MAY 4-11 STAYING BUSY AND GOING STRONG

MAY 4, 2015
The week.  I really feel like I dont have much to say haha.  Since the last time I wrote was like on Wednesday, it hasnt been that long.

So on saturday English class rolled around.... and it rained again!  the first time it rained it was okay cause it's still the

But rain does bring about great beauty! 

first week and there is always the Saturday class to go to.  But now that the weather was bad on both of those days, they might think like man I will already be behind or something like that or just forget we talked to them all together. Hopefully not though. Guess we'll see. 

Before church started we were able to do a lesson with the church walk in from last Sunday.  We are going to meet with him again on Wednesday and it officially makes him a progressing investigator.  He is a great man and I am excited to work with him.  I do think it might take a while for him to make all the steps, but that is kinda normal here.  He is in his late 60's I think and he has studied a lot about different churches. It's interesting working with people. I've learned to really get what they need their focus can't be just on studying about us or seeing what we do rather than a pure desire to find the truth. Desire is essential. With all that said I am really excited to be able to start teaching the lessons again.  Maybe this will be my first time teaching all of them! who knows? haha

Church was also great cause... it was 45 minutes.  It is so hard to get our branch to go any longer on a fast and testimony meeting.  I mean I still hold the record for shortest meeting when I conducted last fast and testimony meeting.  Im not sure if I should be proud or a little embarrassed about that? haha

Alright so today has actually been a pretty crazy Pday. L went to the hospital on Friday cause he was having some pretty

bad pains in his lower stomach.  Well he is still there now!  He

has something that and I guess it is pretty serious.  So today we went to go visit him to see how he was doing.  It took us so long to actually find the area we were supposed to be in.  Our first attempt we ended up in a college trying to go up an elevator when a nice lady comes up to us and asks what we were doing here haha.  She then pointed us in the right direction.  Then we go into, what I thought were the front doors.  We ended up down a random hall way just looking for an elevator.  We then get more instructions that we gotta go outside again and go down these stairs and let me just tell you, it was the most difficult front door I have ever needed to get to haha. We are lucky to have the hospitals we have in America. I'm just going to say that :) 

So the church is true.

Love you all so much!  NEXT WEEK WE SKYPE!! that's pretty neat.  I am excited to see you guys and be able to talk.  Last time I get to skype you guys from Romania.  AH!  Have a great week

Love,

Varstnicul Iacov Dogar

MAY 11, 2015

It was super great to see everyone today!!  You all are looking so good.. haha :)  It is a little hard think of what to write just cause we talked about so much already.

Like I said already, we had a pretty good week even though a few things went wrong.  On Wednesday we tried to meet with someone, but he said he was outta town.  On the bright side he came to church!  We were able to do a short lesson with him.  This next week we are hoping we will be able to go over to his house and tell him more about the plan of salvation.  It should be really good.  I will let you know how things go with him.

Also I think I mentioned this in he skype call, but I think I should say it again... I am the branch Pianist!! haha how did that happen?!  Actually we know how that happened.  Took a little bit of time this week to roughly learn how to read notes and generally get a feel of how to play 4 songs... and that is how it happened... I just think it's crazy!  I think me and my

Well he sort of used to practice in Arad :O

companion are going to go out contacting just asking people if they can play the piano.  Then tell them " oh hey, we have a piano, do you want to practice for an hour on Sundays at 10 am?" haha I think it'll work.

I know this is a lot shorter than normal so sorry about that.  I still love you all so much! haha  It might sound weird but it honestly just warmed my heart seeing all of you.  I think as a missionary your heart may tend to get a little cold because we are in the world so much. (at least this has been my experience on my mission)  It was just great and really helpful to see all of your faces and be reminded so strongly about one of the biggest reasons I am out here.  It was a bit of a reality check.  The gospel is real and true and families are forever, so ya, just like a tender mercy... I just love you all so so much!  Thanks for being so great and being so crazy.  It wouldnt be the same any other way!  Hope you have a great week!!

Love 

Elder james

APRIL 29 - Zone Conference and Everything Else

APRIL 29, 2015

What a week so far!  I am trying to remember all the way back to last week and it is proving to be a little challenging. 

We were able to have few lessons this week with a member and less active.  It's really cool in this branch because you're constantly doing lessons with the same members you really get to know each other.  The BP and his wife are just

amazing.  We go over there about once a week talk about how the branch is doing, how missionary work is going, and then we share a short little spiritual thought with them.

