Hey Everyone!!
Wow, I can't believe how busy your lives are! Especially yours, J. Nice job on the scripture mastery, by the way. I hope you guys have a great week finishing everything off and maybe even getting a little time to rest afterwards. Maybe? It's crazy to believe that the school year is finished and during next school year, I get back.
My week was pretty busy, too. We had a lot of things to get done that weren't necessarily missionary work, at least missionary teaching. For example, we spent just about a whole morning trying to find tortillas for Sora Runyan's birthday lunch that the Hakes threw for her(she turned 22). Well, we didn't even find them, which was lame. We lost more time because the AP's asked us to go to the autogara(bus and maxi-taxi station) to check times for traveling to Sibiu to see if we could get Sibiu in our zone next transfer. There are frequent buses and it's fairly cheap, but we found out later there was a kink in the logistics in one of the other cities, so the Transilvania zone will probably remain the smallest zone in the mission. And then on Wednesday, the sisters and us had exchanges with the sisters and two of the elders in Oradea. We got to the gara and I went to pull out my zone funds from the ATM...and they weren't in yet. They were supposed to be in a few days earlier, but it didn't happen somehow. So we didn't have money to get tickets for our train. We grabbed a taxi, hoping to make it home, grab my personal money and make it back in time to make the train. Well, we thought we did, but it turned out to be a train to Oradea that left 20 minutes later and arrived in Oradea 2 hours later! It was a personal train, meaning it stops at every little village or crossways even. So by the time we got there we couldn't really get back to Cluj in time to do any missionary work, so all of us stayed in Oradea. I was with Elder Eyre and even though we had two lessons to go to, we got bunged on both of them, so we contacted the whole day. It was actually pretty fun. We even villa knocked, which is basically knocking on houses. The first time in my mission, but it was sweet. Kinda felt like a states-side missionary.
Anyway, moral of the story, we were busy, but we made it all the way to thursday afternoon having only one lesson on the week(since we were in Oradea, they got all the lessons because it's their area). After that, though, we got a lot more and had a really solid end to our week. Church was amazing on Sunday, something like 57 people! I think that's what Sora Hakes said. There were a few visitors, like one RM and his gorgeous wife(that's why you work hard ; ) ), and also a daughter of one of our members here and her fiance came. They both live in the States. It was cool to have our vila so crowded, even if there were only 7 total investigators there, five of them ours; the Militarus and Alex.
We had another bloc-knocking member exchange and it was good. I went with Cosmin and unfortunately we only had one lesson and it was with a blind man, lol. Calin and my companion got 5, though! At least it gave Cosmin a greater appreciation for missionary work. He kept saying he couldn't believe how hard it is, and how much no one wants to listen.
Alex is doing really well. He is a sweet kid. I think he will call his mom next week or soon after that in any case. Our next lesson we are going to talk about how he can share his testimony with his mom and how he can talk to her on the phone helping her to understand how important it is to him. Alex's grandma is a great lady, she is always willing to go with us on lessons. Yeah, since she became a member or before, when she was an investigator, she just took Alex with her, since she is in charge of him and they live together. Unfortunately, sometimes she is really harsh with him and puts him down and tells him he does certain things badly. The sisters teach her sometimes while Alex is at school so they are going to teach her about raising kids in a loving, constructive atmosphere.
Cosmin's friend, Bogdan, went to FHE this last week, but he didn't come to church yesterday. I talked to Cosmin and he said he will tell us when we can help. The two ladies we met are just really busy. One of them bunged us. She said she would like to go to church with us and so we set up to go with her, since we live close. We got to her apartment and rang at the interphone. No answer. So we called her and she answered and said she didn't want to go today, but that we go by later that night. We didn't, because I hate visiting people on Sunday that didn't come to church. It shows that it was ok that they didn't come. We'll see what happens.
This morning the whole district went on a big hike. We took a bus to this canyon outside of Turda, which a smaller city outside of Cluj. We hiked around for a while, took some pics, stopped and had lunch, explored a cave, crossed some cool bridges and came back. It was a fun adventure. I'll try to remember to put up pictures next week. Btw, next week we'll know who is transferred. I can't believe that! I really, really hope I stay. I'll be way sad if I don't. We'll see. It'll be different without transfer meeting, but we'll make everything work out.
Yeah, I think my clothes and shoes are doing all right. The insides of my shoes are pretty worn, but I just got some new insoles and put them in. That helps a lot. I think I'm alright on the clothing department. The only thing is that I still want to come home with a bling, european-tailored suit. I've put aside enough from the money I accidentally took out last month, so that is going to happen. : ) I'll let you know if I need anything. I'm really happy with how everything has held up, especially garments. My suit is a bit tattered at parts, but that's ok, that's what makes it look like I worked hard. It gives it class.
Well, I'm going to bounce. I hope you guys have a great week and I'm sure it will fly by, because of how busy you will be. Oh, and J, good luck on your multiple singing appearances. You'll tear it up. I love you all!
Elder Ross
