Christmas and New Year!

La mulți ani tuturor!
This was a good Christmas week.  We got permission to go to Buc to watch a movie with the missionaries there (Wreck-it Ralph.  Yes, I set foot in a theater.  It was a super weird feeling for all of us haha) and I also got to skype my family which makes any week good!  Also we met up with some members after Christmas (in the last few days) and managed to get one lesson with R....  We brought E... with us and she explained things he wanted to know about really well.  She's a super awesome member.  He's doing pretty well but he got sick on Saturday and couldn't make it to church on Sunday so his family didn't come either.  M... is still la țară so we haven't been able to meet with him.  Today we're going to go to Bucharest again to meet up with the missionaries and have a missionary new year party!  It's gonna be super fun!
Also this week I conducted at Sacrament meeting again.  It was cool.  Also I got to give a talk and so did Elder C....  He did really well and I think people liked my talk too.  Hopefully haha.  Not much else is happening here except for the fact that we've had a few (possibly) genius finding ideas and you might hear more about that later.  I hope all of you have a great New Year!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott
La mulți ani, la revedere.

Christmas!

Crăciun Fericit!

So we had another good week here we didn't get to meet with M... unfortunately because he's still out of town but we talked to him on the phone and he's doing okay.  We also got to meet with R... and G... and A... and A... at the Christmas party we had on Saturday and then we visited R... and had a lesson with him later that night.  He's super cool and we're hoping his whole family can make some progress this week.  Also at the Christmas party R... and I had a super fun duet/sing-along with all of the other members there.  He plays violin and we got a violin/piano duet of "O Little Town, O Bethlehem" and played it at the party and then also just picked a bunch of hymns and played them while everyone sang along.  It was a super fun activity and we also got sarmale which makes any activity anytime the best activity haha.  Besides them we also have an investigator C... who has been an investigator for a long time (a year or so) but has been busy a lot and hasn't been able to meet consistently with the missionaries but now we're meeting with him again and he's doing pretty well and told us he'd pray about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith last time we met with him.

This week we also went caroling with the ZL's cause  they came on exchange and that was fun.  We wrapped up pliante and Book of Mormons and gave them out as presents to people who opened their doors to listen to us.  That was super fun and also for district meeting this week we watched the Christmas Devotional which was super good and spiritual.  Not much else big happened this week except for the fact that I conducted my first church meeting ever and it was kinda weird haha.  Our Branch President is out of town right now (I guess he's always out of town.  He lives in Bucharest and comes every week just to be Branch President.  Just right now he's staying in Bucharest with family for the holidays) and he made me the first counselor when I got here so that when he had to stay in Bucharest I could take care of everything.  It was a good church meeting with only 7 of us there but we forgot that President B... usually brings the bread so we had leftover cozonac from the Christmas party for our sacrament.  Haha the whole time I was conducting and sitting on the stand I felt like Elder H....

This is going to be a super awesome Christmas!  We're going to Bucharest today to have P-day with the missionaries there and then we'll probably go again another day to skype because there aren't any places to Skype here in Alexandria.  But yeah I hope you all have a great week and I'll talk to you next week!  Merry Christmas!

Love, Elder Michael Abbott

Christmas is coming

Hey everyone!
So this was another good week!  First off our investigator M... who had a baptismal date last week is getting baptized still just a little later so Ma... can come to his baptism.  He had to ask for work off.  Also we have some other cool investigators right now (R... and his wife) who came to church this last week and even brought friends!  So we had 4 guests at church this week and the district president was there and he gave a super good talk.   I liked especially one part when he talked about how you can't know something's true until you try it.  He related it to the church and said that you can't know really how much the church can bless you or how much baptism will do until you're baptized.  He then related it to love and how you're not going to feel love until you actively love, you can't see what's in a book until you open it, etc.  It was a really good talk.
Also today we're going to have a missionary christmas party in Buc which I'm super excited for cause it's always super fun.  Sorry though I don't have any pictures because I forgot my camera cord at home.  Anyway, I hope all of you have a great pre-Christmas week!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott
Nu poți să termini nimic până nu începi.

