Oradea Crew

Utterly Impressive!



Short Timer - Baielli

Elder Baielli is leaving Oradea in three weeks.  He is bummed!  I will be staying and getting Elder Manning as my comp.  Don’t know too much about him, but he’s eight months or so into his mission.  

It’s been a pretty normal week.  Baielli has been pretty stressed that his mission is ending soon, so we've been going pretty hard trying to find people.  Weather has been cold and rainy making it hard to do much!  

We took a trip outside of the city to visit an older woman.  It’s fun to get out of the city and walk on dirt roads, see cows and be in the middle of nowhere.  It’s what I thought Romania would be like. 

I’m taking a train to Bucuresti today and will be there all day tomorrow.  Not too much else going on. Stoked that the Utes won again.

Love and miss you guys!

Baielli & Brown

Traditional Hungarian & Romanian Costumes

Heyyoo!

Well, here we are in Oradea and again nothing too big to bring to the email.  It rained, we had English classes, and Elder Baielli got sick. 

The big news is that I’m officially a year in the books.  Both incredibly exciting and a little sad.  It’s weird how time has gone for me, but it’s generally fast!  It will really hit home when we get ourselves into 2015 and I have just 9 short months left. 

Oradea is a quiet little Hungarian town.  It’s incredibly beautiful with amazing buildings and river.  Our English classes are pretty large and for the sixth time, I am teaching beginners.  On Tuesday we had 26 women show up to class and not a single man – Hahaha!  Most stayed for the spiritual thoughts which is cool, but we are still finding people all day long. 

We had the Temple President from Germany come and speak to our stake/district this week which was cool.  He had some dope things to say and really answered the questions of the members here. 

The first iPads are in the mission, but I don’t expect to be getting one until the end of the year.  Hopefully in time to skype from it, but we will see.  

Baielli is sick with the flu, so I’ve done nothing but clean the apartment and read for two days straight. 

This email is terribly boring – Hahaha.  Love and miss you guys! 

Our New & Modern Apartment

Mit Cinas!

Good to hear from y’all today.  I can finally say that I am emailing from the beautiful city of Oradea; it’s amazing here!  We live in the best apartment in the mission by far (I found it) and right on the river!   We walk to and from the city center using the riverside walkway and its nuts.  Little did I know that I would be entering into a different country upon arrival.  Almost everyone here speaks Hungarian and its annoying.  They will just start talking to each other in Hungarian about you, knowing that you don’t speak it, and then they will start back in Romanian with you.  I've run into a few people that have said that I speak better Romanian than they do, and they've lived in this country their entire lives! 

No old man buttocks this week, but it was a good week anyway.  We had a really lame Mission leadership conference this week via skype . . . we didn’t fly to Buchurest.  Our skype didn’t work very well and we were only able to listen.  They didn’t receive our audio or video and we didn’t receive their video.  We just sat and listened to them speak back and forth for three hours.  It was pretty lame. 

This week was Oradea Days and they had some crazy festivals going on all week in the parks.  It was like the park in Centerville on the Fourth of July, but every day for a week long!  They had live music, amazing traditional foods (heavy Hungarian influence) games and all kinds of stuff going on.  We saw some parades and watched the Romanian armed forces perform some crazy stuff too.  The week ended last night with Oradea's birthday and another parade and fireworks!  It was a freaking zoo in Centru and really fun. 

Time is passing like crazy and I can’t believe that this week will be October 16th!  This day a year ago, I gave my farewell talk and stayed up till three in the morning with friends – haha! 

Love and miss you guys,

Keeg

Just Us

Stefan



Mit Csinazc (whats up) !

As you can all see, I’m working on my Hungarian since more than half the members in my new city of Oradea speak fluent Hungarian. I’m actually not in Oradea yet, but will be tomorrow - hopefully!  I’m excited and president has some high expectations from us.  We’re kind’a under the microscope right now, which is slightly nerve wracking, but I’m good. 

We had a good week saying goodbyes AGAIN to the same people. They've begun to start asking "when are you guys leaving?" - hahaha but its good. I’m pretty sure they are getting sick of us saying goodbye, then seeing us on Sundays again! 

Well it was a good week with football.  I gotta say I’m sad I missed it and jealous that the whole family went down to watch the games.  Also the old guys hit 30 years of marriage and I’m not sure what they call that marriage milestone, but it should be "The Pampers 30" (hopefully I don’t have to explain that joke).  

Speaking of old people and their problems, we visited an old man today named Sandor from Hungary.  He moved here a while back, but we can barely understand the man due to his thick Hungarian accent. He has had some surgeries over the years to repair a crooked spine and when he thought I wasn’t understanding him well enough, he stood up, pulled down his pants and underwear, then continued to turn around and moon me while pointing out the incision scars on his back and butt.  I love this country.  I gotta say that it wasn’t the first time I've had that happen either – hahaha! 

General conference was good.  We still haven’t seen all the sessions and need to listen to some of them in English so I fully understand, but it was pretty sweet. 

Love you guys, keep it real and go bolts! 

Keeg 

P.S.  I’ve included photos - This guy is Stefan!  He has a huge drinking problem and we have been working with him. His wife is a member and is very humble.  He cried when we left and said "other than the first elders who taught me, you guys are the coolest!"  He is the man!