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
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