TRANSFERS

Drum roll please...................................................................! I will be staying in Arad! However, Elder Harrison will be serving as a zone leader in Bucuresti. My new companion's name is Elder Taylor, and I will be training him as a zone leader (meaning this will be his first transfer as a zone leader). He's been in the mission about the same amount of time as Elder Harrison, one transfer less, I think. I've only met him once or twice, so I don't really know much about him but he seemed like an awesome guy and a great missionary the times I did get to talk to him.

Sora Cook will be staying, and Sora Remsberg is getting transfered to Sibiu, which up until now has never had sister missionaries! That will be pretty exciting for her. This transfer there is a big group ahead of me who almost all of them except for one or two are going home this week, so we have 11 new incoming missionaries!! President Hill told me that he is transfering 1/4 of the whole mission to new areas! I'm really excited for this next transfer, and I have a feeling it will just fly by.

Touring an old water tower on p-day
Sora Remsburg,  Sora Cook, and Elder Harrison

Photos from inside a 100 year old water tank in Arad, Romania

Every Friday we have weekly planning where we plan for all of our investigators what we're going to teach them, when we're going to meet, ect. and this last Friday it hit me that I'm actually going into my last transfer. After this, that's it. Kind of a weird thought. I only have six weeks left in the mission! I don't really know how I feel about that. In a way, it's really satisfying though, knowing that I have to give everything I've got for only six more weeks, and then that's it. Earlier on in my mission the amount of time I had left seemed staggering, and sometimes I wondered if it would ever actually end but know that the end is within sight I almost feel like it came too soon. It's like you said mom, there are a lot of things about home that I miss and that I can't wait to go back to, but I have a feeling I will miss Romania more than anything I've had to do without the past two years.






Thanks for sending me Heather's address! I'll send her package as soon as possible. And just so you know, I've already gotten you a set of nesting dolls. They had some at the market place close to our apartment and they were super cheep. Their not the greatest quality, but their hand made and 100% authentic! I was thinking about mailing them to you in a package but I'm afraid of them getting broken or stolen. I know that in the Republic of Moldova they have really nice ones that are hand-made but they are a lot more expensive and I wouldn't have any way of getting one before I go home.

This past week has gone by pretty quickly. We were up in Oradea on Wednesday for a baptismal interview! His name is Christian, he's in his twenties, and he just got baptized last Friday! I conducted the baptismal interview, and his testimony and understanding of the gospel was so powerful! He really gets it. 

Unfortunately things are only continuing to go slowly with our investigators. We've run into R--- a couple times and he keeps telling us that we'll talk later on the phone. M--- keeps having to postpone our apointments for some reason or another; so we've actually been knocking on a fair amount of doors this week. The good part is that we've been meeting some really cool people! This Sunday we were out vila knocking, when a man answered his door and told us he was atheist. Whenever I meet an atheist I'm always curious to find out why they don't believe in God, and this man was open and friendly with us and after a few minutes of conversation let us in his house. 

He said he had a video he wanted to show us that explained why he didn't believe in God, and we agreed to watching it. At first I was a little worried about what I was getting into and the film started with some comedien making some pretty crude and vulgar jokes about God and religion, but that was just a little introduction. The meat of the film was actually really interesting and if anything, strengthened my faith in Christ even more. It took on a historical and scientific standpoint of claiming that Christianity was just copied from other ancient religions. It compared the main gods of the worlds biggest riligions both modern and Ancient, like Helos and Set the Egyptian Sun god and god of darkness, Greek and Hindu gods, and gods from many other cultures.

According to this film all of these major gods had many things in common, like being born on Dec 25 of a virgin with the sign of an eastern star, having 12 deciples, performing miracles, and being resurrected 3 days after their death. He related to the sun being symbolic of all these different "saviors" and the 12 constelations (like virgo, cancer, scorpio, etc) symbolizing the 12 deciples who "follow the sun." The whole take on the film was trying to debunk religion by making it look like it was all based off of astronomical patterns and movements of the sun, earth and constelations but what it did for me was make me realize how "even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator" (Alma 30:44). It was an incredible experience.

