Photos From Cluj, Romania!!

Shane and the three other Elders in Cluj went ice skating on their P-day.

Hello All,

Man, this week went by fast! I can't believe it's already monday again! First off, thank you so much mom and dad for your support and love and understanding. It means so much to me to hear you both say that about Eli's blessing, and brings peace to my heart. I loved those pictures of Ember, Tristan, and everyone at the Christmas party! Ally's hair is getting long! I'm trying to figure out a way that I can send pictures, but I don't know if there are any USB ports on these computers in the internet cafe I can access......so I guess worst comes to worst I'll burn them onto a cd or something I guess. And as for mail coming to my apartment, It's definitely doe-able, especially with letters, I just don't know if it would be any quicker than sending it to the office. Transfers are on the first Wed of Feb, so if I can give you my address here, and if I stay in Cluj next transfer you can tell people to send letters to the apartment. Here we get mail maybe a couple times per transfer. Pretty much whenever people come up from Bucaresti, like the AP's, or when zone leaders go down there for zone council meetings. 

Teaching has been going really well this week, we've had 15 lessons total! Dad, you talking about interacting with kids in Italy made me think of this family of investigators we've been visiting, they have two little kids, a little girl and boy, probably about 4/5 and 6/7. They are super energetic and super outgoing! Whenever we go over there they just talk there heads off to us, its really cute. The last time we went there, Traian, the boy, asked me if I was understanding anything he was saying, and I was just like, nope. He was dumbfounded by my limited comprehension skills haha! Then Mihaela has a boy, Denis who is 11. He's pretty cool, not super talkative during his lessons, but he and his mom are super close. There's also a bunch of little toddlers and babies in the branch. I don't know why, but it's the cutest thing ever to hear a little kid speaking a foreign language haha! 

Our lessons with Mihaela have been going really well, she's progressing wonderfully! She's told us that she already has a testimony that the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that this is the true church! This week we started teaching her the Plan of Salvation, and also the Word of Wisdom. She understands everything really well and wants to do all that God asks of her, but she has a smoking problem and drinks coffee every morning. We talked to her about the blessings associated with following the Word of Wisdom, and how Christ is always there to help us through the hard things in life. She has a strong desire to follow Christ, and said that the next time we meet she will make the commitment to stop smoking, so we've been praying for her a lot! Also this last week we found a family while block knocking and have had a couple lessons with them. They're really cool! Their little family consists of grandparents, Vasile and Iugenia, their daughter Roxana, and Roxana's daughter Sara, who is 8 years old. Vasile and Iugenia are both Orthodox, but not super active in the church, and then Roxana, who is Evangelical has been trying to convince them to pocait. (the word means to repent, but to Romanians it means to change your religion. Orthodox and Catholics call people who aren't Orthodox or Catholic Pocait). Iugenia is a really intelligent person and really knows the bible, and in like a few days she had read all the way through 2 Nephi 4, and had been marking up scriptures she liked, and crossreferencing the Bible, Its super awesome! Yesterday Vasile and Iugenia came to church and stayed all three hours, and they want to continue meeting with us, so that's really exciting! 

Friday and Saturday I went on my first split with one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Brunner (not my MTC companion) which was really fun! It was really cool getting a chance to serve with someone else for a day and see how different missionaries do things differently. It also helped me think of ways that Elder Clonts and I could improve our companionship, and some different ways we could try teaching or contacting. Oh yeah, and YESTERDAY, I gave my first talk in church! It was like 5-10 minutes long, and all in Romanian! I had forgotten about it until Sunday morning, so I only had about an hour to prepare, but it went really well! A lot of the branch members were impressed at how good my Romanian was for only being here less than a month! That was a pretty cool experience for me, and a little booster for my spirits as far as learning the language goes. I'm still on this track where some days I'll understand things really well, and other days I'll just be totally lost during lessons. But I'm slowly starting to talk more. I think the biggest thing that I need to do to improve more is speak Romanian with my companion more. 

 So I'm going to try to attach some photos right now, I hope it works!!!!! Enjoy! I love you all so much! The pictures should be of some of the churches in Cluj, us ice skating, and the view from my apartment. Hope you all have a great week, and I hope that Ember and Tristan continue to get better. That's sad that they got bronchitis....I remember getting that. Not fun. OH and that's so awesome to hear about Rich and Jodi's friend getting baptized! Wooo!!!! That's so exciting! And that's really too bad to hear about --------. It sounds like Heavenly Fathers really seeing what he's made out of. I think I can relate to how he feels as well. I think most of us have experienced a time in our lives when we feel like we don't really have a testimony, and like God isn't really answering our prayers when in reality, we're either looking to hard, or not hard enough! I hope that he's reading the Book of Mormon and praying every day. Those two things combined with going to church can change people's lives. I'm starting to witness it here in Romania right now! Well give him a big hug from me next chance you get. I miss that family, they're all such awesome people!

Love, Elder Myers

view from Shane's apartment

                                    

Shane looks like a little boy compared to that giant Christmas tree and the statue above him!

                                        

 You can't see Shane, but  he is standing at the top of the steps in front of the left set of doors. That gives us some idea of the size of that building!                                                                                                           

                                      

 Don't know what gives this building it's yellow glow, but what a beautiful photo! Click on the photo to enlarge it and you will see what look like shooting stars in the sky.