Hey Everyone!

Well, this week just flew right on by. I'm really glad that my stories have been having such a positive impact on you all and people in the ward. You never really know how much of a difference you're actually making until someone tells you. This week has proven to have it's own adventures as well. It's interesting that you mentioned Michael Watts coming home, I was just thinking about when he would be done with his mission the other day. It was good to hear a little about Heather too.


 So just a little mission news, this is the last week President Lundberg will be in Romania! He actually leaves tomorrow I think, then President Hill comes in and on the 5th of July we're having a big conference in Arad and we're all going to meet him, so that's exciting! Oh and I just want to say thanks for forwarding Adam's emails to me, it's been really cool reading about his missionary experiences.

So, since Dad asked, here's a bit about the branch's situation. Things have been going pretty well with the two new counselors in the branch presidency (the branch president is still the same) although the second counselor, Levi, is gone to Greece for six months for work. Recently, Elder Simmons and I have been encouraging and suggesting that the branch leadership start doing Priesthood Executive Meetings every week and  get a Home Teaching program started up. It's really hard to get things going here because the inactivity rate is so high. In our last meeting with the branch president we saw in him some of the immense stress that must be on him. He is a really good man who has the love and support of a lot of the members, but things are still pretty tough. 

The inactive family that we've been teaching we probably will drop them soon because they're not progressing at all. Every week we've been teaching them repentance and forgiveness, and being really straightforward with them, letting them know that they're stopping their own eternal progression by the choices they're making, but nothing has changed. The whole family is trapped in the dealings and pleasures of the world and no matter what we say to them, no matter how strong the Spirit is felt during our lessons, once we leave, so does the Spirit, and they're all back to square one. From their teaching records, this pattern has been going on for years and years. They're at a point where members need to step in and show them love and support or they're not going to come back. So that's been really sad to see.

This week we went out to a little countryside village where the relief society president, Sora Miron, lives to help her clean up her back yard. Last Sunday a section of her house collapsed and so we spent a good chunk of the day helping them clear out all the rubble. That's been pretty big disaster for her and her two daughters, but they're really strong positive people and are taking it all in stride. It felt really good to be able to get dirty, use my hands, and do some hard physical labor; although it pretty much wiped me and Elder Simmons out for the next couple days haha. I don't think I've ever fallen asleep so quickly! But anyways, the Miron family is really cool. Sora Miron is a single mother to two girls, Ema who is like 17 or so and Alecu (Alexandra) who is turning 21 and in August will be serving a mission in Madrid, Spain. They're a really cool family and a huge support to this branch. 

As far as investigators go, we had 3 people at church this week! George, Marcela, and Hans. George is one of our english students, has met with the missionaries in the past, and is pretty good friends with Alecu; Marcela is a sweet middle aged lady that we called from an old potential investigator list and had a couple lessons with; and Hans is the guy who was referred to us from Ias like 3 weeks ago! Up until now we had only had 1 lesson with Hans and never really was able to get back in contact with him because he has a crazy work schedule but then one night this week we felt like we should go visit him and he happened to be home! He let us in, and we had a really good lesson about how God helps us through our trials. He told us that God will never put an obstacle before us that we will not be able to overcome and that as long as we are humble and ask for God's help, He will give it to us. I thought it was so cool that he had such a deep understanding of our Heavenly Father and seeing his faith in God. It always amazes me when investigators have an inherent clear understanding about certain points of doctrine and the nature of God that they gain through personal experiences. I love recognizing and seeing ways that God has helped people and ways the Spirit has taught them eternal truths, even if on the whole they are misguided. Seeing those little glimmers of truth and light give me hope for the people of Romania, because Satan has such a strong influence on this country. 

Well I don't have much time, but thank you all for your words of love and encouragement. You can let Jennifer know that I've really appreciated the past few emails she's sent me and that I will write the Bradley's a letter as soon as I can. I had some pictures to send you of what we did for p-day today, but I forgot to bring my camera cord so I'll have to send them next week. We went out to this little ski resort town and Ploiana that's up in the mountains. It was so beautiful there, and we went to this restaurant where they serve a lot of game, so we had broiled dear and bear steaks! It was really good. Ok well I hope you all have a beautiful week, thanks for the pictures of Ember and Tristan! Oh and if you could send me my pin code for my debit card that would be awesome, I kind of forgot it.......Love you!