Alexandria, Elder C..., and Mi...

γειά σου

I'm in Alexandria now!  It's a pretty small city but it's been pretty cool so far.  We only had 7 people at church Sunday if you don't include a gypsy lady who came to beg from us and an investigator who showed up at the very end of Sacrament Meeting, but the members who do come are super cool!  One lady, Sora E..., is super nice and likes to feed the missionaries every week and also is ridiculously nice to everyone and has a super strong testimony, then we have our branch president from Bucharest who's super cool and I'm not going to go into detail about everyone but they're all super cool.  Also just in case you didn't know I'm here with Elder C... who's in his second transfer here and it's been fun so far.

Basically this city, even though it's small, is looking like it'll be pretty cool.  We had a lesson the first full day I was here with an investigator who was referred by M..., one of the members here who served as a minimissionary last year in Oradea and I met him while I was in Deva when we went to Lipova for a zone P-Day but that's a different story.  The point is this investigator (Mi...) is super legit.  He's young and really just wants to be better in his life and that very first night we had a lesson with him (I think the other missionaries had actually had lessons with him before but hadn't committed him to be baptized) we committed him to be baptized and then the next night we had another lesson with him and gave him a date for the 29th of December!  We might have to change it though if M... can't get work off to be there.  Also Mi... came to church on Sunday and basically he's super legit.  Also we have some other cool investigators and potential investigators and we're meeting with one of them tonight.  Basically it's looking like things are going pretty well here.

I hope all of you are doing great!

Vă salut

Elder Michael Abbott

Alexandria and Baptists

Hello!

So for those of you who haven't heard already this week I found out I'm getting transferred to Alexandria, which is in Southern Romania between Craiova (where I was last Christmas) and Bucharest.  So I'll be there for Christmas.  I'm really excited to see G..., one of the members from Craiova who lives in Alexandria but was in Craiova to go to college.  I'll let you know what the city's like next week cause all I really know about it is that it's small haha.

Also this week the highlight of our week came on Sunday when we got to go to a Baptist concert/sermon thing which was really pretty cool.  The keynote speaker was V... B... who's from Texas and he was pretty cool.  We were there mostly to watch the concert though cause one of our English students plays the cello for their church.  It was a really cool concert and we enjoyed it.

Also this week was Romania's equivalent of our Independence Day which they have on December 1st and we went to watch a big presentation in centru which was pretty cool.

Really other than that not much happened this week except investigators cancelling on us.  Two investigators told us they'd come to church and cancelled Saturday and we had quite a few lessons fall through but it was a good week overall and we got to work on English posters for next transfer which was good.  I hope you all are having a great December!

With Love, Elder Michael Abbott

Am fost în vizită la Alexandria doar de trei ori.

Zone Conference

Alo. Salut. Sunt eu... (ghiciţi care melodie e asta)
This week we had a combined zone conference with Iaşi, Chişinău, and Cluj's zones and it was really fun!  We had Elder Kerr as a guest speaker, who's from the third quorum of the 70.  He's from Scotland and he has a cool accent which made it that much more fun to have zone conference with him there.  He talked a lot about how our mission is one of the most consistent missions in Europe which is good and bad at the same time haha.  Basically we're not getting any worse but also we're not having any improvement (numbers-wise) so he talked a lot about what we should do to change that.  It was a really good conference.  Also President Hill talked about priorities and I liked his presentation.  During the departing missionary testimonies Elder E... gave probably the funniest testimony quote ever and it was definitely the quote of the conference: "The Atonement makes it so you can have no regrets and still do regrettable things."  Haha there was silence for a second and then everyone started laughing including Elder Kerr (and Elder E...).  I'm going to miss him.
Zone conference was on Thanksgiving so we had a little Thanksgiving dinner of tur-chi-key-li (it was just chili.  No turkey unfortunately, but that's alright.)  It was made by one of the senior couples in Bucharest who make super ridiculously good food and it was some of the best tur-chi-key-li I've ever had.  We didn't really do any other exciting things for Thanksgiving though.
Also this week we had one last exchange within our district.  I went with Elder N... and we had a good day.  It's crazy that this transfer is almost over!  This week we'll find out what's happening at transfers.  And today we went to the fortress in the middle of Oradea.  I hadn't gone since I had gotten here but it was really cool.  We couldn't go inside because they're rebuilding it right now but we walked around the outside and it was pretty legit.  I hope you all have a good week!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott

Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving!
I know it's not Thanksgiving yet for all of you, but for me pretty much it was because we played the Turkey Bowl this morning in Arad and it was sick!  And that means it must be thanksgiving right?  We even had pizza for our thanksgiving feast!  It was a super fun p-day and we had an intense game (final score: 140-133.  I know that's not showing much defense, but there were actually probably 7 or 8 turnovers for each team at least.  If that's not the most intense overseas missionary turkey bowl you'll ever hear of, I don't know what is).
Also this week we had 2 exchanges which were good.  I went with Elder N... on Wednesday and with Elder M... Saturday.  We only have one more exchange this transfer and it's tomorrow.  Everything's going really well here as far as investigators (as far as I know haha).  I wasn't at most of the lessons this week because I was on exchange, but Ma... is doing pretty well according to Elder P... and M... is still just as cool as always.  We also have two really cool English students we might be able to work with soon.  One is named H... and is reading stuff from the Book of Mormon and the other is named E... (It's a hard name to say so we just say E...) and she speaks English like a boss!  She sounds almost exactly like an American.  She's pretty cool too and talked to the missionaries on mormon.org when she had a question.  She's also been reading the Book of Mormon already which is cool.
This Thursday we're going to Zone Conference with Elder Kerr of the 70 so that'll be pretty cool.  Lately I've been reading the Book of Mormon again cover to cover.  I don't know how many times this is now in my mission but I have lots of time to study so it helps us to read a lot.  I'm in 3rd Nephi now (right at the very beginning) and it's been awesome!  I love the Book of Mormon.
I hope all of you have a very happy Thanksgiving!
Love, Elder Michael Abbott
La noi în România nu se zice "Thanksgiving".  Se numeşte această sărbătoare Americană "Ziua Mulţumirii" pentru că se vorbeşte limba Română aici.

Exchanges, English and E...eeenvestigators

Happy two days after 10.11.12 day!
So this was a pretty good week.  We had a two day exchange with the zone leaders, so Elder P... was in Arad for two days while I was here with ELDER B...!!!!  It was super fun.  We were in Deva for our first transfer in the country and we were also in the MTC together and we are super good friends so we had a blast.  We also went to Casa Piraţilor during our exchange and today for p-day I went again with the rest of my district.  It's a pretty cheap awesome restaurant with "Probabil cea mai bună pizza din oraş" so we decided to try it out and they were right.
Also we finally got to meet with our investigators!  Today we met with both of them and it was awesome!  M... is still doing great she's super open and super awesome it's just hard to get her to realize the full full full purpose of what we're doing.  She just likes listening to us for the most part and learning new things I don't think it's really set in yet for her why all of this is super important.  It's kinda tough too because we haven't met in a while but we're meeting Thursday and hopefully things will pick up.  Our other investigator (Ma...) is doing great as well.  I don't remember if I told you all already but he's a theology major... so it's kinda hard to explain some doctrines to him that people mess up a lot on (such as the godhead, pre-earth life, reality of a bodily resurrection, etc.)  But we're working with him and he always reads what we tell him to from the Book of Mormon which makes him one of the best investigators I've ever had that way.  Haha today we were walking down the road and I remembered something else he should read and I was like "oh I have something for you to read" and he said "vorbeşte căci robul tău ascultă" (speak for thy servant listeneth 1 Sam. 3:9).  I laughed.
Anyway, other than that our English classes are going pretty well and we have a cool girl in one of them who knows English like perfectly and plays Cello for the Baptist church here and we might go listen to her sometime.  Anyway, I hope all of you have a great week!
With love, Elder Michael Abbott
"Satana e FOARTE şmecher!"

