Quote of the Week

Litany Against Fear   
from the novel Dune by Frank Herbert                  

“I must not fear.

Fear is the mind killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to watch its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.”

A New Transfer!

Shane with some of the church members in Brasov
The Miron family. The girl on the far left just left for her mission to Madrid, Spain!

Thank you so much, Mom and Dad, for the things you have shared. President Hill had actually emailed me back about last week's experience with the activity. Today he posted that part of my email to him in his weekly email to the mission --  as well as other spiritual experiences missionaries have emailed him about.


Last night Elder Cox and I were going over the numbers of lessons and investigators we've had this transfer, and they have all slowly been increasing. This last week was the best one yet!! And by looking back on the condition of the branch, it has been making really good progress as well.


A couple weeks ago a return sister missionary came to Brasov with her family. She had served here in December of 2010, and she said back then the branch had 10-15 active members. This Sunday Sora Jay counted up all the people at church and she said there were 28 members present, not including the missionaries!! Perspective changes everything. 


And now on September 24 Brasov will have it's newest member, Raul, and hopefully his grandma will be ready by then as well! She continues to progress, study the scriptures, and pray. All she needs to do is start coming to church! 


Oh, so transfers: Elder Cox and I are both staying here!! Sora Bedebone is also staying, and she will be going senior! Her new companion is Sora Henrie who is one transfer below Sora Bedebone, so they knew each other in the MTC. So, not to much is changing here which is a good thing. The Lord obviously still has work for me to do in Brasov, and I'm more than ready and willing to do it. Just the other day the hymn "I'll go where you want me to go" came into my mind, and I thought about how all through high school and even the period of time when I was filling out all the paperwork for my mission I had doubts about whether I was truly willing to go wherever the Lord wanted me to go and do whatever the Lord wanted me to do. I had a fear of the unkown. 


But, I still went through with it all, and now that I am a missionary, my attitude has totally changed. I have spent the last 10 months doing all the things that I was most scared of doing. Going to a foreign country where I have literally no connections or relations, being around people that I know nothing about, talking to people every day about something that I rarely even shared with my closest friends. Now I feel like  I can say with a sure confidence that I truly am willing to do whatever the Lord has for me to do. 


I really appreciated that quote from Dune. That's exactly how I feel. I have faced my fears, let them pass over and through me. The only thing different I feel from what the author of Dune said, is that the only thing left is not me. It's much, much more than that. I am enveloped in the love and Spirit of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Raul is continuing to progress well, he is so so smart! He is definitely going to become a stake president, or even an area authority for Romania. I have never seen someone his age hunger and thirst for spiritual truth. And when he recieves it, he recognizes it and absorbs it all. We had two lessons with him this past week, and the first one was a pretty big curve ball. In Romanian schools it's required to take a religion class and the State provides Orthodox religion classes as the standard and its been really confusing Raul. We've had to teach him that you don't have to pray to Icons, that God is not just an unkown eternal spirit, and many other "plain and simple truths" that have been lost in the doctrine of man mingled with scripture. 


So, we decided that we needed to teach him the full lessons, just like any other investigator. A couple days ago we taught the Resotration, and he just completely soaked it all up!!! It was so amazing seeing the light of understanding in his eyes, and at the end of the lesson, without even asking him, he bore his own personal testimony of Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and of Christ's true church. We taught slowly and asked him lots of questions to make sure he was understanding, but every time we had to define a word or concept, once we explained it to him simply, he totally got it. He understands the need for priesthood authority, he understands what priesthood authority is, he understands why there needed to be a restoration, he understands why God commanded Moroni to bury the plates so that the records could be preserved for these days. 


At the end of the lesson he had a lot of questions about life after death, what happens to our bodies and our spirits, whether angels are immortal or not, in a previous lesson he even asked if God has a mother. This kid thinks DEEP!!!!!! We told him that next time we talk about where we came from, why we're on the earth, and where we will go after this life.

It's been a pretty rollercoaster week, a whole rollercoaster transfer actually, and I expect nothing less from the next one!

Shane with more church members in Brasov
The Rautu family. The mom's a member, dad is not, and the son is the branch's only deacon!