So Sunday we actually had a really good turn out at church.  We had 9 people come!  Two American guys who live in Germany but have a project here in Craiova come every week.  The are amazing.  The one always asks us what he can bring to us from the states.  He

works with the army so he gets all the hook ups and fairly fast as well.  This past Sunday he brought a big box of pop tarts!  haha me and A are kinda in heaven right now.  It's moments like these when you appreciate being in a two man city... less missionaries to share with. :)  But honestly he is just the best. I just really appreciate this man.  We also had a "church walk in" on Sunday.  Which just means there was a random guy who wanted to see how the mormons do things.  We talked with him for a while and he stayed the whole first hour.  We got his contact info and hopefully we can set up with him soon.  After church I had to stay kinda long because I am still trying to figure out how to work the whole MLS stuff... for the most part it is fairly simple, and I got it, just not when you make mistakes I guess haha.

Now onto Monday.  What a freakin crazy day.  So it was a zone conference, nothing to crazy.  The thing is we weren't supposed to spend the night Sunday night in Buc so that meant us having to wake up at 5 am to catch a train at like 6.  We then took the 3 hour train to Buc.  As soon as we arrived we had to take a taxi to get to the chapel on time for the

meeting.  Then of course we sit through the 4 hour zone conference.  It was good.  President Ivory had one of his buddies from Utah come to Romania to come speak to us. He talked a lot about being successful and how if you want to be successful you should just look at what you are doing when you have nothing to do.  It reminded me of something some one told me once that I really like. "You can tell a lot about a man by what he does when he is bored” Basically just a reminder to make sure we stay productive and keep ourselves busy and all that good stuff.  So overall zone conference was good.  I met an elder who has apparently been following my blog.  It was pretty cool kinda made me feel like a celebrity a bit haha.  He was a really chill guy.

So after that I had set up an appointment with the D Family!  I love that family so much!  They always feed us tons of food.  They are doing great and they mentioned stuff about preparing to go to the temple!!  How sick is that!  I am super

excited for them.  To end the day we hopped on the 3 hour train back to Craiova and got in at like 11:30 in the rain.  To say the least, we were tired.

Now yesterday we started English.  It just so happened to decide to rain and thunder like crazy.  So we didnt have very many people show up, but we are hopeful for our Saturday class.

So that has been my week so far! haha  I feel like I just typed out an entire essay.  I missed some stuff here and there so if I remember I will tell yall soon.  I love you all so much!  Thanks for constantly having my back and just being overall amazing.  I miss you all and cant wait to skype with you guys soon!! haha  Have a good week.

Elder Cooper

CHOOSE TO BELIEVE (April 20-29)

April 20^th, 2015

Well Hello!

This has been a really long week.  Not really in a bad way, it just seems like it has been a while since Pday... maybe that's because our last one was filled with so much traveling?  Who knows. 

So it is very hot over here now.  We still have some cold

moments, but the summer is coming and it's coming fast.  Elder A can play the guitar so we have used that in some of our contacting sessions.  We went to Parcul Nicolea Romanescu in our short sleeve shirts and he played the guitar it was so nice.  I even got my official first sunburn of the year!  But it left an awful tan line cause it was my long sleeve rolled up to be short sleeve so it was more like a baseball shirt cut... so the line looked kinda funny, but I think I evened it out through out the week haha.  So while at the park we had an awesome contact.  There was a man walking his Cane Corso and so I stopped to pet it.  It was only like 12 weeks old and it was huge!  Anyways we just got talking about the dog and stuff and it was a really good conversation.  He asked us what we were doing and we told him about being missionaries and also about English.  He said I dont think I will come to the English class, but if you guys ever want to go get some juice and chat some time i'd be down.  So that was dope.  We are gonna meet up with him soon.

This week we had a sport activity planned with the branch. 

We ended up at this placed called Decathlon and ended up playing some soccer tennis and some basketball.  Towards the end a group of guys came over and asked if we wanted to 2v2.  I was thinking it would be one of those moments that you hear about where the missionaries played a game of basketball and beat the other guys so they agree to listen to a gospel conversation or something like that.... but we lost haha!  They were super sick guys though.  We invited them to English class so hopefully they come!

