The Adventures Continue.....

1-19-2014

This is Elder Mayans signing in on another week. #RomaniaMission ha

Sorry I don’t like starting the e-mails the same way every week.

So, the past week was wonderful. I feel like this week we have made a

lot of progress in helping Craiova stay alive.

Starting at the beginning of the week we had Zone Training meeting so

we had to go down to Bucuresti again. Elder Brundage and I had to do a

presentation on testifying while finding. Usually the meetings are

kinda boring so we made sure it was fun but still had the spirit. I

could tell that the ZL's were not very happy because they are a little

serious but President Hill was there and he loved it so it couldn’t

have been that bad. I though it was a good meeting over all.

So for the rest of the week we have been hitting the streets a lot and

trying to meet up with some people. On Thursday this week during

correlation, President Spooner made a little Craiova district goal to

try and reach a certain number of contacts a day so that we don’t just

walk around. We are also still strivng to get the in-active members back

so we can get the branch back. The contacting is going great and we

are we are talking to more people but as far a in-active members go, we

called all the ones we could and they can’t or said to never call back

again. sooo.. yeah the branch is kinda hard. On Friday we did have a

great Friday night activity. We had Tony show up and also this lady

named Dorina. We played charades and ate some food. It was really

simple but a really successful activity. Tony is a cool guy who hasn’t

been going to church but goes to activities sometimes. I think he

likes me because he’s really nice to me but not very nice to other

missionaries. haha So I invited him to church and for the first time

that I’ve been here he came!!

Which brings me to the next thing I want to talk about. So you know

how there have been  about 2 members going to church every week. Well

yesterday we had 17 people at church!!!!!! It was amazing. It felt so

good to have people there. We also had 2 Americans from the district

council come and speak. Since Tony was there he translated thank

goodness. it was really cool to see people at church and it was

probably one of the best Sundays I have had out here so far. We also

had a member come who lives about 2 hours away. It was the first time

I have met him and he’s was a really nice guy. He has written a few

books and is pretty well known.

Other than that it was a really quick week. We have English classes

starting up again tomorrow so we will see how that goes. I’m really

happy where this transfer is going. i am having so much fun and

working really hard. I miss those Sunday naps I use to have because I

almost didn’t make it yesterday. haha Well the church is true and it is

a great time to be a missionary in Romania. I now the the Lord loves

these people so much and he is helping me touch the hearts of the

people here. I love you all and hope everyone is happy and has a good

week.

Elder Mayans

Romanian Life

1-13-14

Hello Family!!!!!

How is everyone doing!!! It has been an amazing week in the mission

life and I feel like these weeks fly by so fast. So to start off this

week was transfers so it consisted of a lot of traveling. On Wednesday

we went down to Bucuresti so that I could get my new district and head

back to Craiova. And my new district is fun and has a lot of

character. So as I told you before, my new companion is Elder Brundage

and he is awesome. One thing I have been really thankful for is

getting great companions. It started to get a little rough serving

with my last companion last transfer and things weren’t moving very much but now it should be great!! Actually Elder Brundage is from Gilbert AZ

and knows Truman Halliday pretty well. Small world. Anyways, I’m really

excited to work with him and I already know its going to be a great

transfer.

As for the other members of the district, There’s Sora Newell who is in

her forth transfer. She is really funny and has a lot of dry humor

which makes me laugh. She’s training Sora Wright who has been in the

country for about 4 days. haha The only way i can describe her is

straight out of the MTC. She is SUPER excited and happy. She’s also

really hyper and talks really fast but she’s great. If you thought I

talked fast you should hear this girl. Holy cow. So that’s it for the

district. I feel like its a really good district for Craiova and there

is plenty of stuff to be done here.

Now as for the week. Well it’s a new transfer so that means English

classes are starting up again in 2 week. We are making sure we are

passing out plenty of cards and putting up posters to advertise. More

than 50% of the missions success is from English classes so its

important that we get a lot of people there. Also on Thursday night

we, as a district had correlation meeting at President Spooners

apartment. We are still really trying to get all of these less active

members to come back to church. We had one member this week tell us he would go to church and also that family from the hospital said they

want to come too. Unfortunately yesterday nobody showed up. So I don’t

really know what to do but we will try to contact them and get them to

come again. Also at church I am now the new translator when President

or Sora Spooner speaks. Let me tell you it was so hard! haha When your

up there translating, all the pressure is on you. haha They say

something and no matter if it’s right or wrong something is coming out

of your mouth a few seconds later. It’s really hard to translate for me

because you don’t just directly translate word for word from English to

Romanian. I did fine I think and got the majority right. My brain was

fried afterwards though because I had to translate a talk and all of

Sunday school.

