Hey Beautiful People!
It sounds like everyone had a really good week! Even if there was stress along with preparing for the big concert. My week was way solid, too. I liked it a lot and it went by sooo fast, it's ridiculous. I really can't believe that it is almost June!!!
I want to start off by saying that it sounds like the concert was incredible!! I really hope you guys can send me a DVD or put some of it on youtube or something. I went to the site Dad told me about and checked the pictures out. They are super sweet! They made me want to see it even more. Good job, J!
I'll start by answering your questions and then I'll fill in the rest of my week with all the big, fun, hugely important things. The Militarus are doing really well like always, but I don't know that they are getting any closer to getting baptized. I really don't know how to help them anymore. We still pray a lot for them, but that is about all I know to do for now. On Saturday we went over there for a little bit to help Gabi get ready for an english test. It was so much fun. Elder Bringhurst was cracking jokes like crazy and Gabi, too, it was hilarious to just chill with them and have fun(we were just chatting in english).
Alex is doing well. We've been going over the missionary lessons with him to review it all, and focusing on baptism. We've done the restoration and the plan of salvation so far. After we finish we're going to make a plan with him how he can prepare and then call his mom and tell her about why he wants to get baptized. I really hope that goes well.
In the blocs we have found some cool people this week. We met two ladies(neighbors actually) and then the next day we went back to both of them with Sora Pacurar(Alex's grandma). She was great and the ladies were really cool. They didn't come to church unfortunately, but hopefully next week. Ok, one of the highlights of the week was Saturday evening. We had an exchange with Calin and Daniel. I went with Calin and it was a blast. He is so talkative and so eager to try new things, he did at least 75% of the speaking. It was really sweet and we had some solid lessons. Lessons that we might not have gotten without a Romanian. It was good, because it helps to find solid people and it also pumps up the members for missionary work. Daniel who is a way shy guy started to open up on his exchange with Elder Bringhurst and he really felt the Spirit. He had a really good time and is anxious to go again. I really don't know why I never started doing this earlier in my mission. I've had exchanges once in a while before, but we are going to start doing them every week. I just got the idea last night to have the day planned when we want to do it and then every Sunday at priesthood talk for a minute about the last exchange we had and how the members were awesome and then ask who can come with us for an exchange that next week. It's going to be sweet. I think this is really going to boost the whole branch. I feel pretty fired up about this right now. Hopefully, members will gain even more trust in us and a greater desire to give their friends as referrals.
Yesterday, one of Cosmin's friends came to church. He saw a difference/change in Cosmin a long time ago when Cosmin got baptized and finally came to church to see what it's about. He is a way high class guy and he asked tons of good questions in Sunday School. We're going to call Cosmin tonight and ask him more about Bogdan(the friend) and see if we can help answer some of Bogdan's questions.
I love the branch here. There are some complete families here and some young ones, too. Francisc and Monica have an almost 1-year old kid, Mihai and Veronica(she's Polish, they speak english together) and she's pregnant and then Cosmin and Lavinia are getting married on July 12th. These people are the future of the Church in Romania! And a lot of the reason why I love this branch so much. Those three men(Francisc, Cosmin and Mihai) are all super solid guys and anyone of them could be branch president. I look up to them a lot. I want to have a sweet young family like them. We also have some quality youth like Calin and Daniel(both 18) and then there is Simona(17), Iulia(24?). There a lot of children/younger youth growing up in the Church. Victor(Fratele Iepure's, our branch mission leader, son) is 14 and just became a teacher and then, though not members, Gabi, Cristi and Maria and also Alex are sweet and will definitely become members one beautiful day. I'm in love with this branch and I hope with all my heart I get at least one more transfer here.
Our english classes are a joke, they've pretty much died off. We still have maybe 4 students left, hopefully we can get a couple of them to church this next Sunday. Yeah, the classes are usually the same time, with beginner, medium and advanced. We have them Tuesday night and Saturday morning.
