Christmas and New Years

 Cookie dough

 Elder Lee - aici (here)

 bowling on Christmas eve

Piata (the market) on Christmas day

     Hey again everyone!  I hope all of you had a great Christmas, and that you're all looking forward to a great New Year's too!
     This week was a fun week.  We had a few lessons with investigators and less active members before they left town and then spent Thursday and Saturday just going to all of the members' and investigators' houses if they were still here in Craiova.  We caroled at all of their doors then shared a Christmas message.  We also made chocolate chip cookies (an actual American food that most of them haven't had) and gave each family a little baggie of a few of them.  It was super fun and great.
     We loved church yesterday too, it was great to get to go on Christmas, even if we had a few less people there than normal due to everyone being out of town with family.  The Radulescu family was really nice to remember that we are all alone now in the city and invited us over for a Christmas lunch of ciorbă, salată de beouf, and SARMALE!  I love sarmale haha they're made of pickled cabbage with seasonings, pork, and rice stuffed inside of them.  They're suuuuuuper good and it was good to get some Romanian food. :)
     The Christmas party was one of the other highlights of the week.  We went Friday morning to Bucharest to meet up with all of the other missionaries from the Bucharest West and Bucharest East zones.  We had a white elephant tie exchange, dinner, caroling, and watched the mission slide show.  It was really fun and it was great to see some more of my friends from the MTC, some of whom I hadn't seen in over 2 months.  Basically it was a great (despite not being a very white) Christmas and Elder Lee and I loved it!
     Just a shout out too to all of my family, thanks for the video Christmas card!  It was great watching it and seeing all of you again, trying to talk back to you while Elder Lee laughs at me, etc.  Haha it seriously was great. :)
     I hope all of you are great!  La mulţi ani după revelionul ăstă şi sărbători fericite în continuare!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott

Christmas is coming, the pig is getting fat...

Sorry, having blogger problems, can't type in between pictures for some reason...

Michael is loving the 12 days of Christmas package sent from the aunts and cousins, especially American candy!

Picture of sky

Can you guess which window belongs to the Elders?

Santa brass band outside the bloc

They are so excited about their tree!

Prietenilor!
Christmas is so close! Within a week! This is probably the biggest holiday in Romania, with maybe the exception of Easter, which is also huge. It's great to have Christmas so close and to be so close to talking with my fam on skype and everything haha the only downside is that half of our investigators will be scattered across the country with their families for Christmas. Still, it's going to be great! We've already had a brass band dressed up as santas Christmas caroling behind our bloc! Elder Lee and I are thinking of making a Christmas feast of pork and stuff on Christmas day after church.
This was a good week. We had exchanges on Wednesday and Thursday, so I was in Bucharest with Elder Johnsen, one of the Zone Leaders, for those 2 days. It was a fun exchange. We met with some cool investigators that the Zone Leaders have up there, and we managed not to die in the fog-filled drive we had to Bucharest. :) The weekend was really good, we had a great church meeting, with plenty of people there. A member of the district presidency came to give a talk during sacrament meeting, and I gave the other. Then we realized that our priesthood teacher was gone (he missed his train from Caracal, where he lives), so Elder Lee and I planned a quick lesson and gave it. It seemed like the general theme of church was figuring out what we need to do in life, developing a desire to do it, and then doing it. We had a lot of quotes from the April conference that came up, such as Elder Uchtdorf's analogy of having the best computer on earth and not using it to its fullest potential by turning it on, reading the manual, and learning how the programs run, which was related to desiring to do well, but then not doing all we can do (being baptized but ending progression there, coming to church but not listening, being a member but not reading the scriptures, listening to the prophets, etc.). It was a really good discussion we had and also a really good Sacrament meeting, despite the music ha. I played piano and played one of the traditional Romanian Christmas hymns, which I don't really know how to play, but which the members sang well to, then played the Christmas hymns I know but none of the members did. Also, at one point the electric keyboard decided it was going to help me play by giving me a nice drumset recording for me to play my songs to. Haha it was great :)
I hope all of you have a great week and a great Christmas! Until next week!

Căci un Copil ni S-a născut,
un Fiu ni S-a dat,
şi domnia va fi pe umărul Lui;
Îl vor numi:
„Minunat,
Sfetnic,
Dumnezeu tare,
Părintele veşniciilor,
Domn al păcii.”
Isaia 9:6

Vă doresc vouă un Crăciun fericit!
Elder Michael Abbott

Half Transfers!

