Week 30 – Galaţi, Romania

Well, I feel like I just wrote you guys! wait…I did. Because of our Chisinau trip we have been thrown off a little bit.

Our investigator no longer has a baptismal date. He didn’t quit his job like we thought he did, and thus can’t really come to Church very often, and we told him that he needs to come to Church three times consecutively. In looking through his teaching record, he was an investigator in 2009, and he hasn’t been to Church once. I don’t know if that is for a reason or not, but it is starting to get to the point where we can’t teach him anything anymore. We will probably have to drop him, not because he won’t get baptized, but he is considered “not progressing” if there is nothing we can challenge him to do except come to Church. ugh. That was a frustrating lesson. I have such high hopes for him, and things seemed like they were going great, then WHAM! I know he will get baptized eventually so my heart is at peace with it all.  He did mentioned something about getting some music from us, and that his wife asked about it. We think he is starting to share some of the stuff he has learned with her. That is a very good step! So I think that eventually there will be a temple sealing in their future. Or at least I can hope that right?

Not a lot happened in matters of missionary work. We have had a lot of stuff to do with basic getting things organized, and apartment checks, and blah blah blah. However, I have had a bit of a spiritual week. (I have a spiritual week every week, they are just different 🙂 ). This week I was kind of struggling to get going and some stuff was really hard. Something that is rather unfortunate about living in Europe during hot, humid weather is that basically all rules on clothing go out the window. Underwear is optional and shirts that are so thin that you can see everything are very popular.  I don’t like that.

So I was reading in Jesus the Christ, and I read something, and I knew exactly what it was. I knew it was this because it was very clear that it was not from me, and from the Spirit. I was told by the Spirit what I was doing wrong and He wasn’t afraid to let me have it. I was shocked. I felt that I was trying, but here is this phrase that clearly was meant for me! ugh. It was really hard, and so with this feeling I went to our district dinner yesterday. I really had a heavy heart (Hebrews 12 you should read it). So we were eating baked potatoes and we started talking about what we were going to do for P-day. It was mentioned that we go across the river again.  I kept mentioning that there are very specific things that had to get done, studies, shopping, internet, and three hours of missionary work.  Long story short, it led to a little bit of an argument and the stress level rose.  I said some things that made everyone mad at me.  I had no intention of that happening! ugh…it was a hard day to live through. However, I learned a very valuable lesson. I need to be a better missionary. Not that I am a bad one, but I could be so much better. So I am going to crack down in my life and what better way to do that to have transfers in a few days! I don’t know where I am going just yet, but I have a feeling it will be in a bigger city than Galati and maybe in Transylvania somewhere! We will find out in a few days.

President Ivory is almost here! That is crazy. No more President and Sora Hill. That will be weird, but I think having a new President might be a good thing for the mission. I want to follow President Ivory the best way I can! This will be a very interesting next week. I will have more to write about next week for sure. Sorry about the little drama within our District, but that is basically the biggest event this week. sad…

Crazy thing about the video I sent. Everything my companion said in Romanian I understood, and if you listen carefully I am actually agreeing with him in some instances. I don’t know what happened with that phone call, but it was fun to do that stamping. I was so bored and irritated, so I decided to laugh instead! We do have fun here, but there needs to be a good balance. Otherwise the fun things aren’t fun anymore. I am starting to realize that too.

The pizza with corn actually isn’t too bad, but pizza here is a little different than at home. It is made on real bread. It also has less sauce than American pizza. It is very good, and you normally eat it with ketchup. I have had both good and bad Romanian pizzas. It is a hit or miss.

The baby blue blazer, may actually be sent home in my next package because that was a peer pressure buy, and it looks too good on me to be missionary appropriate ;). The aviators I bought in Moldova, because I don’t have any sunglasses out here, although I am not a big sunglasses wearer.

Congrats on your MTB race Dad! Falling makes better stories anyway! I wish I could go out there with you so badly. Finding good exercise is really hard out here. Insanity is almost over and I actually did the whole before photo and will do the after photo thing. I will have to show you one of these days. Maybe I will put it back up on my drive. We will see. I look pretty good though. I have had a hard time getting motivated though. I think I will come up with something new, and work towards it!

Packing…I can relate to them with packing. Every six weeks is the threat of packing everything you own and hauling it around again, and again. I have learned that I need to pack at least two days before I actually leave, and then I have time to find things I might have forgotten. Kind of silly, but it Works for me.

I am glad you all are doing some fun stuff, it is important to stay busy! Maybe something you can try is family scripture study in the mornings too! 😉

Love, Vârstnicul Oldham