November 24, 2014

Hey guys! 

I've had a really good week, but no, my piano playing didn't really go any smoother. I had intended on putting in some good practicing time, but with everything else going on- it didn't really happen and the first time I saw the notes I had to play was in front of 50 people. But I'm definitely better at site reading than I was at home. That's one things I'm getting a lot of practice at! We actually had quite a few lessons this week and were able to visit some members. Sora Gorzo fell and broke her hip a while ago. She's doing great now and is back home, but is still having a hard time getting around, so we took the sacrament to her yesterday and had a really nice visit. Our thanksgiving day is all planned out for us. We going to the church for a feast as a zone, then we're going to have a talent show, and the guy designing the Rome temple is coming for a fireside. We spent a lot of time contacting for that this last week and had a lot of good conversations, talking about temples. 

I had a blast today with my comp and a the other elders. There are a couple man made lakes dug out here in bucuresti that cover hundreds of acres, right in the middle of the city. We found one that was dug out, with the dams and retainers and everything, but never completed. Since then an entire forest has developed there and it's become a huge, accidental wildlife preserve with deer and fox and the occasional gypsy shack. My comp and I went in with a 45 minute head start and got situated. We formed a strategy and cover, and then we waited for the other guys to show up, and then we started hunting them. We stalked them for an hour, but I was caught when I had to climb a tree to get my bearings and bonner stumbled upon me. You know me. After bacau I've been feeling so disoriented and kinda edgy not having my forest/hiking time once or twice a week, but it was really great getting back out there and we had so much fun.

I've been doing really poorly at taking pictures recently. I just uploaded a couple I took in alexandria, but I'll try to do better and get you guys some more!

To answer your question about elder Whitehead- we're getting along great. He's a genius, and is really good at asking random questions to keep a conversation going- something I'm really bad at in general. We're both creative guys with weird ideas, but we think very differently. We spend a lot of time talking about stories we thought up or a hypothesis we're working on. I think I've spent more time with him in conversation in these last couple weeks than with anyone else in my entire mission.

Dad! That is freaky! I can't believe the roads are already february-bad! That's so cool a stranger helped you out like that though. I think that story about gabe saying butthole is the funniest I've ever heard.

I love you guys so much! I'm having fun out here, but as the time gets shorter I'm realizing- man am I excited to see you guys!

Elder Collison

November 3, 2014

My week's been really good! It's been a weird adjustment, as you can imagine, but it's good to have a fresh start and a new city to learn. We have about 5 active members here, and one was sick, so after we all bore our testimonies at church yesterday, there was still time to spare. Alexandria is weird. EVERYone knows us and most people are really nice. There aren't any more people interested than usual, but we have a ton of friends that trust us. I've already hung out with a lot of young guys and we're hanging out with some more today. In any other mission I think I would feel like I'm wasting my time, but just the fact that I might be a positive influence on friends that live in a place with much lower morals than we're used to is enough for me. Plus they're fun and gospel subjects do come up a lot. There's this kid that we're going to see today. He's really cool and I like him a lot. He's going to teach us a bit of Tiganeste, a middle eastern language without a written form that's adapted from the time that they all left who knows where. Nobody really knows anything about it. But it's the spoken gypsy language. I've picked up a couple phrases, but just a majority of the words influenced by Turkish. I don't understand any of the grammar or anything yet. 

I was left with a bunch of stuff to figure out regarding the apartment contract. When I got to Alexandria I learned that there was miscommunication between our landlady and the new financial secretary in the office, and the contract we took to get notarized was never signed. For some reason it was a huge deal to get signed before the first of the month, so before I could even unpack my bags, we were on our way up to Bucuresti once again. We returned with the signatures to Alexandria at 11 Friday morning and tried meeting up with our proprietara, but that's when she decided it would be good for us to know that the institute was closed today, and the rush she had forced us into was all for nothing. We're meeting her at 10 this morning to go and get that stuff finished, and we're hoping she's able to turn our heat on as well, once we're in the position to ask for favors. It's freezing here! 

There's an awesome stadium here I exercise at. We went there as a district the other night and I pounded out a billion laps. I went down to the weight room and it was the coolest thing ever. It was the sketchiest, grungiest place I've ever been to. It was so cool! They had several legitimate dumbbells, but the majority of the room was filled with old tractor parts, rusty transmissions, and improvised machines. They were blasting Soulja boy and other songs from that era, and it was filled with scary men, smelling as Romanian as you can get. I started lifting, when the guy in charge started giving me some trouble (in the north sometimes I can pass as Moldovan, but in the south where everyone's dark, they all know I'm American from the start). I messed around with him for a minute, took him by surprise that I spoke Romanian, and made him laugh and the whole situation changed- we became friends pretty fast, and we're going to start meeting together to exercise and to help him learn English. 