"Elder Veenendaal and I are sad that he's leaving."

"But we're happy he was here."

"Because we were gansters."

"With cool investigators."

"Even if they sometimes wore doves on their heads."

"While we stood in the middle of the street."

"And made snowmen out of freezer ice....Bye-bye Elder Veenendaal"

Hey everybody! So, Elder Veenendaal is officially gone. I said my last goodbyes to him at the mission office an hour and a half or so ago and he'll be on his plane home Wednesday. If you don't remember he's getting sent home 3 weeks before he would normally have gone home so that his family can have him there for Christmas and new year. Yesterday one of the senior couples from Bucharest came to church and the sister was teasing him for leaving early ("Oh, you've had a good two years. Oh wait, you didn't do 2 years did you?... Yeah, he came two years ago, oh wait almost 2 years ago." ha it was really funny). It was pretty sad to see him go, but it's alright because I got a new companion, so I won't be all alone. I'll be serving at least the next 3 weeks with Elder Lee. Elder Rasmussen, his old companion, left for Galaţi, so we'll be the only 2 missionaries in Craiova. It'll be a little weird but also nice to go back to a 2 missionary apartment, because I've been living with 3 other missionaries for the last 9 weeks. And missionary work is a lot harder with a 4 missionary apartment. This last week with Elder Veenendaal was great! We had 2 new investigators, both of them referrals. One of them was a referral from a member in Bucharest, and the other was a referral from another investigator. Monica, the referral from the investigator, is really cool. We actually met her at her friends house because that's where we thought she lived, and her friend had a pet dove, whose best friend is... Monica! Haha we waited at the other lady's apartment for Monica for a while and when Monica came in the dove flew over to her and was freaking out that she was there. Before we left we had to get a picture of her and her friend. :) We're having a great time here in Craiova and I'm looking forward to serving with Elder Lee. He's a great missionary and we'll get work done, at least that's what I'm hoping! I've heard Christmas time makes it hard to work with people because everyone is busy with their families and the holidays and say they don't have time for missionaries, but we'll do as much as we can! I hope all of you are having a great holiday season and that your schools and works and everythings are about to end and you can all just rest for the holidays! It's good to get rest every once in a while, so remember that. :) Until next week! Oare ştiaţi că "anul nou" în limbă Română se spune "Revelion"? Love, Elder Michael Abbott

Christmas Party!

Meppy Holimaskah everyone!

It's December already! It's weird to think that Christmas is so close, but to prove it, we had our Branch Christmas party this last week! It was very fun, even if it wasn't super Christmasy. We watched a Christmas movie, then played Christmas pictionary, then played the ninja hand slap game. Apparently in Romania they have the same game just played with feet instead of hands, but they wanted to play the hand game because they never do, so that's what we did. We also had great desserts and it was a fun party all around. We had quite a few less actives show up to the party and to church the next day. It was cool to see so many people come.

As for investigators we kind of took a step backwards this week. Dani isn't sure she's ready to get baptized and we weren't able to meet with her at all. We had a lesson with another girl, Cosmina, who's sister is an investigator, but that was it. We did meet some cool people at English class signups who were cool, so maybe they'll be good contacts when classes start up on Tuesday. It was kind of a slow week but still fun! Elder Veenendaal and I are having a great time talking to people on the streets and we found a lot of people interested in English classes and a few people who we can hopefully start teaching. We've also been making great food lately. Sorry I can't send pictures from Thanksgiving like I said I would. This computer I'm on won't let me plug my camera in. We had a great week, though, and we're looking forward to a great last week together before Elder Veenendaal leaves for America to be there for Christmas! It's way cool that he's getting home in time for that.

I hope all of you are doing super great! I love hearing from you and writing! Sănătate şi numai bine vă doresc prin aceste sărbători!

Vă vom pietre pe voi

Elder Michael Abbott

A good start to the transfer

Gina's baptism

The water filter, which they found out some elders forgot to change.

