Monday, July 29, 2013

Dear Family!!

Well Hello everyone!!! I'm glad to hear that everything is going great for you all!!! Yeah I'm just back here in Moldova!!! It's pretty fun!! I'm glad to be back. It was fun going back to church this past sunday and seeing a bunch of the members who are here. It was great to see everyone. It is still kind of weird that church is in Romanian and Russian. I have to get used to not understanding much at all again ha ha but for the most part it is pretty good. As usual they made the new missionaries speak the first sunday of the new transfer. They actually asked us to give a talk and such, but then when we got there they just asked us to get up and share our testimonies. So it wasn't too bad!! It's great being with Elder Farnworth. He is from Orem Utah! Its really different being in a zebra companionship (that's what we call it when both missionaries speak a different language). We will be meeting with some people that only speak Russian so Farnworth just talks the whole time and I just sit there awkwardly. And then later we meet with someone that only speaks Romanian and the situation reverses. It's different but fun!! Also It's kind of weird being a zone leader and all. It's kinda different. Lost more planning and meetings and such. I like it though! It's sad to hear about that missionary from spain. I'm glad that hasn't happened to me!! Yeah I have never traveled without having another missionary there. I think president tries planning it to where we always travel with a missionary. It's safer and not as boring ha ha it would be kind of boring traveling for hours just by yourself with nothing to do but read scriptures. Yeah so we took the train from Bucharest (because all the missionaries gather there when it is transfers) and so from Bucharest to Chisinau it is about a 13 hour train ride. It takes a couple of hours at the border because they have to check passports and then change the train tracks and such. So yeah we sleep on the train. It's not the most comfy beds, but the train moves and I always seem to sleep better when I'm sleeping on something that is moving (Motorhome!). So I'm actually not at the same apartment that I was at before. Apparently the sister missionaries took over that apartment because it was nicer than theirs. So I'm at a different place . . . and to be honest I have no idea if my old shoes are still alive! 

Oh I got the package from you guys!!! I realized that it is about a month untill August 22 (hump day) comes around so it is going to be a while until I open the package. 

Oh wait . . . I already opened it!!!! Yup sorry to tell you but I just couldn't wait to open it!! I just knew there were some goodies in there that just couldn't have waited to be discovered!! So I have to say that the package was great!! I learned lots about camels. I have almost eaten all the snacks that were in there. 

I Love you all so much!!!! :) 

USA flag with Moldova flag

Monday, July 22, 2013
Well hello everyone!! Well this past week we found out about what is going to happen next transfer!!! Yeah so as you guys might have guessed I am going to be leaving out of Craiova. After being here for 3 transfers I think President realized that I need to go somewhere else. And by somewhere else, I actually mean somewhere that I have actually already been to. Think about it for a second
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I'm going back to Moldova!! I am going to go to Chisinau and go be a zone leader with Elder Farnworth, who is a russian speaking missionary! So yeah I am going to go back to Chisinau! It's kinda cool because back before I got put into Chisinau I was actually going to be companions with Elder Farnworth. Now I actually get to be companions with him! I'm not quite sure how I think about being zone leader though. I've obviously never been so I wouldn't really know about all the stuff I'm supposed to do. I guess I will find out eventually! Oh and I expect that you start flying that Moldovian flag on our flagpole now that I'm going to be in Moldova again! Elder Hokkanen is actually going to be staying here in Craiova and train a new missionary!! It's pretty rare that a missionary who just got done training starts training someone else. I know he will do great though!! Elder Lex is going to stay here and be the district leader, also training a new companion and then Elder Ralph is going to go be the district leader in Constanta!! 
Another cool thing that happened yesterday was I finished reading the Book of Mormon . . . in Romanian! Yay! It took quite a while but I finally finished it! I started it like forever ago by just reading a chapter every day to help with language study. But for the past transfer or two I have been reading more chapters so that I could finish it faster. And yeah I finally finished it!! It was super awesome because after reading the whole book I decided to pray (in Romanian obviously) and ask God to give me a greater testimony about the Book of Mormon. It was a really cool experience to have finished the Book of Mormon in my mission language and then pray about it in my mission language! 
Well that's basically it for me!!! I love you all so so much!!! :)

