It's getting cold!

So it's getting really cold here, as hinted by the title. It's also raining really badly today. And has been since yesterday afternoon. It's also windy. Very windy.  So that's fun.

Anyway, this week has been an interesting week. We met with Nick a few times, and the meetings went well, but he sent us a text the other day telling us that he still would like to meet up, but that he doesn't want to talk about religion anymore. So we're going to follow up with that.

 

Other than that, we met with a friend of Elder G, whereat we were served some really good food and invited them to come back to church after several years of inactivity, which he did, by having us pick him up in the morning. So we were at his house two hours before church to bring him there.

 

By the way, Elder G was really sick while we did this. He was apparently up all night vomiting, and he said he woke me up to help him or something, and I replied (in Romanian) "Leave me alone, I want to dream, let me sleep." But here's the kicker -- I didn't do that! I never woke up that night at all. That means I was sleep talking! And it's actually not the first time he's told me I sleep talk! Although the last few times it was in English, but this time I answered in Romanian, in my sleep! So that was weird. 

 

And other than that, this week has been kind of bland. I've been refamiliarizing myself with my guitar, and I actually feel like I play better now than I did before! Haha something about absence makes the heart grow fonder maybe?

And now some sad news, we just found out that someone from our MTC group has gone home! We're all really sad about that. Our group was really close and we all miss him. No one saw it coming either. Nor does anyone know why! He was always one of the most upbeat out of all of us. It's weird that he's not out here anymore.

 

It's been making me think about why I'm here, what I'm doing, and why I'm staying out here. And I realized that ever since I entered the MTC, I haven't had the thought to go home. Sure, homesickness has been there, I miss all of my family very much, and my friends and possessions and all that jazz, but I realized that since I've had the title of "Elder," my perspectives and focuses have changed.

 

I was worried before the MTC that it would be really hard for me to be away from the lifestyle that I was used to; going to school, working, goofing around on technology, wasting time one the internet and tv, but from day one, I haven't had a single problem with that. The first few days of nonstop study and work were a change, for sure, but I was never hindered by a desire to be anywhere else. It's hard for me to even think back to my life before the MTC. My mind is out here, and that's where it needs to be. I've been learning so much about being proactive and making things happen instead of just wasting my time. I still have a ridiculously long way to go to get where I want to be, but progress has been and is still being made.

The Gospel changes people. I've seen that happen out here. Even though a lot of people out here aren't interested at all, there are those who are, and when they apply the gospel principles in their lives, they change so much for the better. But here's the important part: for those who don't want to change, who don't want to be better, they never will. I've had companions, seen members, and even seen myself in this position of being too comfortable in the position I was in. But when I say "I want to be better," find a way to do so, and act on it, I better myself.

 

I've learned that you need to never, EVER, be satisfied with the kind of person you currently are. Even the greatest people on the planet still have room for improvement. And I've been learning that if I want to touch the hearts of the people in this country, I need to be the best me that I can. It's hard.

 

Right now I'm with a companion who, whether he knows it or not, is helping me in a few ways. I'm learning with him that if I want to see change, I need to address my problems head on, rather than being content with the way things are, and letting people walk over me. I'm still trying to apply these principles, but I'm progressing.

 

I guess that's the thing I've recognized most since being out here, is that although the main and really single purpose of missionary work is to bring souls unto Christ, I can't do that if I'm not the best that I can be, because I need to be a representative of the perfect person. So every day I try to improve myself a little more. It's hard. I'm only starting to come to this realization and it's hard to push past my comfort zone. But it needs to be done if I want to be the best missionary, and by extension the best person I can be. And it's not just something having to do with missionary work.The principles I'm trying to apply to myself are such that I always want to keep in my mind and work on, because we are always representatives of Christ, so we should always try to push ourselves to be better.

 

Haha I guess this letter has turned more into a self help seminar, but I've just been thinking on this subject a lot lately. But I just feel so strongly about this, that we need to keep pushing ourselves past what we feel is comfortable, to better ourselves.

