La Mulți Ani România!

La Multi Ani celebration, Pitesti, Romania

That means happy birthday Romania! This week on the 1st of December was Romania's "national day," the equivilant of the 4th of July for US. It was awesome!! In București they put on a huge parade, but we weren't sure if anything was going to happen in Pitesti. Well, at around 4:30 Elder Ekins and I were passing out flyers for English classes when we saw a band setting up in front of the City Hall. We stopped for a couple minutes to check it out, and this man in a suit approached us inviting us inside the City Hall. They were holding some sort of art exposition and a free buffet so naturally, we said yes! We walked aournd a few minutes, the art was all mostly political anti-war type stuff, not bad, and then the Mayor gets up and gives a speech and toasts every one in the hall! After the toast we approached him, told him about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration, and he invited us to come teach his family!!!! ................Ok that part isn't true, but we really did meet the mayor! He asked us where we were from, how we learned Romanian, etc. It was pretty cool!

Romanian Folk Music, Pitesti, Romania

So then after that there was a big parade of a marching band and the Pitești military and law enforcement. After that the mayor gave a speech and there was a fireworks show and a Musică Populară (Romanian folk music) band started playing. Now, Romanian folk music is a very very unique genre. If you go on You Tube and type in musica populara you should be able to find some pretty easily, and you will recognize it right off the bat. Romanians absolutely love the stuff. They go crazy over it! A huge dance circle started up in front of the stage, and even the mayor was dancing with everybody!! So that was pretty cool. 

Other news, well E----- has pretty much dropped....kind of a ridiculous story. So the lady that introduced her to us,  V-----, is a landlady, and missionaries used to live in one of her apartments. She started investigating the church, and eventually wanted to be baptized. Well, the missionaries ended up moving out of her apartment because it wasn't that great and they needed a better one, but once they moved out V---- decided she wasn't going to get  baptized. Ever since then she's tried bribing the missionaries to get them to rent one of her apartments again.


Now, the other elders, Elder Martin and Elder Staheli have been planning to move out of their apartment and V---- has been wanting them to take hers, but they didn't want it. Sunday morning we got a call from V----telling us that she didn't think it was right that Elder Martin and Elder Staheli won't take her apartment and so we won't be able to meet with E---- anymore. I asked her if she had talked to E---- about this, she said she had and that she agreed completely. I have my doubts as to how much E--- actually knows about the situation so we're going to try giving her a call and seeing what she says. Probably one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen happen with an investigator. We both had a feeling that something like this would happen when V---- first referred E---- to us, but we just decided to try it out anyways. And still, it's not totally over, but I don't really see much good coming out of it. Honestly, the whole thing just makes me laugh that V---- is that desperate to rent out her apartment that she would find us an investigator. That's definitely a first! 

Earlier this week we had exchanges with the zone leaders on Tuesday and Wednesday. Elder Ekins went to Buc with Elder Pettit, and Elder Johnsen stayed with me in Pitesti. We ended up having a really cool lesson with this lady in her 30's named M---- who was referred to us by the office. She was contacted by sister missionaries Buc during the summer and decided that now she wants to find out more about the church. She's had a pretty rough life and is in an even more rough situation now. She's a heavy smoker, drinker, has gotten involved in drugs, and is taking medication for bipolor disorder, and she wants more than anything to clean up her life. She was so incredibly open and just thirsting for the truth. She asked what she would have to do to get baptized, and we told her that she would have to quit her addictive habits, with which we could help her. She told us she wants our help, and she wants to come to church. She was also interested in what kind of activities our church does, service projects, etc. She's a really nice, sincere lady, I just hope that she will be able to overcome all of her problems. Anything's possible through Christ's atonement, but we're approaching this one with caution. This branch is so small that it can't really support someone who is not mentally stable. 

Those are some of the main highlights, there are more things I would love to tell you about but I don't have a ton of time....We haven't been able to get in contact with Sora R---- or her husband yet, and they didn't come to church so were still working on that, hoping that it wasn't just a fleeting idea on their part.

Shane in his apartment, Pitesti, Romania

I'm glad to here that Dad's feeling better, back at the racquetball! I miss playing that. And Heather's going to come down and visit! Jealous!! Say hi to her for me! Oh yeah, so you asked about the whole song writing stuff, well both these two times the first few lyrics have come to me in Romanian and then for the rest I have to make myself conceptualize it in Romanian as much as I can, otherwise the lyrics and the way the writing sounds has a distinct "english speaker" sound to it. It's incredible how much culture is infused with language and music. It's been really fun trying to capture the Romanian culture in these songs. Then for the music, in Bacau there was a guitar at the church I could dink around on here and there, but here we only have an electric piano so pretty much while I write the lyrics I have to imagine the melody and music in my head and then when I have time try to plunk it out on the piano. It's pretty hard trying to get the exact feeling and tones that I have in my head out and it doesn't always sound exactly how I wanted it to, but it's turning pretty good I think. I imagine it's pretty similar for you mom when you're painting and you have in your mind a certain way you want the painting to look and you can never get it exactly that way on the canvas. It's been fun though, and a good outlet for me. 

Ani, Elder Myers, Elder Ekins
at La Multi Ani celebration in Pitesti, Romania

 

Well that's it for now! I love you all and hope you have a beautiful week!! I've attached some more photos. The first one is me next to the little fake Christmas tree I bought for like 30 ron (that's about 10 dollars) and the others are from the parade. The girl in the photo is Ani, she's a member of a year, and such an awesome person! She helps us a ton with missionary work. I love you all!!

Love, Elder Myers