TRANSFERS!

"So proud of this kid who will soon be leaving on his own mission. It's been great
working with him and teaching Mission Prep."

 This week was transfers and it was insane!  Basically it started Tuesday with everyone coming down.  My meeting was on Thursday morning, but everyone was alreadydown by Wednesday.  It was super nice to be able to see a lot of

See you later Bucharest.

people again.  Between everyone in and out of our house I had to try and pack.  I figured cause I was just In Buc it wouuldn't be too hard, so I waited... bad move on my part.  In the end I only forgot a couple of things, so it's all good haha. 

So Thursday rolls around and we had to be at the Ivory's home by 8 oclock.  We live about an 45 minutes to an hour away plus being a little early we had to wake up pretty early.  When we got there turns out they forgot to tell everyone they decided to move the meeting to 9:30.  So everyone was there like an hour and a half early.  It's whatever.  The trainer meeting went like 3 hours or something like that.  It was nuts. 

This transfer was the first influx in elders our mission has had.  We had like 9 leave and 13 new come in.  So we grew by four!  We are catching the wave! haha. There are so many new missionaries currently I feel like. It has been fun and there is a lot more energy here. Basically what Ivory told us in the meeting was we were the trainers to set this mission up.  We are the ones who set the tone for this huge group of kids who will soon be leading the mission.  He kinda put a lot of pressure on us, which is good and stressful.  I am super excited I have the chance to be a part of this, but at the same time, there is a lot to do!

That takes us to Friday.  Basically I met up with my new companion, Elder C, and we waited for our train with the rest of our district.  We caught our train at about 10 in the morning.... Sibiu is 6 hours away by train from Buc.  It is literally the farthest you will travel on a "sitting up" train.  Any farther and you will take a sleeper train.  So it was a long train ride to say the least.  I really like the district here though. 

I've arrived here in Sibiu

Elder C is with elder L and they are the ZL's here.  They are both super great!  Super kind and everyone likes them.  They always smile and never judge anyone!  So people like being around them, especially me! haha  Then we have Sora R and Sora O'B, the STL's here.  They are both super cool and easy to get along with.  So the district will work well together.  We are all super pumped to see what we can accomplish this transfer.  Elder C, my new comp, it super great!  He is so chill and easy going.  He wants to work and is just a friendly guy.  We already have had some cool experiences... well I think they are super cool.  There has been multiple times when we have gotten in conversations with people already.  The cool thing is...I've been able to talk with them!  You really don't know how much you know until your are forced into situations. 

We were walking to a store to get some food when a man stopped us.  He came off really attacking.  He straight lined

"You'll never guess what we have in
our apartment?...

toward us and said "What do you believe about God?"  I answered and he was like "okay what else?"  The whole time being super assertive and looking kinda angry.  We got talking for a bit and the conversation turned a little lighter, finally to the point where we got him to laugh.  It was kinda intense at the start.  Usually when things like that have happened, in my experience, it never ends well and they usually try to bash with us.  This time it was super cool.  We all ended smiling!  He wouldn't take any of our materials or anything, but I feel good with the fact that before we talked there was no smile... at the end there was a smile!  If we can't be having lessons every day and teaching people frequently, what better to do then go around and help people feel a little happier than they were?  I think we might be doing a lot of that here in Sibiu.

The situation here is interesting.  There is one man here in the branch that does everything....  The scary part is that he is probably leaving for Canada in a couple of months, and

"I really like it here!"

then there will be no one to keep this place going!  So I feel like there is a timer.  The need for more members here is huge!  The Zl's are the Branch presidents counselors and elder C and I are the elder Quorum's "teachers".  Sometimes the branch will have enough members to be able to do 3 hours of church, but usually it will just be 2 hours.  I have a feeling we will see some miracles this transfer!

Basically that takes us to now.  We are all settled in and ready to go.  I am doing super good and I am just happy to be here!  Thank you all so much for your support, love and advice!  I love you all so much!  Glad to hear that everything went smoothly and you are about to embark on a calm week haha :)  LOVE YA!!

Cu Drag,

Elder Cooper

Saying good-bye to Bucharest

"Said good-bye to this great investigator" 

Good-bye SOCCER team

BEAUTIFUL HERASTRO PARK