God Bless America!!!!!!!

Bran Castle, Romania

Happy 4th of July everyone!!!! Today the Brasov district celebrated America's Independence by going to Dracula's Castle!!!!!!! It was basically the fulfillment of one of my childhood dreams, walking around in a castle hundreds and hundreds of years old. It's actually called Bran Castle, but it is where the 15th or 16 (don't remember exactly) century prince Vlad Tepes (Tseh - pesh) lived that the fictional character Count Dracula is based on. The author of Dracula got the idea for the character from this prince because Vlad was known as a brutal, violent and bloodthirsty man who would impale the corpses of his enemies on pikes outside his castle. Anyways, aside from the gruesome dark history, the castle was awesome!!! I took a ton of pictures and will attach a few along with pictures from last week. It was really good hearing about all the things going on back home. 


The story about ______'s friend is absolutely incredible!! I would call that a little more than a small miracle! I can personally attest to the 15 step stop smoking program - I've seen it work miraculously on an investigator I had back in Cluj. I don't know if you remember Mihaiela but she was able to stop smoking through the program. The best part about it is that the whole thing is based on the principle of faith; the person trying to quit is committed to pray daily and to read the scriptures daily to receive help and strength from above.


 I was also so excited to hear of Eli's success at Scout Camp, I'm so proud of you Eli!!!! I'm sure that took a lot of courage to go through with the whole 5 days of the camp. And that's so cool that one of the merit badges you got was horsemanship! I didn't even know that one existed! 

Well, some new news on my end, President Hill is know officially our new mission president, and tonight my district is going to Arad for another combined zone conference - the Arad and Sibiu zones (Sibiu zone includes Cluj, Sibiu and Brasov) - where we will meet President and Sora Hill! From his email he sent out today he sounds like a really cool guy with a lot of energy and fire for the work. Also, Elder Simmons and I are moving out to a different apartment on Wednesday because one, the one we live in right now has a really bad mold problem and two, the contract terminates on the 14th. So as of this week we will be living right in the middle of Centru!!! I'll send some pictures of the apartment next week. 

As for missionary work we've had some successes here and there. Our investigator Simina the Adventist girl is progressing amazingly well!! She's read up to 2 Nephi in the Book of Mormon, we gave her the most recent General Conference Liahona issue, we watched General Conference with her in our last lesson which she really liked, and she came to church yesterday!!! She's so awesome, she totally picks apart and really studies everything she reads and says she feels really good when reading the Book of Mormon. She also really liked Sunday School and has a lot of respect for the Sunday school teacher Iuliana who has sat in on a couple of her lessons with us. Elder Simmons and I both feel like as long as she keeps her heart open there will be nothing stopping her from getting baptized. She's going to make an amazing missionary! We're just hoping that her family and friends will be open to her eventually changing religions. It would mean leaving behind the traditions of her family and everything she grew up with.


 We also had another investigator at church, an older lady named Marcela who came for her second time yesterday! She's the sweetest lady ever and has begun to make casual friends with the relief society members already, and she's actually been reading in the Book of Mormon! So as long as she keeps it up she'll definitely continue to progress really well. On a more sad note, we had to drop Hans and the three rocker kids, Gabi, Mihai and Razvan. We'd been trying to set up with them all week, and on Saturday when we were supposed to meet at the church, Mihai called us and said that none of his friends believe in the Book of Mormon. However, he said that he's going to read it because he wants to find out the truth, and that he'd call us after he does. Honestly I don't really know if he'll ever call us, but I feel like I've made a difference in at least one person's life for the better and I have full confidence that after time, the seed that Elder Simmons and I planted will eventually grow into a thriving tree. I don't know when that will happen, maybe it will be years down the road after Mihai has experienced more of life and realizes that he's still searching for truth, but I know that one day he will remember Elder Simmons and me and will remember that he felt something different around us - something good - and he will find himself needing something to hold on to and that thing will be the restored gospel - the true and everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ. I know in my heart that he will eventually find his way back to the truth.

Well that's pretty much all for this week. There's a journal entry I wrote a couple nights ago that I wanted to share with you all but I forgot to bring it with me to internet so it will have to wait for next week. Here are the pictures as promised! The first two are from Ploiana: the first is from inside the restaurant where we ate Bear stake, the second is a little wooden Orthodox church and a glimpse of the beautiful green mountainside scenery. The other ones are of Bran Castle, enjoy! Hope everyone has an awesome 4th of July we are all so blessed to live in a country that truly is God's promised land. I've never appreciated all the amazing blessings we have in America more than now from living in Romania. I love you all!

Love, Elder Myers



For some reason, the photos Shane mentioned were not attached. I will have him try again next week. In the mean time, enjoy the photo from the public domain.