Ciao Ciao!

Heyyyo!  Well hope everyone is loving their first week of REAL FOOTBALL!  I will be asking for good reports over the next few months so be prepared.

We’ve seen huge improvement with investigators, from one progressing investigator at the start of the month to eight by the end!  In fact, a Baptism is scheduled September 13^th.  Plus, President Ivory notices our zone’s progress! 

It’s been a fairly insane week for us, full of: carrying old men up and down 5 flights of stairs; attempting to milk a goat; making homemade doughnuts with a Romanian private investigator; taking an overnight 11 hour train to Bucuresti in seats instead of a sleeping train (we missed our train); and to top it all off, we flew home from Bucuresti.

The animal situation occurred when we visited our Branch President who invited us over to see his new piglets. We ended up playing with all of his lovely creatures and I had the opportunity to chase down a chicken and catch it.

The elderly man is the father of one of our Sister members. He is super mentally ill and too old to even get himself out of bed. Elder Baielli and I had to sit him in a chair and carry him down the stairs. We then took him to the hospital for a few tests, brought him home and back up the stairs. At one point he opened the taxi door when we were traveling at about 80 kilometers per hour . . . amazing!   She was very appreciative and it was good. We are also teaching her husband who is an alcoholic and could probably use all the help he could get at this point . . . very nice guy, but when he’s drunk . . .  

On Sunday night, we left to go to Bucuresti but missed our first train so had to take another one.  The second train was from 10:00 PM to 7:00 AM the next day (Monday).  The problem was that we had to sit; we didn’t get sleeping tickets with a bed.  They were sold out so I didn’t sleep at all that night.  Then we have a six hour meeting right after we arrive in town, so we didn’t even shower. After the meeting we had just enough time to go to the mission office and pick up everyone’s mail, then they put us on the plane back to Arad.  I was searched and got an extreme pat down going through security.  Then my bag got searched because someone’s package had shampoo in it!  I’m surprised the airport security let me get on the plane. Meanwhile, my comp is taking video of my pat down session and the other security lady goes over to him and is mad for filming and makes him delete it!  When we got back to Arad, it was 10:00 PM and we couldn’t sleep in our beds because Gabi Oanta had our apartment deep cleaned and we weren’t allowed to go in . . . so I slept on the other Elders couch.  It’s been a rough few days, but tonight I get to sleep in my own bed. 

Elder Baielli has been really stressed the last few days because we are always doing something and or on the phone.  I've noticed that when he is stressed, I've been laughing.  I’m loving all the chaos and how unpredictable being a Zone Leader can be.

Here’s some photos and I love you guys! 

Keeg