Monday, July 15, 2013
Well hello there everyone!! This week has been pretty good. No we weren't able to teach Elena this week. We tried calling her but she didn't answer until yesterday. She said that she was busy so we couldn't meet with her. No other investigators came to church. We did have a couple of less actives come that usually don't! It was cool! On saturday we had a branch activity and celebrated a couple of things. First of all, it is the 20th year that the romanian mission has been around. Which is cool because I am 20 years old! The Romanian mission has been around since I have! So we celebrated that, and then we celebrated the 2nd year that the Craiova branch has been around. It's kinda cool to see that this branch has only been around for 2 years. And it shows!! We are still pretty small here ha ha oh and then the third thing we celebrated was Sora Spooners (wife of the branch president) birthday! Her birthday is on wednesday but we "celebrated" it with the other two things. It was a pretty good activity! We just had some pizza and some desserts and had this slideshow with different pictures of the branch. Another thing that happened this week is I went on an exchange with Elder Ralph! Elder Ralph is from my MTC group and it was really fun to do an exchange with him. We didn't really do much besides contacting people.
We find out about transfers this week. Probably on friday is when we will find out. I don't really know if I am going to leave or stay in Craiova. I guess we will just see. Yeah it's crazy that it's almost my year mark and that school is almost starting up again. Time just keeps on flying by! 
I love you so much!!!

Monday, July 8, 2013
Bucharest was pretty fun! For the lunch at the meeting the office people looked up some recipes online and tried making some cafe rio pork salad stuff. It was a decent attempt for some good food, but nothing like cafe rio! ha ha yeah we took a train to get there. The train took about 3 hours. I actually really like traveling by trains. It reminds me of Harry Potter! Now they just need those chocolate frogs!  WAAHOO!!! A package is on the way!! I really really love packages. And I guess I will wait until my year mark. maybe . . . But seriously, I can't believe that I am approaching my year mark. That's nuts!! It's amazing how much time has already flown. And I just feel like time isn't going to slow down (yay!). 
Since we were in Buch this week for the zone conference, we didn't have a whole lot of time the rest of the week for tons of other stuff. We didn't get any lessons this past week, but we did have two investigators at church!! That's a record!! So one of the investigators is named Elena. Now I don't know if I wrote about her before, but earlier when I was with Elder Davis we went and helped her set up Skype and Facebook and do computer stuff for her . . . anywho so we helped her with that and then recently Elder Hokkanen and I have been trying to teach her the missionary lessons. We don't really cover a whole lot of info because Elena talks A LOT!!!! But we did manage to give her a book of Mormon and asked her to read it. But this past time that we were at her house she had one of her friends over and so we gave her friend a book and invited both of them to come to church. They both came!! It's funny though, cause they sat in the back of the room and then told us afterwards that they couldn't really hear the people who were speaking very well. But yeah we are going to go over and meet with them again sometime this week and try teaching them more!
Okay momma, usually the approaches I do are just hand people a pass a long card right of the bat and then tell them about whatever is on the card. And to be honest, I don't really like talking to younger people. Especially when they are in groups. The only way I really talk to younger people is if I'm telling about our English classes that we have.
...I think the Halloween party sounds pretty good too!! I'm going to have to be something really awesome when I get home for Halloween!! Maybe I will be a vampire!! Mostly because I realized this week that I'm totally living in the land of the vampires. Romania is where Dracula is from!! Which means he totally spoke Romanian!! So yeah . . . I speak the language of vampires!! ...The land of Odd? Hmm I think I have been there before. I think Jesse is there but not dogs. They celebrate Halloween but not Christmas. They have cheeseburgers but not hamburgers. There are kittens but not cats. The moon is there but not the sun. Something like that! 
Well I love you all so so much!!! :) 