In the last over two months I have only had one Sunday where I wasn't fasting! And next week is fast sunday. I don't mean to be a gripe, but it's kind of getting to me. Iulia called us and asked us to fast with her for something. Elder Bringhurst talked with her so when he told me, I was kind of mad at first. But I got over it and tried to fast with purpose and not complaining. I'm glad we could help her. Still, fasting is starting to lose its meaning/ purpose for me. After this next week, I hope I don't need to fast until the next 1st sunday of the month.
Well, I don't really know what to do. It was a great week. Not just for us, but the whole zone. We're hoping that next week is even better. We have a lot of great things to build off of. I hope you guys have a great week, too. I love you all!
Elder Ross
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Mother's Day Note
Hey Everyone!
I don't really have any motivation to write much of an email right now. Sorry! Also, being that I haven't really done anything since I talked to you on the phone. Mostly slept. Anyway, it was really great to talk to everyone. It was a really gratifying phone call and I think I'm tied over until I see you guys in person! Craziness! I liked what you said, Dad, in your email. Don't dread coming home or rush it, but just work hard and let the Lord direct me and I'll be ready for all the challenges in my life. You guys are amazing and I love you a ton! Have an incredible week!!
Ross
I don't really have any motivation to write much of an email right now. Sorry! Also, being that I haven't really done anything since I talked to you on the phone. Mostly slept. Anyway, it was really great to talk to everyone. It was a really gratifying phone call and I think I'm tied over until I see you guys in person! Craziness! I liked what you said, Dad, in your email. Don't dread coming home or rush it, but just work hard and let the Lord direct me and I'll be ready for all the challenges in my life. You guys are amazing and I love you a ton! Have an incredible week!!
Ross
A Couple Exchanges, Zone Conference . . . and a Funeral
Hey Everyone!
Well, I hope I can respond to the demand for a long, newsy email. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I type an email every single week, my typing skills haven't improved a ton. I'm not a slow typer, but I'm definitely not fast, either.
This last week was slower, as far as normal missionary work. We had a couple exchanges, zone conference, preparing to go with that and a funeral. Yep, a member of the branch passed away. He wasn't a very active member, but a lot of that is because he actually lives in a city a little outside of Cluj and he also had brain cancer. He came to church once since I've been here and he definitely wasn't all there. So we found out he died Wednesday and the service was on Thursday. It was odd, because it was half Mormon and half Pentacostal. Let me just say they don't mix very well. Just like it was in Iasi when Sora Maria passed away, it was interesting to note the difference between our members who understand the plan of salvation and the others, many of whom were weeping and wailing. The two Pentacostal preachers both spoke really loudly and sang really loudly when it was their turn to present something. Like really shouting and somehow thinking that would bring the Spirit of the Lord. And then when we sang our hymns it was much, much quieter, being a lot less of us, but it just felt better, too. I'm so grateful that our church doesn't have loud yelling and repeated shouts for us all to repent(of course without teaching how) and saying we'll be damned if we don't. It was interesting. Oh, and there was so much BLACK. Everyone was loaded with black. It was insane.
So a bit of our week was spent on preparing zone conference which was on Saturday. I felt really good about our presentation. It was a lot of fun and we got a lot of compliments. It was on personal revelation and also on how we can teach it to our investigators. Sora Ashby said it was one of the best ones she has seen. The AP's gave an incredible presentation, too, and the 10-minute talks were great as well. The whole conference was really sweet and I loved it. President and Sora Ashby said a lot of great stuff. It was weird, because that was the last time I will hear them give a zone conference presentation.
Let's see...on Wednesday we had exchanges with Oradea. I was in Cluj with Elder Manzione. He has progressed a bunch since the last exchange with him. Elder Bringhurst also had a great exchange with Elder Roundy. Our whole zone is so tight, they are super solid! On Friday we had an exchange with the AP's. They got here on Thursday night and left Sunday during church. It was a lot of fun to have them with us, especially because Elder Jepsen and Elder Rigby are both my former companions.
