Tucano's

Elder Harper's Birthday

Nutritious Diet?




Ceai si Cafea (Tea & Coffee)

Well everyone has reminded me a few hundred times, but for those that may not know . . . we have six months on the clock!  I’m serving with one of the sisters from my MTC group and she goes home in two weeks - nuts!  It’s kind of weird and I’m a little scared.  My comp is old in the mission too so I feel like I’m getting a preview of what I will be like in a few transfers.  He is all worried about school and stuff and what he's going to do. 

So go ahead and google Tucano Coffee in Moldova.  It’s this super dope coffee chain that has a pretty chill atmosphere.  Elder Harper and I went there a few weeks ago for soup and a sandwich.  At the Toastmasters gig we met with this guy who wanted to meet up and practice speaking in English.  We decided to meet at this coffee shop.  He told us he works there and I asked "oh sick, like the register?"  He laughed and was like "no, I kinda started Tucano . . . me and five of my friends."  Haha - this dude owns the coffee shop and I’m chill’n with him.  It’s a pretty small chain right now and just started a few years back, but I see it exploding in Romania.  He agreed to hear the lessons, but is normally pretty busy. They have two locations here, one in Bucuresti, and one in Dubai, UAE.  It’s a cool place and there is nothing here in Moldova with a chill atmosphere like they have, so people love it.  It’s a good place to find young people with actual drive and education. 

One of our other English students has shown a little interest in us.  His name is Mihai but has us call him Michael.  He’s an architecture student and in his 2nd year.  He wants to do his masters in Sweden and then move.  He’ll be in the U.S. in May and will be in Vegas at some point.  He will be there until September so I will just miss him. Pretty chill guy. I'll keep ‘ya updated. 

It’s pretty busy in Moldova.  I mentioned that Moldova is the testing grounds for Europe and the church does a lot of fun work here.  We are working with a marketing firm called GOODMEDIA and they have just launched an Easter campaign in Chisinau.  We are carrying these Video Flyers and showing them to everyone.  They made a ‘Meet the Mormons’ Moldova edition that is pretty snazzy.  Starting this week we will be hand delivering DVD's to people who have shown interest via internet.  They just click that they would like a DVD with an Easter message and we show up at their door.  It will be nice for us to give to people who are interested, instead of spending all day sorting folks out of a million blocks (apartments)! 

Moldova is getting warmer, but it’s been raining.  We have MLC on Thursday so I will fly to Bucharest again this week. Life is nuts, but I’m having fun! 

Love y'alls,
Keeg

Another Short Note!

We are halfway through this transfer and that amazes me.  The Sisters I came into the mission with will be leaving in just three short weeks so if I was born as the Paisley that Mom wanted, I would be returning home. 

This week was pretty fun. We had our zone training and President let us be in charge for the first time since he arrived (usually he does the talking).  Elder Harper and I had 2.5 hours to talk about resolving concerns prior to baptism and the other three hours were left for the Sisters to lead a discussion on sharing our personal testimony/story.  Honestly the meetings all feel the same and I feel like I’ve done a thousand of them.  I wonder if President will keep me here for another transfer?  If so, he will have to leave me again because Elder Harper will be going home and someone needs to know the area.  That would mean that I would go at least eight transfers (one year) doing the same Zone Leader thing - YIKES! 

On Thursday night, Elder Harper and I went to the local library to do some studying and get our library passes.  We found out that there would be a toastmaster public speaking event that night and we decided to stay and watch.  It was in English and everyone participating was Moldovan, so we could help them as they went.  They announced that at the end they’ll select random speakers from the crowd.  I elbowed Harper and said "I'll buy you lunch if you speak" and he gave me the same bet.  Well turns out that we both were called on to speak - Haha!  It was a topic of our choice and Elder Harper spoke about personal journals for three minutes.  At the end, when they announced the awards, Harper was the best speaker of the night - Haha!  They snapped some photos with him and gave him a certificate.  At the event, I met a kid named Luliu who spent ten months on foreign exchange in St. George, Utah with a Mormon family!  He went to church every week and enjoyed it.  When he got back to Moldova he just went back to what he knew was normal and kinda forgot about church.  We’re set-up to meet with him this week. 

This week won’t bring anything too crazy. Hope everyone is doing well!  I also don’t have pictures because my card reader isn’t working but I'll get a new one and send pics next week.

Love you guys!

Go Utes! 

Hey Guys!

