FOLLOWING THE SPIRIT

I can't believe this is only my second week in Sibiu!  This place already feels like home!  (Not home home, but like a home in Romania)  We have had an awesome week.

I really took your advice last week.  To just follow every little prompting you get, and dont question it.  Well doing this led to one of the best contacting days I have EVER had on my mission.  Literally every single person we talked to, we had a conversation with.  There were only 2 or 3 who said no... POLITELY!  We had planned to walk to this big church, but we ended up in a much better place.  We just kept getting

feelings like, take that street, talk to that person, ask them if you can help, etc...  So I feel like this day really helped shaped what we want the transfer to be like.  After this day we realized that everything just goes better with the spirit, not that we forgot that, but sometimes you just get caught up in the missionaries way of doing things.  For the rest of this transfer, we are going to make sure we do everything with the help of the spirit.  Everything!  We aren't going to miss any of our prayers and we are going to make sure and stay open minded even after we have set our plans for the day.

This week I met an interesting man.  Basically he is a very well known/well accomplished veterinarian.  The elders before I got here were able to meet with him once, but elder Chatterton and I hadn't had any success with meeting with him.  The thing is he is super busy!  His entire family lives in America and he could to if he wanted to.  He wants to stay here and give back to his people.  He is probably the most

Loving all the buildings in Sibiu

charitable Romanian I have met!  So he is always gone doing favors for people and just helping others out... He is amazing!  So the other day we had a lot of contacting planned.  Elder Chatterton turns to me and says " Let's go see if Adrian is home."  Because of our mind set for the transfer that we had set, we both knew it was from the spirit and that whether or not something happened or not it was what we were supposed to do.  So we walk over there and we stumble upon Adrian outside feeding his cat!  We get talking with him and he was explaining how he just got home 5 minutes ago, and that he would be leaving in like 30 minutes.  He said he had time to talk for a bit so he invited us inside!  It was crazy.  We ended up at his house at the same exact minute he was outside.  (He has a big gate, so it is kinda hard to get him to know we are there)  It was a miracle that he was out there and took some time to talk with us even with his busy schedule.  We talked for him a bit just about life.  We came to an agreement that if he ever needed any help that he could give us a call and that we would do the same.  We are hoping we will be able to get another meeting or something with him this next week!

There is a lot of interesting people here in Sibiu. Elder Chatterton and I had just finished teaching sunday school when a man walked in.  I met him at the door and tried to get to know him a bit.  He asked if church was over and I told him that it was.  He sighed and then said that's okay.  He continued to walk inside and in the middle of the floor he knelt down and said a prayer.  When he stood up he was on something.  He opened up the bible and just started going to town on us and telling us we needed to repent and stuff.  Finally, after a couple minutes of listening to this man shout at us, I told him we he had to go outside.  He wouldn't listen but after a bit we got him outside.  It kinda reminded me of my second transfer when that man came into the Pitesti church and I had to escort him out.  I guess some people think it is okay to do stuff like that?  :)  

Quick story.  We went to a members farm this week.  Each time I do stuff like that I feel closer to Grandma!  The member kept telling me go pull the big weeds cause I was "a powerful young lad"  Just thought it was kinda funny and wanted to let you know we did a little farming this week! :)

This letter is getting really long.  But I got one more quick thing to tell ya.  We were doing our normal weekly planning session and we ended a little early.  Elder Chatterton looks at me and says " Cooper I think we need to go outside and try and contact 5 people about the Book of Mormon, I just feel like I got hit in the face with this"  So of course we got outside as fast as we could and tried getting those 5 contacts in before the end of the night.  It started off very difficult.  We were getting rejected hard.  But at the end, is where something happened.  We started talking to this guy.  I got the impression to promise him something.  I said " you can find out for 100% fact if what we are saying is true.  You need to pray tonight and ask God, and if you feel anything I need you to call us."  Then elder Chatterton gave him a Book of Mormon, and that was that.  We looked at each other and we were just like, that is why we needed to come out here tonight.  So ya, super cool experience for us :)

Things are really going great over here in Sibiu.  We are staying positive and working hard!  Thanks for all you do for me, I know I say that every time, but I really just want you to know how grateful I am for you all!  Love you so much!! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Cooper the second