Week 2 in Romania!

Salut from the land of Romania! I'm still working hard and making progress on both the language and the gospel.

The sisters in our district handed over to me and Elder Reid one of their investigators because they will be tied up with their responsibilities as coordinating sisters for a while. But he's got a baptism date! He's a really cool kid named Iancu. He's such a cool kid. He's 12 years old and exactly like my cousin Chase. We'll have lessons with him and afterwords we'll play around with ping pong or Foosball and just have fun! He's got such a strong desire to follow the lord. He had read the Book of Mormon even before he was originally contacted, read it to his parents, and is super excited to be baptized this week. As I said before, he reminds me so much of my cousin. He loves to play sports, and he loves rough-housing, but he's got such a sweet spirit inside him, and he's one of the kindest people I've met since being here. One time after a lesson, after we had been playing around for a few minutes, he walked in to the church kitchen to get a drink of water, and just started doing dishes! He just loves to help and be a good person, and I'm so excited to see him take the next step in following Jesus.

Yesterday our whole district went to a big park in our area and "chalk-contacted." We drew out the plan of salvation in chalk on the ground, and gave a presentation to people as they walked by. We got a lot of attention! We got the idea to do it in a presentation format from the fact that going on all around us in the park was the International Festival of Living Statues. Or something like that. We stood still on our spots, and someone would bring the people in to look at what was happening, and had them push a button that we drew on the ground. When they pushed the button we all shifted positions really fast and went in to our presentation of the plan of salvation. We got a lot of weird looks, but we also got several really interested people to come talk with us. It was really fun!

I'm adapting slowly but surely to mission life. The barrier of talking to random people on the street is coming down slowly but surely as well. I'm healthy and safe, and working hard! It certainly is the hardest thing I've done in my life up to this point, but it's worth it even now. See you next week!

-Elder DeGraw

 

Festival of the Living Statues
(aka Creative way to share the Plan of Salvation)