Zone training meeting! Also a random kid from my high school showed up

On tuesday this week we had Zone Training meeting! And it was really weird because before the meeting started, this older looking guy and a younger looking guy walked in that nobody knew, and we were all kind of standing in the hall looking at him and then I recognized him, it was Morgan E! He was a kid who I went to high school with who just finished his mission in Madagascar! Super random right?

Well yeah so his brother just barely came out here and is serving his mission here in Romania, and they just barely overlapped and so they wouldn't have been able to see each other for 4 years, but another random fact, their dad is our area seventy and they talked with the mission president and basically they got to go on an exchange before the older brother went home. So him and his dad gave some small presentations in the meeting. It was really weird to see how he had changed because he had changed a LOT from before his mission. It makes me interested to see how other people I knew from before will change. 

But yeah the meeting itself was really good; we talked a lot about setting commitments and helping people follow through with them, as well as being bold. I got a lot out of the meeting and it was really fun.

Then the next day I stayed in Bucharest and went on an exchange with one of the zone leaders, who I was actually in the same district with last year in Craiova. So it was cool to catch up a little and stuff. And we got a lot done: we had 3 lessons and contacted for a good 2 hours at least, haha we walked around a lot! But it was really fun.

And that's about my week!

To everyone who just started school, have fun! Make the most of it haha.

 

Have a fantastimagical week everybody!

-Elder DeGraw

Great activity! And things are going to start rolling with the branch! Also a long gratefulness note.

Firs off welcome home Elder Moyle! I'm so proud of you and thankful for your example to me.

This was a really good week! Me and Elder K got to meet with the branch president and his family and we had a great lesson! And we got to help get an amazing referral up to Cluj, from Sora Musat's son who is on a mission in England, who baptized a Romanian up there who recently came back to Turda just outside of Cluj, and this convert's mother and several of his family members are interested in the church! So we sent that up to the Cluj elders and they should be checking that out.

Then we had a lesson about member missionary work and then I was able to talk with the BP about what I feel the branch needs and was in agreeance for about all of them! I told him how we need to have many activities and presented several ideas, a few of which are now being put into motion; how we need to call a branch mission leader, and that there is a recently returned missionary who would be perfect; how we need to regularly hold branch council and correlation; and a couple other ideas.

He was totally down and ready to help out with all of these so we'll see where it goes! We should be having Correlation this week and I will talk with the Elders Quorum president and the Relief society president about how we can all help each other.

The branch also had a great activity the other day completely planned and put on by the members, specifically the Elders Quorum president, which was like a life-sized board game. It was very fun, many members came, and at least one investigator came, and it was a fun while still very spiritual game that taught us a lot of good lessons. Me and Elder K are still doing great!  Everything else is going great! We met yesterday with a man named Alex who just called us up and asked to meet, he has met with the missionaries for a while and we're working to become good friends and sharing the gospel naturally. He's a very cool guy and we've been able to talk about some cool things with him. The rest of the district seems to be doing great as well!

 

I realized recently how many people I've seen out here have reminded me of various family members out here! A member of this branch reminds me a lot of Bapa, the BPs daughter reminds me of Katie, Iancu reminded me of Chase, one of my first APs reminded me a lot of Nick, another little kid in this branch reminds me of Carson, Luke, and Jacob, and I'm sure there are a lot more that I've forgotten out here. I feel like it's like Heavenly Father saying "Hey so your family is really far away but here this person will feel like family and will help you out for a while" haha or something. It's just honestly crazy to me just how many things and people out here have reminded me of home and family and it kind of just shows me how important family is! I'm so grateful for my family and I'm excited to see you all when I get home, but I also recognize how it's so important for me now to be out here. 

We were talking the other day as a district, it's me and a missionary around my mission age, and our companions are both still in training, and we were talking about how our missions have helped us and I can testify that if it wasn't for my mission, I wouldn't be nearly the person I am today.

I'll be honest. My testimony has increased immensly and I can now say I know the church is true. Before my mission I could only say I believe. But I know now.

But the nature of my mission hasn't lead me to have memorized the scriptures, I effectively have had no baptisms, I'm still not perfect, and when I get home I won't seem like Mr. Spiritual by any means. But I now know the church is true.