That story about the drunk kid at the funeral really touched me, Dad. I'm so proud and grateful to have been rased by parents who are such Christ-like examples. It also made me think of all the people that I've met who have that same anguish in their souls. It is so hard to watch, and even harder when they blind themselves by their pride. That is something I've learned a lot about the Romanian people. They are a proud people. It is a huge stumbling block for them and for us missionaries because we can only do so much. We give them the gospel but they have to be humble enough to recieve it. It makes me think of when Christ did not enter certain cities because he said their faith was so weak that he could not perform any miracles there. Not that I'm losing hope for this country, because there most certainly are people here who are very humble and ready for the gospel, but a large amount of people here are blinded by one of Satan's best tools, pride. If anything it helps me understand a little more how God must see the world, and what it really means to understand the will of the Lord.

Thank you so much again for everything, and I look forward to sharing everything that will happen in the week ahead of me!

Love, Elder Myers

Last Week!!!

Yep, today starts the last full week of transfers! Next Monday we find out who's getting trasnfered where. I've heard from my AP's that I'll probably leave, and from my Zone Leaders that I'll probably stay and I could see it going both ways so I don't really know what's going to happen. I feel like I'll probably stay (here in Brasov). 


Sooooooo wow, that's awesome to hear about Eli's first dance, him starting high school, and seminary! 6:15!!! Man I'm glad I graduated when I did haha. Sounds like planting the pomergranate trees is quite the new project. I'll be excited to come home and help with the harvest! 


So yeah about my district...sorry I'm so horrible without telling you about people.....you know me, I'm more of an events, places, feelings and sounds person. So Elder Cox is from Colorado, and he did a year at BYUI before he came out and wants to major in business. He's a really smart guy and full of surprises. He is all over puns; I think Dad and Jared would get along just fine with him. 


Sora Bedebone --I've actually served around her for over half my mission so far. She was born in LA, then moved to Las Vegas, and she's Samoan. So she now speaks three languages! Samoan was her first language, then English and now Romanian. She was in the MTC district after me so I knew her a little bit there, and she was in my district for one transfer in Cluj, and now two and a half transfers here in Brasov. 


Sora Jay is from Utah, and she is finishing her mission at the end of this transfer. She's super smart, majoring in statistics, and really good at Romanian. She also has 13 brothers and sisters!


Oh, and before I forget, yes I got my package with the music, thank you so much! And all the music is fine, except you put a Foo Fighters album on there. It's the one that has an acoustic CD and a harder CD and I think you meant to put on the acoustic one but you put on the more faster harder one. No worries though I can just take it off. Oh and for some reason none of the MOTAB works....It says it doesn't have a valid license or something like that...whatever, that's not a big deal either. I think I have some MOTAB on my hard drive that I can put on.
This weeks been really good! Still low on the number side, but the quality of the lessons and investigators we have definitely makes up for it. I'd much rather have 1 or 2 really solid investigators than have 8 investigators and only some of them keep their committments. Our two investigators are still Raul and his grandma Elena. We had really good lessons with both of them. Elena has been studying the scriptures through True to the Faith and really likes it a lot.

Saturday we had the branch activity "Pioneers of Brasov" aaaaaaaaaand it was pretty much a disaster. It had a fairly good turn out, and we even had 2 non-members come, but it was hard to get the members to  participate fully. It was kind of interesting because most of the things that stunt this branch's functionality and organization were immediately manifested in the activity. That night I went home feeling horrible and poured my heart out in prayer for the welfare of this branch. 


Then came church service the next day. My prayers, and I'm sure all of the missionaries' prayers in Brasov, were answered that day. It was literally one of the best church services I've ever seen and that this branch has ever had! Sora Jay gave an excellent talk about forgiveness, and Iuliana (who was just recently called to be RS Pres) talked about being humble, and the last speaker was a member of the district presidency who talked about temple marriage. All the talks were amazing and I felt the spirit soooo strong. Then the rest of church just went really smoothly. Exactly the way it should. There were 2 non-members there, one who's a former investigator who comes to English and the other a former investigator who's the son of one of the sisters' investigators. Priesthood went really well, the sisters said that RS was amazing! Everyone came out of the classes that day full of joy and love. It inspired me personally with a newfound hope for this branch.

