, we were at the library doing our email time, and this lady asks me what some word means in English (apparently, we're known here because everybody and their mother asks us to correct their English or what things mean in English), and I didn't even know what it meant.  Anyway, I looked it up and then we started talking a little bit and she thought we were students and we told her that we were missionaries, and then she was like "oh, okay."  and went back to reading her English book.  The next day, we went on exchanges with the zone leaders and we were walking down the street, and we heard someone saying "hello!"  behind us.  But that happens all the time, so we didn't think anything of it, because Romanians are always trying to practice their English, but when they say things to you, they never expect a response.  So after 2 or 3 hellos, we actually turned around, and it was the lady from the library again!  So we talked for a little bit, and turns out she's studying at the university here, working on a graduate degree in English, so that would explain why she was reading such hard words.  So she invited us to go see a movie with her, and we said we couldn't.  She was disappointed, but she was satisfied when we gave her our facebook names.  So now I have my first Romanian facebook friend!  That evening, we were walking through Centru and we got to see a performance of what I assume was traditional Romanian dance, which was really cool to see.  We had a lesson with our investigator, Valeriu, this week.  He knows EVERYTHING about the Bible; he's studied through it 10 times.  He knows his stuff.  He's been searching for a church for 10 years now, since he knows that the Orthodox Church isn't true, so we've been meeting with him.  Usually, the lessons had been interrogations, he being the interrogator.  He hasn't been progressing, either.  He would refuse to accept commitments because of the parable of the 2 servants who are asked to go into the field and one says yes, then doesn't go, but the other one says no, but then he goes.  He doesn't want to be like that first guy.  He wouldn't read and he doesn't have time to come to Church, so it was kind of rough.  This lesson, we decided we were going to stick with our plan no matter what, and we prayed for strength beforehand.  We met him at the church and told him that we had something special prepared for him.  We asked him to pray at the beginning of the lesson, and he refused.  We kept on anyway, and taught our lesson.  He listened carefully and answered our questions very thoroughly, since our lesson was about the gospel of Jesus Christ, so anyone who's read the Bible 10 times should know at least a little bit about that.  As we concluded our lesson, we asked him to pray, and he did!  He even accepted a commitment to read in the Book of Mormon!  We were very blessed that day, and it was probably the best lesson I've had so far.  Yesterday, we had the opportunity to meet with the mother of the branch president in Constanta, because she lives here in Craiova.  She invited us over for lunch, which of course, we accepted.  She's not a member, in fact, she's very Orthodox, but she likes having the missionaries over anyway.  She fed us, and it was great.  We had figs, cucumber and tomato salad, fried potatoes, telemea, and a whole entire chicken.  It was my first real experience of eating Romanian food.  It was great.  Okay, I know, you're dying to know what telemea is.  Basically, it's a cheese that they only have here in Romania, as far as I know.  They make it with cow, sheep, or goat milk.  The kind that we had was from a goat.  They let the milk curdle, then soak it in a super salty brine, and tada!  telemea.  It's actually really good, but it's kind of iffy to eat just on it's own or even with something relatively tasteless, such as bread, since it's so strong.  However, it goes really well with tomatoes and cucumbers, or the potatoes.  

September 17, 2013

September 9:

This week has been relatively uneventful here in Craiova, but now I'm officially in my second transfer and not new anymore!  We have a new Elder here, Elder Hickenlooper.  He's from Alaska and has been out for 14 of his 16 transfers, so he's pretty much a pro at the language, which is good, because now we're going to be able to put ads in the newspaper for our English classes, and we might even be able to do street boarding!  We finally contacted a referral that we got from Iasi a while ago, and his name is Marian.  He doesn't live in Craiova, so it's hard to get a hold of him, but we finally did and we taught him a little on the street and hopefully well be getting a good new investigator.  We're going to Bucharest today for zone training meeting, so that'll be fun.  Oh and before I forget, can you send me your macaroni and cheese recipe?  Romania is severely lacking in macaroni and cheese.  However, it is not lacking in grapes.  There's tons of grapes here, and they're all ripening.  The church here is covered in grapes, so when we go to the church for anything, we get a big ol bunch of grapes and munch on them while we're there.  Elder Lex likes to freeze them, and when you do that, it's just like eating candy.  It's great to eat the fresh fruit here, because they don't put any preservatives in anything, and the freshest of all is when you just pick them straight off the vine.  That's about all the excitement we've had here this week. 

So every time we talk to somebody who's not really interested in the gospel, they always always always ask us if we are allowed to have girlfriends here.  And it's ridiculous, like is that all they think about?  So I asked Elder Lex and he said that he had the same question, and he said he asked a guy in Cluj about it, and he said that the reason everyone asks us if we are allowed to have girlfriends is because probably, out of all the people in Romania, we have the best chance of getting one hahahahaha.  He said "Just talk to them in your American accent and they'll be all over you"  so needless to say, I've been working really hard on my Romanian accent.

