Happy Easter!

Shane and his companion with their Easter eggs

         

Hey all! Sorry about the email mix up last week. I looked back into my sent emails and saw that I had accidentally sent it to Aunt Coralie! oops. I'm sorry you had to skip a week of hearing from me! So, Spring Break for Eli! Sounds like it was a good one too. I loved the pictures of everyone up at Table Mountain. That's definitely one of my favorite places to spend a day. I really liked the picture of the newt you caught. And man, sounds like you had a heck of a time with Aunt Crissy's car. I'm glad that everything got worked out in the end. And it was such a small thing too! That's usually how it is. I'm just glad I wasn't there on that trip, stuff like that always frustrates me pretty easily.

Whitney's getting married on the 26th of May! wow! I remember you telling me that she was engaged but like most things, I  forgot amidst all the stuff that goes whirling around in my head. I know exactly how you feel mom!

Things went pretty well this week, we've been doing a LOT of member visits, and it's been cool getting to know all the members of the branch.  There are some incredible people here! Yesterday we attended branch council before church and it was one of the best organized and well run branch councils I've been too! I was really impressed. The branch leadership here works really well together, and they're constantly pushing themselves to do more and more.

Something that Elder Nilsson and I were talking about recently is how much retention work goes on without us missionaries realizing it. A lot of the times to us it seems like the some of the members don't really care about those who are less active because whenever we talk about less actives we've been working with or want to work with they always say "Oh yeah they'll never come to church, good luck working with them" or something to that effect, but really they say that because members of the branch presidency and other auxiliary leaders try a lot to get into contact with people and check up to see how they are doing, they just get the same respones we do most the time so when we tell them that we need to keep working with them and keep trying, most of the time they really do agree with us, they've just already tried a lot, and keep trying. At least that's how it is in this branch.

They talked about the branch Easter party, and we will be having it on Thursday evening. That means lots of saormale, cracking eggs, and a real good time! I'm excited for it! The only down thing right now is we don't have any solid investigators. We met up with N--- and in that lesson really got down to the root of his needs and problems. He told us that he doesn't necessarily believe that the Bible is the word of God, but that it was just written by men, and when we asked him if he believes in God, he said that he's not even very sure that God exists. So, he's going to take some time to start progressing. 

So for now we're focusing a lot on members. Those who are recent converts, less actives, and those who are strong active members. So far it's been going really good. The whole idea is to build relationships with these members, help strengthen their testimonies and understanding of the doctrine, and prepare them to do more missionary work so that we can start receiving referrals to teach. It's a slower and more enduring process than going out and street contacting and block knocking all day, but it's worth it. President Hill has really been emphasizing a lot on establishing the church here in Romania and Moldova -- meaning strengthening the members of the branches, working with them closely to help bring strong multi-generational families into the church. As of now, palpable results are a little slow to come, but I know that with this type of approach to missionary work, the church will start to grow exponentially. We're just at the beginning stages right now.

As for being a zone leader, so far it's been great! It's a lot of work, and sometimes it's hard not to feel overwhelmed by all of the responsibility that is put on me, but I know I will grow a lot in the upcoming months. It's pretty humbling thinking back to when I was still in the first year of my mission and remembering the older missionaries that were my zone leaders, assistants to the president, and district leaders and how much I looked up to them as these wise seasoned men that had the answer and solutions to almost everything. Now I'm in the same positions those missionaries were in, and I tell you what, I don't feel like a wise seasoned man. I still feel like a little boboc who's trying to figure out what's going on around him.

We haven't done any exchanges yet, but last week we attended Timisoara's district meeting. There I saw Elder Martin, who's serving as the branch president, and Elder Cox, who I trained in my 6th transfer, (with his 1st transfer missionary that he's training)! It was awesome seeing him again, especially now that he's training in almost the exact same transfer that I trained him! In mission lingo you always refer to your trainer as your "dad" and so last week I just met my grandson! His name is Elder Ward and he's from Boston, Mass. He seems like a cool guy and full of boboc fire!

That's about it for this week. Ummm sorry, I was going to send you photos but I just realized that I forgot to bring my camera to internet! Sorry! Next week I promise! Have a beautiful week!

Love,
Elder Myers