Hey everyone! This was a good starting transfer week! Elder Veenendaal's awesome, and we're working super well together. We already have 2 "new" investigators, as in investigators who were investigators back with old missionaries but who Elder Kopsa and I never met. Now, though, we're starting to pick up and meet with them again. One lady we're meeting with, Daniela, is super cool. She lived in Boston for 10 or so years while at college and knows English better than we do. She was almost an English teacher but didn't like it so she switched her major. We also met another Daniela that had pretty much lost contact with missionaries, who's also really cool. This last week was Gina's baptism! She was baptized by Elder Gauthier, an elder who taught her while he was in Alexandria a few transfers ago. After he taught her in Alexandria a little he got transferred to a different area and Gina started getting taught in Craiova. She is from Alexandria but is at school in Craiova so she was taught and baptized here. She wanted Elder Gauthier to baptize her because he was the first one to teach her and the first one she could understand the gospel from. The baptism went great and she was super happy about it! It was a great experience for everyone and it was cool that Elder Gauthier got one last baptism in before he left. A little mishap that happened this week was that our phone got lost. Elder Kopsa and I were walking to the Gara (train station) Tuesday afternoon to buy his train tickets for Wednesday morning for him to go to transfers. He called the AP's, and then we don't know what happened to the phone after that. A few hours later when we tried to call someone else we realized our phone was gone. We found out a few days later that a taxi driver had called one of our investigators to tell her he had found a phone in his taxi with her number in it. She said she couldn't meet up with him and that he should call a different number in the phone, but we don't know what happened after that. Our phone wouldn't ring for the rest of the week. So today Elder Veenendaal and I used P-day to go to Bucharest to get our new phone, with our old number (it was a process to get the old number back, which is why we had to wait so long). I don't know how missionaries used to work without phones. It's very hard. We got to take a fun little side trip to Alexandria on the way which was fun, though, so it was a great trip! I got to meet up with Elder Benson, who's currently serving down there, and who I was with in the MTC and served with in Deva for a transfer. His companion, Elder Horgmo, was my naş (Romanian for Godfather I'll explain in a second), so it was good to meet him too. In our mission for fun we have family relationships with all of the other missionaries. So the missionary who takes you out contacting your first night in the country, before you're assigned a companion, is your naş. Your trainer is your Dad or Mom, depending on if you're an Elder or Sister, other people they've trained are your siblings, their trainer is your grandparent, your trainees are their grandchildren, etc. We also have uncles (your trainer's trainer's other trainee), cousins (your trainer's trainer's other trainee's trainee), etc. Also for elders the first time they serve in a city with sisters, the Senior companion in the sister companionship is your mom. I don't have a mom yet. Anyway, that's my short explanation about how my phone got lost and why I met my naş again today. I hope all of you are doing wonderfully! Ar fi tare dacă aş putea zbora şti? Elder Michael Abbott PS we had Thanksgiving too I'll get those pics and send them next week.

Transfers Again!

USA!!!!

Elder Kopsa's dogs

A funny car on the road

A gypsy cart on the road

Elder Abbott outside (Con)stantines(ti)

The missionaries with some of their friends from English classes at an activity.

Hey everybodies! It's transfer time again! I will be staying in Craiova another transfer (maybe. I'll explain later)! Elder Kopsa is leaving to Sibiu, and Elder Rasmussen, Elder Lee and I will stay here in Craiova. My new companion is Elder Veenendaal, who will be coming from Chisinau, Moldova. He's in his last transfer! As in he has only one transfer left, and because he is in his last transfer and it's Christmas time the mission has decided to give his family a little Christmas present and send him and the other last transfer missionaries home 3 weeks early. That means that I'm here in Craiova at least for another 3 weeks, and then when my companion leaves I will either get another one, or be in a 3-some here in Craiova, or be transferred to a different city, or we'll trade companions here and send someone out of Craiova, or something. I don't know really. But the cool news is that I'm getting Elder Veenendaal as a companion! I've heard he's a really cool missionary. He's been a zone leader for a few transfers now so he knows what he's doing too. In other news, it snowed for the first time today in Craiova! It wasn't really snow, mostly just little tiny snowflakes that weren't very common, but they were in the air! Not on the ground, though. That'll wait another few weeks. It's also been super foggy here lately and yesterday the fog didn't leave. Ever. Like it just sat on the city all day. I've never lived somewhere with frequent fog, so it's kind of a new experience for me. It's pretty cool. Exciting things that are happening this week is that Gina, one of the other elders' investigators, is getting baptized Friday! :D It's super exciting and I'm excited for her! Sorry I don't have lots of time to write today, but don't worry I'll be back writing to you again next week. :) Multă Dragoste! Elder Michael Abbott

Baptism!

some street dogs

Elder Abbott

some homeless people

President Spooner, Claudia and her family

pumping the water out of the "font"