If I ever become a juice related businessman I'll name my company Soupy Juice

Hei!
So this was a pretty good week as far as working with Less Actives, not so good for working with investigators.  Of our two main investigators one was out of town and the other one had to take care of her daughter because her daughter got sick.  As for our minor investigators, we don't have them haha everyone is always a main investigator. :)
We did get to work with less actives this week though which was good.  We visited one of the really cool less active members in the branch this week and talked about keeping the sabbath day holy and had a really good lesson but unfortunately he still didn't come.  We haven't talked to him yet to see what kept him but I hope he comes next week.  We visited another pretty cool less active and had a LEGIT meeting with her.  We had a member come with us who has been one of the less active's best friends since the less active was her main fellowshipper way way way back when she was baptized and they hit it off (as usual) super well and the stuff they talked about tied in perfectly to our message and it was really spiritual and awesome.  Basically those two lessons made the week.
As for other stuff, we did more former contacting and had our first English classes which were good.  We have 6 new students at our advanced class and 4 of them are ysa aged girls, one of them a ysa age guy and all of the girls wrote on their signup forms that they're interested in learning more about the church.  Challenge accepted.  Also this week I ate plum soup (they call it fruit soup because it has apples in it too and I just spelled soup wrong twice before correcting myself haha) and it was pretty good.  It was really sweet and really just more of a super pulpy juice.  Just another thing to check off of my "weird foods to eat I never heard of in America" list.  We also ate at an American restaurant today because Elder N... has never had a hamburger as far as I know.  Anyway, I hope all of you have a great week!  Love you all!
Love, Elder Michael Abbott
Cred că plouă acum.

 Elder P... and Elder Abbott with Mama Ana ( a lady that feeds the missionaries once a week for a cheap price) and her mother

 Elder Abbott and a lady from the homeless shelter where he serves meals each week.  The shelter provides showers, she was blowdrying her hair.

The building where they meet for church.

Engleza

 A picture of the Primarie.

Our poster

Boo!
So this was a pretty good week here in my good old city of Oradea!  Our main investigator was sick so we couldn't meet with her, but we worked a lot on our English advertising which is good with English classes starting again Saturday.  Also we met with a new-ish investigator named M... who's super legit.  He used to live in the US (I don't know if I told you about him yet) and he had some LDS friends there and is pretty interested in us.  We had a pretty good lesson with him but unfortunately he went out of town the next day so we haven't been able to meet with him since.  We're hoping to get a new investigator soon as a referral from a member who gave a Book of Mormon to one of her neighbors.  Apparently her neighbor has been reading a lot and is already in Mosiah and understanding "more than she does from the Bible" which is encouraging. :)  The member said she didn't want to rush her neighbor though so we'll see what happens.
Also this week some of the members went to the temple in Frieberg and were gone all week but they said it was (to quote directly, no translation necessary) "super".  So, moral of the story, go to the temple.  It's super.  For real.
This week we also got Elder N..., our Romanian missionary!  He's super cool and is a really hard worker.  He doesn't speak English so we get to practice Romanian very often with him as well.
Basically those are the highlights of this week!  It was a fun week despite a lot of busy work and I'm loving it still!  I hope all of you have a great week!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott
Dacă vrei să înveţi Engleză, vino la cursurile noastre.

District Conference

Szervusztok!
So it's been another good week here in Oradea!  We didn't get a lot of lessons this week but we did manage to find our referral we got a week and a half ago.  Unfortunately he was leaving his house right when we got there so hopefully he wants to talk to us when we go back this week.
This week we had District Conference and it was awesome!  President Hill came with Sora Hill, President and Sora H..., the assistants, everyone.  And we also got to see all the members from Arad, Timisoara, Cluj, and... DEVA!!!  I was super excited to see them.  The F... family came and I got to talk to them and also G..., who was baptized last year while I was there.  Basically it was super cool to see them again and to see a bunch of other missionaries too.  Also, Elder N..., who's serving there right now and was at the conference, is being transferred to Oradea on Wednesday so it was cool to see him again too before he actually comes.  He's Romanian originally from a town near Deva so that's pretty cool.  The conference itself was super good too.  Sora Hill gave a really good talk about (among other things) not taking offense at people because that's the one sure way to never have an enemy.  I thought that was cool.  The whole conference was themed around love and unity and all the talks were super good.
Also this week we renewed our ad for another month so it'll be up there through November, and Elder T... left on Saturday and is going home on Wednesday.  It's super weird to see people leaving now because they were all young missionaries when I got into the mission, so the only conclusion is that now I'm an old missionary.  There are only 10 or so other missionaries who are going home before me.  Weird.  But anyway, it was a great week and I hope all of you had a week similar in greatness to the one which was mine!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott

Și acum, din cauza necredinței lor, ei nu puteau înțelege cuvântul lui Dumnezeu; iar inimile lor au fost împietrite.  Mosia 26:3
Acela care ţine poruncile Lui primeşte adevărul şi lumina până când este slăvit în adevăr şi cunoaşte toate lucrurile.  D&L 93:28

 Me with some workers at Caritas, a place where we do service by serving meals to homeless people.  All the people who work there are super cool.

 A tiger car complete with...

 tiger interior!

 Elder T... and Elder Abbott

 Elder Abbott and Elder N...

 A cool church under construction

 Cool picture #1 taken with Elder P...'s cool camera

Cool picture #2 - Elder Abbott kicking the ball to....himself!

Asta-i o biserica?

Salut!
So this was a good week for the most part!  We only got one lesson with our investigator which was too bad.  She was just busy every afternoon and we only could meet once in the morning.  But, that was made up for a lot by the fact that we got to watch a bunch of conference!  We watched all but the Sunday Morning session which didn't work when we tried watching it so we're going to try again this week.  But it was super good!  I love conference especially as a missionary and I can't wait to watch the Sunday Morning session because a member told me it was the best one so I'm excited.
Also this week we had a super cool thing happen related to our mormon.org poster.  We've had it up for a few weeks and not much had happened (no random people showing up to church, no people from the website wanting to meet with us, nothing).  But, Friday between us and the other elders here we got 3 referrals from the office (they just sent them to us and we're pretty sure at least one is from the website, possibly more) and a random lady just showed up at church right at the beginning of the 3rd hour this Sunday!  She walked in and was just like "Is this a church?" and our Branch President just said "Yeah, of course!" and told her the name of the church and took her to relief society.  I talked to her for a minute before she left and she said she liked it a bunch and wants to come next week which is awesome!  We're having District Conference next week too which will make it even cooler because she can see other people from other cities, see how the church does stuff a little, it'll be awesome.  I really hope she comes this next week.
All in all it was a pretty good week.  Other exciting things that happened this week included Elder P... and me having to run 400 meters after working out last p-day to literally catch a tram because we were on the one behind it which was going to turn into a different part of the city.  It was intense.  Also we played football and soccer today at a cool turf field, had a birthday party for a member, so yeah it was a good week.  I hope all of you are doing well!  With Love, Elder Michael Abbott

Some people at the fair going on right now

The Book of Mormon

Good Week

 C... and B...

 This hearse is FUN!

The Primarie at night

Hello!

This was a really good week!  We had a lot of lessons with new people and everything's looking good with quite a few of our investigators right now.  One of our new investigators lived in the states for a while so he knows English which is cool.  He's also a theology/Romanian literature double major and is super cool.  I hope he progresses and that our other investigators we've been working with go somewhere too.  M..., our English student investigator, wasn't able to come to church unfortunately, but she said she might be able to this coming week.  There hasn't been much else that happened that I can think of to report.
Unfortunately we didn't get to watch conference this week but we are getting to download it so we can watch it on our mini DVD players later this week.  I did hear about all the age change intense things that happened, though.  I can't wait to watch the rest of conference either.
I hope all of you have a great post-conference week!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott
Haide!

