Week 98

Dear Family,

Life is pretty good. I sitting in an internet cafe at Timpuri Noi and I just got the new info for my homecoming. It is pretty crazy to think that I don't have much longer. I don't feel anything. Is that bad? I am not sad to leave Romania. I am not stoke to go home. I don't know if my mind/body even knows that I am going home...Ah well, what are you going to do? 

We still don't really understand our role here in North Buc. We are kind of making it up as we go. We have met this really cool guy, J, from Nigeria. He works near this restaurant by our house. I say "near" cause he is actually not employed anywhere. He puts crates in front of public parking and when people come looking for a spot, he moves them. He doesn't ask for money, but lives off of tips. I can't even imagine. He literally lives off of maybe 100 ron per week, if that. He is like every other Afrikaan, however. Happy, humble and living life. He never has any time to meet, since he works from 8-8 most days, but we have been talking to him. We gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He really appreciated it and told us that he will take the time to "digest" it. Every time we walk away after talking with him, Elder C hums the tune "Hey Jude" by the Beatles haha!

Something that I am sad that I will miss is one of the things that we are trying to put together. We are planning an interfaith christmas concert. I am almost done with taking inventory of the entire missions talents (musical, artistic, stagework). I need to have everything set up and ready to go before I leave, or else it wont happen. There is a lot of work yet to get done. We need to approach the other faiths, find a venue and set up the missionaries. Its a lot of work, but i know it will be an amazing experience for everyone who attends. Think about it! A few hundred people, all coming together and celebrating a commonality between them: The birth of Christ. I might even try and come back if this goes through. We are going to visit a lot of other churches this week and talk with the pastors. We would like to find an interfaith council and meet with them as well. We'll talk with Pres. Ivory about it this week. We are hoping that the Orthodox, Catholic, Baptist and Pentacostal churches will join in. We'll see!

We have a few other plans set up, but we are keeping them a bit more secret. I'll tell you more about it next week ;)

Love you all and ill see you soon!!!

Week 94

Dear Family,

Sorry I wasn't able to write you yesterday. We went to a place called Red Lake. It is such a beautiful place and I wish the camera could actually capture the real deal. After being on the lake, we decided to hike to the top of a mountain. We basically ran straight up the first part and then hiked the rest at a more reasonable pace. We made a three hour hike in about an hour. It was pretty amazing, being able to see everything around you. We met some visitors from Austria, Hungary and New York while we were there. They were trying to order something when Elder C turned around and asked if they wanted any help. "Oh look, its our Mormon friends!" Lol, they had seen Sora R's name tag and had also been to the musical in New York...hopefully  we set a good example :).

We had a really good activity on Saturday to close the end of Summer. We had hamburgers, potato salad, baked beans and watermelon. I don't think you can get any more "summer" than that! We had two nonmembers show up, including the mother of one of the members. I was really proud of the members as they made this member's mother feel like she was home. This is something that I don't usually see here in Bacau, so it was very refreshing.

I gave a surprise talk this week. I was banking on another member coming, but he was a no show. I only had two minutes to prepare the talk, but I think it went fine. When you serve in Deva and have to come up with a talk every other week (sometimes every week), you get pretty good at preparing a talk really quick. I first talked about forgiving others, seeing as how none of us are perfect. I then talked about less actives. Pres. Ivory really wants us to work with everyone, to balance out our days. Speaking of the less actives, I asked the members to think of someone who has lost their way. We are all brothers and sisters, a family, and we need to watch out for each other. I could see each of the members thinking of someone who wasn't with us at that meeting. I also talked about the saying that we have in the family, "No empty seats," meaning no empty seats in heaven. 

I will send you some pictures of Red Lake. Could you send me some pics of the house and neighborhood?

Love you all!

Elder Ormsby