That's pretty much all the time I have right now, I wish I could tell you more because so much has happened this week! Enjoy your new art studio mom! That's a pretty big change. What brought it about? Did you get bored again dad? Anywho, I enjoyed the pictures and everything else, especially now that the BYU applicatoin is all done! Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have an awesome week everyone!

Love,
Elder Myers

P.S. Here's some more photos. Today we toured a water tower that's pretty close to my apartment that's over 100 years old! The last one was taken while we were inside the actual water tank!

Happy September !!!

Catholic Cathedral in downtown Arad, Romania

Ok, hang on, you went to Yellowstone?!?!?!? I'm super jelous. I just told Elder Harrison and Sora Remsberg what happened the last time we tried going to Yellowstone. Those are all awesome pictures! I love the King Tut one. Was that in Idaho or Wyoming? Is that actually King Tut's body? That's pretty cool if it is. And Amanda looks so happy! I still can't get over the fact that she just got married. 

Oh, and woopeee for college stuff being done! Thanks for taking care of all that stuff! Now I just have to wait until October to find out if I get  accepted. Last thing, about the whole trip to Salt Lake City/seeing Heather thing, I think it would be awesome for one thing to go and see everyone in Salt Lake, and that would make it a lot easier and cheeper for Heather. It would also be really cool to try to fly her into Durham, but I understand the whole money thing. Also, since she's graduating in December I really want to be able to go to that too, if at all possible. Just some things to think about.

Back to missionary life, this is the last full week of the transfer, meaning that next Wednesday is transfer day. This weekend we'll find out who's going and who's staying. I really hope that Elder Harrison and I stay together one more here in Arad. I wouldn't really want to pack up and move just six weeks before I go home and have to get used to a new city, district and branch. Plus Elder Harrison have a lot of good things going in our area and a lot of ideas for doing things to help get the church more known in Arad. One of our ideas is trying to put on some kind of an interfaith concert. We just met with a guy named Florin yesterday who is a well known composer, danser and actor here in Arad and does a lot of volunteer work as well to talk about some ideas he had for projects that we could do. We'll see how things turn out.

The River Mures (moo-resh) which runs through Arad

As for investigators, it's pretty much the same old story. Everybodies really busy or out of town. We haven't seen R--- once since our last lesson that was back in the beginning of the transfer. Things are just going pretty slow right now, and we're just trying to make the most out of what we've got. However, for some reason the fact that things are going really slow right now aren't really bothering me that much. I think part of it is that I just have a better understanding now about what missionary work is like here, and what beeing a successful missionary really means. I feel like Elder Harrison and I have been working our hardest and doing our best to carry out the Lord's work here. Not to say that we couldn't improve in some areas, because there's always room for improvement, but we're trying our best.

a street Shane walks down a lot -- Arad, Romania

Zone conference went really well! Our presentation went really well, and we both learned a ton preparing for it. Elder Harrison and I also did a musical number of him playing an arrangment of "Come Thou Font" and us singing together. I would send you a video of it or something, but I don't have anything. At the zone conference there was an alloted time for departing missionaries to bear their testimonies and since this was my last zone conference I was one of those who got up and spoke. There was also Elder Martin and Elder Tefft from my MTC group, and a few other elders from the MTC group above me. It was a very spiritually rich conference. As was church yesterday! All the testimonies born were powerful and the Spirit was very strong.

Thanks again for all the pictures! I'm glad that you all were able to have a good time at Yellowstone and visitng Dad's friends in Idaho. I love you all!

Elder Myers

Ceau!

Hey everyone! So first of all..........Amanda Richins is getting married?!?!?! And in Idaho? I'm assuming that's where she's been going to school...which means that she's already graduated from high school and going to college.....my mind just blew. Sometimes I have moments when I realize that I've really been gone for almost two years. All of my memories of people from back home are stuck in my mind as being two years ago, so when I hear about stuff like Amanda getting married it sends my head for a spin.

Well. Thanks for editing all the essay questions! It will feel so good to have everything done with this application! Don't worry about posting up the responses on the application site, I'll do it.