Hey Everyone!
So it's been another good week here in Romania and this week we got investigators!  Haha we had a few lessons this week with mostly our English students who are doing private tutoring in exchange for gospel lessons and those were pretty good.  Also we've been trying to contact some former investigators from our Area Book and Saturday we dropped by unannounced to a family whose teaching record was written in 2006 (it was cool too because the family had been taught a lesson on exchange by one of the MTC teachers I had while I was there).  They let us right in and we got to know them and set up to have another lesson this week.  We also have a few former investigators we're planning on meeting tomorrow that we called and set up with.
Also this week we got to go to a Hungarian middle school/high school to do some service which was cool!  It was really weird because literally everyone who goes there is Hungarian really but living in Romania (Oradea was part of Hungary for a long time so there are lots of Hungarian families that live here and don't really speak Romanian) and I couldn't understand anything anyone was saying the whole time.  Luckily the service we were doing was going and speaking American English with an English class there so they could get experience talking to Americans.  Just to hear our accents and practice.  But it was super fun and we had a good time talking to all the students.  It's cool being almost a celebrity because we're American haha.
And also I know all of you have been dying to hear about our Mormon.org poster and how it turned out and it turned out amazing.  Haha we got it put up last Wednesday and it'll stay up for a month.  We got it at a good bus stop that's really busy with college students so hopefully that makes it a success!  It looks really good and I really like what the advertising people did with it.  Basically they completely scrapped our original design and came up with something new and better.
So, everything's going pretty well here!  I hope all of you are having a great time in the US or wherever you're reading this!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott
Pentru cei care aţi vrut să-mi scrieţi:  Adresa mea mai este Şos. Pipera Nr. 41 Et. 7 Sector 1 014254 Bucureşti.  Doar ca să ştiţi în caz că aţi vrut să-mi scrieţi ceva dar nu puteaţi deoarece nu aveaţi adresa mea.  :)

(I think the translation for this is SEND MAIL!!!)

 Find something awesome in this picture.

 Elder T... and Elder Abbott with some girls from the English class.

 The bus stop with our ad.

Someone looking at the ad!

Mormon.org anyone?

Dragă Lume,
It's been another good week here in Oradea!  Me and Elder P... are getting along well and even though we don't have any investigators really still we're getting closer!  Haha we keep having appointments fall through but we did have a surprise investigator come to church which was awesome!  He was referred to the missionaries here a few months ago but had never gotten in contact with them but he called us Sunday morning and his name was saved in the phone but I had no idea who it was.  So I answered and he was just said basically that he had talked to missionaries and wanted to come to church at 10 and asked for the address.  And then the chaos began haha when he showed up to church he was a little late and a sister was already speaking but he came in and went to sit in an empty chair, which just happened to be hers.  Her daughter (who's like 4) looked over expecting to see her mom, and instead it was our investigator, so she freaked out and started crying and he got a call and had to run out and the speaker had to get her daughter and finish her talk holding her, and it was just a crazy situation haha.  But he said he still wanted to come back in 2 weeks when he's back in Oradea because he's only here in the city every other week because of work.
Also this week we started working on getting a big Mormon.org poster put up in a bus stop here and we're working with an advertising company to do it.  They offered to help format the ad and everything so it's going to look legit hopefully.  But I'll let you know how it goes later when we find out more about when it will go up and everything.  I hope all of you are doing great!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott
Un om a mers la magazin de jucării pentru a cumpăra ceva pentru ziua fetiţei lui.  În timp ce el cauta o jucărie potrivită, el a observat că fiecare păpuşă Barbie costa 20 de euro, cu excepţia unei singure, aceasta fiind "Barbie divorţată", care costa 240 de euro.  Când el a întrebat de ce costa atâţia bani, proprietara magazinului i-a răspuns că, pur şi simplu, Barbie Divorţată vine şi cu casa lui Ken, măşina lui Ken, ghitara lui Ken, câinele lui Ken...

 Me with the P...s who have been working in the office for the whole time I've been here and are finishing their mission and moving back home.

Me and my giant family!  Elder H... you all know, then me, Elder C..., and Elder R... are his kids, Elder P... is his grandkid, then with Elder Pe..., my uncle (trained by my grandpa), and one of his kids Elder M... (my cousin), and his kid Elder Pi....  Complicated. 

