Two More Days

Wow it's crazy to think that I only have two days left here.  I'll get to go to Cișmigiu tomorrow and read the dedicatory prayer with President and Sora Hill and everything and it's going to be a really good two days.

This last week was good.  We did some more service and had some lessons with the T... family and they were legit!  They're a super cool young family but the husband is less active so we were working with him to get him back to church and get him the priesthood.  They're super cool and they made us really good food as well.  Also this week I had my last church service here and it was one of the best church services I've ever been to I think.  President M... invited me to bless the sacrament with him for my last week there, and then Elder C... and I bore our testimonies (he's also leaving to Alexandria) and at the end of the meeting President E..., one of the members that I've known for the longest (I met him in my first transfer in Deva) gave me a Romanian flag from the branch and it was a super cool thing that they did.  They give a flag to every missionary who goes home from their branch and everyone signs it.  They really are super cool.  I'll miss them.

It was a really good last week and a really good mission.  I'm going to miss it a lot.  It was a hard two years, with lots of disappointing things and lots of trials but also more blessings than I've ever had and more happiness, more peace, more satisfaction, everything.  It really is the best two years.

I hope all of you are great and I'll see you all soon!  Vă iubesc!

„Sion frumos în cer clădit;

Oraș frumos nespus iubit;

Frumoase porți de un alb perlat;

Templu frumos de Domn luminat;

El pe Golgota a fost ucis,

Și mi-a deschis albe porți de vis.

Sion, Sion,

Sion iubit;

Tu, frumos Sion;

Oraș al lui Dumnezeu”

 A cool park picture.

 A flower in the church's front yard.

My last Branch

Penultima Scrisoare a Mea Catre Voi (My last letter to you)

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a great Mother's Day because I did cause I got to talk to my momma!  We had a really good week too we met with M... and went to do service at her house again and are going again this week and also we got to go to the Philharmonic with her here in Ploiesti which was legit!  They had a guest conductor, Sabin Pauta, and he was super cool.  He's super good and he wrote this really cool piece that was a mix of a bunch of Mozart operas.  It had a really cool part on his rendition of the Queen of the Night Aria... anyway it was legit.  Also this week we made lasagna Italian style and it was super good.  Like super super good.  Of course not as good as my momma's lasagna, but almost.

Besides that the only really big things that happened were zone training meeting which was fun.  We had our normal meeting and then we also had a big contacting activity with both of the Buc zones (like 40 missionaries).  Also I bore my testimony cause it was my last fast and testimony meeting and it was good.  Not much happened this week besides that.  Although we did have a few funny contacts like crazy people coming up to us and stuff.  That is all.  I hope you all have a super good week!

With Love, Elder Michael Abbott

Trebuie să-ţi îndoi genunchile!

 The park

 Elder K... beating M...'s rug

 Stunt planes that were flying over the city

A church by our church

Part of the main street here (Strada Republicii)

Easter!

Hello everyone!

Okay I have a lot to write about this week.  First of all the week started off with a bang last P-day right after I sent my last email.  We went to play soccer and about 10 minutes into our game Elder J... took a shot and when he came down on his kicking foot he just collapsed and it turned out that he had double fractured his ankle.  He had a fracture in both his tibia and fibula and I went with him to the hospital in an ambulance (they even gave us the siren! :D) and got it all casted up and he went back home Thursday so he can get better care for it.  So that was super intense and it's too bad he couldn't stay longer.

Next, it was my birthday on Thursday and the district was super nice and threw me a "surprise" party which wasn't super surprising because it was like the 3rd or 4th surprise birthday party we've had in the last 2 months haha.  But the sisters made pasta salad and cake and it was all really good.

On Friday Elder C... and I went with M... to a church in the city here to the Good Friday service. It was kinda weird because they walk under a table or something and M... took us to see the part when all the kids could go under too but it was cool because we just wore our normal proselyting clothes (against her will haha) and when we walked in we were standing in the back and just watching and one of the priests came out of the Holy of Holies at the other end of the church and walked all the way to the back of the church to talk to us and at first I was a little nervous like "this isn't going to turn out well" but he got to us and he was looking a little nervous too and he just said welcome and asked us what we were doing there and I said that we had our friend M... and she said we should come see what the Good Friday service is like and he was super nice and explained everything that was going on. Apparently the table represents Jesus in the tomb after his crucifixion and going under the table is a sign of respect and humility. The priest was super chill though and spoke English really well as well and had a masters from the Holy Cross in New York. He even invited us to come watch a little closer when he was done talking to us but he had to go back to continue doing the service haha. Then after he left M... said we should go under the table with her and I had to tell her we wouldn't do that as official representatives of the church haha. She took it really well and said she has a bad back anyway. It was really cool though and it was one of the first times that I've actually had a normal conversation with an Orthodox priest. So that was really good.

On Saturday we all made sarmale and mamaliga and we also had pumpkin pie because I found a can of pumpkin in my cupboards from America!  It was a super pre-Easter meal and then we had the midnight mass including the lighting of candles, etc., etc.  That part was pretty much the same as last year just a little warmer, no rain afterwards, and the service was shorter because it was a smaller church that we went to.

Sunday we had one hour of church followed by egg-breaking with the whole branch and then we went to the M... family's house to eat with them and the P... family.  They made soup, roasted a turkey, and we also had some really good raw vegetable appetizers that go really well with their telemea cheese here and stuff.  Also boiled quail eggs... it was a really good meal.  It was a super fun week and I had a lot of fun.  It was super eventful.  Anyway, I hope all of you have a great week and I'd like to give an early shoutout to all the mom's out there.  I hope you have a great mother's week!