I hope you all got to listen or watch general conference.  I am still trying to catch up on it haha.  the other day I was listening and I heard probably one of my favorite talks of all time.  Choose to Believe from Elder L Whitney Clayton.  "Belief and testimony and faith are not passive principles.They do not just happen to us. Belief is something we choose—we hope for it, we work for it, and we sacrifice for it. We will not accidentally come to believe in the Savior and

His gospel any more than we will accidentally pray or pay tithing. We actively choose to believe, just like we choose to keep other commandments."

 This is just one of the cool things that he laid out so clear for me.  It is so important to choose to believe every single day.  It's not just something you can think about... like okay I believe and booom you believe.  It's an action word just like faith.  So by reading your scriptures, praying, home teaching, really any of that type of stuff is basically just believing in the gospel.  We do those things because we believe.  I remember when I learned that faith was an action word and it blew my mind, and now coming to the understanding that belief is also something we show by action was super cool.  His talk has a lot more in it that is so clear and good that I just love, but I guess this is just what I wanted to share for this week.  Here is the link so it's easier to take the 15 or so minutes to listen to it so you dont have to find it yourselves haha :) 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/choose-to-believe?lang=eng

This talk gave me a lot of hope.  A lot more than what I have felt in a while...so I just wanted to share it with all of you. :)  I hope you all have an amazing week.  LOVE YOU ALL!!

 Elder 

Nightwing!

Ps:  In Romania the way you say basketball is just baschet.  So almost literally just dont say ball.  Ive always thought it was kinda funny.  It's like "hey wanna go play some basket?"  

April 29, 2015

What a week so far!  I am trying to remember all the way back to last week and it is proving to be a little challenging. 

We were able to have few lessons this week with a member and less active.  It's really cool in this branch because we are constantly doing lessons with the same members you really get to know each other.  The  BP and his wife are just amazing.  We go over there about once a week talk about how the branch is doing, how missionary work is going, and then we share a short little spiritual thought with them.

So Sunday we actually had a really good turn out at church.  We had 9 people come!  Two American guys who live in Germany but have a project here in Craiova come every week.  They are amazing.  He always asks us what he can bring to us from the states.  He works with the army so he gets all the hook ups and fairly fast as well.  This past Sunday he brought a big box of pop tarts!  haha me and A are kinda in heaven right now.  It's moments like these when you appreciate being in a two man city... less missionaries to share with. :)  But honestly he is just the best.  I just really appreciate this man for his help and his spirit in the branch.  We also had a "church walk in" on Sunday.  Which just means there was a random guy who wanted to see how the mormons do things.  We talked with him for a while and he stayed the whole first hour.  We got his contact info and hopefully we can set up with him soon. 

Now onto Monday.  What a freakin crazy day.  So it was a zone conference, nothing to crazy.  The thing is they did not want us to spend the night Sunday night in Buc so that meant us having to wake up at 5 am to catch a train at like 6. 

We then took the 3 hour train to Buc.  As soon as we arrived we had to take a taxi to get to the chapel on time for the meeting.  Then of course we sit through the 4 hour zone conference.  It was really good. President Ivory had one of his buddies from Utah come to Romania to come speak to us.  He talked a lot about being successful and how if you want to be successful you should just look at what you are doing when you have nothing to do.  It reminded me of something some one told me once that I really like. "You can tell a lot about a man by what he does when he is bored"  Basically just a reminder to make sure we stay productive and keep ourselves busy and all that good stuff.  So overall zone conference was good.  I met an elder who has apparently been following my blog.  It was pretty cool kinda made me feel like a celebrity a bit haha.  He was a really chill guy.

So after that I had set up an appointment with the D’s!  I love that family so much!  They always feed us tons of food. 

They are doing great and they mentioned stuff about preparing to go to the temple!!  How sick is that!  I am super excited for them.  To end the day we hoped on the 3 hour train back to Craiova and got in at like 11:30 in the rain.  To say the least, we were tired.

Now Yesterday we started English.  It just so happened to decide to rain and thunder like crazy.  So we didnt have very many people show up, but we are hopeful for our Saturday class.

So that has been my week so far! haha  I feel like I just typed out an entire essay.  I missed some stuff here and there so if I remember I will tell ya’ll soon.  I love you all so much!  Thanks for constantly having my back and just being overall amazing! Have a good week.

Elder Nightwing Cooper