Bowling with Bateman

Moldova's Fire Chief



Hey everybody!

Mom may not think so, but time is flying!  I feel like I was just emailing you guys two days ago. This week has been decent.  We met up with a kid named Liviu a few times.  He is pretty hyperactive and can’t sit through a lesson too well without it getting a little nuts, but he is a good kid and loves being around.  He aspires to be a public speaker and motivator, but sadly has a pretty rough lisp.  He loves English and has us help him with that a lot, and then we teach him the gospel. 

English is going as usual. Lots of people and lots of fun!  We teach the advanced class and had a discussion the other day about travel.  I asked the question, "who is the most interesting person you have ever met and where were they from?"  One lady responded that “we were the most interesting people that she had ever met because we came to the poorest country in Europe to teach English and volunteer our time.”  The people that come are sick and are super appreciative of the classes. 

We had one of our English students ask if we were willing to teach him and his friends at work.  We asked him where he works and he said the fire department.  After talking to President Ivory, we went with it. They pick us up on Thursday in one of their trucks to take us over to the place. I walked into the room and saw 45 people in desks with paper and pencils in hand ready for a lesson - It was super intimidating! Then, as I walked in, everyone in the room stood up and stared at me!  I was freaking me out and it took a minute to realize what was really going on.  The man that comes to our classes and set this thing up is "kind of a big deal" (Ron Burgundy voice).  They were all standing because he is their superior.  I asked him after class what his position is here and he said that he is the Chief Fireman for the entire country of Moldova!  He told us that he was super grateful for what we are doing and that they really needed the class because when they need to communicate with other departments in other countries, the common language is English. We’re set-up to go out there every Thursday from now on to teach English.  They then gave us a tour of the building and all the dope vehicles there! 

I also found out that Moldova is the testing grounds for mission work in Europe.  If the area presidency or even the first presidency wants to try something out in Europe, they will first try it here.  Which means we will have some dope stuff going on here pretty soon.  A lot of it is pretty confidential stuff, but they let us in on a few things.  I have no idea why they chose Moldova, but I’m thinking it might be due to the size of the country and the fact that everything is cheap here. 

We also went bowling this week and I put up a 157!  

Anyway, I love you guys and miss you! 
Keeg

Apres Ski

Some Beauty

Ce Faci Fata de Vanilie – Why Cope with Vanilla?

Hello from Communist Moldova! 

It took 16 months, but today I was hit by a car – Haha!  Don’t worry mom, it wasn’t bad at all.  The light was green at the cross walk and right as I started to run across the street, the light went red and a car started to go.  I realized in time and jumped out of the way after getting pushed a little bit.  Everyone laughed at me and it wasn’t too big of deal, but I’m gonna be more attentive as I cross. 

Last week on P-day we got a tour of the city and climbed an old communist ski lift.  It was pretty dope and I’ve posted a picture. The city is dirty and old but it is cool if you take the time to look at it. 

English class on Tuesday was insane!  We had a beginner class in both Romanian and Russian, medium was the same, a children’s class and our advanced class.  There were people standing in our class so I went to search the building for more chairs and checked every room in the building.  EVERY chair was taken!  It was insane!   We were pushing 200 people at English on Tuesday.  From English we met a pretty dope guy named Dumitru.  He has shown interest in prophets and revelation and so we are stoked to get started with him.  He has a girlfriend too so we will teach her as well.  They have been coming to activities and all the other missionaries say we need to baptize him. 

The Russian speaking elders here are pretty nuts and get bored often (they only get to serve in 3 cities out of the whole mission) so they tried to spice up life by making a juice drinking competition.  Every district nominated a person to drink the most juice out of the whole zone and I was picked for the Romanians. They are nuts though . . . after four days, one guy already hit 40 liters!  I’m only at about 10 but I’m hoping he gets sick and slows down.  Then I will catch up! 

Love you guys and miss you! 

Go Utes! 

By the way, you can Google Earth Keegan’s address to see where he lives.
Home: Strada Cornului 9, Chişinău, Moldova
Church: 41/1 str. Vasile Alecsandri, Bubuieci, Chişinău, Moldova

Elder Bekker from Israel (middle)

Have It Your Way!



