Twenty one below zero celsius

Hey

This week was not warm. 

And it's that cold that just is bitter and feels like it is squeezing your soul. (soul to squeeze - if you get this reference, you are cool)

We made it a good time though. 

The Coldest day was -20 C and we tried to go to the middle of town to this wall that you can basically draw on and whatever you want. Some people put up some really weird stuff. There was a thing written on it about how the system is collaborating together with the anti-Christians, masons and terrorists to come upon the Christians and make them have no voice..  and then ended it by saying DOWN TO SATAN. Like it was a cool idea but basically the dude was mentally ill for sure, just the way he wrote it was crazy!

Yeah so this wall has spray painted stuff on it all the time. Then this security dude comes over and looks at us and tells us we can't do it. haha what the heck man! I was struggling to get this stencil stuck to the thing and as soon as I get it ready he shoots me down.  

The stencil was basically just a logo of captain Moroni blowing his trumpet that I drew and suntmormon.ro above it in a circle. It is legit! oh well, maybe we can get it another time.

We met up with a cool member couple that has a son in Utah and stuff. They are legit and we gave 'em brownies and they were stoked about it. They showed us pictures of them at the temple dedication in Ukraine. It is weird sometimes to think how close I am to Ukraine.. it was awesome though! oh and I had a typical weird experience of helping a fallen drunk woman get up and figure out how to get home. I swear this happens too much. 

But I also hear that Moldova has the most alcohol consumption per capita in Europe, so I guess I should kinda expect it, haha.

We played soccer with some members and friends at an indoor gym place by the church on Saturday. It was so awesome. There is this guy Bro. Tukafkin (I don't know how to spell his Russian name) and he is like 65 and shows up fully decked out with indoor shoes, a jersey, shorts and tall socks. Then he just kills it. He is the man! 

We also played with our friend we call Cool Alex, he is the coolest guy ever haha. Seriously just a good person and awesome, He brought his friend Mani. He is a music artist/rapper here in Chisinau. He is way cool too and Alex showed us some of his music. And it is awesome, super positive and tells really cool stories 

Music is awesome in Romanian. Some of it is awful and just lame repetitive electronic stuff, but some is soooo gooood!

Well yeah, pretty much that's mostly all I can think of right now!

This week was cool, for real. Like it was freezing

But it was awesome too. 

God works in mysterious ways, but when you follow him he will never forsake you!

Do something nice for someone you love this week. then listen to your favorite song and drive/walk/bike/fly/hike/dream of somewhere beautiful!

WE are the Architects of our own fate

Love you all

Elder Cole Boydstun

Sushi boat

From January 5, 2015

It is snowing again. At least it isn't -17c like it was a few nights ago, haha.

This week was pretty solid.

I've been reading a ton in Romanian recently and it makes everything awesome in stories. Like jokes I would maybe just smile at in English are funny again just because it's in another language.

We had to stay at the church one day for a few hours, so Elder Daland and I made up this awesome game. Basically just mini soccer in a bigger room of the church, but we play it with a hacky sack. It is super epic. Games like this are way cool when you are like 12 or a missionary. 

We drew a bulls-eye on a white board and kicked the hacky sack at it. 

I can honestly say my hand eye coordinartion, vertical, and English spelling have suffered since I started my mish, but my foot coordination is getting way better. It is sick

We celebrated Elder Hammer's birthday this week. Went to some japanese place, it was random but super good. Daland and I ordered this large amount of sushi and it came out on a wooden boat. It was so legit and pretty good food too.

We had a cool meeting this week and a senior couple here talked for a second about some epic stuff that is going to be happening here in Chisinau in the next few months. It has never happened anywhere else in Europe I guess, but President Ivory is the man and is doin it! So that is cool. I don't know if I can really say much more yet, but it'll be huge.

We went out with this YSA member Sevghi to visit a family she grew up with. It was in a village just outside of Chisinau. We showed up and the lady was super nice and we talked for a little bit and shared our message and stuff and she had been to church once and missionaries visited her before, so we talked about that. Then she asked if we wanted to try her homemade all-natural apple juice. Of course I said yes. then she asked if we wanted to eat a little bit. So I couldn't reject her now...I said sure and then she continued to bring out sooo much food she had made for us. haha. and it was some pretty wild stuff. This chicken dish that was a chicken breast and a wing, they were cooked and were in this broth looking stuff. Then she dished it out for us and it ends up it was cold and the broth was in like gelatin form. Pretty sketch but I didn't have to eat the heart, she gave it to my comp. It ended up pretty good, just cold.. so that was odd. She brought out placinta, these pastries of different varieties, cabbage, cherries, squash. Then she brought out some duck with some noodles. That was actually really good. She wouldn't let us stop eating. Just brought homemade horse-radish and told us if we wanted to become more manly we had to eat it. AM IMBATRANIT! All of the food she made us was natural and from the land they have, so that was awesome. The apple juice was the best i've ever had. 

