A Week in the Life

Hey Guys,

Elder Houk with new companion Elder Gunsay

I thought I would give you a little day-by-day action here from Cluj, here's how my week went:

Monday: I got a haircut and a new jacket from Pull & Bear! (no picture yet, but coming soon. I need to start taking more pictures.)

Tuesday: We had choir practice in the morning. That's right I will be singing in a Christmas Concert on Dec. 6th. We had our first English class of the Transfer and it went really well. Love the people and they love us! We made some D-lisious Enchiladas for dinner!

Wednesday: Made an Indo Board from scratch! Went to our local "Dedeman" (equivalent to Home depot) and picked up the necessary stuff and boom! Indo Board. We are planning to go contacting with it on the street. That night, went to the Irish Pub and then got our things together and headed to the Gara(station) for an 11 hour overnight train ride to Buchuresti (pronounced "Boo-coo-re-sh-t"). Got a little sick...again. Those dang train rides.

Elder, Elder Gunsay, Elder Bateman, Elder Houk

Thursday: Got into Buchuresti and had to change at the church. We had a mission conference and we were visited by Elder Kearon from the seventy. He is SUCH a cool guy and it was one of the best conferences I have attended! That night we caught a train back to Cluj (pronounced "Clooj") for another 11 hour train. This time with 4 other people in our cabin and my companion. Just think of two tri-bunk beds put into a tiny room and that is what it is.

Friday: Finally got comfortable and then we arrived in Cluj. haha Found a place to print out a big piece of paper (A0 size) and then it was about 2/3 of the way done and then it messed up and we had to go the next day to pick it up. We are printing off a big English advertising poster to contact with in the future.

Saturday: Picked up our big English poster and went to teach English. Had more people there this time and we shared a spiritual thought about prayer. They seemed to really like it. We went out to lunch with an English student named "Doru." We went to this place called La Piadina in Old Cluj. Mmmm best "whatever that stuff is" in town and then even grabbed an "American Donut" after. Later that day we played tennis with him in a big balloon thingy with clay tennis courts in it. Then went home and changed and went to another restaurant for drinks with him. I grabbed some of the best hot chocolate I think I've had and they both got Lemonade. We talked about the Restoration and how the Book of Mormon came to be. He had been reading the Book before, so he knew about it. He said that he would love to continue to learn from us and keep an open heart. We invited him to come to church the next day.

Sunday: Doru came to church! He said that he liked it, as well! We also practiced that morning for Choir and later we had a member lesson with a recent convert named Dominic. He was just baptized a couple months ago.

Monday: Sitting here writing this letter to you!

I'm pretty excited for the future here and I hope you guys are enjoying yourselves back home, as well! Have a great week!

-Elder Houk

Two weeks ago when I posted these pictures Blair hadn't given comments. This week he explained... 

He's driving us on a gypsy cart. Meet some gypsies!

On a gypsy cart!!  yup. 

A theater that is in Cluj.
The light means that a production will be playing that night

On the overnight train, someone gave this book to me to read on the way home.
It's a book about the Orthodox religion and the title means "The words of the Old People"
or (as google translate says) "Elders words"

This is from the Irish Pub. A restaraunt here in Cluj. They got the O'Bama and O'Sama hahaha.

A halfway decent looking omelete that I made on P-Day morn. Tasted pretty good too!