First off happy birthday to Robyn, Katie, and Sophie!! As we
say in Romanian, To Many Years! La Mulți Ani! Hope you all had a great
birthday.
So this last week had some ups and downs but overall it was
pretty good. So I have noted down in my planner the following points to hit on:
"Joe's Crab Shirt
free pets
Africans/translating
Alin
Castelu
the awful day"
Allow me to elaborate.
The first one's pretty simple, I saw a guy wearing a Joe's
Crab Shack T- Shirt. I thought that was pretty cool.
Next, if I was a permanent resident of Constanța, I would
now be the proud owner of an adorable kitten and several awesome puppies. As
in, in the same day, Friday if I remember correctly, we passed a pile of stray
puppies. As in, a pile of puppies lying in a ditch on the side of the road.
They were probably a few months old. Just chilling there. I wanted to just
scoop them up and take them home. Then, only a few minutes later, we passed a
stray Kitten. It was so adorable and friendly and I honestly probably would
have just taken it if I lived here permanently. There are so many stray animals
around Romania and when I see baby ones it just makes me want to steal them up
and give them a good life even though I know I can't.
Next. This one involves 2 of the points. There are a lot of
Nigerian students who live in Constanța who go to the Maritime University. One
of them happens to be a member of the church! He's really cool. He has a very
thick accent and so sometimes it's hard to understand him (he only speaks
English) but he understands us perfectly. Anyway we went over to him with Alin,
the BP of the branch (also one of the coolest guys in Romania), as part of a
branch activity to get members involved in missionary work. The Nigerian
member, Shedrack, as part of his school contract, lives in a Hotel in Mamaia
(fun fact: the most popular tourist destination in all of Romania), so we went
out to visit him. His roommate and a few of his friends were there. So it
turned into a member present with 4 African students! They were all so cool and
open to discussion and faithful/spiritual in their own regards. Alin and I
agree that we saw a lot of possibility with Shedrack's friends. So we're going
to make a habit of going out there regularly and meeting with them. I'm
excited. It's kind of sad that some of the only people here who are open to
talking about this kind of stuff are from another country, but souls saved are
souls saved!
[Sidenote, I've seen so much that basically anyone who is
not part of the Orthodox church here will be open to discussion. Not
necessarily everyone, but "pocaiți" (anyone who's not Orthodox but
who is Christian) just are much more open minded from what I've seen.]
Moving on to Sunday. I was busy haha! I had to teach Elders'
quorum for the first time ever and I feel like I did pretty well. Then, because
we had 2 young girls from texas visiting here because they are volunteering
with an orphanage, and Shedrack came with a friend that he's brought to church
before, we had Sunday school in English on our own and it was really weird. I
understood every single word without trying. It was weird to think that that's
what church will be like when I go home. Weird. Then during Sacrament I sat
behind the visitors and translated for them. I did pretty well except for with
the people who talked really quiet or mumbly. But it went pretty well.
And I just want to say Alin is so cool. He's an RM, speaks
perfect english and is a translator for the church, and is just really
motivated with missionary work. It's just really nice to have a BP who knows
what he's doing, because I had a BP who did nothing and it just really made
things a lot harder. Anyway, even outside of the BP calling Alin is just a
super cool guy.
Castelu. That's the name of a little commune outside of
Constanta where we've been going and teaching English every week! It's in this
little room in a little-ish village with a bunch of kids. It makes me feel like
I'm on some service expedition haha. I actually feel like I'm helping people
out there if that makes any sense. It's just pretty cool is all.
The awful day. Okay so a few days ago I had a pretty rough
day. It's passed and I'm happy again but it got me thinking. So what happened
is just basically a lot of little things piled up and I was just ticked off
hard core. We had to ride the bus back and forth a few times for various
reasons, and Romania just started to anger me haha. I'm normally a very
optimistic and happy person. I've never had a moment personally out here where
I've been like "I can't stand this place, or these people," but it
finally happened. For a moment. After being pushed around multiple times and
yelled at for literally doing nothing but standing minding my own business, or
getting honked at for crossing the street in a crosswalk, not fast enough, I
just felt really pissed off. I just felt like doing nothing because I had no
desire at that moment to help anybody. I decided to get a McFlurry. Those
always help. So I felt a little better after that but still not great. And then
later we had a lesson set up at the church. So that came around and we waited
around for a while, nothing. Called the guy twice, nothing. We got bunged. Yet
again. So after that I was just thinking how done I was. That night after we
came home I just sat out on the balcony overlooking the Black Sea and played my
guitar for like an hour and a half. It felt amazing and really helped me feel
okay again. I thankfully was able to go to bed really relaxed.
What I got from that day was a) the first time in my mission
when I think I could actually say that I was discouraged and a little bitter
towards the people. I just was so ticked at everybody and people were so rude
and I didn't feel like helping them at all. And then our lesson fell through
just to top it all off. So I really didn't like that at all. But b) I got the
thought right before I went to bed that it's going to get worse. But then it
will get so much better. It's always darkest just before dawn, as we learn from
Batman. I don't know. I just feel like that although even harder times are
probably coming for me, I know and have faith that it will get better.
Haha I feel like I give off a vibe now and probably will
when I get home that I am bitter about things or discouraged or whatever it may
be. And I really am not either at all! It's just that it's kind of hard to talk
about what my mission is like without sounding bitter haha! I absolutely love
my mission, hardships and all. I would not choose to serve anywhere else if I
could. This is where I'm meant to serve and I'm so freaking happy I get to
serve here :) I don't want anybody to get the wrong idea from my letters. It's
certainly hard but it's so fun at the same time. I always find ways to enjoy the
little things so my mission is a blast.
Anyway sorry long letter!
Love all of you and hope you all have a great week!!
-Elder DeGraw
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