The week of super cool people

What's up!

Hey so there's this really cool word in Romanian called "chef" (pronounced "kef"). It means basically "energy", "motivation", "drive", "ability", and/or "desire" all in one word. It's such a great word. It's one of those words that works a lot better in Romanian and I will be really sad when I have to go back to people not knowing what that means.

Anyway. Something I've noticed from being out here, is that with time, I have lost chef for some things. The main one that I'm talking about is the reason why my letters home are so lame, because I've lost a lot of chef. So I try, but it's a mix of not having a lot of chef, and not remembering what happens during the week, why my letters home suck so much. But here goes.

So this week actually had some really cool things happen! Where to start. Okay so there is this english student who is super cool. She came to english one time, and for the spiritual thought we watched the Joseph Smith movie. She stayed for the whole thing and came to church the next day.

Then she brought her son in law to english class.

Then we had a lesson set up with both of them. But they bunged us... BUT.

Then last week they both came to english and we set up another lesson with them. And they both came and she brought one of her friends too!

So we got 3 new investigators there!

And he's super cool, he's got a whole bunch of super cool tattoos (a super sick one of buddha on his hand that you can see in the picture that will follow) and a nice classy eyebrow piercing, and is just a cool person to be around and is really open, as is his soacra. So they're super cool and I could see super cool things coming from them.

Also, saturday for General conference, a random guy showed up. That morning, he left his house with a goal to find a church. The first person he asked was the elders' quorum president, whom he asked because he saw him smiling, dressed well, and with his happy little family. The member told him about conference and he came! I think his story is kind of poetic honestly. He was in prison for two years in the prison just down the street from the church. I'll just leave that part there.

So that was really cool. And also, the sisters have an english student who started coming to english this last week, who basically hung out with us this whole weekend for conference, and has a baptismal date now! And she's super cool, super normal, super interested, and our age, and any one of those characteristics are hard enough on their own!

So that's really cool. And we're really excited for her.

Loved conference, hope you all did too.

Hope everyone had a great week!!

 

Love,

 Josh

Stuff

So Zone conference happened this week!

It was pretty normal. I conducted the meeting, and me and Elder B had a musical number. I played the guitar and sang, Elder B sang harmonies and played the harmonica, and we played a child's prayer. It was awesome.

The time we actually performed it wasn't the best time we played it, but it still went well. The rest of Zone conference was pretty average. Lot's of trying to pump us all up.

We did get some cool journals with the mission symbol on them! So that was cool. We also had a lesson with Alex, one of the coolest guys I know. He's a prime example of how being friends with people is great missionary work. We are just super good friends with him and help him with English, and teach him about the gospel when we can.

And he's brought at least 3 different people to us. He tells like everyone he knows about us, for anyone who wants to learn English. His brother just moved here and he brought him to a lesson and he seems just about as cool as Alex! We're pretty sad though because he got a job in the Czech Republic, and he's moving in few weeks. And he will get back the day before I go home! But when I come back to Romania, and I will be coming back to Romania, he's like one of the first people I will call. He's just super cool.

We also had a lot of people at church last Sunday! We had 50 people at church! That's the most this branch has been in quite a while! We're one of the biggest branches but we've been hovering in the thirties for a while. So last week was awesome in that regard!

Yesterday, we also got to meet with the first people who were baptized in Ploiesti. And Ploiesti was the second city in Romania opened for missionaries. So they've been members for about 22-23 years.

And they're one of the few of those original members who are still super active. The husband has health problems so sometimes it's hard to come to church, and they're not making too much money right now, so that's also hard, but they come as much as they can.

They lived in America for like 8 years too! In Salt Lake City for 5 and Minneapolis for the rest. They have kids and grandkids who almost all live in Utah and all are active members and they're all sealed.

They're the coolest people and I'm so happy that their family is able to be all sealed and happy. They are a prime example of how one or two peoples' decisions can change the lives of many others, for the better! That's how the church grows right there!

So yup. That's about it.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Love,

Elder DeGraw

 

Here's a cool picture I took the other day:

So much music

So this is and will be an awesome transfer.

Me and Elder B are pretty similar in our interests, namely loving the language and loving/playing music. Haha when we were put together, we were both told basically to use music to contact as much as we could! Haha by our second day we already arranged a super cool musical number for Zone Conference. We're going to see if we can organize a concert/devotional type thing!

Just yesterday we went out in the park with the district and played some music to contact and it was awesome! Our mission president is really big on using our talents and abilities for missionary work, so we're going to try to play as much music as we can to bring some positive attention to the church! I'll let you know how it goes!