Love, Elder Myers

Chapter 35

I thought some of you might like to read my letter to Shane this week. Be sure to read the post following this to find Shane's letter for this week.

Dear Shane,

I figured out this is our 35th email letter since you left. By the time you come home, we'll have a great documentation of two years years of our lives -- 108 letters in all. Wow! Sometimes it's hard for me to sit and write --not because I don't want to reach out to you, but because it requires so much brain power. You must feel the same way at times. Anyway, today you can indulge me a little because I wrote my letter in 3nd person for variety and practice. Here goes:

Lacie sat with her hands on the keyboard wanting to say the right things to her son, feeling at a loss. His last letter left her a bit discouraged, so how must he feel? So many people too busy to sit at the feet of the Saviour? She realized that it happens all the time, even to her. This mortal world with it's bright lights and promises of fame is a laboratory of distraction. Every day it gets harder to keep our eyes on what matters most. But the Saviour waits. And it came to her. Just tell him to focus on the Savior and His love for everyone. We cannot make people listen to the truth. We cannot make them see. But we can turn to the One who knows what every kind of suffering and hardship feels like and we will always find a patient voice to urge us on--to help us take that step out into the darkness --time and time again. We will want to know how the ending will turn out, but He will remind us that it is enough to live today. 

She liked that advice. It was a nice mixture of the gospel and the best advice her own mother and father had given her. And the truths it contained were simple but elemental. Shane could use this advice over and over again for the rest of his life. 

She missed him. She thought of him every day when she checked the stats on his missionary blog. Sometimes she thought of the blog readers who knew very little about the Saviour, and she was encouraged. She must remind him that those same bright lights distracting the people were also bringing them truth through this new medium, helping his current work in Romania reach to Canada, Brazil, Japan, Germany, UK, Denmark, Ukraine, and Russia. Over 300 people viewed the blog every month. Surely hearts were being touched. Surely the Savior's love was being felt. Even if things were moving slowly in Brasov. Living in a country so recently loosed from the grips of communism was the stuff of novels and history books.

She hadn't served a mission or lived outside of California, so she looked up to her son now and hoped to learn from his experiences.  

She knew Shane -- hard working, obedient, and ever striving for the Spirit's guidance. That should be enough right? People should want to be baptized. She knew she must remind him that this mission experience was for him also--not just others. It would help him become a man of wisdom, faith, and broadened perspective. And they all knew that Romania was his place -- the place Heavenly Father wanted him to be -- and that He would send people to help him, like Elder Vekony.

That wasn't so hard. She looked at the tiny digital display in the corner of the screen -- eight pm . She had been sitting at the keyboard for an hour and hopefully written something worthwhile. But, oh! She couldn't stop without giving him glimpse of home in June -- knee high weeds, hay fever, and ripening blueberries (the best crop in years), lazy cats sleeping through the hours of heat, and Abby's fur wet from her latest swim in the creek. But most of all the love that would wait for him and reach out to him across the oceans and continents.

Can't wait to hear the news of your week! I love you so much.

Mom

I Feel My Savior's Love...

...through my family and friends. The love he freely gives me. Thank you so much for your beautiful letter mom. Reading the thoughts and feelings of the amazing woman who raised me as though I were reading a novel inspired of the Spirit and written personally for me brought silent tears to my eyes, and lifted and inspired me. This week has proven to be one of miracles, but more of the small and simple type rather than that of Moses parting the Red Sea or the sons of Mosiah converting entire cities to the truthfulness of the gospel. It has been the product of continuously pushing onwards through struggle, doubt, frustration, confusion, uncertainty and exhaustion. To start off, I left out the part about Elder Vekony where he gave me a very specific commitment as my zone leader. He told me to study the doctrine of love, and to read D&C 18, both of which I am doing. When I read D&C 18 I was given a powerful revelation that brought me to tears and gave me encouragement to press forward. That section lists requirements for Oliver Cowdery in his assignment along with Joseph Smith and the third member of the First Presidency (don't remember his name) to seek out and find those chosen people who would later be called to be the first apostles in the restored church. It gives guidance and counsel for Oliver Cowdery in what he should look for, and how he should prepare himself to be worthy of the task. In my patriarchal blessing it states specifically that as I strive to be obedient and work diligently my teachings and invitations will be accepted by those who will eventually be called to positions in the church reserved for only the most faithful holders of the priesthood. Needless to say, D&C 18 is now a passage of scripture I hold very close and dear to my heart. 

