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