 Me and Elder T... in this cool face statue at the park

a cool church

Oradea is still Oradea

Hello People!
So this was a pretty good week.  I went to Buc to get my little baby boboc this week and I got... Elder P...!  He's cool and we're getting along well.  Unfortunately I forgot my memory card back at the apartment so you don't get any pics until next week.  Also Elder H... surprised everyone by suddenly training again so now I have 2 brothers!  We took a giant family picture while we were at the mission home with everyone but like I said I don't have the memory card, but I'll make sure to send it next week.
Other than that Oradea is... still Oradea haha.  It's doing really well just nothing changed this week.  We did get to go to a member's house and teach a lesson to her.  She's really old but she's also super cool.  She went to the temple and got proxy work done for her husband who died a few years back and got sealed to him in July and since then she's been a super solid member.  It was a super cool visit and she talked a lot about how her childhood was rough but that because she learned how to forgive people her life is now at peace.  Especially because she now is sealed to her husband.  It was a super legit visit and I liked it a ton.  We also have visits with our investigators set up for Wednesday and Thursday so hopefully we can meet with them.
I hope all of you are doing great and I'll talk to you all next week!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott
De câteva sâptămăni fac pliometrice de dimineaţă şi acum pot să prind coşul ca şi cum puteam în trecut!  Încă nu pot să marchez un slamdunk, dar poate în curând.

Babies, Baptisms, Branch Activities

Hello everybody!
We had a super good week this week!  First off, the other elders' investigator (Cr...) got baptized.  He has a super cool last name because he's Russian originally but has lived here for a long time so he knows Romanian and Hungarian and English and Russian very well.  He's super legit but not only for those reasons haha.  His baptism was super awesome.  The spirit was really strong and it was a really cool moment when he was bearing his testimony after his baptism and he said "I know I'll have trials but I know I'll be able to get through them because I have God with me and the missionaries with me."  and then one of the members was like "and us!"  haha it was really funny but also super cool.  It was a great day.
Also the next day we had a branch activity and we got to go to Vadu Crişului which was super fun.  We stopped by the river and had slănină (pig fat roasted over an open fire with its grease dripped on bread and then eaten with tomatoes and onions).  It tasted super good it was just really greasy haha.  After that we got to go see a waterfall, explore some caves, hike to a super cool lookout point, play football, soccer, frisbee, etc. and basically it was a super fun day.
Also something eventful that happened this week was that I found out I'll be training again!  I don't know who my next baby boy is going to be but I'll find out Wednesday.  It'll be sad parting with Elder A... cause we had a blast together but I'm looking forward to it and I think it'll be super fun.  Also this week we got to meet with some of our English students and we're meeting with them more to see if they're interested in the church.  We still have a few to meet with who are pretty cool and I hope they like it.  Basically it's going to be another pretty cool week.  I hope all of you are doing great and I'll write again next week!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott
Am văzut un liliac în peşteră!

We pranked the other elders by putting a big fish in their bathtub. 

Cr...'s Baptism

part of the river

a waterfall

Us in a cave.

At the lookout

missionaries with Cr...

Zone Conference

Bine aţi revenit!
De la ultima dată când ne aţi văzut, Elder Abbott a mai câştigat un game.  Deci acum el a rămas cu un singur game de câştigat până ce el câştigă şi meciul.  Serva e a lui S....  Pentru cei care n-aţi văzut prima parte a meciului, Elder S... a câştigat primul set cu scor de 6-3, iar Elder Abbott a câştigat următorul cu scor de 6-4.  În ultimul set scorul s-a rămas la 5-4.  Elder S... serveşte...
This was a pretty good week!  We had zone conference which was super fun and we also learned a lot!  We talked a lot about working with members and how to best fulfill our purpose through different kinds of missionary work.  Also I got to see a lot of old friends including Elder L... and Elder M..., who came from Sibiu to the conference.  Elder M...'s going home next transfer so he also gave his departing testimony, because it was his last zone conference.  It was super cool to see him there and to see a lot of other friends.
Also this week we talked more with our potential investigators from English class.  We didn't manage to have a lesson with them yet but we're meeting them on Thursday.
You may have also figured this out from the beginning of the email, but we also got to play tennis this week!!!!  :D  It was super fun and I was super happy to get to play tennis again finally!  It's been well over a year and a half since I last played but ever since taking a class from my awesome Uncle Brad I've loved it and I love playing and had missed it.  We played on clay courts which was cool.  It was the first time I had played on a surface other than hard-court.
It was another super fun week and I hope all of you had a good time too!
With Love, Elder Michael Abbott