And Mom, as to you being prompted to say to me to focus on the Savior's love for everyone, that is a clarification and a confirmation as to where my focus needs to be. Since Elder Vekony assigned me to study the doctrine of love, I have began to do that and I've found it hard to know where to start and hard to completely understand. When I think back on things I've seen this week: two kids about 11-12 years old - one a boy, the other a girl - seeing the boy chase the girl into a busy street while swinging his fists at her, then watching the girl collapse onto the sidewalk in tears; the same two kids with some others around their age at a bus stop, holding plastic bags of paint and staring at me with a blank and deranged expressions on their faces and speaking senseless incomprehensible words as they inhale the fumes from the bags; another little boy not even 11 putting a cigarette up to his mouth as he walks down a busy street; and every day seeing the result of a crippled and struggling country; it's hard to see any love in these people. 

I tell you these things not to bring you down in any way, but to help you see the contrasts that I experience every day. Life is real, raw, and Satan is powerful. However, the ways I've seen and felt the Savior's love this week have left me unable to find words to explain. One night, being guided by the Spirit and knowing not what we would do, we entered a block and the first door we knocked on opened up. We didn't have to say more than two sentences before the lady who answered let us in. After a few inspired questions, this lady shared with us her understanding of God and the Savior. Her husband died years ago and she's moved on with life, being a Christ-like example. She's been to many different churches, allways asking God if she should stay there; she takes care of her neighbor who is 87 years old, washes her, changes her clothes, feeds her; her sister died as well 10 years ago and she appeared to her in a dream, telling her to be baptized. All of this, and she's been thinking of attending one of our services to see how it is. Now she will definitely come. 

Another day, we met up with the rocker kids, had an awesome jam session. The one who plays guitar has been playing for 2 years and is already way better than me! After trying to bring up a gospel discussion, and having it awkwardly fail I once again felt the familiar whisperings of the Spirit telling me to play my song "One More Time" and to share my experiences in highschool of how I gained my own testimony. "One More Time" is the song I played for you that one day mom, when I was going through a really rough time and it made us both cry. That was a very special moment I'll never forget. This song also touched these three teenage kids, and the next day they attended Sacrament meeting at 10:00 in the morning. 

Yet another day, we taught a less active family about repentance and how the Savior is always waiting for us with arms extended to turn around and accept him into our lives. Teaching the doctrine of repentance and the process that entails gave me a better understanding of the Savior's love for all of us. The Holy Ghost was there as we taught through its guidance and direction and a peace and understanding was brought to me at that time that I have been coming to love and appreciate more and more each day.

As I have been writing this email right now and recounting these miracles, its helping me see all the ways I've received heaven's help and strength, and I know that Christ's promise is true when he told his disciples "I will be in your midst, I will be on your left, and I will be on your right." At this very moment I'm seeing all the ways the Savior has shown is love for me in the past several days and only now I am understanding what that really means and now I feel like I can learn from that love and give it to those who are in my midst, on my left, and on my right. So that I can be God's tool in helping people come unto Christ and receive answers to their prayers. 

Thank you so much and know that I love each and every one of you. And dad even though mom wrote an amazing letter, that doesn't mean that I appreciate the words of advice and encouragement any less. You are all such a huge blessing to me and I thank my Heavenly Father for letting me be a part of this family. 

Love, Elder Myers

Hey All !

