Another Week Come and Gone in Beautiful Chisinau, Moldova

The month of my year mark has arrived. 17 days.... I apologize for not explaining why we were chased in my last email.... BUT I didn't explain because we didn't know why we were chased. It was a very odd/scary moment for us, and we'll never know why we were chased!

Another week has come and gone in beautiful Chisinau, Moldova and our recent convert (as of Saturday) is now in America living with a young Mormon couple. Great for her! But not so much for us. We will miss seeing her every Sunday, but it will be good for her to see how the church runs in America. 

Not a lot to write this week, but I was able to witness God's hand in our work. I had an exchange with Elder Stinson in Orhei this week and the entire time I was praying that we would be able to find someone (especially a family) during the time that I was there. I kept telling Elder Stinson that we both need to have the faith that even though Orhei is the smallest city in the mission, finding can still be done. Both of us didn't know the area so well, but I knew there was a park in the middle of town. We walked up to the staircase overlooking the park and all we could see was about 3 or 4 people total. So we walked up to a couple sitting on a bench, and I'm thinking, "What in the world am I going to say to them...?" I promptly made the decision to just ask them for directions to a street I already knew. They were very kind about it and somehow the conversation turned into talking about who we were and why we were carrying around blue books. We explained everything and they told us that they had been to "every church in Orhei" except for ours. I handed them a Plan of Salvation pamphlet (with our information) and they gave us their number. We also invited them to church on Sunday and they said they would try to come. Oh yeah, something else they told us... They have 3 children: 20 year old son, 19 year old daughter, and 15 year old boy. THIS IS THE FAMILY WE WERE LOOKING FOR. This experience showed me that when we have faith and continually have a prayer in our heart, God will lead us to those who are prepared to listen. Later in the week, we also met a girl who lived with a Mormon family for a year in California. However, she is leaving back to America this week... Darn... What else happened this week... Oh! A member from Italy invited all the missionaries to a pizza place to eat dinner, and she brought like 10 of her family members. We got to get to know her parents and I think they liked us a lot. Well... they seemed to!

As for the weather, It has been raining non-stop for the past 2 days, so we've been knocking and knocking and knocking. We were able to give a handful of copies of the Book of Mormon away, but no one let us in for a lesson. Oh wait, one young man did! Let's just say he is a younger version of Коля.... He spoke Russian at a million miles an hour, and had a lot of questions. It was a very interesting lesson... 

Thank you for all the pictures and emails. It always makes me happy to see an email from each of you every week, and to see how you're doing. I love you, and still pray for you. Have a great week.

-Elder Farnworth