Other than that I have just been living the good life and loving the

mission. For the past weeks I haven't seen the sun but now the past 2

days its been clear skies and sunny. If winter is over here than that

was the easiest winter ever. Its beautiful here and its crazy to think

that I have almost been through all the seasons here in Romania.

Love you all. Have another great week and write me if you can. It’s

always great to get E-mails and I will try to respond.

The Church is true.

Elder Mayans

Elder Mayans this week in Romania

1-6-2014

Hello everyone!!!

Well, another week has gone by and I have a few new things that have

happened. First off transfer boards came out this week and there are a

lot of big changes. So I am staying here and everyone else is leaving!

Crazy right. So I’m getting a new companion, Elder Brundage, and the

Sisters in Craiova are getting whitewashed. I don’t know what to think

except for that it will be interesting. Pretty much Craiova is

starting over again. ha I’m really excited to work with Elder Brundage.

He is going to be in his 4th transfer. He is a really nice guy and a

hard worker so we should do well together. I will now be the oldest

missionary in my district which is a first. Everything is going way too

fast and I still feel like I just got here.

So this past week has been a little rough. Elder Degraw and I are fine

but I feel like we don’t work the best together so I think a change is

good and we will get more done next transfer. This week the Spooners

came beck from being in America for the holidays. It’s really nice to

have them back and now there are more people at church. I really like

them and I feel like if they weren’t here then they would probably take missionaries out of Craiova.

Because this was the last week of the transfer, we had our last

English class which went really good. We gave 3 copies of the Book

of Mormon out and everyone enjoys us. Because we told them that

everyone is leaving and I’m staying, everyone was like aww you the

chief now. haha We had two lessons planned this week, one with an

english student and the other with Bogdan, a guy we met in a bloc. Those

both fell through which was a bummer because they are super nice

people. I know this mission is really hard but I don’t get it sometimes

because some of these people are the coolest people I have ever met.

They love us to death and they love to talk to us but they don’t want

anything to do with the church. It’s weird because I feel like I have a

hundred of friends all around the city but I don’t have any

investigatiors. Anyway, thats more of the depressing stuff so I will

stop talking about that. haha I know all I can do is keep trying and

try my best.

So for New Years we had permission so stay up till 12! It was amazing.

We went on the roof of the Block and watched Romania go absolutely

crazy at midnight. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

There were fireworks everywhere and the whole city just lit up. It was

like something I have never seen. Romania knows how to celebrate the

right way. haha

Also this week we went back to the hospital and visited the kids and

their families again. I think we are going to continue doing that

because we have found the most success in doing that. It is really cool

now because we are kinda known in the hospital and when we come

everyone says hello and treats us like kings. They are always so happy

when we come. We still sang hyms and we also gave a little message

about Heavenly Fathers Plan. We got 3 numbers out of it so it was

really successful.

Well I love you all! From the emails it looks like everyone had a good

New Years and is doing great. I am so happy out here and this church

is so true. I love it and I love being a missionary. Have a great

week. Miss you and love you all!!!

Elder Mayans

Pictures

 I miss Chester a lot but I have a lot of dogs to keep me company!!!!

This is my friend who lives at the park.

Also the group picture is at the hospital.

Elder Mayans Dec 9, 2013

12-9-2013

Family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well hello again. So, like I explained last week I had a lot of things

go on this week. It felt like this week went by really fast so I don’t

really know what happened but I will try my best. First off in the

middle of this week I think Wednesday the  Zone leaders came up for

exchanges. I was pretty excited for this exchange and since we only

have sisters in our district, we can only go on one exchange each

transfer which would be with the Zone Leaders. So they came up Wednesday

night, and then had our exchange. Unfortunately is wasn’t the most

successful exchange because of time but we dealt with what we had. On

Thursday we had district meeting in the afternoon which went very well

I think. I feel like sometimes I’m the only one talking because there

is not too much participation but it’s going well. We have such a good

district. After that we had to grab lunch really fast and go down to

Bucuresti for Zone Conference/Christmas party!! Like I said the

exchange wasn’t amazing. Their main reason of coming up was to check up

on how Iwas doing because I’m new at being District Leader and see if I

had anything I needed help on.

Then we took the train that night with the ZL’s back to Bucuresti which

took a long time and we got there pretty late. I stayed in Elder

Barneys apartment with a few others from my MTC group. It was awesome

to see them and get to catch up with everything that has been going

on. Our whole mission is really, really close. I know almost every

person in my whole mission and we are all really good friends. That

night I had one of the worst nights of sleep I have ever had. There

were no more beds so I was on the ground and I probably got close to

an hour of sleep. That really messed me up for the next few days

because I was dead tired.

