Thursday, January 30, 2014

HELLO FAMILY!!! 

Well basically all I can really say is that winter has finally came here in Romania. There is snow EVERYWHERE!! It just reminded me that I just hate the snow and the cold ha ha we basically walk everywhere here and so we spend a lot of time just walking in the cold. Luckily I have some decent clothes to keep me somewhat warm, but it just is cold. So we haven't been able to meet with our investigator. He has exams at school for the next couple weeks so it will be hard to meet up with him. He did show up to our english class last tuesday. We haven't been able to meet up with anyone to have a lesson, but we did have some investigators come to church, which is really impressive seeing as how there was a buttload of snow outside. We were surprised that people showed up to church actually ha ha So Galati is a somewhat small city, especially if you compare it to Buch. So just like almost everywhere in Romania, the church is just a rented out building. We don't have a chapel here in Galati. With the cold weather we don't really do much fun stuff for P-day, but today we got a call from our zone leaders saying that President has given us permission to go and watch Frozen! I heard Frozen was really good. I have taken a couple of pictures but I don't have a converter with me for my camera... Sorry!! 

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Dear Family!!

Hello there everyone!! Things are going great in Galati. I'm still doing great with Van Dyke. I'm sorry to report though that I don't think I have taken any pictures since coming to Galati!!! Sorry about that... I'll try to get some more pictures in to show you all my companion and my district! The new branch here is pretty different in the sense that we have a missionary branch president. We have about 10 or so people who come to church. No one can play the piano, but thankfully there is a piano at the church that has some of the hymns programmed into it so that we can still have some piano playing. And since I know how to work the piano I guess it makes me the pianist! How's that for not taking piano lessons!! So my district is just me, my companion, Elder Rose, and Elder Middlebrook. Elder Rose is from my MTC group. He went to Harvard before coming on the mission. He is a really relaxed and fun guy. Elder Middlebrook is a really cool guy too. He is from Australia. He actually finished all his college schooling before coming on the mission so that makes him on of the older missionaries who are out here on the mission. Our whole district is pretty cool. We don't have sisters, but I think next transfer President is going to be putting sisters here. I guess we will see. 

I love you all so so much!!! 

Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Dear Family!

Hello there family!! This week has been a pretty crazy week just with transfers and everything. It's been fun to be able to come to a new city and explore things! It has also been fun to catch up with Elder Van Dyke. It's crazy to think that we are companions... again! We haven't been able to do a whole lot of missionary work just cause of transfers and stuff, but we were able to have a lesson with this guy. We call him Flo. He had a baptismal date set before I got here to Galati but it was set for this past weekend and it didn't happen. He still wasn't fully prepared for it. He did come to church though and we just talked with him after church. He had a lot of random/hard to answer questions for us. All in all it was a pretty good lesson. Elder Van Dyke came in the mission when I started training Hokkanen back when I was in Craiova. So he has been here for 6 or 7 transfers. Something like that. Anywho, that's a cool article about how Orson Hyde made his way over to Romania! I had no idea that he came all the way out here to Romanian especially here in Galati! It's pretty awesome if you ask me. Oh and the way you pronounce it is G-Ah-L-Ah-Zz (like the two z's in pizza). That's the best way I can really explain it. I will just have to tell you all in person when I get home how to pronounce stuff in romanian. 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO MUCH!!!! 

Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Dear Family!! 

Well hello there everyone!!! This week has been a pretty eventfull week. New Years was so so so much fun!!!! Basically what we did was we all got together at the church to play some cards games. Then at around 11 at night we headed over to the huge government building called casa poporului. Basically it is like the white house of Romania. You all should look up pictures of it cause it is cool!! But anyways we made our way over there and outside of casa poporului was this awesome romanian concert that was going on. We got to enjoy listening to some awesome romanian music and a legit concert before waiting for the firework show to happen at 12. Anywho, so it gets around 12 and everyone and their dog just starts counting down 10,9,8..... and then after counting down the COOLEST firework show starts going off right where casa poporului was. It was a pretty epic and really long firework show. I think it was about 20 minutes or so. I recorded it on my camera so I will have to show you guys when I get home. I tried sending it earlier but the video was just too big to send over email. But anywho, the firework show was awesome and New Years was just a blast!! Of course this week of New Years means that nobody was out and about for us to talk to about the gospel... but oh well. It was a lot of fun. 

Casa Poporului, Bucharest Romania

 I guess the other big thing that happened is that we got the new transfer board for this upcoming transfer. To my surprise, I am actually leaving Buch. It's kind of weird because I have only been here for one and I'm also training so I thought for sure that I was staying. I'm not super mad though because my next companion/district is going to be super fun!! I'm going to a city called Galati and My companion is Elder Van Dyke!!! Yup I'm going to go be with my very first MTC companion!! Then the other two missionaries in my district are really cool too. I will write more about them as next transfer happens though. 

Travel from Bucharest to Galati, Romania