Tuesday, February 26, 2013

I feel like it has been forever since I have written you guys! So yeah I am now here in Moldova! Moldova is actually pretty different from Romania. I'm basically in another state of "culture shock" like how I was when I first came to Romania from the MTC. I mean, they use different money here, people are speaking Russian left and right, I don't know where anything is in the city, and people who speak Romanian here have an accent so it's pretty difficult to understand what anyone says sometimes! Geez just when I started feeling like I got the hang of things I get thrown into a place where I can hardly do anything ha ha It's a little bit frustrating, but I'm still glad to be here. I mean, not many people get to serve here in Moldova so I'm excited to just be here!

Speaking of serving the members, I gave a talk in church this past sunday! We got into the country Saturday morning and then we went over to a member of the branch president's house for lunch. Then when we were over there he was just like "Oh by the way, can you talk in church tomorrow for like 8 minutes?". So yeah I gave a talk in church! Now I probably won't have to give one for a while ha ha But church is definitely different here in Moldova! Basically it was in both Russian and Romanian. I mean lots of people understand both languages, but some people prefer to speak one language and others prefer to speak the other language! It was kind of weird when we were singing the hymns in sacrament meeting because both languages were being sung at the same time! But it also makes it difficult to understand. Like in Sunday school the teacher was speaking in Russian but some people would answer her questions in Romanian while others answered in Russian. So it kind hard just sitting in church for 3 hours when basically most of the time I have no idea what's going on (like I wrote earlier, culture shock!). Oh I took my first "sleeper train" to get to Moldova!! The train left at 7:45 at night and then we got to Chisinau at like 10 the next morning. It was pretty fun. Basically all of us decided to stay up all night and just talk ha ha yeah I probably slept for like an hour and a half on that train! It definitely made the past couple of days make me more tired than usual!! But it was fun ha ha :)

Well that's basically all I have for now!!! Moldova is definitely different and pretty difficult right now, but I'm sure I'll get over the difficult part soon (hopefully!!) ha ha I love you all SOOOOOOO much!!!! 

 

February 18, 2013

Okay so first of all, I know where I am going to be for next transfer!!!! Sadly I'm moving out of Constanta :( I'm kinda sad because I love this branch so much and it's going to be crazy not being here. But Guess where I'm going (Drum Roll Please!!!!) 

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I'M GOING TO CHISINAU!!!!! (pronounce it Key-She-Know) Yup I'm super excited because I'm going to MOLDOVA!!!!!! So my second city that I'm going to be serving in is in another country!! Yup I'm super stoked!!! I'm super happy because not a whole lot of missionaries get a chance to serve in Moldova, so I'm really excited to say that I have served in Romania and Moldova. My companion is going to be Elder Hollist. He is from my MTC group.  Oh and another thing about Chisinau (and Alex is really gonna love this), I heard from someone church in Chisinau is RUSSIAN!!! Yup lots of people speak Russian over in Chisinau (in fact we have some Elders in the mission who are called to be Russian speakers and then just stay in Moldova). So I might be picking up on a little bit of Russian while I am there :)

 from Constanta, Romania to Chisinau, Moldova

Okay so quick story, We were at the church on Saturday after English classes. And there was a branch meeting so a lot of the branch members were there. One of the families that was there was the Olteanu family. This is the family that has Alex. Alex is the 8 year old kid who got baptized not too long ago if you guys remember. Anyway, Alex's parents were in the meeting so I was just talking with Alex for a little bit. I told him that I was going to be leaving Constanta this next week to Chisinau, and then he got this sad look on his face. Then he told me to wait for a second while he went into one of the rooms in the church. After a little bit he pulled me into the room and showed me a little note that he wrote on the whiteboard for me. At first he was like "go on read it!" . . . but his little 8 year old handwriting wasn't that great and I couldn't read it ha ha so then he just told me what it said. I took a picture of it and then later tried to decipher what it said. I got most of what it said. He wrote something like this: "I will miss you Barney. You were a good friend of the soul. I will still be here in the Constanta branch. I love you from me - Alex <3" . . . Gosh I'm pretty sure I started tearing up! Yeah basically it was the coolest thing ever!! I'm going to go over to their house like on Tuesday or something to say goodbye to their family!! I really got close to their family seeing as how I was over there a lot to teach Alex the lessons before he got baptized. 

Well I love you all so so much!!! I'm glad to hear that things are going good!!! I miss you all so dang much!!! :) I will talk to you all soon :)

Love,

Elder Josh Barney :) 

Monday, February 11, 2013

I talked in Church this past Sunday!! It was pretty good actually. I talked about the Liahona magazine and Dieter F. Uchtdorf's talk in conference. "Of Regrets and Resolutions". I actually wrote out my talk the night before just so that I could have something to read if I completely forgot all of my romanian when I got up their. But it actually turned out pretty good. I hardly used my paper at all!!

