Hey Everyone!

Things are going pretty well out here in the land of vampires and the new transfer is under way. The new District Leader is super cool, Elder Jaynes. He is in his last transfer, but he doesn't seem too trunky, which is good. He has a lot of ideas for the branch here so I'm exciting to see some activities start happening. Elder Middleton was a good DL, but it's nice to have a change. He is in Bucharest now. Elder Selck, my first companion in Romania, is now a Zone Leader! He is a super good missionary and I learned a lot from him. We worked really hard together. Lol, I predict he goes AP later in his mission.

This last week was pretty good, nothing too exciting. SYLing isn't really happening much. I tried to set a goal to just SYL with my companion up until lunch and so far it's only worked a little bit. Usually he just doesn't talk period and so that way he is still SYLing(in the sense that he's not speaking English) without actually speaking much Romanian. I still have a HUGE desire to learn the language as much as I can. I would go without speaking English EVER if I had a companion who was willing to do that. Hopefully, one day.

The work went ok, though. It was an average week. We met with Gabriella again and talked about what she really believed. She believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet but not that this church is the only true church. She believes that parts of the Book of Mormon are good, but she isn't sure about all of it. She is really hard to work with, because she exercises little faith. We don't really have any investigators who are progressing too far along the path toward baptism, but we found a super cool lady two days ago that seems like she will take off. She read the Restoration pamphlet we gave and marked up stuff in it and asked us questions about it and really wanted a Book of Mormon, which of course we gave her. She takes her committments very seriously and that is pretty hard to find here. I'm excited to continue to teach her.

Last Thursday or Friday, Elder Garrett and I gave a member a blessing. She has a kidney infection and was in a lot of pain. I got to anoint her which was the my first time in any language. It was really cool and as Elder Garrett gave her a blessing we could feel the Spirit going through us, edifying us, as it went to her. It was a sweet experience and I haven't heard how she's doing, but I'm sure she is better, at least more than she would be if we hadn't given her a blessing.

Man, last Tuesday, at the gara(train station) we almost got robbed. Some guys tried to work one over on us. One guy came over and starting talking to us about tons of different things, really trying to keep our attention. He was just talking to Elder Garrett actually. Anyway, his buddy was standing about 5 feet behind Elder Garrett against a column, obviously waiting for a chance to slice open Elder Garrett's backpack or something and try to jack his stuff. I just stood staring at that guy. He had some super shifty eyes and could not keep eye contact for even a second. The guy trying to keep our attention kept poking me with something, trying to get me to turn more to him and not pay attention to the other guy. I just ignored him and lol, I was too intimidating, I guess because the shifty guy finally walked away and all of a sudden the other guy ran out of things to talk about. Strange coincidence huh? lol. Not on my watch, punk.

Sounds like a lot of fine arts are going on in the family. Plays, choirs, recitals. Sounds like they all did a great job, too! E's song must be from Peanuts, which I actually really want a Cd of. Do they have that? Their music is really good and classical, I especially like the theme song. Lol, if you ever want to send me some music, there's an idea. That and the Lord of the Rings soundtracks. Don't worry, that music is all legal. I can listen to classical, MoTab(duh), Disney music, and some movie soundtracks(really have to pay attention to the Spirit on this one).

Speaking of stuff to send me, I would LOVE to get some letters to my actual address out here. I'm still here for at least 5 more weeks and yeah, that would be nice. Do it, you know you want to. Thanks! Oh, and random, but I will need stick deodorant sometime. It doesn't really exist here, at least not of good quality. Some good Old Spice would be wonderful.

Dad - Thanks for all the information and for helping me understand more about the priesthood and how it works. Thanks for your always supportive emails. They really are a help to me and will continue to hang in there and to do my best.

Mom - Sounds like you had an amazing temple experience! I'm pretty jealous. Thanks for always keeping me updated and being interested in how the work is going over here. It's great to always have people I can talk to and get advice from. Hopefully, I help you guys out, too!

J - Good luck with the ACT. Tell me how you do. You'll tear it up!

W - Thanks for the email buddy. I love getting emails from you! I'm doing very well. Have a good one, buddy. I love you.

Oh, I almost forgot. I just made a new email. It's a gmail account. It's almost the same start but with a 7. So you guys can start writing me there. I just thought I'd try it out, because everyone has gmail here. Well, everyone have an amazing week! I love you all very much. Peace
--Elder Ross