An Update on Elder Collison! :)

Andrew is currently serving in Galati (pronounced Galats.)

May 19th:

A quick recap of my week:

I went down to transfers to get my new companion and it was great as ever. I got to see a ton of friends I hadn't seen in ages and we all went out to eat at caru' cu bere. I was supposed to stay in Bucuresti for an extra night. There was a training meeting I was supposed to go to as the "acting leader" of the branch for this last week. But by Wednesday afternoon I was already exhausted and stressing out about the branch conference I still had to plan and the list of members I had to call, so I got permission from President H to go back to Galati with my district. 

I finally called President D on Friday for some last minute information and that's where I found out that he had actually planned everything out and there was nothing left for me to do but choose hymns. Hooray!  Haha, lot of stressing for nothing.

Yesterday Brother S was set apart as Branch President and I was sustained as his first counselor and the branch clerk.

May 26th:

My week's been a blur because I've been traveling and doing random stuff. 

We had zone training meeting on Tuesday, so we left Monday afternoon after spending the day cleaning the church and took the four hour train to Lasi. We stayed with the zone leaders who are two really cool people in one group behind me, had some good food and then had one of the sickest- most laid back meetings I've ever been to. I finally know everyone well enough in the mission that I felt like I was just surrounded by friends and we learned a lot from everyone's presentations. I got to smash an old watch as part of a presentation. I forget what the analogy was, but I volunteered as soon as I saw them pulling out the two objects and it was a lot of fun... 

We got back to Galati Tuesday night and we took our p-day on Wednesday. We had planned a picnic and we went and bought all the supplies from Billa while the others finished emailing. It was starting to drizzle at this point, but by the time we left the church for our little hike it was pouring rain. We made it about 20 minutes out and then we decided to set up our picnic under an over pass which basically looked like a homeless mans lair with all the trash littered about the floor. There was beautiful artwork on all the pillars as you can imagine, and we sat on the intense slope supporting the overpass, if you can picture that.. But we made the most of it and had a ton of fun just messing around.

June 2:

We had a lesson yesterday! We met a super cool kid just a couple years older than me. Hands down one of the coolest guys I've ever talked with out here. It was half English lesson, half Gospel, so we bounced back in forth between languages the whole time. It was a little more relaxed than my companion felt comfortable with, but it was so good just making a new friend and explaining what I believe in the same way I would tell a bud back home. He was studying diesel mechanics and his hobbies included hiking and gardening, so naturally we hit it off. I was telling him all about my family and after I finished explaining he was just like-bro, you're so lucky. If I had known he'd grown up without parents kinda raised by his older brothers I wouldn't have gone into such detail. I felt really really bad, but he said he was more compassionate to others by it and he was a stronger person.

I think I've explained most of the members in this area, if you've heard about the new branch president and his family and the mission president, then you've basically heard about the branch. 

There's also Sora B, one of the sweetest ladies I've ever met. I haven't seen her all that often because she's been traveling to Turkey frequently for cancer treatments. I don't know if I mentioned this but I got to go over to her house last week and it was a really cool experience. I've anointed the heads of a lot of members here, but no one has ever asked me to give a blessing up until last week. It was interesting in Romanian, because I definitely had thoughts and impressions that I wasn't able to put into words like I would in English. I did the best I could and I'm just hoping those blessings aren't held back because the middle man was lacking in language. I went there on a Thursday, but she asked for the sacrament again because she would be traveling on Sunday again, and treating every day like her last, she wanted to make sure everything was aligned for her to get to heaven without a hitch. I really admire her for her faith and I'm hoping to visit her again this next week once she gets back to spend just a little more time with her.

They're all really understanding of my callings. They actually really like me, and because I'm the oldest in the mission here I'm kinda the go to guy and it's helping my language skills a lot. 

 We'll see how this goes. As far as my branch clerk calling goes, I'm becoming a pro with the finances and responding to the confused emails from Germany asking why I did things a certain way and replying "I have no idea what I'm doing!"