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Traditional Romanian Easter eggs |
Happy Easter everyone! I saw that you made your own email account mom, so I hope you don't mind me still writing one big letter and sending it to dad's account. Or I could sent it to yours, it doesn't matter. And don't worry mom, you can call me whatever you want. :) Well, I just read the transfer board and I'm staying in Bacau with Elder Schanck. One of the zone leaders here, Elder Toronto is being transferred to Cluj, where he'll be training a boboc. I'm not going to lie, I would have liked to go to a new city, but at the same time I've put a lot of work in here and hopefully this new transfer we will see some fruits of that work; and it's kind of nice not having to pack.
So far we still don't have any investigators, pretty much all our time has been spent contacting and trying not to go insane haha. However, we do have some potential investigators, one that told us to call him after Easter, one who was out of town for a few weeks, and a couple we've just met on the streets. I'm really hoping that something good will come out of all those high school kids we met in the park that I played the guitar for them. We met up a couple times since that and told them about the Book of Mormon, a little about the restoration. They're pretty much all Orthodox, but some of them seem kinda interested in our church. Then this morning on our way to the grocery store this man stopped us and talked to us. He said that he sees us all the time walking around, wanted to know who we were, where we were from, and a copy of the Book of Mormon! So we gave him one, took his name and number, and I guess we'll see what comes out of that! So that's the dealio here on my side.
The weathers been warming up a bit, it's been nice and sunny, but still windy. I've never been in a place that was as windy as it is here! I think there's been 2 or 3 days in this entire transfer where there hasn't been any wind. And I'm not talking about little light breezes, I'm talking about gusting wind! It's crazy to think that I'll bee here until mid June! You have such a weird concept of time out here as a missionary. It just kinda goes. Some days are slow, others are really fast and by the end of the transfer your just like woah, really? That was six weeks?
Easter eve was pretty awesome! President Lundberg gave all the missionaries permission to go to the midnight Orthodox Easter service, and it was super cool. At 11:30 we bought some candles and went down into the basement of the Orthodox cathedral here in the center of town (it's still under construction so they hold services in the basement). The basement was full of people, and there were priests sitting at this reading chair type thing singing these super cool Orthodox gregorian sounding chants, then at midnight the high priest comes out from this back room where the altar is with a lit candle and lights everybody's candles. The tradition is that the high priest's candle gets lit by the flame from Jerusalem which is lit by God, then everybody's candle gets lit from the priest, and the whole crowd turns around lighting each other's candles and if your candle stays light through the whole service and until you get back home, all your sins are forgiven for that year. So then priest walked through the basement, out of the church, lighting people's candles and chanting as he went and then he and all the other high priests stand up in front of this big old statue of Stefan Cel Mare (Stephen the Great, who is some important guy in old Romanian history, don't really know his story) that's in the middle of this big round-about in the middle of Centru. So all the high priests stood up there, and sang more Orthodox worship songs. At certain intervals one of the priests would walk in front of the other priests waving around the holy smoke thing (I don't really know what those are called) and calling out the crowd "Hristos a inviat" to which the crowd replies "Adevarat a inviat." The whole plaza area around the Orthodox Cathedral and the statue was filled with people, it was pretty crazy! The only other place I've seen so many people standing in one place is for a rock concert, there were easily at least 500 people gathered there! So that was a really cool experience, and now for the next week or so you greet everyone by saying "Hristos a inviat," its so cool!
Haha oh yeah, we also went to the Adventist Easter service and sang in the choir again. Normally, the choir sings in these pews that are up at the front of the chapel, but tucked back in the sides facing each other so the congregation doesn't really see them, but for the Easter service they had the choir stand up in front of the whole congregation. So there me and Elder Schanck are, standing in front of the whole Seventh Day Adventist congregation in our white shirts and black nametags with the Adventist youth! The church even had a professional photographer there taking pictures of the service, so we've gone down in Bacau Adventist history! The head of the LDS church in Bacau and his companion, singing in the Seventh Day Adventist choir haha!
So that was my Romanian Easter experience! I'd say it was pretty memorable. Sounds like you all had a really nice Easter and spring break. Those pictures of Bidwell park are so beautiful! So incredible that all that is just a 15-20 minute drive away from our house! I'm glad to hear that Erik's doing well too. Everyone looks so happy in that picture! Oh and Happy birthday to Erik as well! I know it's a little early, but I figure it's either early or late in my case! And now, the start of a new transfer, a whole new six weeks to improve on the last six, and I'm hoping to make the best of it! I love you all and wish you a happy Easter!
Love, Elder Myers
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