Hey everyone! This last weekend was Claudia's baptism (Botez in Romanian, as it says on the picture of the program)! It was sooooooo awesome! She was baptized by President Spooner, the branch president here, and he also did the confirmation. It was different because he did the baptism and confirmation in English, because he doesn't speak Romanian. I'm pretty sure most of the people there still understood what it was about, including the visitors, who spoke some English which was good. We had the program Saturday night and everything went great! We began with "There is sunshine in my soul today" Then Elder Lee gave the opening prayer and Sora Radulescu, a sister in the branch, spoke on baptism. I then got to speak on the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and then was the baptism. After that, we sang hymns while Claudia and President Spooner changed, then President Spooner gave a welcome to the branch talk, we had a closing hymn (I believe in Christ) and Adi, Claudia's son, gave the closing prayer. She was confirmed Sunday morning during church and bore her testimony there. It was great and super spiritual for both the baptism and confirmation. She was super happy and so was her family! It was great. A cool thing about baptisms here is that only the people in Bucharest have fonts. We have what we call a "bazin" (Romanian for font or tub) which is made of a waterproof heavy plasticy canvas supported by metal poles. We set up the bazin the night before, and then spent all day at the church filling it. It's a requirement that missionaries be present whenever there is water in the bazin, so we had to stay at the church for the 8 hours while it filled from a little hose. Then, after the baptism, we emptied it which wasn't too hard. We have a super good pump that empties the bazin in about 30 minute to an hour. It is super powerful. I had to roll up my pant legs and shirt sleeves and get in, because the pump is handheld. That's probably the closest I'll get to swimming my whole mission! It was great to touch water again! That may sound weird, but as a swimmer it's been weird never having anything like a tub or pool since I've left. Just showers. Pretty much this weekend was super fun! We have another baptism coming up in about 2 weeks too! The other elders' investigator, Gina, will be baptized on the 25th of this month. I can't wait! :D Love you all! Botezuri sunt cele mai tari lucruri! Elder Michael Abbott

Claudia!

Mici with mustard and bread. A good Romanian snack/lunch.

A cool bridge at night in Parcul Romanescu.

A foggy morning outside Michael's window.

Ready for winter with his new coat.

Hey again everyone who is reading this! Today was another normal week, nothing too big happening. Mostly we are all just waiting for Claudia's baptism coming up this Saturday! We visited her Friday and she was just as happy as ever, with her family and everything. This family is seriously such a cool family. They all are super awesome and love meeting with us and can't wait for Claudia's baptism. I wish I could tell you more about it but... it hasn't happened yet. So I'll tell you next week! A cool thing that happened this week was that we decided to finally get around to going to the community Elder Johnson and I found last week on exchange. The community was built buy the Evanghelist Church and when Elder Johnson and I were there everyone was super open and wanted us to come back. So, Elder Kopsa and I went back. Almost immediately after stepping inside the gate, we were met by the leader of the youth group who lives there. Three minutes and many words by him later, we were no longer inside that gate. So, we began walking. We rang the doorbell on the gate of a vila nearby and a man answered. We said we were there to share a message and he began telling us about how he's the pastor for the community we just left and we should leave that area of town and never come back. So we kept walking. About 20 minutes later we found some blocs. They looked really nice and there were lots of cars parked around them, which usually means that there are successful and young people living there, so we decided to go knock some doors. We got into a bloc and knocked on the first door. An old lady answered and started yelling at us for being there "so late into the night" aka 5:30 PM, and that we should leave the bloc and never come back. After getting several other doors slammed in our faces, and after another old person yelling at us, we started rethinking our decision to knock that bloc. So we went outside. We sat for about 30 seconds, trying to decide whether we should just leave, or if we should try one more bloc. We finally decided that we would try just a few doors in one more bloc and then leave. There were some girls walking by, and Elder Kopsa and I said a little "buna seara" (good evening) under our breaths. One of them stopped, and asked us if we were a protestant church, then without waiting for a response said that she knew someone who might want to talk to us. She led us into the bloc, and to a door. We sat down with the lady and the first thing she asked us was what our church was called. She asked us question after question, about baptism, why we have the Book of Mormon, when she can come to church, etc., etc. and then told us that she wanted us to help her quit smoking. It was such a cool experience and it was so awesome to see how perseverance in the face of old people yelling at us pays off. Anyway, just a cool story from this week! I can't wait for Claudia's baptism this coming week and I'll tell you all about it next week! Dacă nu poţi citi aceasta, mai e ok!
Elder Michael Abbott

I don't even know what to name this blog post because so much cool stuff happened this week and I don't know which thing is the most important.