Ok, our investigators, in this last week, Alex progressed the most. Elder Jepsen was with me and we started teaching him again the missionary lessons. So we talked about the Restoration and we used two candles, one representing Jesus Christ and His authority and another representing the apostles. So we talked about about how Christ passed on the authority and so even after He died, the "light" was still on the earth. But then they were killed and it was lost so after a while, Christ came down and passed the light on to someone else, Joseph Smith. It went something like that. Alex understand really well and told us that he has prayed and knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I asked him if he shared that with his mom. His answere...."I forgot." I think he is really close to getting baptized. I really hope that his mom will understand how important it is to him. We'll sure be praying.
The Militarus were at church, except for the dad. They are doing just as good as ever. Elder Rigby and Elder Bringhurst had a lesson with them, so I don't know the details. Ionut was gone at a competition and so he wasn't at church. Neither was Alex :(, he had an activity with school or something.
That's kind of the update with us. Things are going really well. The whole zone is geared up for a wicked sweet week. Oh man, last night, Elder Bringhurst and I went crazy in the blocs. First of all, Sunday night is the worst night of the whole week for knocking doors and second of all, we had 3 full hours to do it. At this one door, this guy said we all need to read the Bible more and apply everything that is in it. Then we'll know about worshipping Mary, the cross and something else. So, I responded, but those things aren't in the Bible. Then he said, well, Jesus was killed on the cross. I HATE when people say that. I was like, so if Jesus was shot we'd make a pistol! And I started waving my hand around in the shape of a pistol. The guy had nothing to say to that so he said we're done and shut the door. My companion thought it was the funniest thing ever and started laughing really hard. I thought it was pretty funny, too, but I was a kind of agitated, so I didn't really laugh. Anyway, that's my bloc-knocking story of the week.
I should go. I love you, everyone! Have a fantastic week!
Elder Ross
Well, I hope I can respond to the demand for a long, newsy email. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I type an email every single week, my typing skills haven't improved a ton. I'm not a slow typer, but I'm definitely not fast, either.
This last week was slower, as far as normal missionary work. We had a couple exchanges, zone conference, preparing to go with that and a funeral. Yep, a member of the branch passed away. He wasn't a very active member, but a lot of that is because he actually lives in a city a little outside of Cluj and he also had brain cancer. He came to church once since I've been here and he definitely wasn't all there. So we found out he died Wednesday and the service was on Thursday. It was odd, because it was half Mormon and half Pentacostal. Let me just say they don't mix very well. Just like it was in Iasi when Sora Maria passed away, it was interesting to note the difference between our members who understand the plan of salvation and the others, many of whom were weeping and wailing. The two Pentacostal preachers both spoke really loudly and sang really loudly when it was their turn to present something. Like really shouting and somehow thinking that would bring the Spirit of the Lord. And then when we sang our hymns it was much, much quieter, being a lot less of us, but it just felt better, too. I'm so grateful that our church doesn't have loud yelling and repeated shouts for us all to repent(of course without teaching how) and saying we'll be damned if we don't. It was interesting. Oh, and there was so much BLACK. Everyone was loaded with black. It was insane.
So a bit of our week was spent on preparing zone conference which was on Saturday. I felt really good about our presentation. It was a lot of fun and we got a lot of compliments. It was on personal revelation and also on how we can teach it to our investigators. Sora Ashby said it was one of the best ones she has seen. The AP's gave an incredible presentation, too, and the 10-minute talks were great as well. The whole conference was really sweet and I loved it. President and Sora Ashby said a lot of great stuff. It was weird, because that was the last time I will hear them give a zone conference presentation.
Let's see...on Wednesday we had exchanges with Oradea. I was in Cluj with Elder Manzione. He has progressed a bunch since the last exchange with him. Elder Bringhurst also had a great exchange with Elder Roundy. Our whole zone is so tight, they are super solid! On Friday we had an exchange with the AP's. They got here on Thursday night and left Sunday during church. It was a lot of fun to have them with us, especially because Elder Jepsen and Elder Rigby are both my former companions.
