I can't remember if I've said anything about how
the Chisinau zone goal is going, but we made a goal to invite 25 people to be
baptized, and thanks to a lot of hard work from all of the missionaries, we
were able to meet that goal just before the end of the transfer! And because we
invited that many people, we were able to receive some yes's! The branch
president here thinks that in the next two months, we should be able to have at
least 5 baptisms... One of those should be Aba! We invited him to be baptized
when he finds that "understanding" he's looking for, and he said,
"Yeah, why not!" So we'll be working with him a lot to help him
receive answers through prayer, and reading the Book of Mormon. Miracles are
popping up every day in Chisinau, and I'm loving every second of it. 54 people
also came to church on Sunday, that's the most I've seen since I've been here!
Elder Monroe and I were on an exchange last week,
and guess who we decided to go visit? Коля! We haven't seen him for the past 3
months, so getting up to ring his doorbell kind of got my heart racing because I
had no idea what he would say when he opened the door. He was excited to see us
again, and let's just say that it seemed like he cleaned up his life
completely. He had a new haircut, his apartment didn't smell like smoke, we
didn't see any beer bottles lying around, no cigarette packs on the windowsill,
and he just seemed happy. BUT, he mentioned to us that he had stopped reading
the Book of Mormon because he had no one to talk to about it. So we read Enos
with him, he really enjoyed it, and assigned a chapter for him to read before
we come back. I'm pretty sure that in the 3 month period where we didn't stop
by, Christ was able to work in his life. It's AMAZING what Christ change in our
lives when we let him.
So every Tuesday, I have to take bills to a member
who lives on the edge of the city, and one of the craziest things happened to
Elder Garlick and I on the bus. An old man was looking at our nametags, so we
started talking to him. We told him where our church was, and then a lady
budged into the conversation and told us how she goes to the church right
across the street. All of the sudden, the two started arguing about the
"One Lord, one faith, one baptism" scripture, and we had no idea what
was going on. Then some other guy came out of nowhere and started shoving his
finger into the old guys face... So we kind of just stood there and watched the
chaos unfold. Eventually, they all calmed down, and the old guy turned to me
and asked me how much the Book of Mormon was. I told him it was free, and gave
it to him. He then started to read it right on the bus! Apparently, he knows
about the Mormons and was interested in learning more, so we exchanged contact
information. Another cool experience was when we went street boarding with the
Romanian elders. It was probably the most successful I've seen for a while. At
one point all four of us were talking to people, and one girl from Sweden said
that she was reading about the Mormons in the book Around the World in 80 Days
and thought to herself, "I want to meet these people someday!" So she
told us that it was no coincidence that we met. She was right! We all got
numbers and return appointments. Thank goodness for the great weather!
We've been teaching this young man named Andrei,
and we found out two days ago that I won't be seeing him again till September
because he's going to America. So I told him to find the missionaries when he
gets there, and to also find some Mormon families because they would love to
have him over for dinner ;) He's a very humble kid, and I'll miss teaching him,
but I'm excited for his experiences in America!
Easter Sunday is coming up here in Eastern Europe,
so we'll be looking for a lot of families to teach! That's it for the week. I'm
loving the work, and I'm grateful to have such a good companion. I love you all
and have a beautiful spring week!
-Elder Farnworth
P.S. A t-bone car crash happened right next to
Elder Garlick and I, but nothing happened to us. It was sure scary though! No
pictures this week. My USB drive has a virus... So it deleted all my
pictures.... Good thing I have my SD cards!
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