That was deffinitely the top miracle of the week, and one of the biggest miracles I've seen yet. I don't know how it happened, but the feeling and atmosphere of this branch turned a complete 180 from Saturday night to Sunday morning.

Well that's about it, running short on time right now. I hope you've enjoyed it! Thank you all so much for your awesome loving words. I love you all!

Elder Myers

Halfway Through Summer

Sora Bedebone, Elder Myers, Sora Jay
Rashnov, Romania

Hello there my beloved family and everybody who happens to read these things after my mom posts them up on the blog!! Oh my gosh those pictures you sent me of Ember and Tristan are soooooo cuuttee!!!!!!! The one of Ember holding the cat actually made me do a double take because at first I thought it was Phelps! It looks just like him. Give both of those two little monsters a big hug and kiss for me!

In answer to the question about groceries, I've actually been meaning to take pictures of stuff like that for a long time but always forget to. Romania has a few different big CostCo like grocery stores, the one I usually go to is called Kaufland and is a German supermarket. As far as what we buy, an average grocery list is just stuff like chicken or ground beef/pork, eggs, cheese, milk, bell peppers, onions, apples, maybe some carrots and cucumbers, tomato sauce, salami, bread, snacks, etc....I'll be sure to take pictures of their salami and sausage aisles. They're huge. It's weird because I'm sure there are things that would seem really foreign to you about the produce that I'm totally used to now, so it's kind of hard to say what's different haha... Last week we got some green olives too, which were a big treat! Elder Cox is the first companion  I've had who has really liked olives.

Thank you for the suggestion about holding a special fast and then having the main members meet together. We haven't had branch council all transfer long because no one shows up. But, this Saturday we're having a branch activity that will be called Pionerii Brasovului (Pioneers of Brashov). We will have members share stories about their conversions and stories about Mormon pioneers crossing the plains. Then after that we will play some unity/trust building games. I really hope that it helps the members become more bonded in the Spirit and more trusting of each other.

This week had it's ups and downs, but on the whole I felt satisfied going to sleep last night. The guy, Antonius, that showed up at church last week told us that he didn't want to join the church because he felt like he would be betraying himself. I didn't really understand why and he couldn't explain it to me, but that's how it was. We also have not been able to get a hold of Ovidiu for about two weeks now.

On the upside, we set up a baptismal date with Raul! He's the son of a member who's turning eight on Sept. 21, and we set a bapt date for Sept 24. He's totally ready for it! He's such a smart kid. Also, hopefully we will have baptismal dates established with his grandparents as well!!!! About a year ago they investigated the church, met with sister missionaries, and had baptismal dates! The grandma, Elena was interviewed and everything was good to go, but then some misunderstandings occurred, and  she stopped coming to church. So, this week Elder Cox and I talked to her after our lesson with Raul (he stays at his grandparent's house during the week) and she basically told us that she wants to want to be baptized, she just feels like things never got resolved. We told her that we could give her a priesthood blessing to help her be at peace, and she said that she would read more from True to the Faith, pray about it, and then tell us how she feels, whether she wants a blessing or not.

She actually told us about an experience her husband had where he was deathly ill and had to have some kind of crazy operation, and the doctors didn't expect him to live. She actually knew someone who had the same operation and they died 3 days after. But her husband received a priesthood blessing of healing and was completely fine! The operation went smoothly, and afterwards the doctors found nothing wrong with him at all!! That was pretty much a testimony to her that the church is true, and she loves reading from the Book of Mormon, and she loves the church services. So, with the Lords help we're hoping that she and her husband will be baptized on the 24th with Raul!!!!

That was probably the biggest miracle of the week. Other than that we haven't been able to find any new investigators, but we've met and talked with a lot of really cool people. Yesterday we talked to these 3 Penticostal teenager guys, and they are really really good guys!! One of them Daniel, wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon and said that he was glad he talked to me about it because before he thought it was just some weird book  that we read out of, didn't know who Mormon was etc...I told him that Mormon was a prophet in ancient America, and that the Book of Mormon teaches us the Gospel of Jesus Christ, just like the Bible. I read some verses to him from it, and he said that it was really similar to the Bible. He was super interested and said that for sure he would take it home and read it. These guys are soo cool, they don't drink, smoke, gamble, and Daniel was talking to me about how hard it is to be a true Christian in today's world. He talked about how everybody lives really immoral lives, all the girls dress really immodestly, and its hard to maintain high standards.

