Well, Allyson's birthday party sounds like it was fun! Happy Birthday Ally!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was cool to hear about Elden and his wife, of course I remember him, he's a really cool guy. And the kittens!! Oh my goodness you have to send me pictures! Thanks a lot for your words of encouragement and support mom and dad. You always manage to tell me exactly what I need to hear. Thanks for the tip about the manuals dad. When I was with Elder Schanck he had to refer to that a lot for how to run the branch. The only sad thing is that the Romanian priesthood leadership has pretty limited access to the manuals because they're not translated into Romanian yet.
So a little update on the branch here, yesterday we had branch conference, and President Lundberg's 1st counselor, President Doru presided and called two new counselors and a new exec sec to the branch presidency! The new 1st counselor is a convert of only about 8 months and the second is a convert since 2005 or so, but they both seem like really good men for the calling. When President Doru got up and announced all the new callings, I just got this feeling of hope and excitement. I almost wanted to stand up and start clapping and shouting! I really feel like things are going to start turning around in this branch.
Now as far as missionary work goes, this week has been one of the most challenging so far. Elder Simmons and I have just been working our tails off. At the end of each day I was completely wiped out, and I'd get up in the morning feeling like I had slept for 5 minutes and then we'd get to work. We've been meeting a lot of people, getting tons of phone numbers and setting up tons of lessons, and literally every single person that we set up with from meeting them on the streets stood us up. They would either give us fake phone numbers, or just not show up to the lesson. We couldn't even meet with our gypsy family because they moved to Constanta! Now something I'm learning more and more about is how Heavenly Father waits until the 59th minute in the 11th hour, and sometimes waits until the 13th hour, and then he scoops you up in his arms and gives you a miracle. And our miracle we had yesterday is named Promise.
His full name, translated into English is Promise of God. He is a student here in Brasov from Nigeria, and has been in the country about 7 months. He is one of the most spiritually in tune people I have ever met. We met him while having a lesson with an investigator who is also from Nigeria, named Alex, whom the Elders who were here before were teaching. So we were just talking with Alex and his roommate, getting to know him a little, talking about The Book of Mormon, when Promise came in the room and sat in on the lesson. At the end Promise told us that when he walked in the room, the Spirit told him that he needed to listen to us. And so he did. He told us that back in Nigeria he was a really religious person, he went to church every Sunday, he read from the Bible, and he allways tried to do God's will. Then when he came to Romania he lost that faith, and it's been really hard for him to get it back because he has no one to go to church with, or to talk about God with since he doesn't know Romanian. So then when he saw us, two young guys preaching the Word of God (as he told us) he was really happy and asked if he could come to church with us and have a copy of the Book of Mormon!!!
So Sunday he came to church, and there is a member named Iuliana who served a mission in England and speaks perfect English who translated for him and for the second two hours of church we had a lesson with him. That was one of the most spiritual experiences I've ever had, the lesson we had with Promise. He told us pretty much his whole life story, how his mom had a couple kids before him who had died as infants, and when he was born his mom named him Promise of God because she said that God had promised her that Promise would live, and he would grow up to live a happy successful life. So for Promise's whole life he told us that whenever he was doing Gods will, going to church, studying the Bible, and trying to be a good Christ-like example, everything went really well for him and he was really blessed. But whenever he had periods of time in his life where his faith would weaken and he would stop obeying God, everything went wrong. He told us that he loves God sooooo much, that he wants to dedicate his life to Christ, he wants to do what we do and share the Word with others, and to increase his faith.
All through the lesson the Spirit was so strong, and you could tell it was teaching Promise the truth of the Book of Mormon, and of this church. By the end of the lesson he was testifying to us about the Book of Mormon!! He was teaching me about how important the Book of Mormon was because it is a guide for us and a support to help increase our faith!!! He said that it doesn't make sense how people speak against it, saying that the Bible is all there is and there can be nothing else!! And he accepted to continue to meet with us and to be baptized on June 11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So there was that amazing lesson, and then that evening while contacting we met a young mom by the park with her kid who said she spent the last 2-3 weeks studying the Bible to know the word of God. So we told her that we have more of the word of God to share with her, and her eyes just lit up and she agreed to meet with us!
And then on the bus ride back to our apartment we saw this kid who we've seen on the bus like 3 other times before, and he looks almost exactly like Mike Mullarky. When we see him, I get this feeling like I should talk to him and Elder Simmons nudges me and says, Elder Myers you've got to go talk to that kid, so I went over and talked to him and his two buddies. Turns out that his name is Gabi, he plays the drums and his favorite band is the Ramones!! Then the kid next to him was Mihai, he plays the guitar and his favorite band is Guns 'n' Roses. Then the third kid's name was Razvan, he plays the base and his favorite band is The Red Hot Chili Peppers!!! And they're all in a band together, looking for a singer! How cool is that????!!!!! I could not believe what was going on! I told them that I was in a band in high school too, and blah blah blah, and I gave them pass along cards, told them how I know what it's like to be in their position and how the Book of Mormon helped me throughout high school. I took all their numbers, and asked them if we could meet up and jam some time, and also talk about the Book of Mormon. They were all really cool with it, and said yeah. So holy smokes, I can't wait for that either!
So basically, I had a week full of hard, hard work with little to no results, then the last day was just like the blessings of heaven poured out on us and I could see a glimpse of how Heavenly Father has been preparing me for this mission for my whole life.
So yeah, basically, that was amazing. On a little side note, about the package stuff, the CD's should be fine. I'm pretty sure I would be able to transfer files onto an MP3 with my hard drive and any computer, and that hooks up to speakers really easily as well, but it's all the same to me. And then also I should be good on socks, the Bradley's sent a bunch in the package. And yeah, tell the Poppa's that money is probably the best thing. Well, I gotta run, have a great week everyone!
Love, Elder Myers
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