So this week has been crazy!! Technically it is has been a week and a half.... But yea. I visited pretty much everyone one in the branch in 2 days as well as packed up to go and holy cow 2 days is most definitely not enough time to pack up and go. Transfers use to be announced Saturday morning but they changed it to right before church on Sunday, I mean I think that was why I had such a hard time at church not crying and stuff.
Anyways, my vote is for Saturdays!
My last lesson in Constanta was with a cute lady from the branch who we have been visiting for a while and trying to get her ready for the temple. She is afraid that doing temple work will disturb her ancestors and she will be cursed, so she is not getting her family history done. It is really sad because she has no children so the work for her parents and siblings won't get done anytime soon in this life. Every time I am over there I can feel her family asking us to teach her about family temple work and the importance there of, but she just would not get it. We took the senior couple Elder and Sister Alston over with us for the lesson at her request and right before we started the lesson this member asked the Senior Couple to give the lesson instead of us! So we translated a lesson from English to Romanian and man, what troopers are the Alstons for giving a lesson so incredibly last minute.
After the lesson I asked Elder Alston for a blessing and it was one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I was told many things but one of them was to remember that the reason I came out was that I was here primarily serve the Lord. Which was interesting because I think for a while I started focusing on the people as the primary reason instead of the lord if that makes sense? Actually it might make me sound like a terrible person, but it was really perspective changing.
Wednesday morning I pulled all my suitcases to the door at 4:30 in the morning and went back to my window and opened it up and looked out to the Black Sea for the last time. Aww man!! I am going to miss that place!!!
On Sunday I gave a talk about the true gift of Christmas and it went really well! Surprisingly well actually. The gift of tongues is real, and I most definitely do not know the Romanian language and I doubt that I will know it fluently by the time I leave. I will tell you a missionary secret, most foreign missionaries do not come back fluent language speakers, crazy to think of that right? I am sure working hard at studying, but the grammar of this language is kickin' my pants!!! Closest living language to Latin and it has the craziest rules. literally the craziest rules... We have like declensions, and moods, and all sorts of grammar junk. It is rare to not make mistakes in every conversation that I have. Getting there, sooner than later hopefully.
The branch here is absolutely amazing, I love it. The members here are so incredibly strong. It is really interesting to see how the history and politics of Romania have really effected the growth of the church. The mission was opened in 1993, at that time the communist government had just been overthrown in '89. The church grew rapidly here and in 2007 Romania joined the European Union which meant they had, for a lack of better terminology, European citizenship and for the first time the Romanian boarders were open for people to migrate to other countries and have other opportunities. Then there was a mass exodus. The branches were crippled because of the amount of members leaving Romania and now here we are trying to get the branches here back up to normal capacity. A lot of the members went "missing" as they moved away and didn't request their membership records or moved to areas where the church wasn't available. These were most of the young adult members and families and in our branches we have a lot of senior members. We have about 2,900 members in Romania, but that is not the amount of active members. In Bucharest alone they have about 120-150 active members and 500 less active members that missionaries are currently tracking down their where abouts. The reason why I brought up this history is because it is mentioned every Sunday, the big question, how do we keep the members we have in Romania so that the church can grow here? One member approached me and I learned that he had been in-active for a while and has now come back to church and when he came back the branch had gone from 30-40 people a week down to 6-15 people a week. He asked me, "Where did all the members go?" It was a really sad conversation.
In Zone Conference this week we learned that we are literally the best mission in the world as far as retaining members, once they are baptized they stay and they don't leave. Yes!!! So we are getting it down, and we are well on our way here in Romania.
Seriously the branch here is so cool!! There members are so incredibly kind and hilarious!! I just got let into the comedy central of Romania and it cracks me up. There is one older couple here that made me smile when I met them. The wife is blind and the husband is deaf. And right when they came into the church the blind sister came right up to me and introduced herself leaned into my ear so her husband couldn't here and said, "He is my husband, he is my husband. He can't hear." hahah! And he saw her talking to me and said really loud. "I am her eyes and she is my ears." Sweet, sweet people. I felt so welcomed into this family and I am so ready to help them here. Anyways I love you all, can't wait to see your faces in ... 9-8 days? Not sure how long till Christmas, but then:) Love you all so much!!
Here is a picture of my companion and I at the Zone Conference in Galati, we had a scarf exchange for Christmas.
And Aunt Michiko as promised here is a picture of two kids singing carols for money. They came into the restaurant we ate at for lunch today:) I know the one on the left looks seriously soooo happy:)
-Sora Long
