NEW ENERGY (DECEMBER 15, 2014)

The week.

It really feels like it has been along week.  I feel like me and Elder L have been together for like 3 weeks already!  I think it is just because we are already really tight.  So Wednesday I went on exchange with Elder D while are comps went down to Bucharest and our new ones came up.  We decided we

needed to switch things up a bit and do something different.  So we bought a bouquet of flowers and handed them out to elderly ladies on the street and just said " Someone is thinking about you" or " Have a great Christmas season"   It honestly just made my whole day!  We got so many smiles and so many good conversations out of it.  It was a nice break from the ordinary.  Not a single one rejected what we were giving, which was really nice haha.

Now I am with elder L and he brought a lot of energy with him!  We had a lot of lessons and stuff set up for the end of the week. (they all fell through, but that is besides the point haha)  We got a family to come to church that I have been working hard to try and get them to come for a whole transfer now.  I kept calling them and they would tell us we could meet or they would come to church.  Well finally the weather was nice and they came to church!  It was so great!  We found them in our area book under potential investigators.  All it said was that it was a young mom with a baby and they gave her a Book of Mormon.  So we thought it would be awesome to get their whole family to church.  At the end of church we found out something.... They were already the sister's investigators!! haha what in the world!  They hadn't seen them for a while and they had never came to church.  It was so trippy but super happy. The Soras are gonna start working with them again.  Kinda sad that we "lost" our family to go try and teach... but as long as they are getting taught I am happy.

Oh I have to let you know how spoiled I feel. You guys sent me so many packages!? haha I got one from the ward! A few from you guys, and one from Grandma and Grandpa.  I have only opened two cause I dont know if I can with the other ones.  Ill tell ya it was actually a very humbling experience. It may sound cheesy, weird or whatever, but it just reminded me of all I have and how blessed I am to have to friends and family I have and to be born in a situation, and where sending packages in my behalf was possible.  I am so grateful for everyone who sent something to me.  I feel so loved and it helps me want to give that much more.

As for this up coming week, we are going down to Ploesti for our Christmas zone conference!  It's gonna be super hectic like it always is to travel with trains... but that is just how it goes.  That is about the biggest thing for next week.  Elder L and I are just gonna get to work and love every second of it.  It's gonna be a good Christmas transfer! :)

Love you all so much!  Can't believe Joco is already home!  

haha that is so weird. He finally isn't photo shopped into pictures with the family haha :)  Love you brother glad you got home safe and sound!

Love,

Elder Nightwing

FRIENDSHIP AND FELLOWSHIP - DECEMBER 8

The District

Well this transfer is gone, all that is left to do is packing for elder Whitaker.  That's right, I am staying for a fourth transfer here in Sibiu!  It's so crazy I got a pattern going. 2 in Pitesti, 4 in arad, 2 in Bucharest, now 4 in Sibiu!  So elder Whiatker is packing up, elder L is as well, and sora R.  So crazy after spending 3 months with the same people and now they are outta here.  My new comp will be elder L.  He is in elder Chatterton's MTC group.  The cool part is that I know him already!  He was in Buc when I was there.  It will be a fun change of pace I think.  The bummer part is, I dont get to go down to transfer :(  I always look forward to it cause you pick up your new comp and you get to catch up with all your pals and stuff.  So it kinda stinks Im missing two in a row, but it's not the end of the world.  Elder D and I will stay here and do a little exchange.  Alright so that is it for this next transfer!