Love you guys so much! 
Have a good day!

August 11, 2014

My little bro is going to freakin' Uganda! I can't believe we get to represent the Collison family in the two coolest missions in the entire world! That is crazy...

Emma was baptized and Isaac was ordained a teacher, insane!

I pulled a lot of money out of the bank this week, but no worries! I had to spend a ton on bills, transportation for my district, and apartment repairs. It looks bad now but it'll all be reimbursed...

I had so much going on this week, but I was so tired every evening I didn't make a single journal entry or recording and everything's been hectic and semi hazy. Several weeks ago a water bill wasn't paid on time and the elders here paid it. A week later a guy came over and turned the water off, offering to forget about the whole thing if they paid him 100 RON, and then referring them to the office again. They went and the people there said the bill was never paid, there was no record of it at all. (We're still trying to get the original receipt from our office so we can fight that.) But for the time being they had to pay it again, and the people there said legally they had to turn the water back on five days from now, but it would probably be longer unless we could slip them some cash. They refused, and I came on the fifth day- to the most uncomfortable apartment I've ever been to. Super messy (understandable because they hadn't been able to wash their dishes, their clothes, or flush.) It's on the ground floor, which I didn't think it would make that big of a difference, but there is absolutely no airflow and it's the most humid place I've ever been, there was mold everywhere and there was water condensing on every wall.

To keep a long story short, it's better now. We decided we weren't going to put up with this anymore so we went down to the office complaining and they're like, wait- you didn't go down to the main office to tell them you want your water turned back on?? That's apparently not what they said the first time. But basically we started the 5 day waiting period again today, after going to the main office and filling out some paper work. So annoying.. I was about ready to freak out this morning, totally done with a bureaucratic system running solely off bribes.

But this week. We cleaned the apartment as well as we could, fought the mold with something called savo (no idea if we have it in the states but it eats the stuff right up) I got the air conditioner working. The remote's been lost for years and the missionaries have always complained about this being the really hot apartment with no ac.. but I took the front cover off and found the manual override button and figured out how to adjust the setting without a teledevice. Then we got permission to get a dehumidifier. Between that, the fan, and the ac, our apartment is quickly becoming one of the nicers. 

Anyways- sorry that's really boring, but that's been my week pretty much.. haha

My district is super cool. We're one of the smallest districts here with just 1 set of both elders and sisters. We're all buds already. Everybody's willing to work hard and try to have a good time while doing it.

I love my companion. I've already served around him when I was in the office, but I feel like we've both grown up even more since then and we're having some fun. He's really good at keeping the conversation going and making everybody feel important.

The branch here is awesome! It's a tad bit bigger than Galati, but we have like- 6 kids here!

I'll try and upload some pics this week, I'm at an internet café right now but I'll upload them when I can get to the branch computer and let it sit there for a couple hours cause it take forever.

Love you guys so much! 

I'm loving it here in Bacau and for as scared/disappointed as I was to come here, I think this is going to be a really good time- I'm already a big fan.

Love

Elder Collison

August 4, 2014

Howdy guys! 

Once again my whole life is thrown up like a bad burrito and I'm moving cities.  Yesterday was kinda the last hoorah as a district. That's definitely the hardest part about being a missionary- Making so many friends, Romanians and missionaries, that I get to know so well and make so many memories with and then I have to leave, not knowing how many of these people I'll ever see again. I'm definitely getting good at new beginnings and making the most of it though. So as a district we made saramale and mamaliga. The saramale takes about 3 hours to cook, so we put it on the stove and then I went upstairs and taught all the Elders here all that I know about MLS, finances, the quirky ins and outs of Romanian documentation, and wished them luck.

My week's been really good here! 

My district's sick right now and we have a decent amount of Harry Potter nerds. Thursday happened to be Harry Potter's birthday and we went all out; it felt like Christmas again. The zone leaders were in town for district meeting (Elder H and Elder M), they're super cool and we had a load of fun. The sisters dressed up like Hogwarts school girls, carved wands for everyone, then made a cake like Hagrid's in the first book. I'll send pics! 

So, where am I going?? I'll be heading for a city called Bacau (B-ah-k-uh-o). It's still in Moldova, like Galati (region, not country) but it's way north with mountains and really old buildings. It's been a struggling branch there for a long time. Elder O (my new companion) is the Branch President right now.

Elder O is pretty cool. He was the office elder right before me and then moved into the same apartment as me for a transfer when Aviatiei was just becoming a district, if you remember any of that from this time last year. I'll be the DL there which will be weird.

That's about it as far as my week goes, I'll try to get some pictures to you guys soon.

I'm dying to hear where Caleb's going!  Being my last chance to guess- My top three guesses outside of the states:

Africa, England, Moldova

Stateside:

Ohio, Florida, California 

Dang I'm excited!