She talked to me a lot about the fact that I must come back to moldova and buy land because it is the most fertile ever, then we can team up together and make a shop where she makes food and I sell it. That was awesome, haha.

Getting outside of the city was nice too, it's good to see rolling hills and not so many buildings.

This crazy artist dude named Tudor came to church and brought this sculpture he made of a church or something. He was trying to explain it to this senior couple who speaks little Romanian. So I come in and start translating just like what the heck is this guy talking about hahaha. He said it was a tower of knowledge and it contained all wisdom in knowing that it isn't too early or too late. It was literally a church carved out of some plaster that you can hold in your hand. It was crazy how serious he was about it though. 

He brought a painting to church a few months ago and like stopped everything in  the sacrament meeting and tried to tie in his abstract but actually pretty good paiting into the meeting. He did pretty good for just pulling it out of nowhere. Tudor, man... haha

It was a pretty solid week. I did a lot of branch clerk stuff too, so I guess that was a good time haha. not really but I make it fun. President Covali is the coolest dude ever though. He speaks 4 languages. Crazy.

We are going to play soccer this week with a bunch of guys from the branch, some Russian dudes who are ridiculously good and like 65 years old. So it'll be a good week.

Set goals this week if you haven't already. Pray and really ask for wisdom and other gifts of the spirit. Ponder it, and then commit yourself! 

It's hard to see the perspective in the middle of the trial, but when you overcome it and look back at the progress made, it's always worth it.

The Lord wants to help us more than we think, let him.

love,

Elder Boydstun

Christmas. Craciun. and snow

From December 29, 2014

This week was awesome. 

Beginning of the week..

We had our Christmas card idea thing that we did at our activity last week, and it turned out super solid. We got 4 referrals in a day from a member.. of people from his family. Super epic...first referrals I've ever got on my mission. 

So that is for sure something awesome. 

English started, my companion and I are just like floating around helping people teach since there are sufficient missionaries to teach the classes. 

We tried to print out more of those Christmas cards and the dude took 1.5 hours to print 5 pieces of paper. Super ridiculous, haha. These guys literally are just random dudes who buy a color printer, put it in a random flea market store and charge people to print stuff. And do a really mediocre job. 

I listened to this cool guy talk about life though. Dan Clark. He talked at BYU, and it was really cool. It made me want to do awesome things and not be ordinary. Soooo, unless you want to be average, go check it out.. it might inspire you.

The next day, I had an exchange with Elder Daland. He is sick and from California. It was extra cool. 

That morning, we went with the humanitarian senior couple and delivered the boots that were made custom for a bunch of people.

We delivered them at this random building, a bunch of ladies came that were slightly crippled (Polio) and some that were mute/deaf. 

It was really cool, we gave them boots and a book of Mormon wrapped up. I felt like santa

The place ended up being this semi-sketchy manufacturing place for life jackets with a bunch of these women in a room sewing and using sign language they made up. It was crazy and a cool experience. 

We delivered one of the referalls/Christmas cards and it was awesome. We kept it simple, powerful and short and I loved it.

Anatol, the dude who gave it to us, is one of the most legit and spiritual dudes I have ever met in my life. An example of how I want to see life and God. He is the man.

The next day,

Christmas! Way cool. I got some incredible socks and ties and a warm vest, cozy pillows, some cool little toys and so much candy it's unreal. I made some cookies and then went to go catch a bus out to a senior couples place to eat. 

The bus was super slow and old and it took us almost 1.5 hours to get there haha. Probably because right as we walked out of our place, the one we needed passed. The next time the same bus came, the guy just drove through the bus stop and didn't even stop. 

We ate a bunch of good food there, and we also watched "The Book Thief". A way cool movie.

Movies are great.

Skyping the fam was super legit. They are still awesome, and probably cooler than they were before. I love you all. Keep being awesome. I think we got most out that we wanted. So I'll keep this part brief.

