A New Transfer!

Shane with some of the church members in Brasov
The Miron family. The girl on the far left just left for her mission to Madrid, Spain!

Thank you so much, Mom and Dad, for the things you have shared. President Hill had actually emailed me back about last week's experience with the activity. Today he posted that part of my email to him in his weekly email to the mission --  as well as other spiritual experiences missionaries have emailed him about.


Last night Elder Cox and I were going over the numbers of lessons and investigators we've had this transfer, and they have all slowly been increasing. This last week was the best one yet!! And by looking back on the condition of the branch, it has been making really good progress as well.


A couple weeks ago a return sister missionary came to Brasov with her family. She had served here in December of 2010, and she said back then the branch had 10-15 active members. This Sunday Sora Jay counted up all the people at church and she said there were 28 members present, not including the missionaries!! Perspective changes everything. 


And now on September 24 Brasov will have it's newest member, Raul, and hopefully his grandma will be ready by then as well! She continues to progress, study the scriptures, and pray. All she needs to do is start coming to church! 


Oh, so transfers: Elder Cox and I are both staying here!! Sora Bedebone is also staying, and she will be going senior! Her new companion is Sora Henrie who is one transfer below Sora Bedebone, so they knew each other in the MTC. So, not to much is changing here which is a good thing. The Lord obviously still has work for me to do in Brasov, and I'm more than ready and willing to do it. Just the other day the hymn "I'll go where you want me to go" came into my mind, and I thought about how all through high school and even the period of time when I was filling out all the paperwork for my mission I had doubts about whether I was truly willing to go wherever the Lord wanted me to go and do whatever the Lord wanted me to do. I had a fear of the unkown. 


But, I still went through with it all, and now that I am a missionary, my attitude has totally changed. I have spent the last 10 months doing all the things that I was most scared of doing. Going to a foreign country where I have literally no connections or relations, being around people that I know nothing about, talking to people every day about something that I rarely even shared with my closest friends. Now I feel like  I can say with a sure confidence that I truly am willing to do whatever the Lord has for me to do. 


I really appreciated that quote from Dune. That's exactly how I feel. I have faced my fears, let them pass over and through me. The only thing different I feel from what the author of Dune said, is that the only thing left is not me. It's much, much more than that. I am enveloped in the love and Spirit of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Raul is continuing to progress well, he is so so smart! He is definitely going to become a stake president, or even an area authority for Romania. I have never seen someone his age hunger and thirst for spiritual truth. And when he recieves it, he recognizes it and absorbs it all. We had two lessons with him this past week, and the first one was a pretty big curve ball. In Romanian schools it's required to take a religion class and the State provides Orthodox religion classes as the standard and its been really confusing Raul. We've had to teach him that you don't have to pray to Icons, that God is not just an unkown eternal spirit, and many other "plain and simple truths" that have been lost in the doctrine of man mingled with scripture. 


So, we decided that we needed to teach him the full lessons, just like any other investigator. A couple days ago we taught the Resotration, and he just completely soaked it all up!!! It was so amazing seeing the light of understanding in his eyes, and at the end of the lesson, without even asking him, he bore his own personal testimony of Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and of Christ's true church. We taught slowly and asked him lots of questions to make sure he was understanding, but every time we had to define a word or concept, once we explained it to him simply, he totally got it. He understands the need for priesthood authority, he understands what priesthood authority is, he understands why there needed to be a restoration, he understands why God commanded Moroni to bury the plates so that the records could be preserved for these days. 


At the end of the lesson he had a lot of questions about life after death, what happens to our bodies and our spirits, whether angels are immortal or not, in a previous lesson he even asked if God has a mother. This kid thinks DEEP!!!!!! We told him that next time we talk about where we came from, why we're on the earth, and where we will go after this life.

It's been a pretty rollercoaster week, a whole rollercoaster transfer actually, and I expect nothing less from the next one!

Shane with more church members in Brasov
The Rautu family. The mom's a member, dad is not, and the son is the branch's only deacon!

That story about the drunk kid at the funeral really touched me, Dad. I'm so proud and grateful to have been rased by parents who are such Christ-like examples. It also made me think of all the people that I've met who have that same anguish in their souls. It is so hard to watch, and even harder when they blind themselves by their pride. That is something I've learned a lot about the Romanian people. They are a proud people. It is a huge stumbling block for them and for us missionaries because we can only do so much. We give them the gospel but they have to be humble enough to recieve it. It makes me think of when Christ did not enter certain cities because he said their faith was so weak that he could not perform any miracles there. Not that I'm losing hope for this country, because there most certainly are people here who are very humble and ready for the gospel, but a large amount of people here are blinded by one of Satan's best tools, pride. If anything it helps me understand a little more how God must see the world, and what it really means to understand the will of the Lord.

Thank you so much again for everything, and I look forward to sharing everything that will happen in the week ahead of me!

Love, Elder Myers