Love you lots!

Elder Collison

June 30, 2014

It's been an interesting week this one.. that's for sure. The work is going as slowly as normal, we've met a couple cool people but after one lesson they kinda drop off the face of the earth. The branch is still running alright- it was kinda stressful yesterday because I'm trying to get things organized. It's absolutely wonderful but that means that all the group presidents were asking impossible or time consuming requests (retrieving unkept records and that kinda thing.) None of them really know how to use the computer or type or anything but they get really frustrated as I try to find my way through MLS.  Anyways- that'll be most of this week! Just organizing things and working on the many projects I was just given... 

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

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!"

2-3-14

Happy February! This week has been a fun one. It really flew by and I don't remember much of what happened, but we had some good moments ;) It's still snowing here, and the way they clear the roads isn't exactly the greatest system, but it helps us find service projects EvErywhere.. So what happens is that this city isn't exactly built for cars. At least, it started out that way. When everyone was forced to move into the cities 40 years ago they didn't really have that problem because no one really had cars. So they built blocks that held thousands of people, and crammed millions into very tight living quarters without any kinda parking system. It worked back then, but now almost every family has a car with no where to put it. Most of the main roads here have an entire lane or two full of parked cars, and it's legal! You can really just stop in the middle of the road, throw on your hazards and everyone will just start driving around you on the tramvai tracks without missing a beat.

Anyways, that's just one of those things that almost seems natural now, but then the snow came and I saw the flaw. When the snow plows moved all the snow, they had to dump it at the bumper of all the cars. In some of the nicer parts of the city, they have dump trucks come in and move it away somewhere, but most the time you just have to dig yourself out of (and throw it on your neighbor's car) through a good 3-5ft of snow.

So a couple days this week, Elder B, Elder K and I walked around the city all bundled up looking for people trying to find their cars underneath the snow. People were so desperate that they actually accepted an act of service every once in a while. That's something I haven't really seen for about a year now..

I'm still healthy here! crazy enough.. I keep waiting for the day I get sick like everyone else around me but it hasn't happened yet. I think living in a household full of kids, cycling through sicknesses without a rest has tricked my immune system into becoming rock solid now that I only have to share the air with two other guys. Either that or the constant 2nd hand tobacco smoke burns it out of me. One or the other ;)

I did hurt my bad thumb though. I was juggling and an elder playfully tried smashing a ball to the ground but smashed my thumb to the ground instead. No biggie, I think it'll be fine in a couple days but it's really swollen right now and I can't really use it yet.. Just lettin' you know so you can prepare to be a digit donor just in case.

Today we're planning on going to Casa Poporului. For real this time! We'll see if it actually happens. I've really been wanting to go even if it's just to say I've been inside. There was just so much sucked out of the Romanians so that this disgustingly huge palace could be built and I imagine it's got the same pained feel as a cemetery for that reason. Ya know?

SO. Now I'm writing just having come back from Casa Poporului. Pretty impressive building.. Geez. It was just too nice. We actually got lucky and got the english tour so we got to meet a lot of foreigners (no americans..) So I got to hear all the specs in a retainable language ;) Millions of square meters of marble and WaY too many chandeliers. Like, almost every room had crystal chandeliers lining the entire outer edge of the ceiling with a 2-5 ton crystal and gold centerpiece. I'll upload some pictures to your drive in a bit, either tonight or tomorrow.
It was really sad, just knowing that people really died of starvation for so many years for this and now it's basically just a museum with the government using about 1% of it.. It was a really cool experience and my mind is still blown. The entire time Elder K and I were just discussing what we would use each room for after we become multi billionaires and purchase the building. I decided it would be kinda cool to have a Rollerblading room next to my imax theater, and I figured it'd be nice to have the occasional picnic in my second ball room.

Security is really tight in there. Metal detectors and everything. So after I already paid for it and was into the second room of security I realized I had my switchblade on me (no worries, it's legal here..). I couldn't just walk out of the building because they would've spazzed (no idea if that's even a real word, I can't find the spelling) and I probably wouldn't have gotten back in. And I didn't want to walk through the detector with a knife very obviously concealed on my body. So I pulled a guard aside and tried to explain that I had a knife on me in a manner as nonthreatening as I could muster. He nodded, took it away and gave me a slip and we didn't have a problem. But it kind freaked me out there for a bit! I was sure it would come off as a threat in Romanian and I would have six guards with tasers on me the next second.

My fur hat is holding up great! I can't tell you how comfortable and warm it is. I don't like cats, ok? But it's like I have a big fat soft cat hugging my head in the most enjoyable sense. Mine is a wild fox that they kinda hunted specially for me. I sent my order in a while ago and the lady had her killer get me one with me in mind ;)

I love you guys a lot!
I hope you have a great week. Have fun with school!

Love,
Elder Collison