This won’t be too stellar of an e-mail because we are in a hurry.  We have zone training on Wednesday and have a lot of crap to get done to be ready for that!  Plus, English is starting again tomorrow night and our special guest is President Ivory! 

Our Buddy from the Fire Department (Aurel) hasn’t been easy to find lately, but we will keep looking for him. 

We met with a family that lives in our block this week. The father, Victor, ran into President Ivory about seven months ago.  He had Victor give him a tour of Chisinau and everything Moldova had to offer.  That was a while ago, but we ran into him in the stairway just a few weeks ago and have been chatt’n ever since.  He allowed us to swing by the other day to talk a little bit about who we are and why we are here. It was super quick because they needed to go buy groceries but we left them with a Family Proclamation and a testimony of how our message could help his family.  He has a 4 year old son named Nick that loves Lightning McQueen, but the kid only speaks Russian. 

We've also been doing less active work and trying to get to know the members better. We’ve had good church numbers lately and as a mission had 614 people at church.  That’s 100 more people than we had about six months ago - pretty nuts! 

I’m doing good!  I still dislike the Russian language and how much it’s used here.  Elder Harper turns 21 tomorrow so we are going to go out to eat.  He is fun and we get some good work done. 

Nothing too crazy is going on, but we will have new toys out here once we get closer to Easter.  We’ll have special video invitations for us to show people as we go around town. 

We also went to the library the other day and as we were walking out, Elder Harper ran into a glass door and almost broke the wooden door frame - Haha!  It was a lot funnier in the moment, but I about laughed just as hard as when Elder Rose fell into the manhole while wearing his suit and got all wet in sewer water. Incredible!

Love and miss you guys! 
Keeg

Go Utes! 

Chisinau Train Station

Zone Conference




Transfer 17

A new transfer is already here and time is flyn'!  My new companion is Elder Harper from SLC. He went to West High and then to Olympus and is a year older than me.  He attended the U for a year before his mission and was just the AP and now has only two more transfers before going home. 

I’ve been pretty tired this week. We had 28 hours of travel on Moldovan trains which is lame and getting through customs was pretty fun.  I got to play with the drug dog and then the trainer dude got mad at me and the dog – Haha!  We had MLC in Bucuresti so I was down there getting stuff figured out. We just received 10 new missionaries this transfer so everyone is freaking out.  We will receive another 15 next transfer so the mission will be completely different as far as people.

We taught our firefighters English again this week and as we were walking out we started talking with this one guy named Aurel.  We talked for a while and then he asked us to go out to eat. We met up at this dope underground sushi place that he knew about and talked for almost two hours. He has a pretty intense background and we talked forever about some pretty sad junk. Then he agreed to meet with us again to talk about our beliefs.  We are going to get this guy progressing and then we’ll get the entire Chisinau Fire Department in the church; it’s going to be dope - Haha!

Nothing new really going on!  I’m not sure what’s going to happen over the next six weeks but I’ll be tired.  Please keep me updated on March Madness and news. 

Love you guys!
Keeg

Here we are starting a new transfer. The last six weeks were the quickest of my mission and I know when spring hits time will just fly. 

The transfer board came out and I think president is concerned about me?  My former companion is the new AP and the former AP is my new companion!  He must be trying to keep a close eye on me I guess and make sure I’m not doing anything too crazy – Haha! 

I will remain in Chisinau again as a Zone Leader.  I’ve been a ZL longer than not.  We have another set of Elders coming Wednesday with the same amount of apartments, so there will now be four missionaries living at my place.  I’m officially in the biggest district and the biggest zone!  It’s nuts the amount of missionaries we have here and everything that is going on. 

We had zone conference this week and President Ivory came-up along with his parents, Ellis and Katie Ivory.  They were pretty fun people and they told us all kind of stories about president from back in the day.

Chisinau is warming up a little bit, but still coat weather.  I’m dying to get some sun and warmth.  Since arriving here, some crazy things have happened.  The Russian government has control of the largest banks in Moldova and weird things happen with the currency.  When I first got here, the dollar was worth 14 Moldovan lei.  The conversion rate went from 14 to 27 over the course of 10 days.  It then crashed back to 15 lei overnight, and has climbed back up to 18.5 as of today!  It’s crazy how things work out and the influence Russia has here. 

The sisters that I came-out with from the MTC will now be leaving for home in 6 weeks, and then I will only have 6 months left!  Its nuts how time is flying and I’m sure it will be here freaking quick. 

Love you guys!
Keeg