With Love, Elder Michael Abbott

Cum te cheama?

Zori de zeama!

Cum te striga?

Mamaliga!

 Surprise!!  Happy Birthday!

 Elder J... in the hospital

 The church egg breaking contest

Easter dinner

Orthodox Easter

This week was awesome!  It's getting hot now and it's crazy because when I got here to Ploiesti six weeks ago it was cold and snowy and now it's hot and humid-ish and I know it's going to get worse but it's a step.  Also this week we got to do some service for M..., our investigator, and it was fun.  We helped deep clean part of her apartment and it looked way better when we finished.  It still has a lot of work to do and we're going back tomorrow to help out more.  But it was super legit that she actually let us come clean her house because there are so many Romanians here that refuse service.  It's just how their culture is.  She was saying she'd be ashamed to have us come over but after we pushed her long enough she finally gave in and let us come.  She's also a super cool investigator even though we're kinda just at the beginning.  She kinda confuses us a little with the Church of Christ I think too.  Like she believes in a "universal church" and then it doesn't matter if she does Orthodox stuff, Church of Christ stuff, or anything else.  But we're working with her and we just haven't been able to actually teach her a legit lesson yet which is mostly the problem.  Just short ones after English classes and stuff.

Also this week we had Palm Sunday which was pretty good!  The branch made the little traditional crowns they make here on Sunday and it was cool.  There are so many traditions here for Easter it makes me wish we had more in America.  They had people walk all over the city Saturday with palm fronds and then Sunday we had the crowns and it was also flower day and everyone got flowers, then this Friday is the recognition of Christ's crucifixion which last year when I was in Pitesti was celebrated with a live reenactment of the betrayal, trial, etc.  On Easter they'll have the lighting of candles at midnight, and then there's the tradition of breaking eggs, then for the 40 days until ascension day everyone greets each other with "Christ resurrected!"  "Truly he resurrected!" instead of normal greetings.  They do a lot of stuff.

I hope all of you have a great week leading up to Orthodox Easter!
Hristos a înviat din morţi cu moartea pe moarte călcând, şi celor din morminte viaţă dăruindu-le.

Love, Elder Michael Abbott

All of us with our crowns

Pizza

The Last Conference...

Hey peeps!

So this was a good week, we got a referral who ended up not working out and we won cinnamon rolls from Elder K... because we contacted a bunch of people and... we had Zone Conference!  It was a super legit conference and we had a lot of fun there and also it was super spiritual.  It was mostly weird though just that it was my last conference!  I didn't even realize it was until I saw my name on the program as one of the departing missionaries because we always have the missionaries who are at their last zone conference bear their testimony.  So I did that.

The rest of the zone conference was also really good.  We learned about our purpose from the AP's and I really liked it and there was a good musical number that Sora G... wrote for Elder K... to sing.  It was super good.

Anyway, besides that it was a pretty normal week.  I hope all of you are doing well!

With Love, Elder Michael Abbott

Szeretlek

 Michael's apartment - look how clean!  Impressive!

New. Investigator.

Hey everyone!
This has been a pretty good week mostly normal stuff but we finally got a new investigator here.  It's been long enough right?  She's pretty cool though she's a former investigator of the sisters and we taught her before even finding out that she's been taught before.  So that's cool.  Also probably the highlight of this week was getting to give the Gift of the Holy Ghost to F... who was baptized last week.  It was a cool experience and it was super cool to get to do that for the first time.  We had a really good sacrament meeting too which is good.  Also I found out this week that Fr..., the investigator I had in Panduri that was waiting on First Presidency permission before he could get baptized finally got his response back and the First Presidency has "no objection" to him being baptized, so he'll have an interview with President Hill this week and he'll probably be baptized in the next week or two.  I'm super excited.  He's super cool and totally was ready he just had to wait a while for the answer to come back.  Also his sister is taking lessons now... basically it's just super cool how it's all working out.
Anyway, that's pretty much all that happened this week.  It was a pretty exciting but also somewhat normal week.  I hope all of you are doing great and I hope you have a great week!  Loves!
-Elder Michael Abbott
вє юбеск пе вои тоць

Conference

Hello everybody!
So it's been another great week here and we've been contacting away like normal.  We still haven't found anyone new yet but we're going to maybe try some other stuff this week like chalk contacting if the weather gets better.  Or something else.  I don't really know haha finding people is hard.  Basically the idea is to work until God gives you someone.  So we're working now.  It was a super good week though I'm not gonna lie.  I had an exchange with Elder T... and it was super cool.  He's also from Orem (but we didn't know each other before) and it was super funny comparing all the people we both know.  We had a good lesson with a recent convert though and also I found a super cool thing in Exodus 20 while I was with him while we were planning for a lesson which totally changed the meaning of the Ten Commandments forever.  It's in verse 5 in the footnotes if any of you want to find it.
Also Conference was legit!  I know you all know that already but I really liked it.  My mom said it's like a little period of time every 6 months where we just get to have a good spiritual experience or something to that effect and she's right.  It was super good.  I liked the back to back peace talks and President Monson's talk during Priesthood a ton.
Also there was a baptism this week!  The sisters had an investigator get baptized before we all watched the Saturday Morning session and it was super cool!  She's really prepared and really wants to do good and it's awesome!
Anyway, that's basically what happened this week.  I hope all of you are doing great!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott
Da? Spune! Care-i problema?

 District lunch at Conference

Our District