He loves to plank!!

Gratitude

Hello hello! I thought I would make this perhaps the best email of my mission this week, I figure why not. I haven't really written a great email, one just where you are like, YES! So I thought today. Today is the day just for that. It might take forever like it used to take for me to write all my other long emails. But I am not going to regret. I really enjoyed the other day just going back over some past emails and seeing the change in me, my attitude, behavior, character, and way of thinking and the small ways that I have changed here and there. And I want to make this an email for the history books that I will come back to again and again whenever I want to reflect on my time here in Romania. Not so much to tell you how the week went, what I did, what I didn't do, but to let this be an email for me to come back to and enjoy to read. But hope you like it as well.

I find myself here in the city of Timişoara, Little Vienna, the window to the west here in Romania. A most beautiful city, in my eyes and in the eyes of many others. I have had so many memories here on the streets, here in total strangers' houses, in their apartments, in the parks, and random conversations in restaurant, in stores, and where ever I find myself. I have tried to love everyday I have spent here in this city. It's funny, looking back on the past, it's easy to focus on the good and forget the bad, or easy to only see the bad and forget the good. I want to say I have loved everyday here in this city, in this country, and in the mission, but that would honestly be a lie. I have had those days, where I feel like almost all hope is lost, where just everything that could have gone wrong, it went wrong. I have had some tough days and days where I just want to get out of all this mess and forget about it for a while. I think those days are normal. I am not mad I had those days looking back, but those kind of days helped me in the long run, while going through them, yeah, I didn't quite enjoy them. But I learned from them and just keep going on and moving forward. You technically can't go backward, so why not move on and move forward. When those days came, one thing was really hard to control, and that was my attitude.

I keep continuing to learn about the power, the importance, the rewards of an attitude that is positive, with an upward look on life. With that 'hope' that things will be better later in the day, the next day, week, month, even year. And while it is so important to have that kind of attitude and hope for the future, it is so much important to make that future possible by focusing on the present. By doing what stands in your power to change the future. Changing the future by changing the present. We can't always say, oh it'll be better tomorrow. No. You are the master of your fate. Some things, you can't change and they will always turn out the way they were supposed to be, but you can always change your thought process, the way you think, act, speak, and see life, and perhaps the most important, the way you react to situations that you find yourself in. It's so important to keep learning everyday. From the books of life. Words of wisdom. From the experience of others, from those sometimes with less experience, others with much more experience. I have always loved the thought that everyone you meet you in life, you need to learn something from every single person, and not only learn something from them, but also to teach them something as well. I love learning and knowing more about this life, world, and the lives of others. Makes me form who I am. The individuality and uniqueness of a person is a combination of many other people that they associate with and whose presence they are in. It's important to be you. Just keep learning and do what you know and live today and don't wait for tomorrow.

This past week, thinking about various things and life, I realized and it hit me, how much truly I will miss this place here in Romania. I have loved, for the most part learning about the culture, the history and formation of the Romanian nation, the thought-process of the people, the older generation, middle, and younger generation, such a changing place with the passing of time and the change of thinking from the old and young. I will never understand what it means to live in a time when they did from 1989 and before. It's such an interesting place and I have learned so much from each of these generations, talking to them on the streets and getting to know them and learn more about their lives. I simply love learning. And I do learn something everyday, maybe it's a review of something I learned 10 years ago, but I learn something new and useful everyday that's important for me to know. I have truly been blessed to have a functioning mind to grasp and learn somewhat, the Romanian language. I feel like I can always be better, but with the increase of english speaking Romanians, it will inhibit my true learning of the language. It would be great to have served with a native where I had to speak Romanian with him, but with my companions we have been able to speak in Romanian and I have loved learning all the saying, idioms, and expressions that are unique to each area of the country. I learn a few words each day. At the beginning I am so grateful for the companions I was with and their experience that made me grow and become the speaker I am today. I am going to miss speaking Romanian, but I will still use it and speak with all those I can in Romanian.

I am grateful and content.

The Hunedoara Castle was beautiful. Castelul Corvinilor. It was great. Abundant with history and many stories. I am glad I was able to go and visit inside. I took a little too many pictures, but I will enjoy going back through all of them and looking at each and every single one. It was a good time, with my comrade from Texas, Elder McBride and also Elder Green and from Calgary, Elder Lung. The Sisters, Sora Bulloch and Hosking and the elders in Deva Elders Speth and Nacu. An interesting story in the van going up to Deva. For perhaps the first time in my life, I actually got some motion-sickness or car sick, how ever you would like to put it. I thought I was going to explode! It was such a weird feeling, because I never ever get car sick. The road was pretty windy and I don't know what happened. I was playing cards with Elder Lund and then all of a sudden is just hit me and I had to stop right away. Oh, but then I realized and remembered an important truth I learned while in my youth. It is all mental. I simply told myself. "what the?! you never get car sick. knock it off" And I did just that. I closed my eyes and it passed quickly. Perhaps minor causes may have helped to this occurance of my squeamishness caused by ambulation, one of which being a lack of intaking of subsistence, a most important meal to be taken when one wakes up. A minor mistake. Should have seen it coming. But it happens. Anyways, I am babbling now about my being sick for 30 minutes and using too much from my thesaurus. The Castle was great. I have loved capturing the funny moments in life, the random moments, and moments that should not be captured on camera. I try to capture them all on camera. I have many pictures to take each day before I leave here from Romania and need to take as many as I can. Videos too are great to film and capture random moments.