Ok, our investigators, in this last week, Alex progressed the most. Elder Jepsen was with me and we started teaching him again the missionary lessons. So we talked about the Restoration and we used two candles, one representing Jesus Christ and His authority and another representing the apostles. So we talked about about how Christ passed on the authority and so even after He died, the "light" was still on the earth. But then they were killed and it was lost so after a while, Christ came down and passed the light on to someone else, Joseph Smith. It went something like that. Alex understand really well and told us that he has prayed and knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I asked him if he shared that with his mom. His answere...."I forgot." I think he is really close to getting baptized. I really hope that his mom will understand how important it is to him. We'll sure be praying.
The Militarus were at church, except for the dad. They are doing just as good as ever. Elder Rigby and Elder Bringhurst had a lesson with them, so I don't know the details. Ionut was gone at a competition and so he wasn't at church. Neither was Alex :(, he had an activity with school or something.
That's kind of the update with us. Things are going really well. The whole zone is geared up for a wicked sweet week. Oh man, last night, Elder Bringhurst and I went crazy in the blocs. First of all, Sunday night is the worst night of the whole week for knocking doors and second of all, we had 3 full hours to do it. At this one door, this guy said we all need to read the Bible more and apply everything that is in it. Then we'll know about worshipping Mary, the cross and something else. So, I responded, but those things aren't in the Bible. Then he said, well, Jesus was killed on the cross. I HATE when people say that. I was like, so if Jesus was shot we'd make a pistol! And I started waving my hand around in the shape of a pistol. The guy had nothing to say to that so he said we're done and shut the door. My companion thought it was the funniest thing ever and started laughing really hard. I thought it was pretty funny, too, but I was a kind of agitated, so I didn't really laugh. Anyway, that's my bloc-knocking story of the week.
I should go. I love you, everyone! Have a fantastic week!
Elder Ross
Monday, May 5, 2008
Zone leaders with MTC Companion
Hey One and All!
So basically, lots of exciting changes have happened in our zone, as far as the type of missionaries that are in it now. To start out with, my new companion is Elder Bringhurst. Sound familiar?... I'm with my MTC companion again! I'm super excited and so is he. We are going to tear it up this transfer. That also means that I am now senior zone leader, not really a huge change, Elder Bringhurst is obviously an experienced missionary, too, and so I just have to teach him about some of the business, finances, whatnot that we do as zone leaders. Both our district leaders are brand new, in their very first transfer of it. Elder Divis here in Cluj(he was in my district back in Buch) and Elder Roundy in Oradea. So that is a huge change to last transfer where both of them were former ZL's. The ZL/DL meeting tomorrow should be a great chance to help teach and train them, though I'm sure they know most of what they are doing.
Poor Elder Rigby didn't dodge the bullet, he is now an assistant to President Ashby. It's really crazy, but 3 of my 4 seniors have gone AP(Selck, Jepsen and now Rigby) and the other one(Elder Garrett) went into the office. It was fun at mission council because there were 6 missionaries from my MTC group there. We learned a lot there. Our big focuses were: the role/how to use the branch mission leader, object lessons, focusing more on the numbers that count(member presents, new investigators, investigators at church, baptismal dates and baptisms) and the importance of distict meetings.
A big announcement was made at transfer meeting and that is that there won't be any more transfer meetings in the future. They take a lot of money and, more importantly, time. So when transfers come around and someone is transferred, then we put them on a train by themselves and off they are to their new city where their new companion will pick them up. It will be interesting to see it done like this, especially because I know that is how most other missions are done. I remember Peter telling me it was like that in Germany. I will miss the chance to see other missionaries, we won't have another chance to be like that together again the rest of my whole mission. There are a lot of friends I might not see again, at least not here in Romania. But at the same time, I really feel that this is what the Lord wants and every sacrifice is just a chance to gain more blessings. I'm excited to see those blessings come to this mission.
By the way, Mom, I really appreciate what you wrote to me about hard times, but how the Lord will see us through. I think I will print off those paragraphs and have to see and review. I am grateful for the trials that have made me draw closer to my Father.