Razvan, me, and Donuti with our pumpkin that we carved

Some of the pumpkins from the carving. Mine is the one with the ghost sticking out of its head.

Oatmeal. We were trying to find something that we could eat that's really cheap that we ate in America, and here it is.

Just a pic from off the street in front of our bloc.

A cool purple light ball the city put up for Christmas. There are lots more too.

Hey everyone! So, as the title of this week's email says, I really don't know what the coolest thing that happened this week was, so I'll just start somewhere and go in random order. First, Claudia, the mother of that family I told you about a few weeks ago is getting baptized on the 12th of November! We had a lesson with President Spooner and Fratele Radulescu present at their house in Slatina with their entire family, and afterwards President Spooner took her husband and her aside to talk about things and they said that they want Claudia to be baptized! So President Spooner set the 12th of November as her baptismal date, and Elder Kopsa and I gladly accepted. She's such a great person and investigator and it's so great that she's being baptized! She is now one of the many investigators with baptismal dates set in November (so far 19), which is looking like it will be one of the largest baptizing months in the history of the mission. Also, Gina, one of the other CraiovaElders' investigators, is being baptized on the 26th of November. This week was also interview week! Once every other transfer President and Sora Hill travel around the country with the Assistants and do interviews while the Assistants teach the missionaries lessons on how to do missionary work. Interviews are great and it was a great help and motivator to Elder Kopsa and I. It's always great to see them and it was very fun to have them there. The Assistants challenged us to make a miracle happen in this last week, and when that night we called them to say that Claudia had just set a baptismal date they said our miracle came to fast and that we needed to do another one before the week ended. :) So we did another miracle. We went on exchange with the Zone Leaders of the Bucuresti West Zone, and received contact information for more people in the space of 12 hours than we had for the entire transfer. I went with Elder Johnson on exchange and we found a development in the south-eastern part of Craiova with an entire community full of young, happy families, who all seemed to love the gospel, and many of whom asked us to come back later. Elder Kopsa, meanwhile, was with Elder Pettit finding a community in the north-western part of Craiova full of happy, young families, many of whom asked them to come back later. It was a pretty awesome day and Elder Johnson taught me a lot of things about missionary work and how to be a more effective missionary. They also gave a lesson at District Meeting that morning which really showed the importance of baptismal dates in missionary work. Short version: If you have progressing investigators and they don't have a baptismal date, what are they progressing to? Good point. Also, yesterday I decided to crack open our area book for a little bit and contact some people during some down time and, in the space of 4 phone calls I found 2 people who wanted to meet this week and 1 person who wanted me to call back later when he could ask his family when they would be available. It was cool to see how missionary work can still happen inside an apartment. Pretty much this week was just bomb awesome and I liked it a lot. Part of that is also because we had a Halloween party with Romanians who didn't know how to carve pumpkins before. I hope all of you liked your weeks just as much as I liked mine, but sorry, I'm not sure you did. :) Anyway, until next week, I hope you all do well and that you're all healthy and safe! Love you all! Doctrine şi Legăminte treizeci şi opt cu douăzeci şi şapte, Elder Michael Abbott

Elder Tiexiera Conference

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and boys will be boys. Here's a picture of "Shiva", their mannequin toy doing a bicycle kick.

This is so funny. No really. I almost can't believe this is real. This is C A R P, you know, the fish. In Romania, the name of this fish, the CARP, is Crap. I am going to look at this all day and laugh!

Elder Kopsa in front of "P TIS R RNSticA" (Patiseria Rustica)

The front of the Panduri, Bucharest chapel. Wow, what a beautiful building!

Elder Abbott and an Orem High buddy, Elder Brayden Martin. So fun!

Hey everyone!

This was a cool week! We had a conference with Elder Jose A. Tiexiera of the seventy for all of the missionaries in our mission. It was spread across 2 days, with the 2 Bucharest zones and the Bacau zone the first day, followed by the Arad, Sibiu, and Chisinau zones the second day. I was the first day with the Bucharest West zone. He came and gave us a great conference, and told us about lots of things that he had seen help missionaries to get more progressing investigators who actually get baptized. He has a cool system that he wants us all to start of praying with investigators and members for the people they are concerned about in their lives in order to find out which part of the gospel can help them the most. The idea is that then we can go teach those people, or send other missionaries to them. He also gave us tips on what we need to get out of people when contacting in order to actually have lessons with them (addresses.) and pretty much just gave a really great motivational conference. It was very spiritual and I loved it. Pretty much the lesson I got out of it was that regardless of what we want to do, we need to do what we need to do. That means being bold and praying with people like he told us too, being more straightforward with people, and just doing missionary work all the time.