I really liked the drawing for that book your making mom. Whatever happened to that one you were working on getting published? That's pretty cool dad that you get to travel around the country for work meetings and stuff, Dad. Coming out here has really made me want to travel a lot more. When I think about how I've never even been to the other side of America...and that's my homeland! Of course America is really big but still.

You asked about the schooling here and youth and stuff, and actually school doesn't start up here until the first or second week of September. As for youth in the branch, there's not any that are fully active, and there's not really a seminary program. P--- is one of the youth in the branch we've been working a lot with. He's the one we've been giving guitar lessons. It's really hard for the youth here because they don't have anyone else their age at church. We do have institute though. The branch has a several YSA aged members but again, right now only one of them is fully active.

This week went really well. I went on an exchange with Elder Tefft, who is serving in Oradea right now. I brought him back to Arad and Elder Harrison stayed in Oradea with Elder Tefft's companion Elder Sneed. Our exchange went really well! This is my first time really serving around Elder Tefft since the MTC and it was a super fun exchange! We had a lot of catching up to do, talking about people we've served with, experiences we've had and things we've learned. I learned a ton from Elder Tefft. He's a really well rounded missionary and the kind of person who is always himself no matter where he is or who he's talking to, and he's also very direct and honest when expressing his own opinions which is something I have a lot of respect for. It was also refreshing to be able to be with someone who has a more similar upbringing as me. He's from upstate New York and went to a branch that has about 70 or 80 active members. He said that New York is a pretty liberal state as far as politics go, and a lot of his closest friends were either non-members or inactive. Don't get me wrong, I've loved every single one of my companions who were from Utah, but there's something different about them than anything I'm used to. I don't know how to explain it, but there's a tangible difference between someone who has grown up completely surrounded by the church in every aspect, and someone who grew up with only a few other LDS kids in his entire high school.

As for investigators, we haven't been able to meet with R---, M---, or G---. Everybody's just super busy. R--'s been out of the country for the past week or so for work. However, we've started teaching an English student named Ciprian (cheep - ree - on), and the other day we were knocking on doors in our neighborhood when a very nice older couple let us in. This week we've got zone conference here in Arad, and it will be combined with the Cluj zone which includes Cluj, Sibiu, and Deva. Elder Harrison and I are in the process of preparing our presentation, and we also have to take care of all the food and getting everything ready, so this week will be pretty busy. We also have to go down to Timisoara tomorrow morning to attend their district meeting. One of our responsibilities as zone leaders is to attend a district meeting at each of the other districts in the zone to see how they're run.


Thanks for all the pictures, stories and love!

Love,
Elder Myers

Hey All !!!

Thanks for the entertaining letter! It was fun trying to pick out where Dad was quoting Mom and where Dad was just adding his little tidbits. Thanks for the corrections on the application stuff. I finished the rest of the essay questions this week, so I'll email them you today.

Lets see in answer to questions... At the branch party for the songs, I was playing the guitar, and me Elder Harrison and Edi (the branch mission leader) sang. Actually, if you go onto my Facebook profile, you should be able to find Edi or Eduard Morauszky (not 100% sure on the spelling there.) I'm playing on a guitar that we got from the office to use for our lessons and the songs are by this Romanian Christian artist that Edi really likes. 

You asked about how big the branch is, there are about 20-30 people who come weekly. My first few weeks it was more 30-40 but there are several members gone because of summer vacations and stuff like that. That's crazy that school's already starting up this week! Here in Romania it doesn't start until September! Oh and also I remember from last week you asked me when I want to start the guitar lessons, I say as soon as possible! Also, I am not registered to vote, so we'll see what we can do about that. I really want to be able to vote when I get home. I don't really know what party I want to join though. I've honestly never thought about it that much. I've never been that much into politics. 

R--- is doing well. Friday was his birthday and us and the sisters met up with him at the church, ordered some pizza and had cake and ice cream with him! Then right after that we had a lesson on him that was really good and Spirit-filled. He didn't make it to church yesterday though, which is a bummer. He owns his own agricultural company or something like that and is always really busy with work. We actually haven't had any lessons with M--- or G--- because of their work schedules as well. A little frustrating, but not much we can do about it. I forgot to tell you though, do you remember Gigi, the mom of the twin brother and sister I taught with Elder Vogelsberg in Cluj? SHE GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!! It happened a week ago from last Saturday. I was so excited when I read about it in President's weekly email! 

