A couple days ago I sprained my ankle pretty bad. I was actually pretty sure I had torn some kind of ligament around the ankle bone because it was starting to look so gross. Sora Hill was gonna have me go to Buc if it wasn't showing improvement by today, but it's starting to look ok so I think I'm just going to stay off it for the next couple days and see what happens. I learned a new way of lacing my shoes which gave a lot more ankle support and I'd been doing that for my runs the last couple weeks but I'd been getting horrible shin splints. I finally put it together that the lack of front to back ankle mobility was causing the problem, so Saturday morning I laced them up normal. We were a little late meeting the sisters so we were running to the meeting place so we could start jogging on time. I was jogging on the ledge of the stairs, slipped on some sand, and landed on the stair below with my ankle sideways. I took a couple more strides hoping to shake if off but my ankle would not support me at all and I stumbled. We went back to the apartment and I hobbled around doing the usual morning routine but about an hour later it had doubled in size and turned a gross purple and I couldn't put any weight at all on it. Getting to church was a mess, but I wrapped it up really tight and got there eventually but aside from that I stayed on the couch with my foot elevated, icing it. I woke up this morning and almost all the swelling is gone, there's like an egg size lump in my foot but that's about it. I wrapped it up really tight and threw on some huge boots that were left in my apartment and it's acting like a brace. I'm getting around just fine even if it's a little slow ;) So yes- I'm absolutely fine, but that's been my last three days..
Elder W was definitely the guy to get stuck with. He's been really patient and taking care of me like a mother figure.
Aside from that. We got to help out a member and her mom this week for a couple hours. The other Elders had gone over there to paint one of their rooms, then we were invited over for lunch and then asked to stay for a couple hours. They served us one of the best meals I've had in Romania, vegetarian even. We had a turkish soup called yahni, egg mushroom patty things, and fresh salad with homemade vinegar.
The other elders had painted the ceiling and dripped paint all over the room. Luckily it was a really cheap chalky paint which was scrubable even once dry, but it took us a good three hours to scrub the one floor. They handed us a couple brushes and old t-shirts turned into rags and we scrubbed the skin from our hands.
I feel like I'm a pretty fit guy- I'm feeling better now than I ever have in my whole life (aside from the whole ankle thing) and the worst part of the project was stepping out of body for a second and seeing a panting teenage boy scrubbing the floor with an 86 year old woman not breaking a sweat. Talk about an awakening.. haha...
One day this week, I think it was Thursday..? We were contacting for English along the faleza. I handed a couple cards to a group walking the opposite direction and a man on the side jumps from his bench and starts shouting, "Don't take cards from these boys! They're devils and trying to trick you into talking about Christ!" The girl pulled her hand back and I was like "we're advertising for free English classes." They all took them and the guy was getting red in the face at this point. He kept yelling as we continued past, I turned around an confronted him. He quieted down a lot and I was like "what's your problem bro? I don't think you know who we are." He was like "do you even know which Christ you're testifying of?" and I replied "The same Christ you in Romania know and love is the one we love and serve." And at that he just kinda spit and started raving again. At this point and he was trying to rally up the groups walking by, it was really weird. And that alone isn't abnormal, If a door isn't slammed in my face then I get this kind of response instead ;) But what happened as I walked away was weird. I complimented a kid on his t-shirt (they wear a lot of american flags here) And his whole group of twenty stopped as they heard the guy yelling and they turned to us like- what exactly aren't we supposed to take from you guys..? So we gave them the cards and in response to the guy yelling "go home to America" they were saying we were welcome here and that the guy was crazy, just trying to help us laugh it off. Then they're like, what does elder mean exactly- I've seen a lot of those name tags around here lately. So I tried explaining it really fast but I was really flustered and we pretty much left it at "we'll talk later!" and we walked away to end the disturbance. It was kind of embarrassing because the moment my adrenaline kicks in I can't speak English let alone Romanian! :)
Oh, and another positive story this week was what we did on Wednesday. We were all kinda depressed we couldn't go into Buc for transfers so we did our own "transfer day." Basically we ate lunch at a nice chinese restaurant and then went contacting in the really nice park we went to on Monday. Did I tell you about that..? Definitely the classiest park I've been to in my life, but you'll be able to see it all from the pics I sent. We went juggling contacting there! I've been wanting to do it for a while but I decided that Wednesday was the day.. I juggled and drew a crowd while the sisters contacted the families. We got a couple videos but they're all fails. I'll send them just to give you a good feel for the environment.
That's pretty much my week right there! Oh, we got a new elder here fresh from the MTC. He's pretty cool and he already speaks Romanian really well because his father's Mexican and he knows Spanish.
Love you guys!
Elder Collison