Okay well now that my incoherent ramblings are over, here's a weird factoid about where I'm serving: Adult rollerblading is a huge thing out here. Every time we go to a park, we see dozens of them. There are some who take it really, really seriously and go really fast and do tricks and stuff and I feel like I'm living in the 90s.

Okay well that's about it for me!

Now here's some proof that I'm not starving myself:



I made nutella cookies with homemade frosting to make homemade nutella oreosand they were so good that I ate them all at once...

 

 

Also, poorly lit picture of my new guitar and me

Okay bafta!

-Elder DeGraw

(p.s. I printed off all of your letters and I'll try to respond to them all next week! Love you all!)

Reunited and it feels so BUN!

I got a guitar! I've been brushing back up on all of my songs that I've forgotten, and soon, actually tonight I think, we're getting together with another companionship to go in the park and I'll guitar contact again! Haha I didn't know I'd miss playing the guitar so much, but man did I miss it haha. It was so much cheaper than mine back in the states, but it plays as well or better as that one does. I just need to grab a capo, and my arsenal will be complete!

Okay so this last week was a pretty slow week, nothing that huge happened, with the exception that we finally met with Nick again! His phone had broken and he got a job, so he had been too busy to meet up with us, but we finally got back in contact and had a lesson with him and his friend! 

 

And because he likes/wants to learn English and we've done all of our lessons in English, we taught in English, and because my companion doesn't know any English, I taught the lesson all by myself! The spirit was so strong, I could feel how I was being guided as to what to say. I had been praying hard earlier that day to be able to answer all of his questions and to guide him to take the right path. 

 

He had a lot more questions this time than he did in our previous lessons, probably having to do with him asking his mom how she felt about him getting baptized (to which she was against, although I'm not sure of the extent), as well as he had some questions brought to his mind when he came to church a few weeks ago. 

 

But I went in as his friend, answered all of his questions based on the scriptures, and was able to reassure him of the truth while not simply stating my opinions. Haha he actually had some tough questions, but with the help of the Holy Ghost, I knew exactly what to say! 

 

In the end his last question was such to where the answer was that the only way he could know for himself was to read the scriptures and pray about them, which I instructed him to do. It was one of the better lessons I've had. I was able to bear testimony on the truth of the Gospel, about prayer, faith in Jesus Christ, as well as other things. The lord truly allowed me to be an instrument in his hands.

 

We also had district conference (basically stake conference) yesterday! The church was absolutely PACKED. It was like nothing I'd seen in quite a while. It looked like our ward back home! I swear I was the future of the church in Romania this past Sunday. I want the church to look like that every Sunday! It was beautiful.

 

Also I've been getting into cooking a lot! Last week I made all of my meals! Including some pastas, rice, I made two different kinds of pancakes completely from scratch, and I made some really tasty hot chocolate from a packet of cocoa that had been lying in our apartment since I got there. 

 

Oh and I also made saltine crackers. Yeah. They're not bad at all! Haha we have some recipe books in our apartment and I've been starting to use them and make my meals nice and tasty. It's so cool to turn some dust, liquids, and seasonings into something tasty and beautiful haha. I'm enjoying myself:)

 

Well that's about it! Same old same old! Long hours, hard work, but loving it all the time!

 

Laters!

-Elder DeGraw

Words go here...

More words are going here.

HEY. So guess what I did yesterday?! 

 

Yeah I went guitar contacting nbd. Haha a guitar was in transit to a member and the ZL had it and he was like "Hey DeGraw want to play" and I was like "I so want to play" and so I played/sung in a park while the other missionaries around talked to people who stopped or walked near us and it was super cool and effective too! 

 

Haha this last week we all tried different ways of contacting. I did that, Elder G did ping-pong contacting, Elder E did Chess contacting, and the whole district is trying to get people in for the sisters to teach a children's English class. And yesterday we all did all of that and it was super fantastarific haha. 

