Monday  March 18, 2013

I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO MUCH!!!!! So basically I found out about transfers. I'm actually not that happy about it at the moment ha ha So on Friday we got the transfer board and found out about where we are all going. Elder Hollist is going to Bucharest and I was supposed to stay here in Chisinau with a Romanian elder named Elder Groberg and a Russian elder named Elder Farnworth. So I was going to be in a 3-some here . . . but then on Saturday in the morning I got a call from President Hill and I'm getting moved out of Chisinau. Apparently there was an Elder in the MTC who backed out of coming here at the last second . . . and so there was an extra spot in Romania for the elder who was supposed to come. So I'm getting booted out of Chisinau and heading to a city called Craiova. My companion is going to be Elder Davis from my MTC group so I'm kind of excited to be with him. But I'm just sad to be leaving this place. I mean, I'm more sad than anything to be leaving the Elders who stay here in Moldova and our awesome investigator Elena. But hey I guess that's the life of the missionary ha ha

Speaking of Elena, basically she is progressing really well!! If it wasn't for her Husband living in Russia she would be baptized by now. Earlier this week we were having a lesson with her about her life and such and she just starting breaking down in tears . . . so we told her about priesthood blessings and she said that she wanted one. So she asked Elder Farnworth to give her a blessing and it was super super cool!! I mean, it was in Russian so I didn't understand what he was saying, but you could still feel the Spirit there!! Spirit works in all languages ha ha :)

Oh and speaking of blessings, I got the opportunity to give a blessing today! We were playing basketball earlier today for P-day and Elder Hollist kind of fell and rolled his ankle really bad. It was super super swollen (and still is). Anywho, later today he had asked for us to give him a blessing just to make sure that nothing would happen from it. So he asked me to give the blessing!! It was super cool!! Giving blessings are super awesome!! I mean, I have only given like 2 blessings in my life but still ha ha they are super awesome and it's amazing to be able to hold the Priesthood to be able to give blessings!!! 

Thanks for all the support you guys have for me!! :) :) 

From Chisinau, Moldova to Craiova, Romania

Monday   March 4, 2013

Things are warming up so it's turning into spring!! Yay!! I hate the cold ha ha I still haven't started on my goal to learn the Russian alphabet . . . there just isn't a whole lot of time to do it!! I'll get to it eventually. We have a washer so we don't go anywhere to get it washed (thankfully)!! We actually have a new apartment so it's pretty nice. Although the day after we had moved in our shower got clogged up so we had to take showers out of the bathroom sink for like a week or so. But now it's fixed and we have a shower! :) The branch here is about the size of the one in Constanta. Give or take a couple people. Elder Hollist is from Georgia but he lived up in New York for when he was going to school. So in Moldova there are like 14 missionaries here. 4 of us are Romanian speakers and the rest are all Russian speakers.

Well we basically have one awesome investigator going for us right now! Her name is Elena and she is super cool. Her husband works in Russia, her oldest son is in Ukraine, and her other son lives with her here in Chisinau! So we have been teaching her and she is progressing really well! She has been to church the past two weeks and she has been reading from the Book of Mormon!! YAY!! We are just hoping that in the next few visits we have with her she can really start to see that this church is really Christ's only true church!! So I will keep you updated as far as that goes! 

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!