So another week of lessons being bunged....I mean, we did get a fair amount of lessons, just not as many as we were planning or hoping for. Promise has pretty much stopped progressing which is really disappointing and frustrating. We had a really good lesson with him on Saturday that was just focused on teaching to his needs, finding out what he's not understanding and what he needs help with. He told us that whenever we have a lesson with him he feels really good and feels a desire to change, to read the scriptures, to pray, to set things right in his life, and then once we leave all of that urgency is gone and he's overwhelmed by all the hustle and bustle of life. We both encouraged him a lot, sharing our own experiences with putting God first and seeing the blessings that come from it, and really trying to help him understand the importance of him reading the Book of Mormon and praying daily, and coming to church. But then Sunday he didn't show up, and when we called him he said he still hadn't read or prayed. Part of that is that he has exams today, and he had procrastinated a lot of the studying he had to do so I can understand where he's at, but it's still frustrating knowing that if he would just set aside 10 or 20 minutes of his day to read and pray, everything else would go a lot smoother. As I'm saying this I'm thinking of all the times that you or my sunday school teachers or priesthood leaders told me the exact same things and I still rarely did it. I wish that I did. 


Yesterday we visited this family in the branch and taught the Plan of Salvation and read out of the For the Strength of Youth booklet. The there are two kids in that family, a brother and sister who are 13-14 years old and teaching them just totally took me through a time warp to when I was there age, and made me think think about what it will be like when I have my own family to raise.........kind of mind blowing. I have no idea how I made it this far! The thought of raising kids in todays world is kind of terrifying, I'm not going to lie. So thank you so much mom and dad, for being the outstanding parents that you are. I find that I gain more and more respect for everything you do for us kids each day I'm out here. 

So this week we're hoping and praying for a miracle. Last thursday the Zone leaders came in to Brasov for exchanges and that was a huge boost for us. I went on exchange with Elder Vekony (pronounced vay-kwin), who is from Hungary! He's such an awesome guy and an amazing missionary. He speaks four languages, Hungarian, Romanian, English and Russian, so he can pretty much talk to anyone he wants here without any kind of language barrier. He was also a champion ballroom dancer, and was in a rock band, so we had a lot to talk about! I learned a lot from him about contacting, teaching, and just being a missionary in general. He helped me with some of the struggles I've been having and things that I've been thinking about lately. I've just been having a hard time putting me whole heart into these people because I don't know them or understand their culture and language very well at all, and it usually takes me a while to really open up to people as it is. I shared this with him, and he told me that he was in my same position at one point on his mission and he gave me some really good advice, sharing with me what he's learned about loving people and loving God. So that was pretty awesome. We taught this family that he had taught before (he served in Brasov when he was in his 4th transfer as well. Right now he's in his 15th transfer) and the lesson went really well. Elder Simmons are going to go back there as soon as we can, we feel really really good about this family.

Well, that's the highlights of this week. It went by really fast! Thanks for sharing that story of Grandpa Gary's! What a small world we live in! And those pictures of Boston are beautiful! The one of that narrow street with the houses looks a lot like Romania........only a lot nicer. Boston and Chicago are two cities in the US that I've really wanted to go see. Sounds like you're having an awesome time there Dad! And mom just paste a few blog entries into an email for me. I'm flattered that you did a special on my band! That's really cool. And that's so awesome that you're getting so much positive feedback from it all! 

Thanks for all the amazingness that you are, I really appreciate that you fasted for me and my companion last week mom, that means a lot to me. Well, know that I love you all so much, and here's to another week ahead of us all!

Love, Elder Myers

Happy June

Hey all!! It was awesome hearing about everything that's been going on! That blog sounds really cool mom! Could you send me some of your little entries some time maybe? That would be really cool to read! And absolutely feel free to use any of my music that you want for your blog site. I'm sure none of the other guys would mind at all!   


Thanks for the birthday present too!! that's really really nice of you, I really appreciate it. It's crazy to think that I will be having my birthday in this next transfer! By the way, Transfer day is this Wednesday and today we found out where everyone's going. Elder Simmons and I will be staying together here in Brasov, Sora Bedebone will also be staying, and Sora Wilson is going to Galati and Sora Jay is coming here. I don't really know much about Sora Jay, but I've heard a lot of good things about her.