Monday, June 24, 2013
Dear Family!!!
YAY!!! I actually got the email this time!! Lets see here, church was pretty good. We actually had an investigator there! The thing is though is that he lives 80 km (50 miles) outside of the city and is only in town when he has work. We actually haven't met with him for weeks because he just hasn't called us. But he called us a couple of days ago and said that he was going to come to church. And he did! But he had to leave right after and who knows if we will actually meet with him again. But yeah I just wanted to point out that we actually got an investigator at church! That hasn't happened since my whole time in being in Craiova  (FOREVER . . . FOREVER . . . that wimpy deer!!) . . . but as far as branch members go, we have the branch president and his wife. Gina (who is leaving in a couple of weeks when she is done with college) and then we have the Radulescu family. They are just an older couple (I'd say 50's or 60's) who have been members for quite a while I think. And yeah that's about it as far as members go. 
Yeah next week for sunday school we are going to watch that broadcast that you guys watched. It seems pretty good and it sounds like they are going to have missionaries use more technology and stuff.  YEAH!!!! It's actually a great idea because the internet is being used by lets see . . . EVERYONE!! 
My district is doing pretty good. My companion just got voie from the mission president to have a guitar! So he just bought a guitar today so I'll be able to listen to him play the guitar for the next little while. Elder Ralph and Lex are doing good as well. We talk with each other everyday. Since I'm the district leader I have to call the others at night to see if they made it home safe and everything. So if we don't see each other during the day we at least talk to each other on the phone at night! I'll do exchanges with them sometime in the next couple of weeks. I just got to figure out which day works the best! Speaking of exchanges, the zone leaders are going to be coming this week to have some exchanges with us here! We will see how that goes. 
Oh and something really really cool that happened this week, we were meeting with Gina (the member) because she wants to practice the missionary lessons before she heads out on her own mission. First of all, I guess I should explain to you guys that Gina is a really awesome member . . . but sometimes she has a hard time at life I guess you could say so we usually just try helping her.  Anywho so we meet with her pretty often and so we met with her on saturday. We talked a lot and then she asked if I would give her a blessing. I've given her blessings before whenever she has asked for them but for the past little while she has gone on a "no english / I hate english" type of deal. So usually the blessings I have given have been in English but I gave her one in Romanian instead. It was actually really awesome!! Afterwards I was like "Wow . . . I just did that all in Romanian" ha ha it was pretty cool if I do say so myself!

Party on Wayne! I love you all :) 

Kitty anyone?!

And I also had some more of those fried fish! But these ones didn't taste as good as the first ones I had a while ago. These ones were cold and really REALLY fishy tasting unlike the first ones I had. I think the first ones I had were freshly fried and had some lemon juice on it or something like that. 

Well here are parts of the apartment like you guys wanted! And yes . . . the bed that isn't made is mine! Guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks ;)

Well I finally remembered to take a couple of pictures of me picking some cherries!! :)

Monday, June 10, 2013
Dear Family!!

Hello everyone!! This week has gone pretty well. We found out what is going to happen for next transfer! So I'm going to stay and finish training my companion here in Craiova! We are also getting two new missionaries here in Craiova (it's about freaking time too!!) and I'm going to be the district leader! Now I'm actually going to be the leader of a district that is bigger than just my companion and I. So the other new missionaries who are coming in are Elder Ralph and Elder Lex. Elder Ralph is from my MTC group and Elder Lex is a missionary from Austria . . . or Germany. Something like that! So yeah I'm really really excited!! Yeah I should probably take more pictures . . . I haven't in a while. So I will get going on that! We are done with English for now due to transfers but in a couple weeks we will start them up again.

So this week we have been helping this member pick some cherries from his cherry tree. We have done it a couple of times this past week and we are going over to their house again after pday to help them again. I will have to remember to take some pictures while we pick some cherries!! Oh the other amazing thing that happened yesterday was that we actually got some air conditioning for the apartment!! PARTAY!!! We have been using these crappy little fans to try and blow some air on us after we get home but now we actually have some nice AC!! YAY!!

Well that's about it!! I love you all so so much!! :)

Monday, June 3, 2013
I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO MUCH!!!! I'm glad that everyone is doing pretty good. This past week has been Craiova Days. Basically every city has their own "day" and so everyone in the city just gets together and celebrates. It was kinda of cool to see the city full of people doing random things . . . but not so great because nobody really wanted to talk to us! ha ha but what else is new! ha ha It was still a pretty good week. Yeah Gina is a member here in Craiova! She is a student here in Craiova and is done with school in like a month. After she is done she is going to go to Bucharest . . . which means we are going to be losing another member here in Craiova! The numbers here just keep going down!!!! Yeah I love training Hokkanen! Hopefully next transfer I'm still going to be training him. We find out about transfers this next week so we will see if anything happens! Hopefully I just stay here in Craiova and continue training Hokkanen. Yeah translating is super crazy!! I had to translate again this sunday seeing as how it was fast and testimony meeting and half the branch only speaks english. So that was pretty fun. Translating really helps with my language skills. Gosh I can't believe we have a completely different bishopric!! Well I guess it was about time . . . but still!!! When I get home everything is going to be different! 

The flag pole is awesome!!!! Yeah show off that Romanian flag!!! ha ha Even after I get home we will probably have to leave the Romanian flag on there for a while.