Then today, something really random happened. On our way to internet, Elder Cox and I ran into an investigator from BacauBrashov!! So that was super crazy! He's such a good kid and his parents are really nice people to. He's been an investigator for a long time and has a testimony of the church and the Book of Mormon and everything He's just put off baptism for a really long time.

Shane's photo from the fortress ruins in Rashnov, Romania

fortress ruins, Rashnov, Romania

more fortress ruins

Soooo, that's pretty much it for the news. Going into week 5 of the transfer, it has just blown by! I'm sending you some pictures of last weeks p-day. We went to this town called Rashnov and saw some old fortress ruins, that was really fun! In my opinion it was better than Castle Bran because it was way more midevil (oh my gosh I can't spell any more--last Sat during English class I spelled winging whinging and totally thought it was right) and old and crumbling. I love you all, have a beautiful week!! I hope Allyson and Jared's AC gets fixed soon!

Love,

Elder Myers

Hey All

Hi everyone! Wow, I didn't know the family reunion was coming up so soon!! Now that I think of it, it is that time of year....weird. Well, I've spent the last hour and a half on Mormon.org because I was locked out of my email account for some reason so I have to be breif (is that spelled right?)


In answer to the culture questions, we have a washing machine for our clothes but no dryer, so we hang our clothes up on a rack. And a lot of the missionary apartments have microwaves, but really we don't use it that often because there are hardly ever leftovers. 

So this week was pretty trying. Elder Cox and I have been working really hard and have gotten almost nothing. Literally, we had one lesson the whole week. Until Sunday. Sunday comes around and this guy in his late 20's shows up to church. His story is really similar to Ovidiu's in that he found our churche's website, liked what he saw and what he learned about our religion and life style, and came to church! He told us that he's looking for truth, and that while he was at church he felt really, really good. He was really impressed by our church's standards (word of wisdom stuff etc.) He speaks English pretty well, and wants a copy of the Book of Mormon in English so he can have the original translation. After church we sat down and had a lesson with him and he asked us what he would have to do to become a member, so we told him, took his number, and we're gonna meet up this week!! 


Then later that day we were completely led by the spirit to a park that we usually don't go to because the sister missionaries tract there a lot. But we felt like we should go there, so we did. We were in the park for no longer than 10 minutes when we ran into a less active member who we'd been trying to set up with for the past couple of weeks just sitting on one of the park benches! We sat down, had a lesson, and the Spirit was really strong. When we first started talking to him he seemed a little depressed and unsatisfied with life. But by the time the lesson ended, his entire countenance was changed and he just did a complete emotional 180!! That was a really big faith building experience for me.

Well I'm really sorry but I've gotta run. We've only got an hour and half left for p-day and we still have to go grocery shopping! Thanks for the pictures --  sounds like you all had a really good time at the reunion. Love you all!!

Love, Elder Myers

Quote of the Week:

This week's quote was sent to us by Shane:


"Dumnezeu iti da, dar nu iti puna in geanta" which means "God gives you, but he doesn't put it in your bag." 

Thank You, Thank You

Well everyone, congratulations you have effectively left me speechless. I love you all so much and am so grateful to have such amazing people in my life. Thank you so much for everyone's words of love, encouragement and inspiration. That's the stuff the missionaries live off of. At least me anyways...It was awesome to hear from Julia, and I wish her and Cullen the best of luck down in San Francisco! And to everyone, just...thank you thank you thank you.


 I don't understand how my words have had such an impact on your lives. I don't feel like someone who shares a Spirit-filled and inspired letter every week, I'm just a 20 year old guy trying to do my best in a calling that I feel like is much, much bigger than me. But, then again it's always good to get another perspective on things to give you encouragement, hope, and strength. That is so awesome that there was just barely another baptism in our ward!! Absolutely incredible! Rachel's story sounds like an absolute miracle! 

