Remembering Romania: I Witnessed My First Baptism in Romania This Week!

February 10, 2014

Hey guys,

So I visited Bran Castle last week after I sent the email. It was pretty cool! It was definitely a tourist trap kind of place, because they had most of the stuff in English. It was really cool to visit a castle though. I'm going to be visiting another one this week on Wednesday that is suppose to be cooler than Bran. It's called Peleş.

Bran Castle

View from outside castle

This week went by pretty fast and not much really went on except that the Sister's got a baptism! It was an awesome spiritual experience.

After being taught by the Sisters she was baptized!

Someone from our English class stayed and watched the baptism and then came out to Feluiada for the confirmation the next day. We talked to him and he wanted to know more. So after the service, Elder Speyer and I taught him the Restoration lesson. We wanted to do the lesson in Romanian because it easier to feel the spirit in your own language but he insisted that we do it in English. So it was a little weird at first teaching in English, but I got to participate a lot more and answer his questions and it went really well and he wants to talk again soon, so we will see how that goes!

Those in attendance

Doin' some clean up after baptism

This week we had a talent show for our church and not a lot of people showed up, but we all wanted to do something as a district (all the missionaries in Brasov). Since we really didn't know what to do, we sang a Hymn for our talent, haha. After that we decided to play a game called "Do you love your neighbor?" (If you don't know how to play, look it up on google real quick)[The short version...A game with one less chair than players. A player "it" stands in the middle and asks one player, "do you love your neighbor?" They say yes or no, but we love ___. Then those players get up and try to find another chair. Whoever doesn't get a chair is "it"] Soooo try doing that game... in Romanian. You gotta know what they're saying to play. So at one point they said that they love the girls and I got up and switched chairs and everyone started cracking up. And everyone also laughed because I didn't even know how to say "do you love your neighbor" in Romanian, haha, so that was an interesting night.

So I finished a book this week called "The Peacegiver." This book is AWESOME. Definitely check it out and read it. It's an easy read and worth the time to read it! I learned a lot from that book.

Oh, I had my first dream in Romanian today. I have been waking up this whole week in that like half sleep half awake mode and just rambling on in Romanian about something and then my companion would cough in his sleep or something and I would be like "why am I sitting up and talking right now??" haha. But, today I actually had a dream. So here it is: I was in a barber shop, studying or something, and someone that I knew in the dream but don't know in real life came up to me and asked me what was up. I said that I was on a mission in Romania, but I was taking a break in America right now. He then randomly sat down and unexpectedly started speaking Romanian to me. I didn't know what he was saying, but I could pick out some of the words I heard and could tell that it was Romanian. So I said "Sunt Foame".("I'm hungry", the wrong way) "Sorry I mean, Mie Foame" ("I'm hungry", the right way) Then he said something and I said, "Cum ştiţi limba engleza, I mean, română?" (It means "how do you know English, I mean, Romanian", but like totally wrong. The correct way to say it would be "ştiţi limba română?") and then I woke up. haha.

Oh, here's an interesting fact about Romania. Because their water is so bad here (it's apparently as bad as Africa's water) whenever you want water at a restaurant or something you have to pay for it. It costs just as much as a soda and you get a bottle of water. The interesting thing is that you can have the choice between plain water or carbonated water. So the thing here is to drink carbonated water. It's definitely an acquired taste, but I'm diggin it.

So that's it for this week guys. I love you all and hope you all are doing well.

Till next week,

Elder Houk (cel mai mişto pisică)[the coolest cat]