Elder Keegan Karsten Brown

Elder Keegan Karsten Brown

Monday, July 21, 2014

Vomit, Exchanges and Spankings!



Well not much to tell this week, so I’ll keep it short.

Elder Kennedy got sick and threw up in the sink and I spent the day cleaning the apartment while he slept.

We did an exchange with our Zone Leaders from Bucuresti. I was with elder Harris, who was my first companion in Ploiesti.  It was fun to hang-out with him again and he has moved cities twice since I've been in Ploiesti . . . it shows you how long I've been here - Haha!

Our Branch, Relief Society, Primary, and Elders Quorum President were all out of town yesterday so church was pretty empty.  I had to bless the Sacrament in Romanian which is more difficult than you would imagine.

I was spanked by a drunk man yesterday.  He had fallen on his head and could barely stand.  I’m pretty sure he was concussed so we carried his groceries to his apartment (which turned out to be our next door neighbor) and he said to me "I have to give you something;" he then spanked me, laughed, and walked into his apartment. Just when I think I’m getting used to this country, something else surprises me.

Hope you all have a good week and Dad has a good birthday!  Oh ya . . . 9 months down!  Not that I’m counting!

Keeg

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Peles Castle - The District!

Brazilian Soccer Team
The District!


Spanish Exodus, Range Rovers and English-Romanian Conflict



Florin Marian, the guy from Spain (Cristiano Rinaldo’s neighbor) came to church after our lesson last week.  It was good to see him before his return to Spain.  I e-mailed Blair to hook him up with Madrid missionaries.

Pretty normal week, but we spent a lot of time in Bucuresti.  We went to Buc for P-day last week, spent time with other missionaries and ate some good food. 

We ended up going back to Buc on Wednesday to take care of Kennedy's visa.  We got there pretty early and while he took care of his things, I spent time running errands with the office Elders in their car.  It was so nice to sit and relax in a car for a few hours. When we met back up with everyone at the visa office, they had been there for three hours and we stayed another two hours. That same day was actually Kennedy’s birthday so we went to Ruby Tuesdays (the most American thing in Bucuresti other than the Hard Rock Cafe)

Zone conference was the next day, so we stayed the night in Bucuresti and hung out. I finally got to meet President Ivory and his family at zone conference.  My first thoughts were "success" and "money."  To better illustrate this, the first thing he did upon entering the country was buy his 2014 Range Rover.  He has made some big changes to the mission and just expects a lot more in general.  When I had my interview, I could tell that he was all business and no play.  I mentioned being in the same city for seven months and Ivory brought up how his daughter stayed in Rome Italy for nine months straight on her mission (pretty much saying suck it up)!  The problem is, Ploiesti simply does not compare to Rome - Haha!  Everyone told me he was intimidating, but I would better describe him as intense. 

The highlight of the week is on Saturday when one of our advanced English students went nuts.  His name is Nic and he loves to talk a lot. I guess one of the other students got sick of listening to him and asked that he allow the rest of the students to speak. After getting pretty heated, the sisters asked Nic to leave . . . he stood up, started cussing everyone out (in Romanian and English), spit on the student that first asked him to shut up, kicked a garbage can across the room and slammed all the doors on the way out. It was incredible!  If everyone wasn’t in shock, I probably would have laughed. 

Aside from a normal week, the other two Elders in our district leave this week so we’ll have big changes coming up! 

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Peles Castle - Summer Time!



Something to Talk About!



Monday - Just a normal day again

Tuesday - Peles was fun the second time through. We did the tour in English this time so I understood a little bit more about the castle. It is the first European castle to have a central vacuum system plus both air conditioning and a furnace. Pretty much the most modern castle ever!  It was built for the king at that time and he loved to read books and collect weapons. He died in 1914. 

Wednesday - So we were walking around and this guy approached us about what religion we are and after a little bit of talking, we set up to meet with him that day. That never happens by the way!  He is Romanian, but lives in Spain and speaks Spanish really well (he kept speaking in Spanish to us cause he forgot Romanian).  The lesson went really well.  He has family in Canada, Spain, Italy, Romania and UTAH!  The ones in Utah are LDS and he knows a little about the church already. He said he wants to go to the temple one day and hopes he can do it in Utah.  We ended up talking about soccer and he mentioned that where he lives in Madrid is a blocked off community and he lives just a few houses from Cristiano Ronaldo!  So I know this guy is rich and cool!  He said he has autographed crap from the real Madrid soccer team and he wanted to give us stuff!  He had us skype his wife in Spain and I talked to her in English.  He fed us a ton of food and took selfies with us!  Anyway, he is in Romania till the 10th of July, then he goes back home to Spain.  He told me to hook him up with missionaries (Blair hopefully) and a church there.  He is coming with us to church this Sunday but then leaves next Thursday.

Thursday - Went to the Branch President’s house for lunch and his wife fed us some Romanian food.  I’m still trying to get used to it, but it was good.  Ciorba is a Romanian soup that is fairly thin.  Lots of vegetables and she makes it with meatballs, which were really good!  It was fun to have Elder Kennedy there eating Romanian food.  He seemed to like it as well. Sister Musat is super funny and has a son on a mission in London. He comes home in November.

Friday - Happy fourth of July ya'll!  We were planning on doing a BBQ with the missionaries, then the members caught wind and pretty much threw a party for us.  It was sick!   We had like 400 burgers and music.  Kids were playing soccer and we had a blast!  I ate three burgers and it felt like home!  They played Romanian music the entire time and I tried to get some country into the mix, but they didn’t like it too much.  Needless to say, I wasn’t very pushy considering my lack of love for country music. 

Saturday - They're having a music festival in the big park by our house.  It was pretty loud, but fun that people had stuff to do.  We walked through the park contacting during sound checks throughout the day. The bands were English speaking but I've never heard of any of them.  Pretty nuts!  President Ivory made big changes in the mission, which include us no longer reporting the number of hours we contact during a week.  He also wants us to put a bigger importance on less active and active members.  We are also expected to set up activities more often. 

Sunday - We gave two blessings. The one for the sisters was the first time Elder Kennedy gave a blessing and he did great!  The second was for a member that has back problems.  She is surprisingly young (30s) to be having back problems.  It’s really hard to give blessings in Romanian, but it went well. 

Hope you guys had a good week!  Love and miss you.

Elder Brown!