A Mission is Like a Grand Piano

This week was probably the best week of my mission so far! We traveled on a 12 hour train ride down to Bucharest on Wednesday night, had zone conference all Thursday (this is what I did for Thanksgiving), and headed right back here to Chisinau Thursday night on another 12 hour train ride. Zone conference was fun, but the train rides, not so much! So basically I did not celebrate Thanksgiving this year, I was kind of bummed, but my district is going to try and celebrate it today. Sounds like Thanksgiving was a lot of fun at Grandma's and Grandpa's house this year though! I'm glad you were all able to be filled with lots of good food :) At zone conference, Elder Kerr came to speak to us about how if we make 1 to 2 degree changes in our missionary work, then we will see those big differences we're working for. We also got to hear from President Hill and his wife. Lots of great direction was given, and now we have to apply that advice and make those 1 to 2 degree changes!

Christmas is just around the corner now and Elder Smith and I found some Christmas CD's hidden in our apartment... so we've been listening to them and it's brought back a lot of memories of Christmas at home. Tis' the season to feel the Spirit of Christ, and I hope all of you are recognizing that Spirit more than any other time of the year.

So as you all know, we teach an English class, and this past Saturday we taught the word "self-absorbed" and our students said that we were selfish by being here in Moldova teaching English! Of course, we didn't want to argue, but I was really confused by what they said. So we had a discussion on what it means to be selfish and hopefully they change their minds. Because if we were selfish, we wouldn't be here!

We are still teaching Eugene and we've been really wanting to show to him lately how important the Book of Mormon should be in his daily life... So we did. It ended up being a really powerful lesson. A recent convert was there too, and she basically told him that he was ready for baptism! It was awesome to hear her say that because Eugene REALLY IS ready for baptism. I also told him (at the end of the lesson) that it's not between him and us, him and his family, or him and his friends; the decision to be baptized is only between him and God. We're really hoping he prays about it this week because he hasn't yet (and we've invited him to many times). I keep thinking that nothing is going to stick until he recieves that answer from Heavenly Father. So we're going to work really hard this week to help him get that answer!

Also, my companion and I came up with this really cool analogy during companionship study yesterday... A mission is like a grand piano, the missionaries are the keys, and God is the pianist. If we do not work the way that we're supposed to, then Heavenly Father cannot make a beautiful masterpeice; he does not want to use a key and have it be flat, or not even work at all. A pianist will use every key in their own unique way, so those keys always have to be ready to be "played". So in order for the Romania/Moldova mission to have more success, we all need to make sure we're working the way God wants us to and to be ready when he needs to use us.

I'm going to send some pictures of my P-day last Monday, so I hope you enjoy them! I hope my email is good enough, and I wish I could answer every question, but that would take a while. It's always good to hear about how all of you are doing though. Life is good here, and it seems like life is good there! I love you and pray for you always.

-Elder Farnworth

Scripture of the week: Jacob 4:10

10 Wherefore, brethren, seek not to ^acounsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in ^bwisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works.