Sunday, September 28, 2014

Drummer Quits the Band. Nadlac. Tisa Nou.

From Monday September 22

Hey!

This week… interesting!

We are getting this sick location right next to the Primaria, so like straight up in the middle of the busiest part of the city for english classes.

The next day or something, we head down to this lady Maria's place. Lesson it up with the sisters and stuff… I'm coming in super hot with gospel knowledge, goin great. Maria talks a ton and tells us sad stories of depressing times. At the end of lesson, we give her a blessing so she can quit smoking and get baptized. She is sick... blessings are sick.

Every week, I have to teach the senior couple Romanian with this dude named Paul. He is Romanian but basically just has me teach it because he goes super hard and makes it so confusing so I have to try and explain some of the madness he says. 
I don't know why I included this but it's already typed out so...

Gabi (spy) hooked it up again this week with traditional langos and stuff. He also taught us this crazy combat move you can basically destroy anybody with. You have control of them on your back so you either break their back in half or if they struggle they strangle themselves. it is crazy. He also told us insane stories about experiences learning these things from an 80 year old Sensei in Japan. And he learned acupuncture in China by watching some dude for like 3 months or something. He invited me to his cabin in the mountains of Norway..... yesss

We went to a city called Nadlac, a member is out there. She lives in a small house with no electricity and it is probably negative infinity degrees in the winter. She has 2 cool goats, 3 cool pigs, a bunch of cool baby chickens, and a bunch of ducks.. and a LAME dog that is afraid of everything. It was cool though. 

Then we went into the tiny town and tried talking to people.. some dude persistently talked Hungarian to me until he closed his gate in my face...that was cool. Then we had a 30 minute convo with some old lady, gave her a Book of Mormon and such. She was cool.

Also, I heard a cool prayer in Slovakian, so that was sick.

Reed/Dronyk (comp in mtc..) are in Oradea but came to Arad from bucharesti since there wasn't any trains straight there. It was a good day. Reed is going to go on cool adventures with me around the globe when we get home. (ps mom, that's what I am going to do… adventure)

There was a "Parade of the Minorities" in town the other day.. that was real interesting. They also danced on a stage. Gypsies, Serbs, etc.. gettin real crazy...

We went out to this sot Tisa Nou, small town.. visited this member family who are super poor, but it was sick. We gave them the sacrament and such and set up to come back like every Sunday. It was pretty cool and sad.  They lost their father/husband a while ago and haven't been visited... they talk about crazy stuff and have maybe 15 teeth collectively as a family.

I have been much more relaxed about the responsibilities I've been asked to do now. Just doing it, no reason to stress about it too much. Responsibility isn't a bad thing :) 

Things are still going well! ZL's are still around a little but will be leaving, they are up in Oradea today looking for an apartment... so hopefully they hurry up so I can move into their old place. They have a dryer!!

in Zone Conf, Pres talked about the enabling power of the Atonement. Look up the talk "In the Strength of the Lord" if you haven't already! Way cool talk.

 D&C 8: 2-3... Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.
     Now, behold, this is the spirit of revelation; behold, this is the spirit by which Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground.  

These are the scriptures Elder Smith used before Ghiti had that way cool prayer. Scriptures are RAD! 
So yeah, it's been a good week. 
Rainy today, in the 60s all next week. So you know… livin the life.  Love being a missionary!

- elder boydstun

Thursday, September 18, 2014

I Don't even Know what Happened this Week!



I basically cannot remember what happened this week.

I had some really cool spiritual experiences with lessons and stuff.  We were teaching and Ghiti got hardcore spiritual and he randomly felt like we should pray mid-lesson. Then he prayed hard but short.  He got a huge confirmation from the spirit.  It was incredible. He teared up, and he got kind of embarrassed. We explained it and it was a way sick experience. I was so stoked about it.

We got fed pastiers by a cool german guy, named Bivald. 

I taught Romanian with a Romanian dude.

 We went to Oradea this weekend for zone conference with Arad, Timisoara, Oradea, Cluj, and Sibiu.  It is a beautiful city.. for real. And they have an American joint there that this dude from Jersey started. It rules.

The river there is incredible.  It has all sorts of sick bridges and such.

We had a zone cultural event on Saturday. So I heard the Italians sing their national anthem, a Tongan girl do some island dance, some Polish lady sing polish stuff, a Hungarian lady sing some hungarian, some Irish stuff, Australian stuff. And the sickest Finnish folk song ever. We went and sang some sick songs in the park with the Finnish homie Elder Hokkanen (AP), he played guitar. It was radical
 
I'll try to get pictures from people and send them to you.

I had to sprint across a city, get a taxi and run and jump on a train last second.     
That was cool, too…
I mean, theres so many adventures daily it's hard to really explain it well...

Come to Romania and you'll get it once you are here.

As for transfers… 

I am staying in Arad. and things got 500 times more intense for me, haha.                     
Some of it I don't understand at all, but whatever! 

I am staying, Dunkley is staying with me, and our sisters are staying with us. The ZL's (Baielli and Brown) are going to Oradea, and there's nobody coming to replace them in Arad. So I  have to learn how to do Finances for the branch now.. in Romanian.  AND I will be a counsler in the Elders Quorum, and I am still training Elder Dunkley and still District Leader haha.. oh and PS I am only going into my 4th transfer. 

So this will be a really intense 6 weeks, haha. I am really kind of hoping I don't lose my mind with all this intensity. But I am just going to man up and take it on.
I don't have any choice but to grow big time, so I am going to do it!  

Anyways, we had a cool week. District meeting we did a thing where we all got a paper for each of us.. wrote on one side something we admired about the person - on the other side  something we noticed them work on or improve on. So it was cool and good for everybody. 

We got a lot of good work done in Arad this transfer and picked it up out of the hole it was in when I first arrived in Romania 3 transfers ago. So things are going to start bumping here! Just crazy to me that as soon as that happens, they take two missionaries away and put them in another city.. but I guess Pres is trying to support the District President that is in Oradea - and he needs counselors. 

I heard weather is crazy back in the states. It is rainy and cold here so I made a mega pot of chili. Now I am just trying to stay awake from the exhaustion I am experiencing.

Send me pictures of mountains and pine trees and stuff. I miss seeing that stuff. 

I love you.
"In the Strength of the Lord" - Bednar
Check it out ^

I pray for you.

va iubesc..
- elder boydstun