The next day, we went and played soccer/football on some random turf field. We got kicked out, then played at a big field up on top of a hill. It was super muddy.

We had movie night with the branch (2 movies in two days. Both approved. (Solid). We watched Home Alone. One of the greatest Christmas movies ever. I can't even count how many times I have watched it throughout my childhood.

Zone conference was legit. 

We had a good time and I learned a lot of good stuff. President Ivory is the man and is for sure developing into a great Mission President, gaining respect and we are all growing together.

I learned some cool stuff. Like the fact we don't/can't just arrive at perfection. It sn't just a destination..

You cannot be afraid to fail.

And you will never succeed in any relationship if you only think of yourself. 

I hope this New Year starts off incredible and stays that way. I hope you can look back on 2014 and see the progress you have made and then think of the ways you can keep moving forward and progress more.

I am grateful for all you. My family, my friends.

You all have done so many great things for me and I hope you know I love you. 

It snowed today, and I bought a russian fur hat. It is the warmest thing I have ever put on my little dome. 

It's cool here because Russian Christmas is next week...double celebration

LA MULTI ANI!. happy new year 

craciun fericit!

va iubesc

Craciun Fericit

From December 22, 2014

It's almost Christmas..

I started my mission basically on Easter. 

Time is going by fast... 

This week was solid, lots of frustration and long days of trying to figure out how to do some epic missionary work.

We literally spent days figuring out the trash editing programs on the branch computers so we could make some Christmas card designs and get He is the Gift looping and on a disc..

Anyways, we ground it out  through many failed attempts - running to different stores trying to explain the complex appliances we needed in Romanian... "uh we need something that makes this go into something like this.. I don't know how to say it, but we need it." Then end up finding out that it is pretty much the same word in English, just with a romanian accent haha... awesome

BUT we came up with the idea  to make these Christmas cards to give out at the Christmas activity we had. They looked legit. (Used a little magic to get photoshop) We had a member explain/invite our offer to fill out a card, we deliver it with the video and a Christ centered message. We had 40 people raise their hand wanting one. We've got 4 back so far. So I am stoked. That is super legit, I have never been able to receive a referral from a member so far until now. 

innovation. $$$$$

At the activity, I was a shepherd and I wore a basket on my head because I had no other costume choice, haha. It was awesome though, everyone was stoked to be there and had a good time. 

On Tuesday I had to do a bunch of stuff since I am the Branch Clerk now. So I ran all across town paying bills. It was not awesome. But we got into a part of town and were looking for this specific bank, had no clue where it was... then just tried one. After waiting for an hour or so.. and a girl walking in with a big fluffy grey cat tucked into her bag... and some weird sketchy corruption going on in front of me.. I get to the counter and she tells me I can't pay this here.... 

That sucked...

Went the closest market and got some food then tried to find a bench. Found it, ended up being a bench right next to a random grave site just next to the road and a complex of small apartments and a business. Moldova... 

That day was ridiculous, hahaha

Sunday, we took a projector, speakers and a white sheet into the main park right in the middle of the city. I lifted/held Elder Bateman by one foot as he hung up some hemp twine between some trees and we strung out the sheet. This park has a row of benches in the most trafficked spot with plugs so we used those and set up the projector/speakers and the laptop we borrowed. Then played He is the Gift for a few hours and talked to people and had them watch it with us. It was so sick I loved it and was so happy our idea came out even better than expected. 

So yeah, Life is good. Christmas is great. The gospel is true and the Light of Christ is incredible. 

Share it with someone. Tell 'em you love them, give them your time and go drive through a beautiful canyon for me. 

I hope you all remember the awesome spirit of Christmas and think of some great ways to start your year. 

He really is the gift. We, as individuals, can discover and accept the gift. 

It's worth it, I promise. 

Craciun Fericit! 

Transfers. Trains and Sunshine

This past week has been pretty crazy.

Had to say goobye to my good austrian friend Lex.. and my Italiano Baielli. I love those guys!

This was after taking the 14 hour train to Bucaresti.

In Buc we were walking around downtown to a bookstore and I saw these old white haired guys cutting hair in this old-school barber shop. So I had them cut my hair. I got cleaned up with a straight razor and one of the most solid hair cuts I've ever had. 

It was awesome to see everybody from my MTC group. We hungout and traveled around the metro to get food together with everyone, it was a good time. I've got some solid friends here. Transfers are always crazy, but a good time. 

