Week 84 – Ploiești, România
Well I am glad to hear that everyone is safe and sound. I am not actually sure where that may be right now, but I hope you are all happy and enjoying your time away from home. Vacations can be a needed thing.
This week brought us a little vacation of sorts! We went to Peleș Castle this week, and the weather was much better than it was the first time I went, and I also had a much better camera and memory capacity than last time. I took lots of pictures. 😉 Sora Bear took her camera inside and took pictures of the inside so I am still trying to figure out how to get those from her, but we will work that out. I enjoyed it very much. It is just an amazing place. The detail and wood work is truly amazing. It is unlike anything I have ever seen ever. I want all of you to go there one day and be able to hang your jaw to the floor the entire time like I did. It was a nice experience.
I enjoyed this last week a lot because of the trip and because it was the fourth of July this last weekend. We threw a little party together, and we grilled. I found myself enjoying grilling to a new level. I probably could have sat there and grilled all day. I really enjoyed it. We had a decent amount of people show up, which was really nice to see. Basically all of our English students showed up. I enjoyed myself. I also found out that I do not have anything patriotic. At all. Shame on me I guess. I did have a good time this week. We made chicken wings and corn on the cob. We tried to get people to play tug of war, and the Jospeh Smith stick pulling game, but none wanted to play. They were all older anyway so they probably wouldn’t have wanted to. We still enjoyed just talking and spending time with each other.
Other than that this week was full of high emotions as we learned about transfer boards. I will be leaving Ploiești, but stay a zone leader as I go to the West and serve in Oradea. I am super excited for this change. Oradea from what I have heard is basically a Romanian city full of Hungarians. It is right by the Hungary border, so I am not surprised. I have seen a few pictures, and it looks like a beautiful part of Romania. I have always wanted to go out west as well, and so this is really cool that I get this chance to go out there. I am still not sure if this will be my last city though. President Ivory told me that he doesn’t want old missionaries to die as a ZL, and there are no other normal missionary positions in Oradea, meaning that I would have to leave. It doesn’t really matter to me, I just want to serve wherever I go as if it was my last one. Seeings how I am going into my 3rd to last one…whoa. I am going to be happy, because that is a choice!
I am trying to think about what else happened this week that my be a big thing, or that you guys would want to hear about. I really don’t think there is a lot of things that happened. I find myself sad to leave here. Not because of the city. I am sad because I will miss some of the members here. I finally felt like I was laughing and joking with most of them. It is amazing to me to see how much one’s heart can grow in a city for the people, and how tough it can be to leave. I don’t think I will cry, but this last Sunday was a hard one for me to attend. I felt it in the back of my throat. I have really grown fond of the people here and once again I am leaving the place I love. In saying that I am excited to share my heart with others right now, and to hopefully lift others around me as best I can. I think a good positive attitude can help with that. SO I will go to Oradea and try to be the sun on cloudy days, and have double sun power, on the days that aren’t cloudy. ;). Once I get working I think that I will grow to love the people there just as I have grown to love everybody in the cities that I have served in. Oradea after all will be my 8th city. I can hardly believe that. 😉 SO many people. I hope that I will be able to remember all of them. I think that I will be able to remember the important ones. 😉 I will have more stories for you guys next week and hopefully more pictures too!. 😉 I love you all very much. Probably more than you even know. 😉 You’ll have to trust me on that one. 😉 Keep up the reading and enjoy the summer sun!