I was just in America. Also transfers.

So today was pretty cool we just got to go sing at the US Embassy, which technically is US soil. They also had American foods and drinks like rootbeer, cream soda, dr. pepper, snapple, and a few other things. I was so happy. The embassy building was literally the nicest building I've seen on my entire mission. I honestly felt like I was in America. The concert was also really fun.

Me and Elder B and a sister missionary played an arrangement of Amazing Grace mixed with Peace Like a River that was arranged by Elder C from my group, it's super cool and really fun to sing. I'm also going to be playing something with Elder B next week at the concert in Bucuresti, and then the saturday after that, we're going to have a Zone Conference/ missionary Christmas party/ member and missionary christmas concert. It's going to be a busy day.

Thankfully I don't have to do that much with the Zone conference or Christmas party, but I'm organizing just about all of the concert part, with help from the branch who will be involved quite a bit. But it will be really fun. Me and Elder B have been working on it for quite some time now, but now he will not be as directly involved in the planning (although still playing for it), because he's an AP now.

Haha he was so upset that he was leaving Ploiesti! We both really wanted to stay. And although I'm sorry for him that he's leaving, I'm really, REALLY happy that I'm staying in Ploiesti for Christmas.

Christmas is going to be so great. I love the people here so much. My new companion is Elder S. He's one transfer younger than me and I was his Naș (godfather) on his first night which just means I basically had an exchange with him on his first day. So it'll be fun to serve with him.

So yup there you go. Have a great week!

Love,

-Elder DeGraw

Turkey Bowl!

Thanksgiving was so much fun! Much better than last year haha. We were able to go down to Buc for it. We had a turkey bowl, which I'll get you pictures of sometime. We all wore thrift shop granny sweaters. :)

There was also a huge thanksgiving feast which, while not Bapa's cooking by any means, was pretty dang good. There was turkey (they deep fried 7 or 8 turkeys for this!), amazing funeral potatoes, candied yams which I love now and had like 5 pounds of, and even american homemade rolls!

Again, not like back home, but still pretty good. Safe to say, this thanksgiving was much better than last years, which consisted of sitting in a stairwell for 2 hours and eating McDonalds haha. Hopefully the comparison with Christmas will be just as drastic! :)

 

This week, not that much crazy stuff happened, but we had a super great member missionary activity where we went on splits with the members and visited less actives! We were able to teach so many people in that one night! I was able to go to a less active member who has been a member for more than 20 years, who is now inactive. He has received lots of support from the church in past years, and semi-recently, he was cut off from that and after that he got mad and stopped coming.

He and his wife both have lots of health issues, and he doesn't have a job, so life is pretty hard. And every time I have gone over there, he usually talks about all of his problems and how he hasn't lost faith in the church, just in the members. And neither me nor my companion ever know what to say in those situations other than "Well, that's too bad. Please come back to church." We have no experience or knowledge to tell him what to do there!

But it was so great this time because basically, the member I went with just told him what's up. We talked a little about Job, and how his life is still great compared to Job. The member that I went with knows him pretty well, and is friends with him and his family, so he knows their situation very well.

It was wonderful to see how he just told him straight up what needed to happen, but it wasn't forceful or out of place. It was great!

I really hope we get to do an activity like this again. It was so cool. And can I just say how great it is that this one member just got back from his mission. He's the best thing that's happened to this branch since I've been here. He's a great branch mission leader and he's still so pumped up about missionary work. It is so great to be able to work with him. We now have an active branch mission leader! Who's freaking awesome! Life is good let me tell you what.

Well, love you all. Stay wonderful.

Love,

Elder DeGraw

 

P.S. it snowed. It's officially winter. booooo

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy thanksgiving everybody!

This last week was super cool because we now have a super cool new bro in the branch! His name is Andrei, and he just this week got back home from serving on his mission in London. He's such a stud and is so pumped about missionary work. He's now the Branch mission leader so we have one now!! Just today he came and contacted with us and he's super good at it. And he's still definitely got the missionary mindset, which is super cool. He had a kind of homecoming on Sunday, and everybody was so happy to see him. It was really weird to see a missionary coming home because it made me think about when I go home. But I don't like thinking about that.

This Thanksgiving is also probably going to be a lot better than last thanksgiving for me. I'm in a branch that has members, plus we're going to Buc and having a legit feast with the mission president and some other missionaries. It's going to be fun.

Also this week I got to go on an exchange with S. E., who I went to High school with! He was a sophomore when I was a senior. 0_o It was really fun and it was weird and cool to have a kind of connection with back home. So that was cool.

Today we went street boarding and I brought my guitar and Elder Brundage brought his mandolin. It was really fun. We serenaded the passersby and gave some good background music and we actually had a really fun time. We wrote on a board "If you could ask God anything, what would it be?" and had people write questions on the board and we got some great conversations.

Keep it real.

-Elder DeGraw