Mom and Dad, what you both said about being united as one body in Christ has really helped me. Soo.....what's it like being a district leader? What are my responsibilities? Simply put being a district leader means that every night you call the members of your district, make sure they're home safe and keep updated with their investigators etc, plan weekly district meetings, meet with the branch president weekly, and attend branch counsel. However, that's only the things I do. As far as responsibilities go, I am essentially responsible for the Spiritual well-being of my district, I am to be an example of an obedient and hardworking missionary to the other missoinaries and to the branch members. I am supposed to be the branch president's right hand man, his best friend, and I am held accountable for all of this to my Zone Leaders, the AP's, President Hill, the branch president and more importantly, God. Now take all of that, add on the whole training thing and being responsible for basically the way that Elder Cox serves the rest of his mission, and think about how my brain processes responsibilities and duties. Is it stressful? Yes. Is it challenging? Yes. Do I feel inadequate and unqualified at times? Yes. Do I witness miracles and feel the strength of heavenly guardians? Every. Single. Day. 

This branch is struggling a lot, and not very much is being done about it. I've been thinking, we've all been thinking as a district, about how we can help this branch become what it once was. A lot of the members are becoming depressed, discouraged and close to giving up, and I've felt completely helpless with everything. But what you said to me today about uniting ourselves and becoming a body of one has confirmed exactly what members have been saying and what us missionaries have been thinking. This branch needs unity, trust and love. So....within the next couple weeks I will be doing everything I can visiting members, talking with the branch president, talking with my mission leaders to get advice and direction to help these people come together. 


We've been thinking about holding a branch activity where we can have people share their testimonies, thoughts, ideas and feelings, and set some goals together as a branch.  I've been doing my best to be patient with the members here, I know that life is really hard for them and that most of them are just barely getting by, but what I don't think they fully realize is that it doesn't have to be that way. I feel that once they learn to reach out to each other, forgiving each other for past offenses and disagreements, stop taking sides and pointing fingers and become united in purpose then they will witness tremendous growth in the branch and blessings will pour down from heaven.


There is a saying in Romanian they use here a lot that says "Dumnezeu iti da, dar nu iti puna in geanta" which means "God gives you, but he doesn't put it in your bag." In essence, you have to work for blessings. You can't just sit around and wait for things to get better. And while there are a few members who do do a lot of work for the branch, staying in contact with less actives, sharing the gospel with friends etc, it's only a select few, and those select few are getting burnt out.

As for investigators, we had another lesson with Marcela and she came to church again! She's read up to 1 Nephi 9 and is continuing to read. However its been hard getting her to pray. The thing is she's really open to our beliefs, but too open the point where she doesn't really see the importance of gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith because she says that we all pray to the same God, so we're all going to go the the same place after this life. Hopefully after we finish teaching her the Plan of Salvation she will start to understand a little better.


On the bright side, Ovidiu, the guy who just showed up at church last week, came again!!!! We were able to have a lesson with him during the second hour of church and it went really really really well!!! He's already read almost halfway through 2 Nephi!! At the end of the lesson we asked that if he came to find that this church is true if he be baptized, and he said "well, I don't have a belief in this book or in this church yet, but I want to. So yes, of course if I feel like this is God's path for me I will certainly be baptized. I just have to come to know for myself first."   !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So........basically if he keeps up his commitments he will absolutely, undoubtedly be baptized either this transfer or the next. He's so prepared. He's 43, he does volunteer work as a counselor for children who have been abused, and he's single and has never been married because he wants to marry someone who has the same faith as him, and he's never really found the right church. 


Then last night we were vila knocking and everyone rejected us until literally the very last door. A middle aged man opened the door, we told him we wanted to talk to him about the Book of Mormon. He said he'd never heard of it, that he studies from the Bible but wants to know what this other book is about. He apologized saying that we couldn't come in at the time because he had guests, but he asked if we had some place where we could meet up. I told him we could meet up at our chapel and then we exchanged numbers and he said he and his wife would be very interested in sitting and talking with us!!! So we're super excited for that as well. 

Thank you so much once again for all your love and inspiration. I love you soo sooo much!!

Cu drag,
Elder Myers