 Yes.

 Elder M... and Elder Abbott

 Elder Abbott's Zone

 What button? ( the sign must say to push a button)

"If you can read this it means you're too close" 

 broken rackets at the courts

Elder Abbott after a serve

"Nu imi pot aminte cuvintele pe care le am vorbit." Alma 44:11

Hello Everyone!
In case you're wondering, Oradea is much cooler than it has been recently.  I mean temperature wise.  And the city is still doing pretty good just like normal!  Our branch is doing pretty well and we had a really good turn out at church yesterday which was awesome!  Elder A... said it was the 2nd most people he's seen at church since March.  So that was awesome.  We did some visits to less actives with the Branch President which was really cool too.  He's really legit.  He knows what he's doing and he's a great Branch President.
As for investigators, we managed to finally meet with our referral from a few weeks ago and he's pretty good, but it'll take some work to get him to baptism.  Hopefully he'll progress.  We didn't manage to meet with any of our other investigators but we did set up to meet with one of our super cool English students named Mi... (a name I have never heard until I came here haha).  She's a mother of a new(ish)-born baby and her brother also comes with her to classes.  I think she's pretty cool and I hope she progresses and we can get her husband coming with her to lessons sometime too.
Basically everything's going great here, the other elders are preparing for a baptism on the 8th with Cr..., one of their investigators, and we're having zone conference with the Arad and Cluj zones this weekend.  I'm looking forward to it.  I hope all of you are amazing!  I love you all!
Love, Elder Michael Abbott
Sora mea e la facultate!!! Îi trimit felicitări şi noroc.  Şi aşa face şi districtul meu.

 Elder S... getting ready to bowl

 Cr..., me and Elder A...

 a house

 kittens

 Best paint job ever!  Go OHS!

Biserica Albastră

Party Time!

Breakfast!

Pics from on top of the tower.

Elder T... was shaving when we got him

Elder S...

The toilet got a lot of confetti too.

Our kitchen tool for getting things out of the oven.

Hello World.
So it's been a pretty good week here in Oradea!  Not much new has happened with our investigators but that's alright!  We're trying to work with the members right now to get some awesome investigators.  So hopefully we get some results from that.
This week we did get to do some awesome sightseeing and had a fun party!  Haha we got permission from President to take an hour out of P-Day last week and use it to go see the clocktower in the middle of the city here.  We got to go up to the very top and the view was amazing.  The tower has been there since 1902 and it apparently still has bullet damage in the clock that faces the river from WWII.  It was super fun to be there and we could see the entire city and more so it was fun.  Also our zone is currently playing zone bingo, and one of the requirements to check off a square is to do an act of charity for another companionship in your district.  So we threw a party for the other elders here!  We bought 30cm party poppers filled with confetti and some chocolate praline snacks and went and surprised them by shooting confetti all over their apartment.  :)  Haha and then we cleaned up afterward.  It was fun.  Other than that this week, we had breakfast for lunch one day and went all out with pancakes, syrup, bacon, hashbrowns, etc.
Basically everything's going great here!  The members are awesome and I'm loving it!  I hope all of you have a great time going back to school or doing whatever you're doing this week!  Also here's a shout out to Sister P... who's leaving to ITALY this week from the MTC!  I'm excited to be (relatively) near someone of my own flesh and blood again!
Cu Dragoste, Elder Michael Abbott
Îmi plac toate petrecerile!