 

So I decided I'm going to get myself a guitar like some other missionaries have out here and do more of that. I'll put an advertisement for the English classes on my guitar so that whenever I play it people will know that I'm not asking for anything, quite the contrary I'm offering a service! 

 

One of the elders from my MTC group, Elder C, and his companion, are both super into music, so they contact like that all the time and apparently it's usually a pretty darn effective form of English contacting I mean think about it: a guy singing songs in English, advertising free english classes, if anything else that's going to make an impression.

 

So yeah other than that, this week we had a lesson with Elder G's cousin, to whom we showed the restoration film, as well as another lesson with Iancu, who is still nice and active just in case anyone had forgotten about him;) And yeah that was pretty much my week, that and contacting!
 

I've found myself trying to push myself harder every day to do more work. Lots of missionaries out here are really discouraged because we usually have low numbers. But I've seen that just turn into a vicious cycle of no work, no lessons, no baptisms, discouraged, so no work. 

 

But I've been trying to push myself and my companion to both work a lot harder than we have, and I've found myself enjoying the work much more. Not necessarily the actual contacting, which let's be honest, sucks. But with feeling like I'm actually doing my full part in bringing the Gospel to these people. I feel more satisfied with my output at the end of the day; I feel more like I'm doing what God wants me to do. I still have a LONG way to go, for sure, but I'm moving there.

I'm so happy to hear about all these happy things happening at home! You are all in my prayers every day and I'm so glad to see that so many are being answered. I miss you all, and I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Two Down!

Welcome to Romania, the place where people always carry flowers upside-down for some reason.

 

So last week I realized that Romania is really cool in this one specific way: if you want something, you can find it literally just about anywhere. For example, say you're out of bread, you want some new shoes, and have a hankering for a shaorma. You can literally hop on a random bus, get off on any random stop, walk five minutes in any direction, and find all of that, plus get the latest newspaper, stop into a bakery and grab some fresh made swiss roles, grab a watermelon, whatever you need or want is ridiculously cheaply available EVERYWHERE.

 

Another cool thing I discovered last week is the piatas (pronounced piatsaz). This word can actually mean several things, but in this case it means marketplace. As in a huge, gigantic, fresh, all natural, superidiculously cheap super tasty fresh fruits and vegetables. We got 10 corn cobs for 5 lei (about $1.50), I got a kilogram of cucumbers for 1 leu (about $0.30), some small super tasty watermelons, some prunes (surprisingly very tasty -- I've never really had them before), and a whole bunch of other stuff. I love Romania :)

 

I'm pretty much done with my second transfer, and will be a trainee no more! We just found out transfer boards! My step dad is leaving me!.. Kinda! Haha he's staying in Buch but opening that northern group I was talking about earlier. I'm staying where I'm at, and getting a new companion named Elder G. He's... (wait for it)... ANATIVEWHOSPEAKSNOENGLISH!! Haha i'm actually super excited! I've met him before, briefly, and from what I've seen and heard he's a really cool guy. 

 

Haha I did say at mission reports that I wanted to learn the language. And what better way to learn than being with someone who only speaks that language?! Haha it'll be 24/7 SYL (speak your language, MTC thing) which I've actually been wanting to do a lot more of. I learn best from experience, and I'm hoping to make the most out of this situation and be fluent by the end of this next transfer! I've got the grammar pretty much down, now it's just a matter of a lot of vocabulary, which a native speaker will be an amazing help with. I'm super excited for next transfer!

 

So both of our investigators have been pretty busy, so we haven't really been able to meet up for a while, but as far as I know both are still going well!

 

Anyway that's about all I've got for today! You all are in my prayers. And remember, with faith in God, anything is possible. When I have something that I have to do, and I know that I have to do it, even when it's hard, I pray to God for strength. I do my best, put a smile on my face, and somehow everything works out, even if not in the way that I'd planned.

 

Va Iubim pe voi toti!!!

 

Laters.

 

-Elder DeGraw