Monday, January 21, 2013

Lots of Cool Experiences



Still really cold there? Because the weather is surprisingly nice here!

So the 18th of January was this past week, and on that day I realized, "...I've been on my mission for SIX months..." 1/4 of my mission FLEW by just like that, but somehow it still feels like I left home to start my new life only two weeks ago. Also, that Ion kid who I taught twice on an exchange in Orhei got baptized this past Saturday too! A lot of exciting things happening.

This week had a lot of cool experiences. One in particular was going back to visit that guy (Vitalli) who basically is a pastor of his own church. He couldn't meet during the week, so we decided to go back yesterday (Sunday). We knocked on the door, his wife answered, and the first thing I could hear was him and his "church" praying, so we thought that maybe we were interrupting his service... But we weren't! So we went in, sat down, and he introduced us to everyone. It was him, his two brothers, his wife, and some random drunk guy. Oh yeah! Just so everyone knows, basically every first lesson we give, the people here always ask us if we want coffee or tea. And our answer is always, "No thanks, we don't drink coffee or tea." And their answer is always, "Really? Why?" It's always a perfect opportunity to teach the Word of Wisdom, and by some miracle, I had my Doctrine and Covenants with me! So I showed them D&C 89, and they pretty much agreed with everything it said. It was really cool. Anyway, he gave us his life story about how he found God. He was in prison when he was young, and one day he looked up to the sky, and asked, "God, if you exist, I want to die." And he said that God responded with, "Are you ready?" This hit him hard. He knew from that time on that if he wanted to be ready, he had to get baptized. So ever since then he promised God that he'd read the Bible, and get baptized. He went around to a lot of churches, asked them about how they do baptism, but he still hasn't been baptized. Right after he told us that, he asked Elder Monroe and I what he had to do in order to get baptized into our church. We gave him the answer, and then I told him that even though there are many churches, baptism is only possible if we have that authority from God to perform that sacred ordinance. But the lesson went great, and we'll see them again this week!


We also met with Aba (the guy from Nigeria). He is legit. He's a part of a humanitarian group, and he will be in Moldova for around a year. But President Hill told me that if he gets baptized, he'll have a lot of member support in Nigeria! But he told us that he really wants to rededicate himself to going to church every Sunday, and he has an unbelievable faith in Christ. His mother made him go to church when he was young, but he said he's very grateful for it because it's helped him understand the importance of going to church.

Let's see, what else... We said goodbye to one of the sisters, we had a ton of people show up to English, and I gave cake with milk to them and they thought it was tasty! I thought you'd be proud of me for doing that Dad ;) Elder Monroe and I get to teach at zone conference tomorrow, and we hope our lesson will help the missionaries here in Moldova in some way. Коля is our progressing investigator (I don't think I've mentioned his name yet), but he said he was going to come to church yesterday... But he didn't show up again... So we made it a goal this week to have a member present on EVERY lesson with him. He still has that wall to get over, but when he gets over that wall it will be smooth sailing from there.

Thanks for forwarding Steven's emails, it's great to read the experiences he's having. Almost forgot about the new Romanian missionaries we got up here!? They are HILARIOUS. I love these guys to death already. We even have a nickname for them: Bromanians. They are going to help a lot with the work, and I'm excited to see what they can bring to the table. I think that's it for this week. Hope life in Utah is going well, and that all of you had a good week. 

Я люблю тебя!

-Elder Farnworth

P.S. Picture descriptions: basically, most of them are pictures of the second oldest trainstation in Europe, and then there's one of me at the church with my companion and the sister that left last week.

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