Anyways, we had to get 3 cities worth of Christmas transfer stuff into the train back to Chisinau. The border dudes cut open the ones in the sisters room and opened everything including all their wrapped packages, hahaha.

We hid ours like champions, I guess. 

My companion is this cool kid Elder Bateman. He is a surfer/photographer from Florida. so we get along pretty well. He is a funny dude with the driest humor ever. Like epic amounts of dryness at times. it is awesome, haha. We have been talking about the weird slang used in surfing and snowboarding and it is hilarious.

We have some really cool ideas that we are going to be using instead of dying in the cold and doing normal grinding work. So we have been looking for hardware stores that have the supplies we need to build some streetboard display type things. Literally just traveled into the depths of a part of the city. I had been walking around going in these weird construction warehouses and shops trying to ask them where this mega-store is someone told us about. It took 3 hours to find it, but it was crazy. Like Lowes/Home Depot but bigger. 

The most annoying part is.. the weird toothless old russian man, first guy I asked, at the first bus stop told me the right directions all along. Everyone else was very floppy with their directions, haha.

We also had to find a guy that made grommets, like eyehole things in vinyl. We looked all over the middle of the city. We finally go into this flea-market store thing. We go up to the 4th floor.. all of it is fabrics and womens scarves. Elder Bateman asks this lady and tries to explain it, then shows a photo. She points us to the end of the hall through a random door. We go through and then we have to turn right and duck under a ledge, go down a ramp.. then enter a clothing repair shop. This guy is randomly in a small room in the very back of this shop. haha it was crazy. I was laughin pretty hard over it. This guy breathed like he was snoring and spoke mostly Russian but we worked it all out. 

He said we spoke perfect Romanian, this guy didn't even speak Romanian that well, haha.

We are going to be doing some epic stuff this next week, so I am excited. 

Christmas is coming up. and it's a great time of year. Watch He is the Gift on lds.org and remember that He is the reason for tha Season! He loves you. I love you. you deserve the joy he offers. Follow him, and you WILL be where you NEED to be.

Go on an adventure this week and meet some strangers!

Love you all.

Elder Boydstun

Transfers. swiss-german. auf wiedersehen LEX

Hallo

This week was pretty awesome as Elder Lex's last week.

We made incredible food everyday and it was great

It has been freezing rain and it is nuts now. Like it rains and as soon as it hits the ground, or whatever it touches... everything freezes. So watching people eat it and fall way hard was both sad and hilarious. 

I got these custom fitted shoes this week, and I was pretty sad about it because they were so hard and my feet were not happy.. but now they are like gloves and I love them. So yeah. this little semi-crippled dude named Constantin is a little shoe wizard. Missionaries have been going to him for a while and I guess now he is doing some service project for the church.

Yesterday this guy who is a world traveler came and said goodbye to Lex. He is the most awesome guy ever.. He randomly came to church one time before I got here because he had never been to a Mormon church before. Then he talked  to Lex forever.. This guy is from Switzerland and has dreads and a cool beard and is so happy. He speaks english really well and speaks swiss-german and high-german and austrian-high-german and learned turkish from living in turkey for 6 months. 

Yeah... there is apparently many variations to German. Anyways, he tried to read the Book of Mormon in English, but said the old-world American-English is way too hard and he had to try so hard to understand that it wasn't making sense. So we got him a German one later that night after traversing across the hills of Botanica in the ice rain. We talked about amish people and his adventures. I have a photo. I will probably send it. 

We showed all our English class the new "He is the Gift" video. A missionary in the office translated it into Romanian. (#sharethegift, don't hashtag in emails, this is an exception)

It really is a cool video. Go check it out... share the love of Christ. it is real and brings us together as humans despite our many differences. 

I also got an incredible letter from my friend Elder Minor from the mtc. 

The fact that we are all different is something we should embrace as we all are on our journey to Know Christ. Meaning we shouldn't stress so hard or worry so much about conforming to this perfect mold of the person we think we need to be. Not meaning we shouldn't strive to improve and grow as much as possible, but to take in our talents, our gifts and our differences to give something new to the world.

Christ doesn't just make up the difference. He is the difference. His grace is sufficient. follow him, and you'll be where you need to be. 

Anyways, transfers are happening. Elder Lex goes home to Austria. We both go down to Bucuresti today and it'll be a good time. I am stoked to see some friends and a little bittersweet to say goodbye, for now to a few others. 