Well to be honest, these past couple of weeks have been pretty hard. Due to the fact that we would set up lessons with people and then wait for them at the church and then they wouldn't show up. That's basically how it has been for the past two weeks, but then on Saturday there was a guy who actually came!! I was super excited . . . mostly due to the fact that for the past two weeks we hadn't had any lessons at all. So we taught him about the restoration and gave him a book of mormon. We invited him to come to church the next day, but he didn't show up. We are going to try and meet with him later so we will see how that goes. 

So we were on exchanges this past week and I was actually on an exchange with an elder named Elder Jones. He is one of our zone leaders. So when I was on an exchange with him I went block knocking for the first time! It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I've heard some pretty crazy stories about block knocking. 

So the English classes are still going good!! We only have English 2 more times before we have transfers. We find out this week what's going to happen this next transfer. And to be honest, I have this feeling inside me saying that I'm going to be out of Constanta for this next transfer. I don't know why but I just feel like I will be going to another city this next transfer. And I'm not quite sure whether I would be happy to leave or sad to leave. So I guess we will see what happens! 

January 14, 2013

So last friday I found out that I will be staying here in Constanta!!! YAY!!!! Elder Knapp is leaving me to head to a city called Craiova. My new companion is going to be Elder Ealy, which was Elder Knapp's MTC companion.  I'm really going to miss Elder Knapp. He is a really funny and awesome guy. And he makes me lunch everyday so now I'm going to have to start making my own lunches! Which sucks because Elder Knapp has some good cooking skills so he makes like real food. And now I'm going to be stuck with frozen pizzas, ramen, and sandwiches (reminds me a lot like college).

The two baptisms we had were AMAZING!!! I will be sure to send some pictures later. But yeah it was seriously SOOOO good!!! The Spirit was SOOOO strong. It was just a super awesome day. I don't remember if I told you, but the father in law baptized Alex (our investigator) and Elder Knapp baptized Elena (the sisters' investigator). It was the first person that Elder Knapp has baptized. And afterwards we were talking and we realized that Elder Knapp's first baptism was in his native language of Romanian! Because Elder Knapp was born here in Romania and then was adopted when he was a baby. But yeah so now for his whole life he is able to say that the first time he baptized someone was in Romanian and in his native language of where he was born. Kinda cool huh!!

Oh and since I am staying in Constanta, I'm pretty sure that I am going to be talking in sacrament meeting on Sunday. I mean I haven't been asked yet but I'm pretty sure I will. So I will have to keep you updated and see what happens. It would probably be good for me to speak in church. It would give me extra practice in Romanian (and I need it!!)

January 8, 2013

Well hello again!!! Things have been pretty crazy since I have talked with you last!! First of all was New Years which was a BLAST!!! On New Years Eve we went and saw the Hobbit!! It was such a good movie!!!!! You guys all have to go see it!!! Then after we watched the Hobbit we went and hung out at the church for a little bit. Then later that night we went over to a block that was right on the shore of the black sea and went into an apartment and had a little party with some of the members in the branch. We had lots of food and even did some karaoke!! That was really fun! Then midnight came around and we all went out of the apartment on onto the roof of the block and saw the entire city just filled with fireworks!!! And since we were on the roof of a block we could see throughout the whole city!!! Definitely the coolest firework show that I have ever seen!! And it's not like back home where the city puts on a firework show. Everybody here just buys fireworks (which apparently are illegal here but since EVERYBODY buys them the cops don't really do anything about it) and then once midnight came around everyone just started lighting them up!! It was cool because there were some people down on the street right next to the block that we were on and when they lit up their fireworks the fireworks shot up in the air and exploded like 10 feet away from where we were standing. It was AMAZING!!! I was going to try taking pictures of it but the pictures wouldn't have been that good . . . plus I didn't want to run back inside and get my camera and miss all the fireworks!! But yeah that's basically how my New Years went!!

Well it turns out that on this Saturday we have 2 baptisms!! One of the people getting baptized is one of the Sisters investigators. Her name is Elena. She is super awesome and she is going to be an amazing addition to this branch!! She is 19 years old or something like that. Yeah she is super cool. Then the other baptisms is one of our investigators. Well he is kind of an investigator. His name is Alex and he is 8 years old and his parents just recently got married in the temple. So since he hadn't been baptized yet they asked us if we could teach him the lessons so that he could have the missionary lessons before he decided to get baptized. So we have been teaching him. But yeah we are having 2 baptisms this week!! I'm pretty excited for that!! Baptisms don't really happen a whole lot here in Romania. Our Branch President was telling us that a couple years ago they had 6 baptisms or so in Constanta but then in the next year they had only about 2 or 3. And that's throughout the whole year. So It's pretty cool that we are starting out the year with 2 baptisms right at the start! 

