TEACHING, SERVICE AND AIRPLANES - FEBRUARY 16

Wow one crazy week!.... just kidding.  Things are rather calm here in TImi.

We had a pretty cool surprise lesson type thing this week.  So

Great Companion  (Thanks Smiths for the picture)

the other elders had set up to do an English lesson with this lady from our English class.  Well what happened was they ended up in Oradea on an exchange with our Zulus and were not able to make it back in time for the time they had set up.  So Duks and I went to the church to do this English lesson with her.  It went over really well.  At the end of the lesson she just looked at me and asked why she had never heard of the Mormon church before.  She had a bunch of questions for us and so we stayed and talked with her for a bit.  She seemed really curious about what we actually believe.  She took a BOM with her home and we told her to read from it.  She said she would come to church, she didnt, but we will see her again this week and we will extend another invitation to her. 

Basically no one ever comes on the first one.  You gotta keep asking and eventually they will make it work, that is just kinda how it goes here.  So that was pretty cool this week.

The District, working together and working hard.   (Thanks again Smiths. We love you)

We also had our service opportunity at the orphanage.  This time we had planned to make paper airplanes with them.  They also really liked the ninja game we taught them last time so they were entertained.  However this time.... I got homework duty.  They wanted me to sit down and help this one kid with his third grade homework.  You know what it taught me?  I need to brush up on my stuff!  Also I'm probably not the best at Romanian vocab...haha.... but still I felt like I needed to go back to school haha. We were sitting at the table trying to do our homework and everybody was throwing their airplanes everywhere, so all he wanted to do was to go join them, honestly that's all I wanted too. haha. That's way more fun than Homework!

Eventually we got it done and were able to go join the others and play.

We also tried to have a Valentines party this week. I say tried because only one person showed up. haha  We played some water pong, the get the ping pong ball off the table with your breathe, and also watched the princess bride.  That was our Valentines :)  Overall it was good.

Other big news is the BP and family are officially all settled in and about ready to get things going.  It will be really nice having them here.  We actually have a dinner appointment with them tomorrow!!  Super crazy... I dont even know how to act... Im kinda nervous haha.  They are a really nice and cute family.  They are gonna help the work progress in Timi for sure.

Well that is the week.  Thank you all for your support and for your prayers.  They are needed and they are felt.  I love you all so much, I couldnt do this with out you!

Elder Nighwing! (Thanks to my brother Batman :) for having my back.)

                   MORE EXPLANATION ABOUT THE CANDLES IN THE EARS

 "Ya so the ear wax melts out into the yellow tube.  You then take it out and look at what you had in there! haha  This is my ear wax that I had in my ear.  I realize that I didnt fully explain this very well.  The fire like melts and pulls it up or something like that. :)"

FEBRUARY 9TH. BUSY AND GOOD!

 Alright, I didnt write down anything in my planner to write here so it will be interesting trying to get it all out there.

Basically English classes started up again.  We actually had a really good turn out.  I am really excited to teach our class.  We are doing the advanced so we just play games and trying to get conversations going and stuff.  During our Saturday

"Life is good" 

class we ended with a really nice spiritual thought about the Book of Mormon.  At the end we had two students come up and ask for a copy so that they could read and find out for themselves!  So cool!  I love how our whole district is all on the same page.  We all contribute to every single spiritual thought and I feel like it makes a big difference.  We have a cool plan for this round of English spiritual thoughts we came up with in district meeting.  Basically we are going to just go through the stories in the book of Mormon, so it will just be like story time every time it is time for spiritual thought.  So we just finished up with what the Book of Mormon is and now we are getting into the stories!  I am excited for this.

Now we also have a really sick opportunity here in Timi.  We get to go to an orphanage once a week and work with some of the kids there.  Basically just play games with them.  It is

"Working on getting our ear wax out. With French" 

Turing out to be a challenge cause their ages range from like 5 - 14.  It's really hard to come up with something a 14 likes to do and something a 5 year old can do at the same time!  If you have any fun games or something I am all ears! haha  The first time we went we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.  No one told us anything, but to just go.  So what it turned into was all the kids looking at me to tell them the next game we were going to play.... uh.  So what do I start to do?  I go on to explain this game.  I make all the kids sit, cross arms with their neighbors, and then have to hit their hands or something and it would pass it around in a circle.  After about 5 minutes of that a kid asked what was the next step or the point of the game.... hahaha I had no freakin idea!  I was just making it up on the spot cause no one else knew any games!  haha so now we are a bit more prepared for it... it was an interesting first time over there.  I really do like the kids though.  They are the same every time, so hopefully we can get to know them fairly well.  We go every Wednesday.  It is something fun that switches up the week a bit.  

Also our American family has arrived here in Timi.  So now we have a Branch president!  They have a lot of energy and want to be really involved with us.  So we are all super excited to be able to work with them... they also said they would feed us!! haha havent had that in a while.  I will keep you updated on that.

So this past Sunday... actually cool connection, mom's birthday is the same day that this country was dedicated!  We just hit the 25th anniversary so we did this cool transmission thing from Bucharest.  We got to hear a lot of our authorities talk so that was dope.  It was kinda hard to hear and understand... so I dont really have any cool insights from that... sorry haha, but I really liked it! 

So that is the week in a nut shell. Sorry it is all super scattered and what not.  That is just how my brain works I guess.  I love you all so much!!  Hope you have a great week!!

Love,

James Anderson Cooper

ps I am in the west so the weather is actually pretty nice most of the time.  We did get a bit of snow like 2 days ago but it went away super fast.  The nights are coming a lot slower so it looks like it is going to start warming up so and hopefully!! 

FEBRUARY 2ND. SHORT AND SWEET

HEY!

Honestly, not a lot happened this week.  I will tell you my highlight though.  We had a movie night activity for some of the former investigators here.  We didnt have the best turn out, but we got a few there.  We watched the lego movie!  If you havent seen that one it is a must.  It's got a good ending.  With this activity we were able to get a little closer with the

"Excited to work with my new companion. He's a great guy!"

people here.  It has been a rough change for them as well.  Missionaries left from here after being here for a really long time. So they have some adjusting to do as well.  We are trying to make it as easy or comfortable as possible for them.  It is something that we forget about sometimes.  The affect that missionaries leaving will have on an area.  Usually, at least for me, I think that leaving the area has the affect on me not the other way around.  I guess Im just trying to say it is important to remember that other people can feel the same way, and that we need to take care of them too.  If this is making any sense?  Im really tired. haha

So Sundays are really cozy days.  We go to church and our 3 member ladies show up.  We do the first meeting and then two of them switch off from teaching.  I actually am really enjoying the Sunday school lessons.  We all have to be involved or else the lesson doesnt work very well because we are so few.  We talked about Nicodemus this past week.  How he requested that Jesus come help him out and teach him something during the nighttime, and how that showed a couple of things. Some are all deep I'm sure, but basically to me the biggest thing that stuck out was that he just didn't want anyone to know he was asking for help so he did it at night.  He was scared about what the people would think.  This concept is something so difficult that we have to fight day to day.  To truly be humble enough and ask for help or do the right thing.  It's a difficult thing.  For me personally, it is probably something I will have to work on over and over again.  It's difficult doing something that you know is right and that you also know is unpopular or not fun.  I hope that we will all have courage to do that as we go about our days.

All right so now we are on to another week.  Our English classes are starting up so I am super excited.  It does add a little more stress, but it helps keep us busy.  Ive gotten the most calls for English class this transfer than ever before!  My hopes are high.  We will see tomorrow I guess.  Have a great week everyone!!  Love you lots!!

Elder,

Cooper