Last week we had our exchange with the Timisoara DL companionship, and this week we'll be doing an exchange with Oradea. Elder Tefft got transfered there as the district leader last transfer so I'm super excited to do an exchange with him! 

You asked about what we've been doing to help people SYL more, and I can't really say that we've done anything that special. One of our zone goals is for every week of the transfer to focus on a smaller rule that people easily tend to forget or break and do our best to keep it and strengthen our testimony of it and the first week of the transfer we focused on speaking Romanian. Other than that, We've just been making sure that we're speaking Romanian outside the apartment all the time and especially on exchanges. It's definitely improving a lot though across the zone and the whole mission. 

That's about it for now. I thought it was cool how you mentioned the relief society lesson on the Sabath, because the lesson was the same here for priesthood and RS! I'm amazed at how the church is organized and united across the entire world! The lesson made me realize how lazy I was on Sundays and how much more productive I could have been, and how awesome it would have been to dedicate the whole day to serving others. Something to look forward to when I get home. 

I love you all and have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Myers

OH MY GOSH!!!

That's literally what I said probably close to 20 times while reading your emails! Thanks for the pictures of the nieces and nephews and everyone at Aunt Crissy's. Sounds like you all had a really good time! You can tell Heather that I got her package and have been thoroughly enjoying the delicious snacks she sent me! Also, I will be sending her package today. Quick update on college stuff, today I started with the extra curricular activities questions and I will type up two for you to proofread, mom. Also, on the Work Experience section, I marked the first box (working for the worm farm, Billy Woodward, and also my ROP jobs). And then in the Church Leadership and Awards section, I'm pretty sure I served on the Stake trek planning committee when dad used to be on the High Council. Right Dad? Ok that's it for now. 

Thanks for everything you shared about your missionary experiences Dad. A lot of the things you mentioned we're trying to impliment. Competitions, games, stuff like that. It's just hard to find what motivates people. I have also noticed that the more I speak Romanian, the easier it comes and the more efficiently I speak it. I also really liked your sailing analogy. By the way that's so awesome you've got the Lido back up! I remember Brother Burner working on it I think the summer before I left, but not much progress had been made from what I saw. 

This week has been really good, really short too. We had to travel to Timisoara on Tuesday and Oradea on Thursday to hold these new "zone meetings" that are being implemented by the Area 70 Presidency. They are seperate from zone conference and happen right after the zone leader council that his held the day after transfers at the mission home. Their purpose is to convey the information gathered from the zone leader council to the individual districts in each zone and to have more training opportunities for the missionaries. It's basically like a mini zone conference, only the mission president and assistants are not required to attend. 

We have a new investigator this week!! His name is R---, and he has a baptismal date for September 29! He was found by the sisters a couple weeks ago, and after they had a couple lessons with him they referred him to us. So in two weeks, he has started reading the Book of Mormon and praying daily, and he came to church last week! In our last discussion, he basically bore his testimony the whole time of how God has shown him that this church is true, and that the Book of Mormon is true. He's so eager and ready to make the changes necessary in his life to be prepared to covenant with God through baptism. It was one of the most spiritually powerful discussions I have ever had. 

M--- finally got back from working in the countryside and we are scheduled to see him this evening. We're also hoping to catch G--- and his family at home tonight after our lesson with M---. 

Things are going really well in general. The branch has its problems, but things are looking good for the future of the church in Arad. This Wednesday the branch is having a picnic/BBQ in the forest just outside the city, and Elder Harrison, me and Brother Edi the branch mission leader are performing some Romanian Christian-rock songs. I don't have a ton of time since I need to type up the question responses, but I love you all!!!

Elder Myers

New Transfer !!!

Hey all! I really enjoyed today's emails. They were very simple, expressive and just what I needed to here (as always). I am really impressed with the progress Dad has made with the garage, it looks really good! I must say though, I'm a little confused as to the purpose of the little structure he's building behind it. Did you just get bored Dad? Or did you decide that since the boats get sheds, why shouldn't the tractor too? Either way I'm impressed. You do realize that you have personally designed and constructed everything on our property, except for the original mobile home part of our house, right? The significance of that never really hit me until just now!

