Southern Romanian by Grace!

Who Dresses Me?

Hey There Folks!

Well, to the surprise of everyone in the mission, and to us here in Ploiesti, NOTHING has changed for the following transfer!  Everyone in the District will be staying here and Elder Dearden and I will remain together.

Nothing has changed with investigators either. Tavi is still excited to be baptized in June.  Florin loves to talk with us, but he won’t come to church.  We had a week of contacting and only two lessons. I wish I could talk more about our investigators, but there really isn’t much more to say! 

Things Romanians Say

Yesterday, we talked with the most insane man I have ever met in my life.  We talked about the Book of Mormon and he knew everything about Mormon (or at least he thought he did).  Apparently the book of Mormon couldn’t have been written 600 years before Christ because the man named Mormon was born 700 years after Christ, in Sweden.  He then explained that Mormon went to the Council in Constantinople (381 AD) and there, he influenced Martin Luther.  Keep in mind that Martin Luther lived over 1000 years after that time.  During this whole discussion, he was only talking to Elder Dearden and left me out of the conversation.  Why you ask?  Because I descend from Russian Heritage and my blood type makes me more suspicious, whereas Dearden comes from Italy and is more receptive.  We talked with him for about 45 minutes because he wouldn’t let us leave.  Finally we just turned our backs and walked away.  When we asked where he got his information, he responded “that all this information can be found at the center of theology in Bucharest.”  Kinda scary! 

Be careful who you talk to out there! 

Well hope everyone is doing well! Love and miss you guys.

Elder Brown

Special Thanks to the Barclay Family!

Dann and Shauna attended Elder Barclay's homecoming, March 23rd, in Paul Idaho.  Jacob's family was so welcoming and made us feel right at home.  Jacob too made time, away from his family, to visit and make sure he shared everything about his partnership with Keegan, telling stories about bloc knocking, line dancing and English breakfasts.  Keegan couldn't have asked for a better companion/trainer and is so lucky to have served a short time with Elder Barclay.  When told of our visit, Keegan said "I love and miss that kid!"  

Thanks to the Barclay family for sharing their hospitality, but especially their son with ours.

Sapte Scuri

Seven Ladders

A Ladder

Who's in Charge of these Kids?

Buna Ziua si Prima Vara Fericit - Good Day and Happy Spring!

This week on our way home from block knocking, Elder Dearden and I were waiting to cross the street in the dark and a car slowly pulls up to us and gets super close to running over my toes on the side of the road.  He rolls down his passenger side window and we look in to find an Orthodox Priest who asked us "who gave you permission to be here?"  We replied "nobody, do we need permission to be here?"  He went on to explain that this is his sector of the city and we weren’t allowed to be there.  He told us that nobody around here wants to listen to us.  I responded and said "actually, not only do we live here in this sector, but we also have members here."  The look on his face was priceless and responded that we had no members here.  Threatening us to never come back here or he won’t be as nice!  It seriously felt like something off of the A&E show "Gang Wars."  Apparently the city is on a system where the Orthodox Priests split up the separate sectors. 

Our investigators are doing alright. Florin still hasn’t shown-up to church but Tavi is slowly working towards his baptism date in June. 

This week we had zone conference in Bucharest. It was pretty good and President Hill had some cool things to say but the thing I took out of it most is that when we go home, we will miss Romania so much!  When I entered the country, a group of Elders left.  Well just three months later, one (Elder Cunningham) returned and sat in on our zone conference. From across the chapel, I just watched as he nodded and agreed with everything President said about the good people of Romania.  He looked so sad, like he was missing something from his life.

This week we went on a hike in the mountains. We had to take a train to a nearby city of Brasov and then walked 8 kilometers until we arrived at our hike.  It was a slot canyon called Sapte Scuri, which means seven ladders.  As you hike through the slot canyon, you obviously have to use seven ladders to get to the top and around the waterfalls.  It was way sweet and I took tons of pictures.

Hope everyone is having a good week and I will see you soon!

Love, Elder Brown

Cake Bosses!

Traffic Jam - Gypsy Style