THE LOST ONES

I would have to say that this week has been one of the fastest weeks of my life!  I can't believe it is already Tuesday!  To explain why our Pday changed...  Our entire district, except for elder Chatterton and I, had to go down to Bucharest for MLC or "Big boy meeting"  So the Zl's and the STL's left Sunday and wouldn't get back until Monday night... so we didnt want to do our Pday alone, so we just waited for them. :) 

This week we had our exchanges with the Zone leaders.  I was with elder Lybbert and it was super cool!  It was

Elder Lybbert and Cooper

awesome getting to work with someone who was in your MTC group and just see how much progress you have both made.  I remembered back to a time in the MTC where elder Lybbert and I were doing a roll play with each other.  We both reflected back on how hard it was and we both felt very inadequate. (It was nice to realize that wasn't just me.) We had the simple task of inviting each other to church on Sunday and we both kinda struggled with it.  It was super cool cause during our exchange we had a lesson our buddy E. 

We have come along way I'll just say that.  It was awesome!  Also during our exchange we went and visited a less active/ former elders quorum president.  It isn't really his fault he is less active. He is stuck in a mental hospital and they wont let him out..... so we thought we would give him a nice visit to see how he is doing.  I think we officially have two of our members who are in that hospital... that kinda really stinks.  Also it was a little freaky to be in a Romania mental hospital.  We were just walking the courtyard with the member and there was a ton of mental patients walking around too.  Our member in there is super nice though!  He keeps trying to give us referrals from his friends he is making in the hospital... it's the thought that counts right!?

We had a super successful sports night this week.  
We met two kids that are both 19.  They came and played some sports and stuff with us and we got talking a bit.  
They are super chill and we are planning on meeting up with them sometime to see if they are actually interested in the gospel!  I sure hope they are.  It could really help the branch here to have 2 young adults here.  We will see what happens with that.  Counting those two we had 11 non-members at sports night!  Super crazy.

"I love my District and am so grateful for them. "

Sibiu is SOO beautiful!  I hope I can stay here for a while.  There is something always going on in the center of the city, the mountains are super gorgeous!  and the architecture is super sick.   There was a super cool medieval festival in the center of town this week.  It was so nuts!  I just wanted to throw on armor and start swinging a sword around!  There was a me devil band playing the whole time while we were watching things like people spitting fire and creepy jesters or something on stilts.  Hopefully Ill be able to send the pictures cause I cant even describe it with words!

I also love this place cause I feel like I can make a difference here :)  But yes keep praying for here.  It's struggling area for sure.

All right so this week elder Chatterton and I started on a project.  We call it project "The Lost Ones"  We were going through our area book last week and realized a pattern.  We

started noticing that page after page of former investigators were dropped because they had a bad number and couldnt talk on the phone.  We decided that wasn't a good reason so we have gone through about half of the book and have written down addresses of all theses formers.  Some of them the last time they had contact with the missionaries was in like 2005!  We had some time to go out this week to try and find some of them.  We confirmed some of their locations, but only got to talk to two of them.  Neither of them remembered anything about missionaries... it was kinda awkward.  However we are excited to keep getting out to find the lost ones!  Plus it gives us more direction and purpose rather than going out everyday wandering around contacting.  Ill let you know more about it next week! :)

Last little thing of the week is church.  Literally every active member left church after the first hour this past Sunday.  It was elder Chatterton and my turn to teach the second hour of church.  We had 2 investigators stay and one other excommunicated member stay.  It made it more difficult to teach with no participation, but it worked out.  We are working super hard to build this branch! The work goes on!

Love you all so much!  Have a good week.  Keep on doing the little things!

Love,

Elder Cooper

P.S. we live in a Vila.  There are about two other families that share it with us... we never see them though cause it is completely separated.  I have adopted this dog though hahah I love dogs still!!

MEDIEVAL FESTIVAL