Romania, Bucharest Mission: Sept. 2010 - Sept. 2012

Monday, March 12, 2012

The Snow is Almost Gone!

Dear loved ones:

   Hello. This is President Lee signing in on another Monday. It's almost the middle of March already. Snow keeps melting. It's finally warming up a bit. It's around 10 degrees celsius for the high today. Right now, I'm actually in Iasi! The Zone Leaders there invited us up to hang out and go airsofting. President Hill gave us permission to come up here last night and then we slept over at the ZL's. It's been fun so far. So, yesterday, we tried to get a maxi-taxi at 7 in the evening to get to Iasi, but it was all booked up. We decided to go to the train station to see if trains were leaving to Iasi. We bought tickets for one going first to a city called Pascani, then to Iasi (on a different train). We made it on and were pretty sure it was our train. Later, we found out that it actually wasn't! Our actual train had left Bacau a little early. So, we did get to Pascani, but we were a little too late and missed the other train going to Iasi. Uh oh. We tried to see if maxi taxis were going there, but the autogara was closed. There were no more trains going to Iasi that night. So, we asked around, and a taxi driver said he could take us. It was pretty much the only thing we could do. It was an hour or more drive to Iasi in the taxi. Fortunately, the taxi driver was a really nice guy. However, he had us pay him 140 lei! So, we paid him, and went to the ZL's (they actually live on the 4th floor of the church villa--a really cool loft-type place) So, it was expensive to get here, but we're grateful we made it! Besides, I got 700 lei back in reimbursements from an expensive apartment bill I had payed a few days ago. It's all good!

   So anyways, we're here in Iasi and hope to have a fun P-day. Bacau is going alright. Elder Peterson and I are having a great time together. He's kinda getting tired of Bacau. This is his third transfer here. We do sometimes get discouraged, but yesterday was a good day at church. We had 8 members and 2 investigators! We had a couple members come that haven't come for a while. It was a good sacrament meeting. Andreea (a super cool member that knows english fluently) gave a great talk on the Holy Ghost. I also gave a talk--on repentance. Sunday school was kinda crazy, but alright. Sora Profira came and gave a lesson on baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. It all turned out well. Sunday school can kinda be an adventure sometimes. I'm glad that Ionela and Sava (our investigators) came. I met Ionela for the first time last week. She came to the church with Alexandra--her friend who is also a great member here in the branch and is Fratele Iancu's daughter. We had a good lesson on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She is so cool. She's funny and down to earth and knows that the BOM is true. She still hasn't felt like she has received a solid answer about being baptized, but we hope to meet her soon again to see if she can be ready for the 24th of March. Sava is doing well. I don't know if he quite understands the importance of a restored church, but I think that his coming to church really helped. He is trying to quit smoking and is reading a little bit from the BOM. Other than that, we don't really have any progressing investigators at the moment.

   Everything else is going well. Being a branch president here is challenging, but it is good experience. It's tough to make changes in this branch...it really comes down to the members. Sometimes I wonder why I was given this assignment--to help a branch keep functioning and to help members do their part. It's really a unique thing. We try to do missionary work too. We hope to see things change--at least in a small measure. Elder Peterson and I do a good job at keeping each other happy and laughing all the time. We always play Settlers of Catan every Monday with Daniel. Elder Peterson always wins too! The whole mission is doing well. There was someone baptized in Pitesti this last week, and there are 18 current baptismal dates across the mission. We will have a general authority come and visit next month-- Elder Gerald Causse of the Seventy. He's in our Europe area presidency. Should be cool. It was great to have Elder Teixiera come last October. I'm also excited for general conference coming in a couple weeks.

   Well, that's about it around this neck of the woods. I'm bucuros (glad) that things well back home. Mom and dad, I hope you had a good time in Santa Barbara. That reminds me of Psych, I miss Psych... Keep me informed on the BYU registration. Do you guys know my password and all to get into myMap (on the BYU website) or whatever it's called? I may have forgotten. If you do know it, please send it to me in an email sometime soon. I still don't even know what classes I want to do...I'm glad Jamie, Mark, and Kenadee are doing well, as well as Chris and Liz. I hope Elder Knapp is ready to come to Romania in a couple weeks! He should be so excited. I hope to see him soon. Keep me up to date on where others from the ward will be going on their missions. It sounds like all is well in the ward back home. Congrats dad, on your super prestigous rating on being a great attorney! How did that happen? Well, I guess that's all I have this week. I love you guys. Have a good week and enjoy the weather. Mai vorbim, ok? Ciao!

Love, Elder/President Lee

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