To Be Continued...Now

February 3, 2014

Hey guys,

    So, I'll just pick up where I left off. After the lesson with the lady, I found out from my companion that she had agreed with a lot of our beliefs and I just thought it was cool that even though I didn't know what she was saying, I could sill feel the spirit. 

   So the next day was Sunday. After church in Brasov, we headed to Feldioara to pick up Ionuti for church and hopefully see Ion at the service.

So we get to Feldioara and the snow is coming down. It was probably around -8 c that day with the snow and wind, so it was pretty cold. We had Ionuti's address, but we don't know exactly where it is. So we got directions from a girl who lives by the church and her directions were " go over there, down to the end of the street and make a right". 

   So we headed that way with the wind and snow blowing, just trekking our way through the snow, not really knowing where we were going, but just knowing that we need to find this guy and bring him to church like he asked us to. It was around this point I recall thinking "I officially feel like a missionary now" haha. So eventually we find the street and start going down it asking where this house was and if they know Ionuti. No one knew him, but eventually we found the house. We approached the door with a fiercely barking dog about 2 feet way from us, desperately trying to break his chain leash so he could chew us to shreds, haha. I knocked, a woman answered, we asked for Ionuti. Nope. He gave us the wrong address, so we headed to the church for the service, hoping that Ion would show up. He didn't. So after the service we went to go check out the address he gave us. We found the street and yup it was another fake address. As we were walking back, we saw some kids playing soccer in the snow. We started talking to them and long story short, we got appointments to teach them some English. After that we contacted and because of the snow no one was really out so we waited for the bus inside the Church. We went out to the bus stop a little later and one of the kids was there, his name was Raul. He started talking to us and his grandma was like, "do you know these guys?" He was like, "yea." So the grandma turns to us, looks at the book we're holding, grabs it and ask us what it is. Long story short she said she was interested and will come to church next Sunday. We were stoked once again and left that city thinking, "What just happened? That was awesome."

   Next day. That night we went Block Knocking again. We decided that we would end this session of knocking at 8pm. After getting no success and doors slammed in our faces, 8 pm rolled around. My companion looks at his clock and says it look like 8 you wanna call it a day. I look at two doors we haven't done to finish the floor. I say, "Let's just finish those last two doors and call it a night." So I go over and knock on the first door, an older man answers and I struggle to get out the words, "good evening, we have a message about Jesus Christ, are you interested?" He looks at us for a second and invites us in. We talk for a bit and then we give him the first discussion. He said we can come back. It went so well, we were stoked, yet again. 

   Friday: We are waiting at the bus stop and a guy who looks about our age asks us what church we were from in English. I tell him the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He says, "Oh you're the Mormons right? You've got all the wives and stuff." I gave it a chuckle and told him that that wasn't true and that we only have one wife. He says, "No No, you guys are the Mormons, I watched the Discovery Channel, they have a documentary about you guys. You are the guys with the wives." So we invited him to let us tell him what Mormons really think and believe and he gave us his number. So we're gonna call him up sometime this week and go teach him. His name is Vlad. Ill give you an update next week.

   Sunday: So guess who came to church this week!

Yup, Raul and Ulga (His Grandma) It was fast Sunday so everyone went up and bore their testimonies. After the service all the members came over and started talking to her and speaking Romanian and stuff, it was awesome. But the most awesomeness of all the awesome so far, was that she couldn't see very well and couldn't read the hymn book or the Book of Mormon for that matter. She had lost her reading glasses recently, and then, as I said, the awesomeness of awesome happened. One of the members, Bro. Pavel (who doesn't have barely anything), takes off his reading glasses and gave them to her. I couldn't believe it. Someone that doesn't have anything, gave his glasses to someone he didn't even know. That made my day! It was the coolest experience. I love these people, jeez.

   Alright guys, so that is what has been happening here. I'm now going to go visit a castle called Braun about 30 minutes away. Talk to you next week!

-Elder Houk

Straight preachin' Side note: This is in the corner of our Feliodada church. Pretty small huh?

This is the name of Dracula and it's a street near my apartment.

The sidewalks don't get shoveled. A lot of the parents pull their kids on sleds since it is so hard for them to walk in the snow.