Elder Myers and Elder Simmons on P-day, Brasov, Romania

Sora (sister) Wilson and Sister Bedebone, Brasov, Romania

So not too much is changing with the district here in Brasov. In three weeks, however, President Lundberg goes home and the new mission president, President Hill comes in. That will be crazy! Also, after this transfer the mission will be really really young. All the old missionaries in their 16th and some in their 17 transfers (they were allowed to extend) will be leaving after this transfer and a really big group of bobocs will be coming in! So there's going to be a lot of young missionaries, from my group and the group above me that will probably be training, or becoming district leaders, or zone leaders, or branch presidents! That's going to be so crazy! 

Other random stuff, yeah I heard about the E Coli breakout. President Lundberg talked about it in his weekly email and just cautioned us to be really careful about the food we eat -- making sure it's all washed really well, and cooked thoroughly and all that. Funny enough, Elder Simmons and I broke our fast yesterday by eating 14 eggs with onion, pepper, garlic and ham (that may or may not have been all the food we had left in the fridge haha).  That's the most eggs I've ever eaten at once, and I don't think I'll eat any more eggs for quite some time.


 On a much more exciting note, you asked if anyone in Cluj has gotten baptized, and.....YES!!!!! A couple weeks ago, Aurelia, the girlfriend of the Italian member we had FHE with every week was baptized a couple weeks ago!!!!! I was soooo excited when I read that! I can't tell you how many missionaries who have served in Cluj must be so over joyed at her getting baptized! She's going to be such an awesome member, man she had such a strong testimony even before she was baptized! Hopefully she and Salvatore will be able to get married soon and then sealed in the temple!! Oh my gosh I can't wait for them to experience that together! 

Missionary work this week was pretty similar to last week. For all the lessons we had set up,(we would have had around 20 lessons this week) sooo many people didn't show up. Like, practically everybody. Nobody came to church either. We had a couple lessons with Promise that went really well, we watched Uchdorf's talk On the 
Road to Damascus and that was a really spiritually powerful lesson. He has started reading the Book of Mormon, and we've also taught him the plan of salvation and he had really good questions about the Spirit world, doing missionary work for them, etc. He's grasping everything really well and definitely on his way to baptism!  We also had a lesson with those kids in a band I met on the bus! They're soooo cool!!! Really open kids! We met up with them in this park, and just started talking about whatever. School, music, their band, what they want to do and just started to develop a friendship with them, and that led into a lesson about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith! They all took copies of the book, and they want to meet again. At the end, I told them again how one of them looked exactly like a friend of mine, and they said that they thought the same thing about us! It was really cool, and I could tell that they actually took to heart what we were saying because they respected us. They got to see us as real people, not just two guys dressed awkwardly. 

behind the Brasov sign

looking down on city of Brasov, Romania

We also met up with a Seventh Day Adventist girl we met a couple weeks ago. We had a really cool lesson with her, and she's such a cool girl! She's constantly smiling, dresses modestly, is really nice, and loves talking to people about God! She's absolutely prepared for the gospel. We gave her a Book of Mormon, and she said she'd read and pray about it and come to church! So we're just waiting to see what happens there!


 We also started teaching a guy named H---- who was referred to us by a member He's an orphan, has had a really hard life, is right now going through a divorce and living in a dinky little apartment in Brasov and works at a factory here. He's a really nice, humble guy who's just looking for happiness and peace in life. He was really willing to read the Book of Mormon and to pray about it, mainly because he's absolutely open to anything that will help him at this point in his life. We have a lot of hope for him and can't wait till we get a second lesson with him. 

So here's some pictures from last p-day. We went up to the Brasov sign and took pictures up there. It was such a beautiful view if the city! And it was so nice to be up in the mountains. Made me think back on Philmont. You may be wondering why Elder Simmons has a bandage on his finger. Well, it's kind of a long story and I don't have much time right now, but let's just say it was a cooking accident. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!!

Love, Elder Myers

Quote of the Week:

“Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged men who kept on working.”

                                                                         --anonymous