Buna Ziua!
What’s up! Another week just flew by! I still have no idea what’s going on but I’m getting adjusted to life here in a big city.
First thing, I’ve been getting questions about lessons and members and stuff lately. Honestly, we rarely teach lessons here. It just doesn’t happen! In our "Standards of Excellence," they would like us to teach one lesson a week. That’s a goal, not an expectation. For the entire mission (110 missionaries), there are three people with baptismal dates. I guess my point is, this is EASTERN EUROPE! People are heavily religious but it’s been said a few times to me that "if you aren’t Orthodox, then you aren’t Romanian!" There are only three or four members that come to church that aren’t American and we’ve never received a meal, other than on Thanksgiving.
What we do in Buch is contact all the time! Elder Barclay has tried to get me out contacting every possible way just to get my feet wet. Just yesterday, we were block knocking for six hours! We gave away one BOM and received one email address. Definition of a block . . . So I guess back in the day of communism, they destroyed everyone’s homes and stuck them in these giant block buildings – Small apartments as far as the eye can see. Besides all of the challenges, I love talking to people and hearing their opinions and telling them a little bit about what we believe. I am having fun and even though we don’t get to teach, I think that people are still learning from our one minute conversations.
The apartments we have are actually pretty nice; just like everyone else, we live in blocks. We have a washing machine, but they don’t have dryers here. There’s a drying rack in the living room that we set our clothes on and it’s nice because when your clothes dry they feel like cardboard and smell like whatever you are cooking - which is nice!
The landlord for our apartment is a non-member but I’m pretty sure me and
Barclay are going to baptize him. His
name is George and he is the coolest guy ever! Before we moved into this apartment, there
were sister missionaries in there. They told us that every so often he wouldn’t
ask for the rent because he just wanted to pay for us. We got a call this week that he was in the
hospital and had to have heart surgery. We
went to visit him after church yesterday, before his surgery, and gave him a
blessing. It was the coolest thing I’ve done
since arriving here. After the blessing,
he was talking with his friends and said . . . "you don’t find boys like this
anywhere. When I was their age, all my
friends were going to clubs and getting in trouble! These are men of God and they have faith."
He asked us for a BOM and gave us a hug
and a kiss on both cheeks. He then paid ‘US’
for some things we bought for the apartment.
The guy is nuts but we think he’ll be a Bishop down the road.What’s up! Another week just flew by! I still have no idea what’s going on but I’m getting adjusted to life here in a big city.
First thing, I’ve been getting questions about lessons and members and stuff lately. Honestly, we rarely teach lessons here. It just doesn’t happen! In our "Standards of Excellence," they would like us to teach one lesson a week. That’s a goal, not an expectation. For the entire mission (110 missionaries), there are three people with baptismal dates. I guess my point is, this is EASTERN EUROPE! People are heavily religious but it’s been said a few times to me that "if you aren’t Orthodox, then you aren’t Romanian!" There are only three or four members that come to church that aren’t American and we’ve never received a meal, other than on Thanksgiving.
What we do in Buch is contact all the time! Elder Barclay has tried to get me out contacting every possible way just to get my feet wet. Just yesterday, we were block knocking for six hours! We gave away one BOM and received one email address. Definition of a block . . . So I guess back in the day of communism, they destroyed everyone’s homes and stuck them in these giant block buildings – Small apartments as far as the eye can see. Besides all of the challenges, I love talking to people and hearing their opinions and telling them a little bit about what we believe. I am having fun and even though we don’t get to teach, I think that people are still learning from our one minute conversations.
The apartments we have are actually pretty nice; just like everyone else, we live in blocks. We have a washing machine, but they don’t have dryers here. There’s a drying rack in the living room that we set our clothes on and it’s nice because when your clothes dry they feel like cardboard and smell like whatever you are cooking - which is nice!
I still can’t understand the language too well but I’m having a ton of fun and love being completely confused! Barclay is good about making me pray and practice different stuff. It’s super hard to carry a conversation with native Romanians but I think I’m getting better . . . or maybe I’m just so dumb that I don’t realize how bad I am!
Anyway, another week in the Buch!
Love and miss you all,
Elder Brown
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