This week was super busy for some reason, but looking back... I can't reallly remember that much haha.  The biggest thing that happened is we got to go down to Ploesti to do exchanges with Elder DeGraw and Elder Brundage again. It was super sick! I got to go with Elder B for the day. Let me tell ya, he has mastered the language. It was really cool to hear him talk. 
While we were there, we got to visit a member. He has basically been a member the entire time this country has been a legit mission!  While we were there he was telling us all these cool stories and kinda giving us a histroy lesson of the mission.  We were sitting on his bed/couch thingy and he told us the first missionaries in Ploesti sat in our exact seats like 20 years ago haha!  Super cool thought.  There was also a ton of snow in Ploesti!  I realized I was a little unprepared for winter.  The bottom of my shoes fell off and I couldn't find it in the snow... so might need to go buy some good snow shoes... or I'll make some contraption on the bottom so no snow gets in or something. haha

My next highlight of the week was at our weekly games night.  We played a couple rounds of ERS again.  At the end we taught them Big Booty!  Elder D knew it as well, so it was super fun  haha. We had a couple good rounds... but for the most part I think it was kinda hard for some of them.  However it was fun and got people laughing.  It was also really sad cause we said goodbye to all of our friends cause we didn't know who was leaving.  We have basically been with this same group of investigators the whole time we have all been here, and since we did two transfer all together everyone seemed attached.  Good news for me at least is that I am staying, so I get to see them all again.

Elder Cooper's brother returned for serving a 2 year
mission in the Belgium/Netherlands Mission. They are
best friends. 

So that is basically it for this week.  It's super weird thinking Christmas is SOO soon!  Remember last year how I was in Arad?!... ya that was a year ago.  Time is so trippy.  Also crazy!  Joco will be home for my next P-day!!!  What!!  Take so many pictures! and Joco tell me how it goes and every thing.  I want to know all the details.  It actually wont be that weird that he is home... just exciting.  That is about it. haha Love you all so much!  Have a great week Schuy keep up the great work with Silver Rush, and Sam you rock that Nativity set! haha :)

Love

Elder James

Ps: on the 6th of December is saint niculas day!  You shine your shoes and put them outside for someone to put candy in them haha.  I woke up and there was candy in all my shoes! Im a believer!

IT'S JUST LIKE THE MOVIES - (From Decmeber 1st)

I always thought that the movies where super dramatic when it came to Thanksgiving.  Something always goes wrong and never goes the way they plan.  So I'll take you through the day.  Basically Thursday morning, I got on and emailed and stuff you know up to that point.  The day starts when we got home.  So we heard you gotta take the Turkey outta the 

freezer two days before you want to cook it.  So that's what we did.  Well we get home take out the turkey try to stick my fingers in it to grab the guts and stuff out and guess what?  Still frozen all the way through some how. haha Now dethawing it put us about an hour behind.  When it came time to season it we ran into another problem.  The Rosemerry I bought to put on it was next to nothing!  There was about two pinches in the entire package I bought! It was kinda ridiculous haha  Eventually we get it in the oven and it's cooking and stuff.  In the meanwhile, Elder W and I are tried to do some studies while making the stuffing as well.  We get the stuffing done right as the turkey is about done cooking.  We take it out and try to turn off the oven and the stove.  Here comes the next problem... it WOULDN"T TURN OFF.  The knob to

"Yep, this happened!"

control the gas broke off so we couldn't turn it with that.  We then go in with some plyers to turn the metal thingy that the knob was supposed to turn.... and then the metal part busts off as well!  So we were just sitting there with our stove going for about another hour waiting for our landlord to come over and fix it.  Good news is we were not late to the Thanksgiving party!  We made it on time, and everything went super well.  So as stressful as it was we got everything done. So how did my personal turkey turn out?  Well, a little dry... and maybe a bit over done, but nobody got sick so I'd say pretty good! haha :)  Including the missionaries we had 11 members there.  To our suprise we then had 19 other friends and investigators there!  It was an amazing activity.  Everything went great and it's a lot of stress gone.  Oh ya... that night we came home, and our entire stove top was missing!  The landlord came while we were gone to fix it and decided to take it all apart haha  So we were out of a stove for about a day or two.

We were also able to meet with D again!  It's been so long.  I think about 2 weeks since we have had a lesson with him.  What it came down to is he is really praying to know if that we were sent by God and that what we are teaching is true or not.  He is gonna start reading the Book of Mormon so I am super stoked for him.

Our district! 

