Friday, August 28, 2015

tall green trees, conference, Busteni

From August 19, 2015

The past week was really epic.
We had a solid time meeting up with Marian and his wife Monica. Marian is awesome. We had an incredible lesson with him last week. President Ivory invited us over to the K. Nelson's place (office senior couple) along with Marian and his wife Monica.  Elder Everton and I set up with them to go out and meet President and then go over to dinner with him, and we would be there ASAP after english class. So we did, there was also another local couple there from the Panduri branch (Simona and Romulus, Simona just got baptized my first transfer here). It was incredible. President was talking with us and we decided we would prep to share on Temples and eternal perspective, especially with families. It was pretty intense and went in a lot of different directions than first expected. Like President brought up Baptisms for the Dead, and it affected M a lot. She asked some awesome questions about her father that she previously thought he was lost spiritually because he’s dead.. Marian was pretty solid against it for a bit, and he and R were getting pretty riled up.  Then everyone just started to chill out and a few people bore amazing testimony. It was powerful. And I talked about Dad and his example to me and the difference our family has had since he was baptized and we were sealed in the temple. It really got to me, man!  It really showed the power of sincere testimony.  It brought the peace and spirit of God. It was incredible.
We visited Sora Gorzo twice this week and got super fatted up by a bunch of incredible Romanian grub. 
It was cool. But like I was working out pretty hard and this week I just let lose and went hard munching everything...but super worth it.

We had an amazing mission conference up in the wilderness of Busteni. The bus ride was pretty hectic, but so incredibly worth it. 
We did a cool little hike up to this waterfall. Half way we posted up at this big bend and listened to some well-prepared musical numbers and some wisdom spoken by some awesome missionaries. During the music I was just in awe of looking around at all the beautiful tall green trees and the incredible sound of soft rain. I was in my element and I was soaking it all in. 
The waterfall wasn't like super huge or anything but still beautiful. These mountains are so amazing it kills me to leave them unexplored. 

We then got dressed up and went to this super cool castle and explored it. It was awesome because they had this Salvador Dali exhibit up and I was loving it. Then we ate dinner in the basement restaurant and.. oh my!
President and Sora Ivory went all out for us and I am so so grateful. It was incredible and everyone was so happy. It was crazy to see so many people at the same place. I saw some good friends. I finally saw Elders Dronyk and Weis.. I haven't seen them in forever! 

The conference itself was super sick.  I learned so much and Sora Ivory threw it down with some knowledge  coming from DC 88:14,34-35,67-68 then kicked it over to 93:36-37. I loved it! 
My new comp is the man. Elder S. He's from N Carolina and is hilarious. He has had a pretty crazy life with losing his mom, and being raised by his brother at 12 years old. His bro was 22, freshly married, just got baptized and sacrificed a lot to raise him. We talked about a bunch of stuff last night it was great just to break the barrier and get to know each other a little bit already. He has a good will to work and teach, also has a nice balance of being himself, working hard and laughin, so we are going to do good solid work.
We are about to dive into the scriptures together as a mission and I am pretty stoked on that. It'll be really good for me to read the BoM again in Romanian and for the mission to learn some more of the good word of God. It will be amazing for all to be reading it together as a mission and with our families who accepted the challenge. You ALL should read!

Life is awesome. Thanks to all for being friends and family.

- Elder Boydstun