Week 29!

Hey Mom and Dad!

I actually did get to watch conference! They broadcasted it live at the Mihai Bravu chapel and there were enough English Speakers there that they set up another room for us. So we had about 5 Romanians show up to watch it in the chapel and about 20 missionaries to watch it in a small classroom upstairs ;) I hadn't really thought about the time difference until then. It was so weird to be watching conference when it was pitch black outside, knowing that you guys were watching it in the morning there. So I watched the Saturday morning session at 7pm, Saturday evening at 3pm on Sunday, and then the Sunday Morning Session at 7 on Sunday. So I still have a couple I need to watch, but that'll happen soon enough :) I've gotta say that my favorite talks were from Brother Dube (cause he's just a boss and for some reason that kinda hit home) and president Monson (naturally) But talking about missing his wife and his testimony of eternal families was really powerful.

This has been a week cram packed! I'll just give you a nice little overview :) On Wednesday I was on an exchange with Elder Lybbert, my district leader and I got to teach a lesson for the first time in forever! It's been two transfers of disinterested people so it was so good to teach. Since it's been so long I haven't really been able to track my progress with the language so it was way sweet seeing the leap. It went from my first transfer being able to contribute almost nothing, to this where I was able to understand the entire conversation of philosophical theories and contribute 50 percent. Yeah, I gotta a little cocky over it until contacting again where I finally have to admit "Never mind! I don't speak Romanian.."  ;)

Eugen came down on Tuesday and we spent Wednesday and Thursday with him. He went contacting with us and showed us a lake called "Lacul Muri"; which as far as I understand means "lake; you die!"

We had zone conference on Friday which was great. A lot of changes were made, a lot of new ideas were presented. Because the traditional missionary approach isn't working all that great everyone's trying to think outside the box a little bit. But it really renewed my fire and it was a great preamble to conference.

On Saturday we were able to do a little bit of Vila knocking with the Sisters after English and before conference started. Once you start getting out of the city all of the blocs turn into houses. So we went up to Buc Noi (the place we visited last Monday). Hard to describe, but it's basically like a secluded village tucked away in the middle of a huge city. It felt a lot like Hillsdale except this was where all the rich people lived and it was NICE. It's a lot different than I imagine knocking houses would be like back in the states. All of these Vile are surrounded by huge walls and you can't see into them. So you call into the video intercom and talk to the person from outside the wall, or yell (politely..?) until someone comes out. They can see you but you can't see them, and it's actually kind of awkward. We only had a couple people come out and talk to us and no one really cared. But they were Kind! Instead of hearing "I'm orthodox, stupid!" all day, it was a lot of - "not today sweetie"

New target; Old rich people! haha

Love you!

Elder Collison