My new companion will be Elder Bateman, I don't really know him. He's in his 4th transfer or so and I heard he likes surfing and is from Florida. So we will get along. 

Christmas is soon. There are an epic amount of lights and trees everywhere in Centru here. This transfer is going to be awesome. 

Oh yeah, I am staying in Chisinau. wooo

eine dose mitleid fur ELDER LEX. bloop! ooohhh...

Have a good week. Celebrate the 14th in remembrance of me. 

Does this mean I have to be an adult now?

Elder Boydstun

Knockin blocs

Thanksgiving was solid! 

 Lex and I made poppy seed cake, Lex's favorite thing ever haha. it was good. 

Chisinau is awesome, I love it here.  Anyways things have been a little slow for Lex and I.  At least on the number side of things. No lessons this week, but we did some good    stuff so it's alright...just keep goin forward!

Branch was still pretty solid, it'll get better from here on out too. some bumps in the way are expected, no stress! Anatolie is the coolest guy ever. 

Ps. I always wonder how you guys pronouce names of places and names :) haha 

Elections were yesterday, so I don't know what happened yet. If you can figure it out, let me know haha. hope the commies didn't win!  There are Posters with a  picture of these Moldovan political leaders meeting with Putin and it says "TOGETHER WITH RUSSIA!" and it all solcialist and stuff it's crazy haha 

Sometimes it is annoying to think that we don't get many lessons and stuff, but the things we do do here many times are small works that will lead to bigger things. So, it is awesome once you just relax and figure it out. It's funny to me getting emails from people (other missionaries) in the Americas saying "crazy 3 hours where we didn't know what to do since all our lessons were falling through so we knocked some doors and tried to call some people, then finally someone answered ..... then mid lesson it was amazing and we committed him to baptism in 2 weeks."   I am here like... yeah I knocked on 5 whole apartment buildings and one person talked to us for maybe 2 minutes outside their door asking us if we liked the beautiful Moldovan women. hahaha 

We spent a good chunk of time contacting this week and knocking blocs. There is always really weird things in blocs. I've always heard "if you want good stories from your mission, go bloc knocking."They are just huge apartment buildings that are sketchy and awesome, filled with all types of interesting people and things. So from helping some guys carry a massive, seriously massive, sack of potatoes off the almost death trap elevator - to getting yelled at by old women in Russian…it's wonderful.

Anyway, we were walking along, trying to find some potentials.. knocking some doors and getting lost, normal. On our way back to our place, we see a girl  from the branch working in this stand thing handing out flyers, so we stop and say hello. Her friend/co-worker looks at us and says "where are you from?" Elder Lex says "Austria, and he's from America".  She looks a me and says "so you speak english?" "Yes, of course I speak English." "Where'd you learn Romanian?" "Romania." Then she proceeds to hand me a small piece of paper and a pen. "What's this for?" Another girl in the back says "PHONE NUMBER!" So I laugh and give her my name and an english card and she gives me her number. I still got game SON! haha it was hilarious.. and most likely just because I'm American, but whatever! 

We also got permission to watch dispicable me with the branch, so that was incredible of course. that movie rocks haha.

We also found a street board at our church we've been using. Basically a wood structure with pictures of Christ and temples and some info on it. We just stick it in the front of the park in the middle of town. Some cop came at us, and I thought we were done for. But he was cool and just wanted to make sure we weren't doing a flash mob, hahaha. 

Something I've wanted to do for sure is just to become a better teacher. Sometimes you wonder if you're just not teaching well.. but always having to remember that his sheep will hear his voice! So as long as you're teaching the truth and testifying, you are doing what's right!

It's super cold and snowed a little bit and I was so pumped. I got a mini snowball to the head and I wish it would snow more. For now, it's just freezing cold. 

Sunday was awesome as the first week with the split branch. Bro. Cociu gave an incredible super heartfelt talk and I loved it so much. He is the coolest guy ever... we still had a solid turn out in members coming as well and it's only going to get better. 

Moldova is incredible. As I said, the elections were yesterday and I don't see any crazy public demonstrations from whoever lost, so I'm assuming things went well, haha. we'll see though! 

Today will be awesome though we are going to play soccer in some indoor place and I am pumped for it. 

Hope all is well. Hope Thanksgiving was filled with tryptopahn and love! 

va iubesc 

- Elder Boydstun