We also got at the conference DVD players. Now, before you freak out and wonder why we're getting DVD players, just know that I did the same thing. I actually didn't believe Elder Finch (one of the Assistants to the President) when he told me the first time. We got them to help us do missionary work better. We don't take them out of our apartments, but the goal for them is that we can watch the PMG District DVD's that are designed to teach missionaries what kind of missionary work is good missionary work, and also that we can watch church films with them. Elder Tiexiera told us that the church has found that missionaries who consistently watch the PMG District DVD's are more effective missionaries.

With the day in Bucharest for the conference came some visa work (I got a visa! :) ) and also a chance to meet up with a lot of the missionaries I either haven't met or haven't seen for a while. I got to spend quite a bit of time with Elder Brayden Martin, which was great as we're from the same high school. Pretty much it was a great week for a conference and I loved it! Sper că voi sunteţi piersiceşti!

Până ce ne vom scrie unul pe altul din nou, Elder Michael Abbott

Craiova is nothing to cry ova'!

Deva district - Elder Samoila, Elder Hyatt, me, and Elder Nelson

Craiova district - Elder Kopsa, Elder Rasmussen, Elder Lee, me

In front of an amphitheater in Parcul Romanescu.

Entrance to Parcul Romanescu

A painted picture of a girl on a street in Craiova. ( This picture is so cool!)

September 13th street (how cool! It's my birthday! Kirstin)

A view from the apartment in Craiova.

another view

A giant university in Craiova.

The backside of parcul Romanesca at night.

Hey Everyone!

It's been another beautiful week in Romania! And cold! Last night we hit a low of -4 C according to our phone's weather forecast. Crazy.

Craiova's a great city! It's huge! It has over 300,000 people! That's over 5 times the size of Deva! Cool things about Craiova: It has a massive Ford factory/establishment/something, and the branch president here is an American who works for Ford. It's also the home toParcul Romanescu, the 3rd largest park in Europe (behind one in Germany and one in Paris). Also the branch here was formed in July, making it the youngest branch in the Romania Moldova Mission.

It's pretty cool here, but it's been a kind of weird week. I said goodbye to Deva last Tuesday and headed to Bucharest on an overnight train. After 7 hours at the train station I left for Craiova with Elder Lee, the other new elder in Craiova. When we arrived we found out that one of the companionships in Craiova lost their apartment a few weeks ago, so all 4 missionaries are living in one apartment. The Panduri Bucharest District held its District conference (in Bucharest) this week, and the missionaries didn't go, so it was us 4 missionaries and a visitor who showed up randomly at church. We had an opening hymn and prayer, a sacrament hymn, the sacrament, a closing hymn, and a closing prayer. It's kind of weird because I haven't met a single member yet.

Elder Kopsa's my new companion and he's pretty cool. He's from northern Idaho and he's been in the mission for about a year and a half. He has about 6 months left in his mission. He's really tall (really really tall) and he's my district leader as well as senior companion!

Last week we met with a cool family. This is a serious miracle story. Familia Montiana is made up of a father, mother, 3 kids, and one on the way. Brother Montiana is a jeweler who moved to America to go to jeweling school. His work took him to Utah, where he met (surprise) Mormons. He was converted, received the priesthood, and went to the temple before moving back to Romania. While in the US, he kept contact with his family and let them know that he had found the true church of God. He sent them copies of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Gospel Principles, True to the Faith, and had them look it up online. When he arrived back home to Slatina, Romania a few months ago he found out the nearest LDS meetinghouse was in Craiova. He came to church and brought his family, and all of them became "investigators". They told the missionaries they already knew everything about the church, that the Book of Mormon was true, and that they needed to be baptized. Their two older kids Cristina (13) and Adi (9) were baptized last week, and SoraMontiana is being baptized in November! On Friday Elder Kopsa and I took a train to Slatina and visited them, and they are super cool! It was a cool thing to arrive in Craiova to that, and I'll let you know when Sora Montiana finalizes her baptismal date.

This has been a great week and I hope all of you are doing awesome!

Pa! Elder Michael Abbott