Becoming a Trainer

I asked Austin a few questions this week and here are his answers:

Any more news about the guy investigating and a baptism date? Let us know his name so we can remember him in our prayers.The guy's name is Florin. He has been an investigator for a long time. We had a lesson with him this week, but no baptismal date.

How about the transfer board? Are you staying in Timisoara then?The transfer board says, I'll be staying in Timisoara training a new missionary fresh from the MTC. Should be fun. We leave for Bucharest Tuesday night. There are 11 new elders coming, and 5 people from my MTC group are training. We are going to have 3 companionships in this city, all training. 2 new elders and a new sister out here, it will be fun.

What is your apartment like there? (would love to see a photo)Our apartment here is alright. It's pretty big though. I haven't taken any pictures, but it's alright. Our hot water is kinda iffy. Sometimes the cold water doesn't work in the shower (go figure) haha. It's alright though. We live really close to the middle of the city and a post office, so that's good.

What is the place where you have church like and how many members usually come? We have church in a buildng that's rented, just like the other cities. we usually have a bout 14 people there.

It's really starting to heat up here. Like getting hot. It's either pouring rain, or super hot and humid. It was 80 with humidity today, but it's gonna start raining again. We had a couple lessons this week. One was with homeless guy (well, we're pretty sure he was homeless), he just followed the sisters into the church and told us all he needed to repent. Kind of weird, but we sat him down and talked about repentence for a bit, gave him a Book of Mormon, and sent him on his way. We think he was on drugs when he came, but he seemed nice. Yup it's pouring right now. Man the weather has been peculiar the last couple weeks. Mother nature can't make up her mind. anywhho. Our other lesson was with Florin, he's a cool kid, but has a hard time keeping his commitments.

That's all that's new for this week We had dinner with the senior couple here last night. They left for the temple in Germany this morning, 13 hours on a bus. Dang. I'll pass on that one. Too long. They get to stay there all week, and we leave Tuesday, so between Wednesday and Friday, there won't be any missionaries here in the city. Romanian is still going forward with me. I can understand everything, and since I've been translating a lot, I've been learning more as well.

That's all for the week, love you all.

Testimony Meeting in 3 Languages

We finally got in contact with that kid we had the date for, too late for him to be baptized, that was supposed to be on Saturday. But we should be meeting with him sometime in the next few days. Other than that, not really anything new. We had a few member visits with the branch president. He takes us with him to translate. We were at a member's house and they fed us sarmale. I usually don't like the sarmale, but this one was different. instead of wrapping the rice and meat in pickled cabbage, they used grape leaves. Let me tell you that it is a night and day difference between the two. I have a hard time stomaching the cabbage stuff, but the stuff with grape leaves actually tastes alright.

We had a lesson this week. But it was with this 70 year old guy who has been investigating the church for like 10 years. His story is nuts, and we are pretty sure he's a little nuts as well. He had his records removed from the Baptist church because he didn't believe what someone told him there. And now, he just calls missionaries all over Romania all the time. But we went over to his house. He was super nice, had a lot of snacks and soda. We showed him how to work the tablet and camera that his kids gave him, and after that we had a little Gospel discussion. We probably won't go over there again, he's super nit picky about every little thing, and his main thing was why we don't use wine and unleavened bread for the sacrament. Some people and their ideas I suppose.

Church on Sunday was cool. We have a few members here that go to Italy to work and then come back to Romania for a bit. They brought a few of thier friends from Italy, who are also members. And it was fast and testimony meeting, so they both got up and the member translated from Italian into Romanian during sacrament meeting. And, during priesthood, something similar happened when they said stuff, but after it was translated into Romanian, I translated it into English for our branch president. We had 3 languages in our meetings on Sunday. How was it in just English for you? haha. I could actually understand some of the Italian too. Crazy learning another language.

That's about it for the week. we find out about transfers this week on friday, I'll probably stay, my comp is probably leaving though.