Monday, February 24, 2014
Dear Family!!!! 

Ha ha I'm glad that you all enjoyed the magazine pictures!!! It was a lot of fun making. But yeah things are going pretty well for me here. I'm now in my new city Iasi. Momma I don't know why you were thinking that is an "L" because it is an "I". Well I guess a lowercase L looks like an I. But yeah that's how you pronounce it. Yosh. Ha rhymes with Josh! Anywho we live about 30 minutes walking distance from the church. There are 4 elders and 2 sisters.  French has been in the mission since last summer. The branch is pretty big. Well compared to Galati. But yeah this week we had transfers, so I was in Bucharest for a day or two. Then on Saturday here in Iasi there was a guy who got baptized!! So that was pretty cool to see a baptism! We haven't started the english classes here yet because we just had transfers. We will start them up in like a week and a half or something like that. 

I've been hearing quite a lot about the riots happening in Ukraine. I wonder if it will get bad enough to where they have to take out the missionaries. I pray not!! That's terrible news that all the palm trees are dying off!!!!! I love palm trees!!! Well just make sure there are some when I get back home ha ha 

daddy, you definitely are hitting the nail on the head when you talk about happiness. It's the coping skills of being able to take on anything life hits us with. No matter what happens we can always find a greater peace. But yeah daddy, I'm still working on the language!!! Actually I got a pretty good compliment from the branch president here in Iasi. He said that he was surprised that my name wasn't a romanian name because I was talking to him just like a romanian would. He said my accent was great and everything. Pretty good language compliment if you ask me!!

 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO MUCH!!! 

Monday, February 17, 2014

Well this week was a pretty eventful week, I guess you could say. We had interviews with President Hill. It's always fun to be able to meet up with him and talk with him for a little bit. I think the biggest piece of news though that I have this week is that we got the transfer board... and I'm getting moved. AGAIN!!! I went to Bucharest for 6 weeks and then moved me to Galati, and now after 6 weeks in Galati I'm being moved again!! Geez it's like President doesn't know what to do with me or something!! ha ha But yeah so next week I will be in my new city. I'm going to a city called Iasi. I have been to Iasi for like a day for a meeting but other than that I haven't really been there. It's a pretty cool city from what I remember. My new companion is going to be Elder French. Elder French is awesome!! He was in my district back when I was in Buch. He is from Cedar City, so we were able to talk a lot about home and stuff like that. So now I get to have (at least) 6 weeks with him!! I'm pretty excited about that! The only sad thing is that I'm leaving my awesome district that I have here in Galati. I have had a blast with Elder Van Dyke, Middlebrook, and Rose! We all got along really great and had a fun time. 

Elders Middlebrook, Rose, Van Dyke, Barney

Transfer from Galati Romania to Iasi Romania

Monday, February 10, 2014

Well here are two pictures for you momma!! Sorry but I haven't really taken any more of them! 

Well the first one is a picture of a classic winter street, full of snow and stray dogs, in Romania.

The second one is of my district! We all decided to wear our onsies... or a robe. So it goes Elder Van Dyke, Me, Elder Middlebrook, then Elder Rose.  

Monday, February 10, 2014
Dear Family!!!!!

I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT THE OLYMPICS ARE GOING ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love watching the olympics and I can't do anything about it!! ha ha actually I remember vividly when it was the summer olympics right before I left for the mission. I was bummed that I knew I would miss these winter olympics... geez I can't believe that the olympics have already come! You all will have to keep me updated on whatever happens! 

This week seemed to just zoom by really fast! This week we spent a lot of time searching for a new apartment. We are getting a companionship of sisters this next transfer and so we have to find a place for them to live! We have been looking a lot online and visiting different areas around the city looking for an apartment. After quite some time, we were able to find one. It was really different because I'm not used to using romanian vocabulary when it comes to apartments. It was fun though! 

Okay... yes I have had an opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting here in Galati. On the second or third sunday since being here I was asked by the branch President (Elder Rose) to speak a little bit. Nothing too bad. We switch off teaching sunday school. Elder Van Dyke and I taught two weeks ago so we will be teaching again here pretty soon. We are about a 5-10 minute walk away from the church. Things are going great with Elder Van Dyke and I. We get along really well. Actually our whole district gets along really well... which is always nice. 

I don't really remember if they celebrated valentines day last year when I was here in the country. If I remember right, romanians acknowledge that it is valentines... but I don't think they go all out and buy candy and flowers and stuff like that. Plus it's not like it makes a difference seeing as how I'm a missionary. 

Monday, February 3, 2014
Hello there family! 

Well I'm glad that everyone is doing well!! Yeah the dead of winter is just terrible. One night it got to -18 degrees Celsius, which is like -4 degrees Fahrenheit or something like that. Super duper freezing!! The cold sort of affects everything dealing with missionary work. Like we have been trying to do english classes this transfer, but with the snow only 2 people show up. One person is an advanced student and the other is super beginner. So we can't really have a good english class with that to work with... so we aren't going to be doing english for this transfer. I feel like english is the most "fun" way that I have done missionary work and now I haven't really been able to do it for 2 transfers or so. Oh well. The only missionary work that I feel like we have been doing lately that has been effective at all is that we have been helping members shovel snow. It's not a whole lot, but it's something. Yeah I haven't really taken any pictures lately. I have taken a couple of how much snow we have gotten but other than that I haven't really taken any. I'll try to take some more though! Oh and when I said that we have a missionary as a branch president, I meant that the missionary is as old as I am. In fact, it's Elder Rose from my MTC district. So that's a little different. Yeah I was able to watch Frozen! It was really good. I liked it a lot. 

Geez I can't believe that I have missed another super bowl! Well I guess I should say that I have missed another round of super bowl commercials because that's really why I watch the super bowl ha ha hopefully there will be some good ones next year!! . I've just been getting used to a whole city having just a handful of members to make a branch! It's just funny that back home there are just soooooo many members of the church. Even though it's freezing cold outside, I still love being here in Romania!! I love the people and I love the chance to be here for two whole years... even if I only have 6 months left. I feel like these next 6 months are just going to fly by.