Week 89 – Oradea, România

Nicholas’ sister Abigail wrote this weeks family email and told Nick about her summer ballet camp to BYU.  The photo of BYU was copied from the BYU Housing website.

I am glad that you had fun. I will tell you what, getting to BYU was probably a life changer for me. I think you have already been able to tell the difference of having members of the church, or those with similar standards, around. It can be all the difference in the world. I love that campus and all that it stands for. I want to go back and really rake it all in. I love BYU! I think you do too. Thos dorms look exactly like the ones I stayed in for 8 months! I love that place. I have so many good memories from that place and friendships that will last a lifetime. I am glad that you were able to go to a sports camp/dance camp. BYU has very good athletics. You porbably learned a lot, and I bet that some scouts were probably watching too. You may never know what kind of scholarships can come from camps and seeing girls or boys starting off young. Keep working and you will be blessed. I have seen that in my life. I have looked back over my many many years 😉 of life and realize that for the most part, I have been healthy. I have been able to play the sports that I lvoe and be decent at them. I have been blessed with a good body. Now there comes a price. The price is that I need to keep my body healthy. I need to treat it like the temple that it is. I would advise you to do the same. If you will obey the Lord and keep your body healthy, than you will be blessed physically. I am glad that you had fun. I wanted to go back with you! Habar nu am sa merg din nou la facultatea mea. E un loc special în inima mea și sper ca frații mai poate sa meargă acolo de asemenea. Yeah. it is so good.

I hope that you guys are enjoying the last bit of summer. Summers on the mission are actually really hard. We have seen a huge number decrease and things like that. Mainly because everyone goes on vacation! It is very cheap here to go to Greece and Spain and the rest of Europe. We talked with a girl the other week about how she traveled from Germany to Portugal on 20 euro (around 25 dollars). Thats 2000 plus kilometers. She hitch hiked! It is pretty common, and it wasn’t illegal until recently. It is a really cool thing here, and I haven’t done it yet, but I really want to.

I love hearing that all is well at home. I, surprisingly enough, have never really worried about my family. I have known and felt that you all would be protected (mostly…dad) from harm and evil. I know that you guys have been blessed in many ways that you all probably don’t even see. I hope that you guys will keep up with your scripture reading. If I can be so bold…It is not enough to merely say that you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints anymore, you have to SHOW it. You must live it and love it. I have seen it here, how it could change this country forever. It is incredible what the Gospel can do IF we live it. When we put our trust in the Lord, then truly we can do all things. I know that to be true. I have seen it out here in the mission field and I have a feeling that I will see it when I get home too. You guys have no idea how much my testimony has grown. It has been a marvelous journey and I feel changed forever.

Your sprinkler story reminded me of my sprinkler story this week. 😉 Every Thursday we go and play frisbee with our friends and investigators. They love it and so do we. At 7 o’clock the sprinklers turn on, and we just keep playing. After we are all a little wet I get a bottle of water (a 2 liter) dumped on my head and back. Bad choice.  One of our friends started a huge water war that ended up with everyone soaked through and through. It was funny to see people look at us as we walked back through the city to go home. It was a lot of fun. So wet… anywho…
This week has been tough, work wise. It has been very hot. I mean like, nobody is going outside hot, and that stinks for us. We have English and things like that so it isn’t a huge deal. We stay busy, but it can sometimes be hard to see the first impact of our work on people. Oh well. We keep working hard and doing all that we can to serve the Lord. It has been a great adventure.

Here is the scary thing. Only 13 weeks left! I can hardly believe how fast the time has gone by. It has been two years you guys! Yet it hasn’t felt like two years…well a little bit… ;). I love being a missionary and I love the Gospel. I am going to continue with the work until my tag is off. I love that thing. I hope that you younger kids are thinking about serving a mission. It is an experience and…I can’t describe it. It has changed me. I love it. I don’t have too many stories this week. Just that sprinkler one, and there was a concert that happened in centru this week. Look up a group called Directia 5. They sounded almost exactly like U2 to me. It was crazy.

I love you all very much. Have a wonderful week.
Love, Varstnicul Nick Oldham