 I'm glad you enjoyed the sunflower pictures so much mom. That was the fulfillment of a dream both me and Elder Harrison have had for our mission, funny enough. When we take train rides during the summer to get to other cities we pass feilds and feilds that go for acres and acres of sunflowers. Romania is one of the worlds biggest producers of sunflowers. I never even thought about the symbolic nature of the photos until you mentioned it. That just makes me appriciate them even more!

So Janelle is leaveing in November for her mission? I didn't even realize she was planning on serving one. That's awesome! And congratulations to Haley! Also, happy birthday to Nana! Your little high tea getaway sounds awesome! 

This week has gone by really fast. Wednesday night until Friday morning we were traveling to and from Bucuresti for the zone leader council which was Thursday. It was really good; very instructive and gave Elder Harrison a lot of direction for our zone goals. How was it being a zone leader for you Dad? Did you have to plan out the zone conferences and set zone goals and stuff like that? Also, just a random question, how much would you speak Italian with your companions? What would you do on P-days? Just curious. "SYL" (Speak Your Language) is something that this mission has been trying to improve on lately, and I was wondering if you had any suggestions. 

So a little clarification on some of the things that have been going on here. The sisters unfortunately haven't had any baptisms. They had an investigator who had a baptismal date, but he recently told them that he doesn't want to meet with them or come to church any more. That was a bit of a tough blow for them. However, this week they randomly decided to call up M---, and met up with him in the park for a lesson. They said that he reads from the Book of Mormon regularly, and believes everything the church teaches! He wants to be baptized but he's a little unsure right now about why we have so many commandments that don't allow us to smoke or drink at all and he's a little concerned about being able to give those things up. He's not any kind of a heavy smoker or drinker, but he told them that it's something that he's used in the past to deal with stress. But, he said that whenever he's in the country (he travels a lot for work) his first priority is meeting with the missoinaries. 

On our side, we have some good news and some not as good news. C---decided to take the casino job in Oradea and just moved there last week. He said he's not really sure how long they will keep him there though, and that it's possible for him to come back to Arad after about a month or so, depending on how things go with the casino. I was a little disappointed in his choice to continue working at a casino rather than taking the watchguard job offer here in Arad, but he did what he felt was best I guess. Until he moves back into Arad, we'll be referring him to the Oradea missionaries. With C---, the professor, we haven't been able to meet in a while. 

I don't know if you've heard anything about the political movements going on over here right now, but basically the whole Romanian government is really unstable right now. This last week there was a referandum vote to impeach the Romanian president. Basically, the prime minister has been firing parliament workers of the Presidnent's political party and hiring new ones in his own, trying to create a political monopoly in the parliament, and now he's been campaining against the President to get him impeached. Like I said, the vote was held last Sunday I think, and even now after the vote it's not clear wether the President will be staying in office or not. Romanian constitution states that there must be a majority vote of all the Romanian citizens to impeach the president. The vote that just recently went through was a majority vote to impeach him, but statistics show that only 48% of Romanian citizens actually voted. It's pretty insane. So anyways, C--- has been really busy with all the Referandum stuff, and he's also got this big project he's working on as well so he hasn't had time to meet. We also haven't been able to meet with M--- because he's been working at a friends in the country side all week. However, we had a really good lesson with G--- and F---! ....unless that was also last week. I honestly can't remember! But we've also started teaching guitar lessons to P---! He's picking it up really fast. It's been a really good oportunity for us to talk to him one on one and get to know him better. We hold a little 10 minute spiritual thought and then after that teach him guitar for about 50 minutes or so. It's so awesome! 

That's pretty much it! Thanks for all the photos and glad tidings! I look forward to more next week. Love you all!

Elder Myers

Note From Lacie

I normally proofread Shane's letters before posting them here. He makes some pretty fun spelling errors that I know are caused by having two languages bouncing around in his head. From now until the end of his mission I'm going to leave the spelling errors in because they show something about how immersed he is in the Romanian language. I don't mean to embarrass him, I just think it's fun.