Teaching english has been a great memory as well from the mission. Lately in the summer it hasn't been the best, but we have some really genuine people that have been to coming to class and it has been great getting to know them and to help them learn english. And at the same time, teaching english has helped me see how much I don't know about english and it has really helped my learn Romanian as well.

This past weekend was just plain crazy! So so busy. So much walking and how a missionary's day should be. We received lots of names to go visit to see if any members live there. They once lived there and were taken off the list, but then added back to the list for some reason. Apparently in Bucuresti and I am sure in other parts of the world, members say they move away, so they are taken off the list, no one ever visits them any more, turns out they still have been living there for the past 3 years and if by a chance or some random occurrence they come into contact again with us or with other members on the church. So Friday, turns out it was about 40 degrees here, hot, let me tell you. I was pretty wet by the time we got home and it doesn't help that we come home to a hot apartment where the air conditioner doesn't really cool it down, although I am very grateful. I always try to remember to always be grateful, no matter what. I took a cold shower and then went to bed in the heat. And I still am alive. No worries. But anyways we walked all over Timişoara and talked to quite a lot of people, trying to track down all theses people. Not a whole lot of results. But that's alright. That night, Friday a member from the Mission Presidency came into town from Ploieşti to make visits with me to members here and to some of his old friends to spend the weekend here.

Great story. Thursday we deliver a letter written by me to some less actives, inviting them back to church and trying to seek out those that will come back. I had met with this members mother, also a member a year and a half prior. And I thought about him and thought I should give him a letter. We went Thursday. Wasn't home so we dropped it off in his mail box. Then that night, he calls! And wants to meet up. We went over early Saturday morning after he got off work (night-shift) and we had a good chat and lessons about Helaman 5:12. He seems like he wants to come back to church and hopefully he will in the near future. He has had lots of trials this year and I hope to seem him change his life around. Then right after that visit we went and met with the first Counselor.

Then for the first time since being back here in Timişoara, we were able to meet with this less-active family. I had met with them on many occasions when I was here last year. They are all great friends of the Counselor and we had a really powerful visit with the husband and wife and it went really well. After that we went over to the church to meet with the Relief Society president and had another great visit with her. I love her so much and she does so much and wants only the best for the branch here in Timişoara. After her, we went to another awesome family, again with the 1st Counselor and it went great. After that visit we went again to another family, letting the Counselor head to his hotel to clean up and we later went and met up at the church for a Relief Society activity. Went really well. Decent turn out. Had one of my favorite meals here in Romania, ardei umpluţi, which are stuffed peppes. rice and pork and some tomatoes and spices and a sauce. Super good. I pretty much know how to make it and can't wait to try it out, along with many other recipes. It was great. And as with every meal in Romania, we had some bread, and some juice as they say it, just drinks. And then the elders made a cake for some reason. Not sure why, but it was pretty good. And then we left the church for a little bit, went to meet up with another less active. Then quickly back to the church for some celebration. We sat around the table, just chatting. All us missionaries, the six of us, then a friend came of ours, younger married girl, sister's investigator, came to church for the first time yesterday. Then they had these contraptions with a string that when you pulled the string the bottom/top would blow off and some smoke would erupt and this paper confetti or something shot out. The first one they did it, when I walked back into the room, really made me jump. They sang this song, called "La Mulţi Ani" and while they were singing, they were all looking at me for some reason and they wouldn't let me sing with them. Felt bad, because they didn't sound too well without my voice. But I endured. And at that point I was forced to enter my office which earlier I needed to go in, but didn't have permission from anyone. But when I went in, it was all decked out with many balloons and confetti, and papers and my desk full of sticky-notes congratulating me for this occasion and a big box in the middle full of gifts. A few of the gifts included a shot glass, an apron, a big key holder that was actually a key to put up on the wall by the door of my house, some small toys when you squeeze them, they squeek, along with a t-shirt, and a pillow, and a La Mulţi Ani-card. We had some champagne (pentru copii), actually two bottles, good thing i had my shot glass. After our drinks, we played some games, chatted, laughed and then called it a night. It was such a great day. One of my favorites for sure. Lots of wishes from members, investigators, and other missionaries.

And then Sunday was great. Church went great and a member here was just way too nice as usual. She invited us over, me and my companion with the senior couple that came down from Arad for church and spoke in church. And she made us the best meal ever. More stuffed peppers. I love those things! With mashed potatoes and chicken. A delicious eggplant sauce. And a most scrumptious chocolate cake. I love Romanian and Hungarian food so much. Ate really well this past week. And saving some money and having the members help us out a lot in that aspect. I am so grateful for them. I love the members here in Timişoara. I am really going to miss all of them. I have grown to love them more and more.

It was a fantastic week family and friends. I love my experiences and the knowledge I have gained here these past two years. I have sure learned a lot. I love you all.

Thanks for the La Mulţi Ani wishes. Take care all of you. Be grateful for what you have.