"Every man dies, but not every man truly lives" — William Wallace

From June 22, 2015

Hey sorry, today has been insane so I am gonna be a bit short.

Interviews with President Ivory this week were incredible. The man is so cool. We had a good conversation and he shared some solid ideas with me. It's great when you open up with him and he starts treating you like a friend. 

We found these sick Toastmaster groups out here in Bucharest. Basically they are international groups of public speaking and leadership. Like just a group of interesting people teaching and learning together. It's going to be incredible.

I had an exchange with Elder Cernat (Johnny from Sibiu). He is my Romanian bro out here and we are really tight. We did all types of Romanian, went to a big sketchy flea market thing, made some Ciorba and prepared for these two incredible Baptisms that went on in Panduri this week. 

The flea market is the Piata de Vechituri and everyone just sells random stuff. Especially gypsies with tables full of jewelry. 

Mugurel is so solid. He's been taught for a while, quit smoking and is a happy dude. He reminds me of Ace Venture but really chill, haha.

Simona was the other baptism. She is the girlfriend of a member and is stoked on temple marriage. I don't really know her much but she seemed really happy and her boyfriend is a cool guy! 

I had another exchange with AP, Elder Br. It was dope. We talked about paradigms and cool doctrine and it was incredible. We got bunged and a referral didn't answer. But we made the day awesome anyways. 

My BROOO from Camaroon came to church. He looked so fresh in a pink shirt and slacks. His dreads were pulled back and all!   

We have Zone training this week and lots of stuff to focus on. Lots of planning and correlating, it's going to be great. I am excited.  

Anyways, sorry this email isn't so epic. We have to plan some really great stuff for this week so I have to go look up some deep stuff so I can prepare to lift minds and make zone training amazing.  I want the spirit to be palpable. 

I love you all.

"Of all sad words of mouth or pen, the saddest are these: it might have been."

- John Greenleaf Whittier

- Elder Boydstun

Pic salata de boeuf

From June 15, 2015

YO

Things are stepping up for my boy Elder L and me.

We had a cool lesson with a member couple. After a year he just got made 1st counselor in the Branch presidency. He is pretty high up in the Police force or something here and has a really nice place. They fed us a 3 course meal and had some amazing conversation.

There is this video being made by this cool film crew for our english classes to better advertise - Cerc and Timu or something like that. They are hilarious and critique our accents real nice. So yeah, we got filmmed in Romanian and English. Things are real weird when you have a camera in front of you but are acting like you aren't looking at it, haha. I wore a really psychadelic tie that day too so it's going to be incredible when it comes out  across the mission. Sorry everyone...

We set this rule for ourselves, with this new international thing. We talk to lots of people but, everytime we see international looking we make sure we open our mouths. It was blazing hot and I didn't see these dudes, but Elder Lybbert did. Ends up they are cool and from Cameroon. They want to play soccer with us and they are homies with the dope less-active guy we have been meeting with. One of them only spoke french. Told him "my name is.." and that's as far as my french goes. Said goodbye I guess haha. 

Went to this traditional restaurant called Caru' cu Bere. when we first got there it was packed with these loud asian tourists but after they left it was so sick. Live classical music and solid traditional food. 

Things are so good though right now. We are meeting some new people. I became homies with this dope Tongan guy playing rugby out here. He was a missionary in Tonga and doesn't speak english really well, but we are broooooss. He was talking about how he just balls super hard and can go harder/faster/stronger than his team mates and how its from the blessings of God and keepin himself healthy. Raising the bar, he said. His name is Poe. 

Today was incredible. I woke up at 4:30 to send out this e-mail to the zone.. then we caught a 7am train with some guys in the district out to Sinaia and hiked some Transylvanian peaks. It was soo incredible. We got rained on, got lost a little and got up to this peak by this small ski resort. There was just a bunch of old dudes hangin out and some random dogs living it up out there. There was this cabin restaurant that we posted up at. A guy was going hard grilling all types of meat and stuff, so we grubbed. E Brundage jammed some guitar and we had an incredible time. Nothin like going from concrete, taxis, and blocs to green groves of trees and mountains only after an hour train ride. There were these epic downhill mountain biking trails and some really gnarly guys going mach 10 down.

There was also this incredible discovery on the way.. an abandoned bobsled course. We adventured  up it.

So I guess you could say I was in a piece of paradise today. 

Life is incredible.
​

God is good. Be faithful. Attack your day.   

Lives remaining: zero   

Love, Elder Boydstun

         

 

French dudes, trajectory

From June 8, 2015

fam and friends,

Things are goin. Meeting lots of foreign people.

A French guy on the metro invited us to this international frisbee club thing here in Buch. So we're going to go play and make a ton of friends.

Also there are some sick guys from Ausralia that play rugby out here. We have to go to one of their games! They are all huge and cool. Three of them are members. 

A cool guy from Camaroon named J… that was like a refugee and has been here for 3 years. He is so sick. Dreads, rasta shirt and all. The guy is such a BRO! He is a member too and is going to introduce us to some other sick Africans and play some fotbollllllll! 

We did a lot of exploring this week. This place is huge.. trams to metros to busses walking and exloring all the huge colorful parks. All these international schools.