The flight to Bucharest was really nice. We were in the air for only about 35 minutes, so much better than a 9 hour train ride. Unfortunately, we didn't have such luxury on the way back. For some reason, the flight back was way more expensive and so we had to take a train. We wanted to take the 7:30 pm train on Thursday, but it didn't have any sleeper cars. We were going back with the sisters from Oradea and also Elders Eyre and Anderson from Oradea. We had a 6 person compartment for all of us also 2 people's luggage. It was comfortable in the least. We got to Cluj at 4 in the morning and then slept until 9 just so that we could make it through that day.
We haven't had a ton of time to meet with investigators because of transfers, but the Militarus(minus the father) and Ionut came to church. It was especially good to see Ionut, because he has only been to church a couple times before. We have found a couple really cool new investigators who I will tell you about next week if they continue to progress.
Well, I'm going to take off. I love you guys! Have a great, successful week!
Elder Ross
So basically, lots of exciting changes have happened in our zone, as far as the type of missionaries that are in it now. To start out with, my new companion is Elder Bringhurst. Sound familiar?... I'm with my MTC companion again! I'm super excited and so is he. We are going to tear it up this transfer. That also means that I am now senior zone leader, not really a huge change, Elder Bringhurst is obviously an experienced missionary, too, and so I just have to teach him about some of the business, finances, whatnot that we do as zone leaders. Both our district leaders are brand new, in their very first transfer of it. Elder Divis here in Cluj(he was in my district back in Buch) and Elder Roundy in Oradea. So that is a huge change to last transfer where both of them were former ZL's. The ZL/DL meeting tomorrow should be a great chance to help teach and train them, though I'm sure they know most of what they are doing.
Poor Elder Rigby didn't dodge the bullet, he is now an assistant to President Ashby. It's really crazy, but 3 of my 4 seniors have gone AP(Selck, Jepsen and now Rigby) and the other one(Elder Garrett) went into the office. It was fun at mission council because there were 6 missionaries from my MTC group there. We learned a lot there. Our big focuses were: the role/how to use the branch mission leader, object lessons, focusing more on the numbers that count(member presents, new investigators, investigators at church, baptismal dates and baptisms) and the importance of distict meetings.
A big announcement was made at transfer meeting and that is that there won't be any more transfer meetings in the future. They take a lot of money and, more importantly, time. So when transfers come around and someone is transferred, then we put them on a train by themselves and off they are to their new city where their new companion will pick them up. It will be interesting to see it done like this, especially because I know that is how most other missions are done. I remember Peter telling me it was like that in Germany. I will miss the chance to see other missionaries, we won't have another chance to be like that together again the rest of my whole mission. There are a lot of friends I might not see again, at least not here in Romania. But at the same time, I really feel that this is what the Lord wants and every sacrifice is just a chance to gain more blessings. I'm excited to see those blessings come to this mission.
By the way, Mom, I really appreciate what you wrote to me about hard times, but how the Lord will see us through. I think I will print off those paragraphs and have to see and review. I am grateful for the trials that have made me draw closer to my Father.
The flight to Bucharest was really nice. We were in the air for only about 35 minutes, so much better than a 9 hour train ride. Unfortunately, we didn't have such luxury on the way back. For some reason, the flight back was way more expensive and so we had to take a train. We wanted to take the 7:30 pm train on Thursday, but it didn't have any sleeper cars. We were going back with the sisters from Oradea and also Elders Eyre and Anderson from Oradea. We had a 6 person compartment for all of us also 2 people's luggage. It was comfortable in the least. We got to Cluj at 4 in the morning and then slept until 9 just so that we could make it through that day.
We haven't had a ton of time to meet with investigators because of transfers, but the Militarus(minus the father) and Ionut came to church. It was especially good to see Ionut, because he has only been to church a couple times before. We have found a couple really cool new investigators who I will tell you about next week if they continue to progress.
Well, I'm going to take off. I love you guys! Have a great, successful week!
Elder Ross
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)