Alright so this past Saturday we orginized a games night for all our investigators and members.  Super fun.  Don't think we had any members show up, but we had tons of teenage kids come play so it was sick.  I taught every one how to play Eygption Rat Screw.... Im still the champ haha.

Alright so I think that is basically everything for this week.  It's been super crazy and busy.  It's weird all the different situations you get put in as a missoinary.  It may kinda suck in the moment, but looking back is always fun.  To just be like "ya... we got that done" haha 

 The Turkey Duck thingy you had looked super good! Hopefully you all had a great time!  Love you all so much!  It's basically another transfer done, so I'll let you know the changes next Monday.   Have a great week!!

Love. 

Elder Cooper

THANKSGIVING TIME

Happy Thanksgiving!  Woke up this morning with frost

everywhere.  It hasn't snowed in Sibiu. yet, but it defiantly is cold enough if it wanted to.

This past week we did some exchanges with the District leader.  I went with elder L again, so it was pretty fun.  He is the second counselor for the branch here, so sometimes they have a lot of busy work they need to do.  We had to go to the church and stay there while an inspector came to check on our building's gas.  Well turns out there was a problem, so he had to shut the gas off.  Later on in the exchange we had a lesson with one of the investigators.  It was pretty fun.  We talked a lot about prayer and Elder L and I kinda just flowed together so it was cool.  It was also nice to have that lesson cause of what happened through out the week.  We tried setting up about 5-6 lessons this past week, and we got "bunged"(they didn't show up) every single one of them!  So I'm glad we got to teach during the exchange.

So fun story.  The beginning of my time here in Sibiu there was a solid 4-5 members coming to church every week.  With missionaries that makes about 11 at church every week.  Well for the past four weeks of this transfer we have had a minimum of like 19 and a max of 26!  The church is getting stronger here and it is awesome to see!  Well President has been keeping track and was very happy.  So he told us to go out to lunch and to keep the receipt and he would pay for it!  So he basically "took us out to lunch" because he is super happy with Sibiu.  Now I am not telling this to be like "wow look we did, we are awesome!"  Just to show you that your prayers and fasts on the behalf of the people here specifically in Sibiu are being answered.  Thanks for helping us from all the way over there!

This past Sunday president C found out he had to leave out of town like 2 or 3 days before Sunday.  So Presiding fell onto the other two elders.  They asked elder W and I if we could give talks and so that is what we did Sunday.  Also we had two of our English students come to church!  They have stayed for all of our spiritual thoughts after English but for some reason no one has invited them to church yet!  I kinda thought it would be the sisters cause they are both girls.  So this past Saturday I was just like hey we will see you tomorrow right?  And then basically just invited them and they were both excited to come!  So it made us all really happy to see them there.  I hope that they can start doing lessons with the sisters!

Saturday morning... we ran out of milk.... ALL of our breakfasts rely on milk! We had to rush outside to our friendlyneighborhood mini market and get some milk. There is always this really nice little lady that works there and is always so happy to talk with us.  I always try to find excuses to go over to that store cause they recognize us and we have friends over there.  Don't really know why I told you this....  Oh well.

Well today we have a pretty busy day a head of us.  We are

showing everyone how to celebrate some Thanksgiving

American style!..(and technically Canadian as well)  Some how the responsibility fell on me to cook one of the turkeys! haha I got some instructions from Sora Bair (she's so great), so it will turn out well right?  So ya, After I finish writing to all of you, we are going home and I gotta start cooking it and getting ready for this activity. Cooking is really fun actually. I'm not the best at it, but I'm getting better. I like stepping up to do it.  The day should be really fun cause a lot of people said they were coming and bringing some food.  So it is kinda like a giant Potluck!  I am super excited. 

Well that is about it for this week.  It is weird to think that I'll be back here in like 4 days writing about the days again.  Might be a bit shorter.  I love you all so much.  Hope you have a great Ziua Recunostintei!  Eat a lot!!

Love,

The Elder Cooper #2 aka Nightwing aka Coops aka JAC aka Elder James Anderson Cooper

                                          FLASHBACK TO THE HALLOWEEN PARTY