On Friday was when we had our Conference. A few big things that

happened there was first, we got to see a picture of the new mission

President and second, a lot of the older Elders that I served with in

Galiati had their dying testimony and are going home in a few weeks.

So yeah the new President sounds really cool and rich. haha he is

really young compared to President Hill so that will be different. You

can never replace President Hill though…. he’s amazing. and yeah, Elder

Ward, Elder Cunningham and Elder Knapp all gave their farewell

testimonies. It was really good. I love those guys. They have been a

huge influence on my mission and I’m going to have to stay in touch

with them and meet up after I get home. Also at the Christmas party we

watched a picture slideshow of a bunch of pictures from the entire

year. I will probably be sending that home because I have a CD copy

and I think you guys would enjoy it.

That night we stayed in Elder Ward and Cunningham's apartment and then

headed back in the morning. We got back in the afternoon which was

perfect because we arrived just in time for our Christmas party that

President and Sora Spooner planned this week. Everything turned out

perfect besides the fact that we were all dead tired. ha The train

rides really mess up your sleep. At the Christmas party we ate some

saremale which Sora Redelescu made for us and also frosted cookies.

Not too many people came but it was still really fun and had a good

time. We also watched The Christmas Orange. I don’t know if you have

seen that one… its an older movie and I liked it a lot.

Then on Sunday we had church. Right before church a tall American

young man walked in the villa. I was super confused and almost didn’t

know what to say because it caught me off guard so much. Turns out he’s

just a student from BYU who is on a business trip and some of his

clients are here in Craiova. ha kinda random but he found out where

the church was through the internet and came. It’s always nice to have

visitors because it is really uncommon. I also gave a talk during

Sacrament Meeting. I spoke on the importance of baptism. I talked a

lot about the same things that I talked about in Abuelos Talk. I

thought it went really well.

That was about all that happened this week. We are still English

contacting as much as we can. Our first class starts tomorrow so I’m

excited to see how it turns out.

I love you all and I miss you so much. Have a great week and happy

holidays. Bicerica lui Isus Hristos este adevarata! Eu marturisesc ca

Hristos Traieste si ne iubeste. Sunt foarte rescunoscator pentru

ocazie pe care o am sa fie o misionar aici in Romania si slujesc

fiecare zi.

The Romanian has been a big struggle but I am trying my best. I feel

like sometimes it is going really well and other times it is awful.

haha I’m having fun with it though.  Love you all!!

Elder Mayans

P.S. It hasn’t been really cold temperature wise but there is a really

bad wind chill here and it’s really humid. Honestly I would say it

already feels colder then it was in Idaho. I am freezing my butt off.

Elder Mayans 12-2-2013

12-2-2013

Hello, Hello, Hello!!!

It is so amazing to hear about all the things that have happened this

week and the pictures are amazing. So, the baptism was amazing?! That

is so good to hear! I have been thinking about it all week. I wish I

was there but it sounds like everything went perfect. Also, from the

pictures it looked like there were a lot of people at the house for

Thanksgiving! haha My thanksgiving was very interesting this year.

So about the week. This week went by very slow but now looking back it

was a really good and humbling week. It has been awesome serving with

Elder Degraw and the Sisters in Craiova. Elder Degraw and I are really

different but we get along well. I have been extremely lucky with my

companions so far. They have all been really good elders.

So, this week was transfers but since Elder Degraw and I were already

in Craiova we didn’t have to go down to Bucuresti which was nice. We

spent a lot of time Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday cleaning out the

other apartment and getting it ready for the sisters. That apartment

was so disgusting from 10 years of elders living there. It wasn’t very

fun cleaning but we made it look a lot better. So Wednesday night we

picked up the sisters from the train station and showed them

around/took them to their apartment. It’s a pretty big deal to have

sister here because Craiova is one of the only cities in the mission

that has never had sisters.

Thursday as you know was Thanksgiving!!! We didn’t have very much

planned except for contacting and advertising for English classes.

That night we were able to watch a movie and celebrate Thankgiving a

little bit!! But we lost a lot of time because the Sisters got locked

out of their apartment and we had to help them with that. It’s really

different being with sisters if you haven't noticed. They need help on

a LOT of things and you just need to have patience with them. haha but they are still awesome. Also on Thursday I had my first district meeting as

a district leader. It was really weird to lead it and to feel like

everyone is looking at me. haha It went really well though. I’m excited

for this transfer and it’s awesome because my whole district is pretty

young. Sora Ralls, Elder Degraw and I are in our fifth transfer and

Sora Smith is in her third.