Oh and this friday we find out about who is serving where next transfer! I can't believe that another transfer is coming up! I'm pretty sure that Elder Knapp isn't going to be my companion so we will just see what happens!! Oh and some other news that I found out, since the MTC times are being cut into a third, they are going to be making some changes about when transfers are happening. We don't know the details for sure, but some people have been saying that we are going to be having a transfer that is only 3 weeks long so that the missionaries that come in from the MTC don't come in halfway through a transfer. I'll have to keep you guys updated on what happens!

January 6, 2013

So - I have had a difficult time trying to update Josh's Blog!! Nonetheless, I got some help with Kenna Barney and she let me know that I was trying to add information with the wrong email address.  So... Christmas and New Years has come and gone and Elder Barney is doing well.  Here are some of his comments we have received lately from him.  Also, I will add some pictures he has sent to us!!

ENJOY!!

December letters:

I get a chance to speak Romanian everyday, but I don't really say a whole lot because I don't really know a whole lot. It's still very difficult to talk to people. But then I just think that 6 months ago I didn't know how to say anything in Romanian and it makes me feel better about what I have learned. I have actually learned quite a lot, but I mean learning a language takes a lot more time than I thought it would. Plus I think I just need time to be able to develop what I have learned and make it better and also to learn more words and stuff.

It is super freaking cold here!!! So it is -4 degrees celsius so google tells me that is 24 degrees fahrenheit!! And that isn't including the fact that it is freaking windy out here in Constanta. So it feels a whole lot colder than that. Basically I'm freezing out here in Romania!! Not to mention that we actually got snow here in Constanta now. There was snow in Buch but till now it has just been raining here in Constanta but now there is snow on the ground. In fact, I fell on the ice today. And it is only the first day with snow and ice on the ground!! I'm probably going to be slipping quite a few times here. Hopefully I don't seriously injure myself!!! 

Bowling!

Christmas Time!

Elder Barney's new favorite Food!!

FISH!!!

November 12, 2012

We usually try to go contacting during the day. We haven't gone knocking on people's doors because it honestly isn't that effective. But when it gets snowy outside that's going to be the only thing we can do. So for now we just try talking to people in the streets and see who stops to talk to us. We are usually back at the apartment around 8:30 or 9 pm. We usually take the bus to go from place to place, but sometimes we walk. We get to church with the bus because there is a bus stop just around the corner of the church. We have a branch. There isn't enough people to have a whole ward. There is usually about 20 or so people who come to church. I have only taught like 3 real lessons to investigators since I have been here. It's quite hard to get investigators. We usually have pretty good success with the english classes that we teach. We have english classes every tuesday and saturday. This past saturday though I wasn't there because we (Me, Elder Knapp, Elder Eaton and Elder Myler) went with the Branch President outside the city to go take the sacrament to an older sister who cannot come to church much anymore because she is poor and lives far away.  People live in really poor places outside the bigger cities. 

Oh and you can only send mail to the address in Bucharest. I'm sure there is an address for the place that I am living at here in Constanta, but what they want us to do is to send all the mail to one place and then when we have either meetings or exchanges then we get mail. So just send all packages and handwritten letters to the address in Bucharest!! And we either take a maxi taxi (like a small bus), an actual sized bus, or we take a train to get to Bucharest.

Elder Barney & Elder Knapp

Yeah Elder Knapp is an awesome guy!! I'm really sooo blessed to have him as my companion! We have a pretty good balance between working hard and having fun at the same time. It's really awesome being his companion. Especially here in Constanta. Constanta is an awesome place. The Branch here is really strong (even though we are small) and I just love being here! And yes it is getting pretty cold, and yes I did get me one of those russian fur hats. I would send some pictures but again I am at this computer at this video game place and it won't let me upload pictures. I'll send them later! :)

So the first picture is a picture of the McDonald's!!! McDonald's is a pretty nice restaurant here! Like you are one of the cool kids if you work at McDonald's! The other picture is a picture of our dryer!! Yup they don't have dryers here in Romania! Actually my teacher in the MTC said that they do, but nobody buys them because it costs too much. So this is what we get to use! 

Pictures of Josh!  One with his new Russian hat!!  Handsome Missionary!!

p.p.s-Is someone still updating my Facebook? If so say like "I love Romania" or something like that :)