English Classes, Business Trip and an Israeli Missionary?

This week went incredibly fast!  I feel like I was just emailing you guys yesterday, but I still have a few cool things to say. 

Our English turn-out on Tuesday night was incredible.  It was a zoo and it took some serious prep to be ready for it.  We made it a sign-up day and after the final tally, we had 450 sign-up for English.  It’s pretty normal to get about 40 people to an English course and if you hit 100 than you are pretty big.  Well, we’ve broken a few records!   Now we have to find some cool people to teach!  We teach advanced classes four times a week, medium six times a week and eight beginner classes.  So we have them all on different schedules.  We have had a few good classes already and people are asking us about the church and stuff, so we’ll have a few gospel lessons this week. 

Thursday we had another MLC.  Our flight left early that morning so we woke up at 4:00 a.m. and arrived in Buch for a 10:00 a.m. meeting.  The meeting lasted six hours and we were toast afterwards.  They talked for so long and the room was super hot!  They let us watch Meet the Mormons afterwards and it was alright.  I had higher expectations, but the people featured were cool.  We then met a new Russian speaking missionary and got ready to take him to Moldova.  This kid is freaking dope!.  The coolest part is that he’s from Israel and the only missionary in the world from Israel.  He served the mandatory three years of military and then applied for a mission.  It’s dope that he’s here and I got to meet him.  He speaks Russian, English and Hebrew.  We finally arrived home at midnight, making it a 20 hour day – I was dead. 

While in the airport we ate at the only Burger King in Romania and Moldova (BK Lounge).  I took a few photos and attached one below . . . I don’t really like BK but it was such a rare opportunity that I couldn’t pass it up . . . even got a crown - Pretty solid! 

Love you guys!
Keeg

 

Sergiu

Chisinau



Happy Super Bowl Weekend!

What’s up everyone!  

Happy Super Bowl weekend!  Sounds like a pretty good game a wild finish!  They didn’t show it here, but while we were in a restaurant they were showing the mens and womens final of the Australian Open . . . how predictable! 

We’re getting ready for english classes tomorrow and its gonna be nuts. So far in my mission, the biggest english course I ever taught was less than 60 people.  Our District Leader wanted to have 100 people this transfer so we put a little more effort into classes.  Well . . . over the last week we have had over 300 phone calls for english and have reached 60,000+ people on Facebook.  That wasn’t a typo . . . we reached sixty-thousand people.  We talked to our branch president and from past experience, he expects somewhere around 1,500 people to show-up!  This is unheard of in this mission.  It is going to be insane and we are all pretty nervous. 

Other than that . . . we teach a kid named Sergiu.  He is 16, wears all black and has cornrows.  He is freaking hilarious!  He doesn’t really know if God exists yet, but loves meeting with us.  He was embarrassed to tell us that he has never read a book in his life.  I asked him if he wanted to try something hard and he agreed to read one book out of the standard works of the church and we will see who can read faster, me or him.  If he wins I’m gonna take him out to eat anywhere in the city.  If I win nothing happens, but now we have him excited!  We are gonna meet every week to see how he is doing and talk about what we read.  It’s gonna be dope and he is funny.  I will attach a picture. 

Moldova is still weird and is going to be a funny experience!  Speaking of funny things check out my email this week from president . . .  "President Geambasu (Oradea, Romania) confided in me his great respect for you. Thank you for your service there. It made a huge difference.  Work with real intent in Chisinau. It isn't about looking good. It's about working with real intent. I remember the point on my mission when I totally lost myself in the work and started caring so much for the good people I was serving. As I hear you speak of President Geambasu and President Covali I sense you giving of yourself. Thank you. Keep progressing and serve those good people who need our support. Thanks."

Then I read the part "its not about looking good" I laughed really hard!  I’m not sure what it means, but I couldn’t stop laughing.  By the way . . . this email is huge in comparison to his others!  I’m usually lucky to get a four word response without capitalization or punctuation!  I’m moving up in the world. 

Love you guys! 
Keeg