Friday was another slow day but we had Friday night activity. For the

first half hour nobody showed up but they we had a lady come and she

brought two friends who were pretty young. We had a little spiritual

thought and then made Christmas snowflakes with plates. They loved it!

haha they were really nice people and we got both of their numbers. We

are going to try to meet up with them this week and talk to them more

about the church.

On Saturday we did a lot of english contacting and also we got invited

to the Spooners house for dinner!! It was the first time I have been

over there. Their apartment is amazing! It’s like America. They live in

the Ford Block so the whole thing is owned by FORD.  haha It was

really nice of them to have us over and Sora Spooner had ranch dip

from America!! I miss ranch.

Sunday was also a great day. We had a very lonely but spiritual fast

and testimony meeting. After we went block knocking which is always an

experience. We talked to a lot of people but nobody was really

interested. Some guy yelled at us for knocking on the door at this

hour of the day. It was 1 in the afternoon. haha He wasn’t very happy.

Other than that, that’s about it. I’m loving it out here and everyday is

another new experience or situation that I have to accomplish. I’m

exhausted by the end of the day but I love it. I love you all and I’ll

talk to you next week.

This coming week I will be going to Bucuresti on Thursday for zone

conference/Christmas party! Also I will be having an exchange with the

Zone leaders on Wednesday. Love you all! Have a great week.

Love, Elder Mayans

P.S. I got my Christmas package from the ward this week. Seriously

made me so happy. Thank you for all the stuff that you sent me. I

watched the video that Sister Neilson recorded and I was laughing so

hard the whole time. I love my Ward! Thanks again.

Jacobs weekly e-mail

11-3-2013

Familia Mea! Ce faceti voi!? Am avut una suptamana foarte bine. Am

facut multe lucrurii si am vorbit cu multi oameni.

How is everyone!! I have had a really long but amazing week!

This week I really have learned that a lot of work pays off one way or

another. For the past three weeks it has been slowly moving here and

there but nothing very exciting has happened. Elder Harris and I have

been contacting like crazy and haven’t had too many people listen to us.

So this week on Tuesday we had our first English class. I was a little

nervous because it is a new city and I didn’t know what to expect but

it turned out to be absolutely amazing!!! We had over 50 people in the

church. We didn’t even have enough chairs so people just stood in the

back. We taught a really good English class and everyone was laughing

and having a good time. We are teaching beginners this transfer so it

is a little harder in that we have to explain things in Romanian more

and the students aren’t as comfortable doing activities. We mostly just

did an English review to see where they are at and what they want to

learn. We did a little game where they would draw something they like

to do on a piece of paper and then go in from of the class and say

what they like to do. It was really funny and most people either said

gardening or cooking. haha

After English we had a little spiritual thought where we briefly

explained who we were, why we are in Romania, the importance of the

Gospel and the Book of Mormon. We kept it simple because we didn’t want to scare anybody off but they all liked the message. Some of them even came up to us after and told us that it is a beautiful message. It was

awesome and we are continuing to talk and get to know them more. I was

really happy how well the class turned out and I think that will

be our best opportunity to get some investigators or at least some

people to church.

On Thursday we had a great time on Halloween contacting haha Nobody

celebrates it here but we went did! haha sort of.. We went to a

grocery store that evening and got a bunch of candy!! The lady at the

cash register looked at us funny because all we were getting was candy.

I asked here if she knew what today was? She said no and I told her

It’s Halloween and everyone in America eats a bunch of candy today!!

haha I dont think she got it but it was pretty funny.

On Friday we went contacting a lot at the park but then had a lesson

with a man named Valeriu. I guess I can call him an investigator. He

is a really cool guy but is really hard to teach. He loves the bible

and doesn’t like to talk about anything else so at times it is

hard. He likes the Book of Mormon but just says it says the same thing as

the Bible says but just not as good. The biggest problem is that he

doesn’t like to listen and loves to talk. haha we will see if we can

get him to progress in anyway and I think we are planning on meeting

with him again this week.

Saturday we had our second English class. It wasn’t as big as the first

class but it was still very big. Because English classes are doing so

well we are coming up with a lot of really fun activities we can do

during class to keep people coming. We know we aren’t the most amazing

teachers but as long as they are learning something and enjoy coming

then that’s all we want.

On Sunday we had fast and testimony meeting. Since there were about 8

members including missionaries there, all the missionaries bore their

testimonies. It was small but it was a really good meeting. That

night we went chalk contacting at the park. We drew out the Plan of

Salvation and talked to people about it as they walked by. It was

pretty fun and something different to do.

Today is P-Day. We went down to Pitesti this morning and went paint

balling with the other district down here. It was so much fun!!! I

have some pics I can send. Over all it was a really good week. We had

a lot of fun talking to people and testifing about different

principles of the gospel. Hope all is well. Love you all.

Elder Mayans