As far as being ZL goes, so far nothing has been really different other than that we had to call people and make assignments for Zone Conference, and we had a conference call with President Ivory and all the other Zone Leaders last night. So far I really like being ZL! It's not even more responsibilities than DL, it's just different ones.

We're also going to get to go on exchanges in two of the most beautiful cities in Romania, Brasov and Sibiu, both of which are in Transylvania, and both of which are in our Zone! So I will be able to have at least been in all of the missionary cities that are in Transylvania! So that will be super fun and we'll get to work with some really good missionaries so I'm excited.

We're having Zone Conference tomorrow which will be cool. I've already heard of some of the things that will be brought up but President I loves to just wing it so I'm sure there will be even more cool things that will be brought up haha. But yeah.

Not too much happened this week what with it being transfer week and all, packing, unpacking, cleaning, transfers, etc.

But we did get to have a lesson with a less-active member. He's in a really tough position. He's got some health problems, his wife has some major health problems and is in a hospital for them, and he has no job. He's gotten a lot of help from the church with his medical bills and stuff, but he's kind of also fallen into a state of dependency. He now kind of associates feeling welcome at church with being given monetary support.

He has a lot of faith, and has been in the church for around 20 years, one of the first members in Romania, but he just has had some really sad things happen in his life. And he kind of has this habit of texting the missionaries these really depressing texts... Saying stuff like how much pain he is in, how hungry he is, how his kid has no food. And we can't do anything about it!

The Branch President has kind of said that it's time for the member to do his part. But about a week ago he sent us one of those depressing texts, and I just figured we should do something to show him that we care, so me and Elder K bought a few items of food and dropped them off anonymously at his door. The next day was sunday and although I didn't see him, he came to church and brought someone and also sent us a number of someone to meet with.

And then the other day he texted us asking to meet up so me and Elder B went over to meet with him. He didn't ask for money, but he did talk a lot about his and his wife's health issues, which makes sense. It's just a rough situation. He said that he could get a job, but that his kid needs him at home because he was traumitized by his wife getting schizophrenia.

So yeah. The real problem is that he should be talking with the BP about all of this, but doesn't feel that the BP likes him or has his best interests in mind. So yeah that was that.

And that was about the week!

This is going to be a great transfer!

Hope everyone has a great week!

-Elder DeGraw

Transfer info! And a freaking cool hike

I think it's safe to say that this was the weirdest transfer board I've seen on my mission!

They changed the zones! I'm staying in Ploiesti, and will be serving with Elder B! He's a really cool guy, also a musician, and I'm really excited to serve with him. And like I said they changed the Zones, so now my Zone is completely different, and I'm a Zone Leader here! Which is weird because for my whole mission the Zone Leaders have been in the same cities, meaning for here the ZLs were in Buc. So safe to say a big surprise. But it'll be fun and I'm really excited for next transfer.

There will also be a mini sister missionary in the district, who is a member from Constanta, so I know her already and she's really cool! So it'll be a really cool district!

Well this last week, we went on a super cool hike in a place called Sinaia! And I finally saw a castle! This castle is called Peles (pelesh).

Yeah I took that picture.

But yeah the hike was super fun. Me and two other missionaries decided to go the fun way up the mountain, and by that I mean basically straight up :) My legs were pretty sore the day after, but it was so worth it. It was really fun. There were parts where we were literally climbing. It sucked though because I was basically the only one with  a camera, and once we were already there I realized that my battery was about dead. So I didn't get too many pictures.

But here's one of me at the top of the mountain:

 

So that was pretty fun.

There's another mountain literally the next town over, as in we could see it when we were in Sinaia, that has a huge cross on a mountain, that actually holds the world record for the highest free standing cross!

I got a picture of it from far away:

 but the town is called Busteni, and the cross is called Crucea de pe Caraiman.

We have a really cool investigator who told us about it and we might go in a week or two. I hope we can! Because it would be ridiculously cool.

But yeah other than that, we've just been doing the same old. Didn't get too much this week but had a few lessons.

Fun fact, this transfer was the best of my mission lesson-wise; I had 20 lessons this transfer! For some missions that's probably like a bad week, but seriously I've never had so many lessons. Now, many of those were active and less active members, but a good chunk of that was still investigators.

Ploiesti is a really great city and I'm really glad I get to stay here longer. 

I hope everyone has a great week!!

Love,

Elder DeGraw