And I've had so much experience that has made me a man. I have learned so much on my mission. I learned how to live on my own, to get along with just about anyone, I learned how to take care of myself, how to speak another language, how to study, how to push myself when nobody but me is watching, how to help others, how to apply my faith, I've realized what I want to do with my life, I've come to an understanding of how important it is to learn, to apply yourself, to think outside of the box, I've lost weight, learned how to cook, how to have style, how to have good habits, how to trust in God, how to talk to people, how to get out of my comfort zone, how to be comfortable with who I am, how to express myself, how to be bold, how to not be shy, how to react under pressure or with little to no warning in a situation, how to teach gospel lessons, how to pull a lesson out of thin air, how to prepare for anything, how to do just about anything I need to basically.

I've learned who I am, what I can do and what I want to do with my future, and where I can and will go. And if I hadn't come on a mission, that would have taken ten years probably! I've gotten to know two great mission presidents who can really help influence my future who have both told me that they can and will if I ask.  If I hadn't come on a mission I wouldn't have experienced seeing others in serious poverty, helping those in need, or seeing the many problems associated with that. I wouldn't know anything basically. I would still just be in college, probably not really knowing what to do with my life, just wasting around like I used to. I can not thank the Lord enough for allowing me to serve a mission and prepare me for the rest of my life.

I've gotten so many blessings from my mission and I'm really sad that I don't have as much time left as I did before, but I'm going to keep working my butt of to improve myself so that I can extend the blessings I've gotten and use them to help the people of Romania.

For those of you starting school this week, study hard, play hard! Make the most of it wherever you are!

I love you all so much and I hope you have a great week!!

Love,

Elder DeGraw

I've never had so many lessons!

I don't understand how people do it in missions where they regularly have like 20 lessons in a week! Haha I'm pretty sure this was the most lessons I've ever had in a week! We had 5 lessons this week!   It was great!

With president Ivory's new balance approach, we're stressing meeting with the members a lot more, which has just led to so many great things! I gotta give it to people who teach like 6 lessons in a day because one lesson in a day feels more than enough for me haha. Jk but really Ploiesti has so much potential!

We have a huge branch here, and an actual chapel with a steeple and everything! This is also one of the oldest branches in the country so we have some people who have been members for a really long time! The other day we had a less-active lesson with a guy who is only less-active in the sense that he can't come to church because of a lot of health problems, but he's so spiritual and has such a strong testimony and is just super cool and he's going straight to heaven. He's just really cool.

I've been trying really hard to be a good example to my new companion, who is in his second transfer, and I feel like I've been doing well at that, and I've seen so many immediate blessings come from just putting the extra effort to be better! We have taught more lessons this week than any other week in my mission. The next closest was when I was in my 2nd transfer! Haha maybe there's something to that? ;)

Me and Elder K get along great! I'm so glad I get to serve with him. He's such a stud.

We're planning on even more this week so I'll let you know how everything goes!

Basically, I really like Ploiesti! It's not the most beautiful city, but that's kind of what makes it beautiful haha!

I'm doing great. Hope everyone else is doing swelltastic.

Love all of you! Have a great week!

 

-Elder DeGraw

Ploiesti is not that bad!

So yeah I'm in Ploiești (pronounced Ployesht) right now! It's pretty nice! It has the reputation for the ugliest city in the mission, but it's honestly not that bad haha. It feels just like București to me.

The branch is super cool and really big, and we actually have a dedicated chapel! Which I haven't had since București! I can already tell that the work here is going to go a lot more than in my previous cities. I don't quite know why, but I've seen more happen already, and just I can tell that I'm going to be a lot more busy than in the past. Which is good.

And let me just say my new companion is awesome. I'm technically his step-dad according to mission tradition (his second-transfer trainer) but I'm accepting him as my own son. We get along great and I feel like we have pretty similar personalities and stuff so we've been having a lot of fun.

There's also a new missionary in the district and he's super cool as well. It's crazy to see the difference in a new missionary compared to where I am now, and to think that I was once there, and that I've come as far as I have in as many ways as I have.

Being a DL is a little different this time around with the new mission president. He's putting a lot more responsibility on the "leaders" of the mission, so I've had quite a bit more to do this time around. But it's not like bad or stressful things, just more.

This transfer is going to be really fun. And we're going to get a lot done. I'm excited. Love you all!

- Elder DeGraw

 

We found this misplaced street light if anybody wants one

 

Me and Elder K got Shirley Temples because we're classy gentlemen.