September 16:

This week we had zone training meeting, so we got to go down to Bucharest again.  Elder Lex hurt his ankle a long time ago, and it was still bothering him, so we also went to the hospital while we were there.  The doctor spoke some English, so that was good.  However, he seemed to think that Elder Lex was a professional basketball player for some reason, so all of his treatments were based on basketball.  Anyway, all is well with his ankle, so don't worry.  On Saturday, we had a branch activity where we invited a bunch of investigators and well everybody really.  We had a lot of people there and it was a huge success!  We even got an English teacher to come (even though he can't speak English) and now we have that contact so maybe we can gt some posters up in his school an get more students that way.  I baked your banana bread for the activity and it was a smash hit.  It was the only thing that got entirely eaten.  After the activity, one investigator was interested in getting his English better (most Romanians are) so he wanted to talk to us for a while in English afterward.  He kept trying to convince me that he was actually American (through his thick Romanian accent), even though we all knew that he wasn't.  We had a member from a town 2 hours away come to church on Sunday, so that was good.  He brought his friend too, who was very interested in everything.  He even took home with him a Teachings of the Prophet Lorenzo Snow book.  He also said that he wants to receive the Aaronic Priesthood in December.  We had to carefully remind him that he needed to receive the lessons first, and be baptized, and then he can receive the Priesthood.  We'll see what happens with him. It's hard here because the branches are so small and its hard to teach people far away, since they can't ever come to church.  Generally, we just have to focus on people in the cities that can come to church.  But we'll see what happens.  

 I got subway, so that was pretty great.  It's so cheap here. We met these guys with super powers here. There's a romanian fairy tale that includes these guys that have weird powers.  There's one that is always hungry, one that's always thirsty, one that's always cold, one that flies, and one that can talk to birds.  We've met all but the one who can fly and the one who's always hungry.  We will find them though. 

September 8, 2013

So this week is the end of my first transfer!  It feels like it's flown by for me, I don't know about you guys.  we got to see the transfer board, and I'm going........ to "stay here until I can do a tkachyov on our drying rack" -Elder Myler, one of the assistants, also a gymnast for Michigan.  So I get to stay here in Craiova for another transfer.  Last Monday, we went to the park and did some "chalk contacting."  We drew a big picture of the Plan of Salvation, and people would come by and ask us what it was, so it worked out really well.  On our way home though, it started to thunderstorm, so that was fun.  It was actually really nice because it cooled us down a lot.  We've had 3 storms in the past week, all little ones.  Since then, the weather has cooled down significantly, and it feels almost like fall here already.  So far, Romanian weather has been almost identical to Virginia weather, so I feel right at home.  In the past week, our water heater broke, so we had to call our proprietar (landlord) to come check it out.  He brought some guy who specializes in that kind of thing too.  Since Elder Lex knows more Romanian than I do, he had to explain to the water guy what was wrong, and during that time, I had to talk to the proprietar in Romanian, so that was fun.  He kept asking me questions, and I would give him kind of a blank stare and then he would pat my cheek and say "it's okay little boy" haha oh well.  We had my first lesson this week, with a guy named Valeriu.  We planned on doing a Plan of Salvation lesson, but he ended up reading the Book of Mormon before our meeting, which was unexpected, and he said that he didn't believe that the Book of Mormon was comparable to the Bible.  So our lesson plan went clear out the window, and we discussed the Book of Mormon for 2 hours.  I tried to keep up with him, but my brain couldn't handle all the Romanian, so mostly I just caught up when we read a scripture or when he said that he "doesn't have the memory of an elephant."  However, this guy is super cool and has been investigating churches for 10 years, because he realizes the incorrectness of the Orthodox church.  Hopefully he realizes the correctness of our church.  

August 22, 2013

I talked to a schizophrenic the other day.  We went up to him and were like hey we're missionaries and we're here to help people come closer to christ. do you believe in Christ?  And he turns to "the guy next to him" (who wasn't there)  and he goes, "These guys look really nice with their white shirts and beautiful ties, but you know, strange things happen at places..... strange things happen at places........ strange things happen at places......."  So we just booked it outta there.  In hindsight, that may not have been the best way to have dealt with that, but there wasn't really much else we could do anyway.  another time, we were contacting in the park, and found one of eternal investigators there, named Olimpian.  He's a great guy and really loves the Church and is always finding things for the missionaries to do.  On this particular occasion, he had something he wanted to show us.  So we followed him as he hurried away, toward the edge of the park.  We walked past the zoo (yep, there's a zoo in the park, complete with lions, tigers, bears, a golden eagle, and a gladiator pit) and out to the cemetary.  We zigzagged through the maze of headstones and tall monuments (it kind of resembled the one we saw in Paris) until we reached one particular grave site that he wanted to show us.  He points to the headstone, which said Olimpian Bobos 1948 - ____, and says, "Intelegeti?"  He patted the ground.  "Olimpian va sta aici."  Meaning: Do you understand?  Olimpian will rest here.  He already had his own grave!  Although it was kind of weird for us, and we didn't know what to say back, we can commend him for his foresight.