Salut Tutoror

Hello Family,

Thanks for your e-mails. Sorry if I can't remember all of your questions, but I will do my best to make this a good e-mail.

This last week has been super good. As I said I was sick last week, but on Wednesday, after having had continued problems to the point that I could not really work, I had the good sense to ask the Zone leaders, who live here in Ploiesti, to give me a priesthood blessing. They blessed me that I would be comforted and that I would shortly be healed that I could continue the Lord's work. At this point, I had had digestive problems for more than a week and it seemed worse every day. Thursday, I still didn't feel too swell, so I stayed home until that evening. But then, when I woke up Friday, I felt totally recovered. Indeed, I no longer had a single ache or pain. What power there is in the Priesthood! Unfortunately, one of the sister missionaries here in Ploiesti also got sick around the same time. She asked my companion and I to give her a blessing Friday morning, and then by Saturday she too was completely better. I feel so priviledged to experience testimony building miracles such as these as I serve here.

One night this past week we had a fireside for the branch. We, the missionaries, organized it at the chapel. It was on the Book of Mormon and Elder Miller dressed up as a Nephite, complete with a cardboard, duct tape sword that the youth really liked, and Elder Lyon, one of the Zone Leaders, dressed up as a Lamanite. We split the 40 members in attendance into two groups and had one group play Book of Mormon jeopardy while the other played Book of Mormon pictionary. After 20 minutes they switched. At the end they came back into the chapel where a couple of members bore their testimonies about the power of the Book of Mormon and some of their favorite heroes. Then I, dressed as the Angel Moroni (with white baptismal clothing and two white sheets), came in and did a role play talking about how the Book of Mormon was a great gift that I had given to Joseph Smith almost 200 years ago and that it was now the members' responsibility to share this same gift that they had been given with their friends and neighbours. All the members thought it was a really good fireside and they especially liked the fact that us missionaries had dressed up.

This last Sunday we also had 4 baptisms. The other 5 that were originally scheduled were not able to go through, but all of them will still be baptised, just at later dates. Ironically, when sacrament meeting began, none of the four prospective baptisies were present. One of them had a late bus coming in from where she lived in the outlying areas of the city. Two others, the mother and daughter of a family, had a flat tire on their way to the chapel. Then, our investigator, Costel, had his bike tire explode on his way to the church. So determined was he to get there that he ditched his bike in the bushes, deciding to retrieve it, hopefully, on his way back home. He lives so far away that had he taken his bike back home at that point, he would have been late for his baptism. It was amazing to see the last minute obstacles placed in these peoples' ways on the day of their baptisms, but it was even more awesome and humbling to see how they were able, through their faith, to overcome. The baptismal ceremony after church was beautiful. Everything went very smoothly. We had President Chirila, the 1st counselor in the Romania Mission Presidency (making him the highest romanian church official in the country) speak at the baptism, and man was his talk powerful. One of the members also played Come Thou Fount on the violin. The father and husband of the 12 year old and her mother who were baptised was standing next to me when they were submerged. I heard him talking to one of his friends, who they had invited to the ceremony, saying that he would be baptised in the next couple of weeks, once he had overcome his drinking problem. He had quite a spirit of humility and it was amazing to here and see how the gospel has changed him. He is currently being helped by one of the members in the ward who is a former Branch Pransident, who had to quit drinking before he could be baptised. I think he will make it.

The other night, Elder Miller and I were having a tough night in the blocks, so we decided to change up our approach. We decided we would start saying to people at the doors that we were representatives of Jesus Christ and we are from his restored church and want to tell them how they can become part of it. While many people were unwilling to listen, those who did had very spiritual experiences. The Spirit was really present as we taught about Joseph Smith and a few people said that they could tell by what they felt as we described his experience that it really did happen. I really like this new approach as it is bold, honest, and powerful. Plus it makes things rather exciting.

I find out tonight where I will spend the next six months. It is kind of like a whole new mission call to find out. We were supposed to find out this morning, but they have not made the final decisions yet.

Oh yeah, a couple weeks ago we got Preach My Gospel in Romanian. It has been an awesome study tool and great for the Branch.

Love.

Walker