Went into a Cismigiu (cool park) and Elder L went hard yo-yo'ing and I just talked to people. It was good stuff. 

And we annihilated the city with posters for our english class. some random old dude came up to us super mad that we were American and just throwin out jabs like "all of your stuff is imported" and that nobody can be fluent by the end of our 4 week english course. What the heck, man I'm just trying to help people! He continues with "you guys just get rejected all the time" hahaha it was the best random argument ever.

I am still grillin, Elder Johnson has this electric grill so I am still on my game. 

We had a meeting with Zone Leaders and Pres. Ivory. Talked about some real amazing stuff. Talked about eternal priniciples and habits that when you apply them, you increase your trajectory incrementally and reach an awesome life. It's good stuff.

Learn, apply

teach, and serve!

Church was cool. Some guy from France was visiting so I translated stuff for him. There is a seperate English sunday school and it is crazy. All kinds of languages being tossed around. Romanians, a Korean family, some french guys. 

It was awesome.

Also a new Branch Presidency was made, the old District President is now the BP and some guy opposed him and it was the first time I've ever seen that!

This week will be grand. Meeting new people to introduce to the gospel and havin fun doing it.

So Life is great. Sun is shinin, the weather is sweet... yeah.

Love you,

Elder Boydstun

Here's a grand photo some guy passed out at the park after playing sports with some Romanians.

city slicker

From June 1, 2015

Transfer week.. bunch of madness.

We got out of Sibiu on Tuesday and got into Buc that night. I'll FOREVER love Sibiu.. I'm gonna miss it so much. But this place man, I guess I'm just a city kid now.

No more slow speakin Sibieni, these people speak mach 12 and it's full of character. Bucharest, the big city is incredible. It's insane.. so busy and fast but endless possibilities. The new apartment is dumpy but not too bad. The bed is smaller and less comfy.. but it's still all good. The old guys left it kinda messy cause a missionary across the mission went home for health and there was some emergency transfer. So it was kinda just left, but we are workin on it.

My new comp is Elder Lybbert. Canadian from the rockies..well, Calgary. He is awesome and a yo-yo wizard. He is a ZL pro and is teachin me the ropes of this ZL stuff. It is cool. I like being able to inspire and help people. We have some solid plans and goals we just set off to the zone, so it's going to be incredible. We are trying to get everyone really stoked. We've also been planning out some gnarly games we are going to get the whole zone in on so everyone is havin fun while being awesome missionaries and spreadin da love!  This place (Bucaresti/Panduri) is nice and we have so many tools and organization.. so different for me, haha. I was in awe for like 2 days.

This weekend was district conference here in Bucuresti. A few other cities came down as well. Alexandria, Ploiesti. It was nuuuuts…a grand day! It was so nostalgic seeing an actual church chapel that is clean and organized and I didn't have to lead any meetings and there were litterally 210 people there for the conference. Usually there's about 70 here in Panduri but this conference just went all out. Elder Rena from Spain came and he was so cool. Kinda looked like a cartoon character and was sick. They have these headsets they pass out to all the international people (those who speak english basically) and there is someone translating from Romanian to English most every meeting. This one was nutso though cause Elder Rena is up there going1200 miles an hour speakin Spanish (sorry bros in S. America, just not a fan of the language... :) compared to romanian at least) and a lady is translating to Romanian and the translator dude is a boss and translating his 3rd language (spanish) into his 2nd (English). It was cool.

And there are these dudes from Nigeria that go to school in Constanta, by the sea, and they came and are super fresh and I made some cool friends. Shedrack is the man, I sat by him and talked to em. 

We had Meet the Mormons premire, it was really epic too. Lots of cool stuff. It was legit, like 300 people came. Lots of cool people and a lady straight up told Elder Cernat (Johnny from Sibiu that we ordained an elder and is serving a mini-mission and now turned in his full time papers, too) she wanted to join our church. It was sick!! I had to separate the sisters from some creepy dude though, so I tried to be friends with him... but a little bit of a bummer I didn't get to meet someone way cool.

Check this out though, after the film there was a CAR SHOW outside the mall place. Ohh my, reminded me of home town childhood life. Old american cars and cool funk being played from a bus in front, a raffle to win an 80s corvette, and an impala on bags barely off the ground. It was incredlble. I was just losing my mind about it. good stuff..... 

We are going to play some volleyball today so that'll be incredible. I've been playing b ball with people out here already. I put work on Elder Laititi on transfer day, how it used to be back in Sibiu my first transfer there, haha. But Elder Allphin is a baller! The kid was on the Lone Peak national team so he just rains on everyone, it's amazing. 

Drawing on powers of heaven is incredible. We're applying it again, so it's going to be amazing. Elder L feels super strong he needs to find someone still since he is in his last transfer (another kill for me, crazy I know). 

It's so real I luv it :)

Life is good. I've been reading more good books recently. Thanks mom for "The Blueprint of Christ's Church" it is good stuff.

Summer is here. Time to get gnarly and do something amazing with our lives.

My fondest farewell to Elder Perry. He was a giant of a man, wasn't he?

LOVE,

Elder Boydstun