Buna Familia

Hello Family,

Sorry that it's taken me a bit to get to you, but things have been pretty busy here on my end. This last weekend, as I mentioned, really took it out of me. Before getting into that however, I want to reply a bit to what you had to say. First off, way to go Courtney doing geneaology work for the temple trip!! Great thinking! Belle, good job helping Mom to paint and entertaining her with your good movie quotes and stuff. It sounds like you parents had a good time up in Orlando going to Sara’s sealing and eating out and consorting with old friends; and it seems like you are keeping busy as usual (especially Mom, now that Dad no longer has Seminary, etc…) I’m sure that the seminary sacrament meeting was a lot of fun, and I wish I could have been there. Tell Lyndsey congrats for having her baby girl Addysen!! That is VERY exciting to have a new baby cousin, especially from her. Also, congratulate Robbie on reception of his Eagle.
As for me, I have been cruising around Romania with my companion and Elder and Sister Facer. We decided about a week ago that we needed to go up to Cluj and Arad in order to do some financial training for new branch clerks in those branches. So, we left Friday around noon on my first cross-country road trip. It was quite an adventure driving through the windy mountain roads, riddled with pot holes, trafficked by gypsy carts, and mostly just two lane highways. With the luscious scenary and tortuous trails, I was reminded a lot of driving through the south-eastern US. We arrived in Cluj around 6:30PM, where we made our way through the city to the church meeting house. It was a lot of fun to see a city in the western area of the country, as I haven’t yet served out that way. After the training, we went and stayed the night with the Zone Leaders in Cluj, who treated us to some of the famed Cluj chocolate milk, which was absolutely delicious and only about 20 cents for a cup.

The next morning we headed out early on the road from Cluj to Oradea. There, we had been instructed by the Assistants to pick up a wooden wagon/cart that was to be a surprise birthday present for President Ashby. For some background, the president’s b-day was yesterday, June 6, and the APs had organized a covert mission code named Operation Red Flyer. President has formerly expressed the desire to go home from Romania with two things. First, he wants a wool shephard’s cloak, and second, he wants a wooden wagon that is made to be pulled behind a horse, such as the ones often seen driven around the streets by gypsies. A couple of months back, on the way to Oradea with the APs, president pulled over to the side of the road to look at a high-quality wagon that was for sale for just under $500 but didn’t buy it. So, all the missionaries chipped in between 2 and 8 dollars to help raise the funds, and then we picked up the wagon on this audit trip of ours. Thus, that morning we found ourselves looking for a city that we had never been in and that wasn’t on the map; keeping an eye out for a nice looking wagon that we had never seen, which was owned by a woman whose name we didn’t know. By some miracle, we found it, were helped in taking it apart, and managed to fit most of it into the back of our huge 12 passenger van, which had the back seat removed. I think that helping a small group of Americans to dissassemble a wooden wagon and load it into a large van was some of the most excitement that town had ever seen. To top it all off, I had to get up onto the top of the van to aid in strapping the pieces that were too large to the roof of the van. Our cords of choice: Cat 5 networking cables used to hook computers together. Elder Facer had brought about 100 ft of Cat 5 cables thinking that they would be put to better use strapping the wagon to the van than laying useless around the office. Amazingly, I think he was right. They did a really good job!

After picking up the wagon, we went to Arad, where we did some more training. Afterwards we went out to eat at the hotel at which the Facers were staying and listened to Elder and Sister Facer tell stories from their two previous missions in Africa. It sounds like they had a pretty exciting time. One of my favorite stories is of them pulling out of their driveway on the way to a discussion only to be stopped by two men, one of whom pointed a gun in Elder Facer’s face while the other one tried to reach in and grab the keys out of the ignition. Sister Facer took the keys and sat on them while Elder Facer reached for the gun being pointed at him. Elder Facer got out of the car and started running at the man as he tried three times to shoot him, with the gun jamming each time, before he finally dropped the gun and ran off. Then, knowing that the police would be of no use, and not really having very much else to do, they got back into the car and drove off to their discussion appointment. They claim that they were never scared in that whole time. I’m not sure if I believe them, but knowing Elder Facer, that might just be true.
We went to church in Arad on Sunday, after staying with the missionaries there. There was a really good fast and testimony meeting and a very powerful spirit. It was my first time attending church in that side of the country, and it just reminded me again of the universality of the gospel and its principles. After church, we took off towards Bucharest, finally arriving home around 10:30 that night. I should also mention that the wagon that was packed in the back of the van was drenched in grease to keep the wood from wearing and the metal from rusting. Thus, after spending about 10 hours straight in a closed space with all those fumes, all my clothing reeked of gas, and I had a really pounding, spinning, nauseating headache for about a day. Fully-recovered, I think that I have recovered from the effects of my grease-induced high, and I don’t seem to have suffered permanent drain bamage.

Monday, we had Zone Conference at 9:00, meaning another early morning. The conference was really good. We talked a lot about building trust both between us and our investigators as well as between us and the Lord. It was very spiritually uplifting, and the lunch was amazing: pizza, fruit salad, and dessert made by a missionary couple who had imported a bunch of very unhealthy American ingredients like shortening.

After the conference, us and the APs snuck over to the mission home, where president lives, and reassembled the wagon. We hid it around the side of his house.
The next morning at 7:00 AM, we went back to president’s and made him a surprise birthday breakfast of fried eggs and toast. We also pulled the wagon around to his back yard and shut the blinds. So, when he came down, we surprised him with the breakfast, suggested he eat it on the patio, and filmed him as he went out to find a full-sized wooden wagon with a Romanian flag draped over it, which had been signed by all the missionaries. He’s not one to show surprise very much, but he was very visably just stunned and shocked. He thought his wife had bought it and was even more shocked to hear that she hadn’t payed a cent and that the whole thing was organized by the missionaries.

We were similarly stunned and shocked to find, upon returning to our apartment that morning, that none of us had brought with us keys to our self-locking door. So, us and the assistants were locked outside of our apartment in our pajamas (in which we had gone to presidents). The owner of our apartment lives in Cluj, so she called her brother, who lives in Bucharest. He drove out to his house in the countryside, where he thought he had a spare key. When he returned an hour later, we discovered that his key didn’t work. So, he drove to his work and got some industrial strength tow rope. We convinced our upstairs neighbor to let us have access to his balcony, and then I repelled down to our balcony window, which I kicked open and entered while the other three elders held the other end of the line. In our anxiety, it took us 4 Eagle Scouts about 5 minutes to remember how to tie a bow line. To make things just a tad sketchier, our balcony was swarming with dozens of bees for some reason. In the end, though, it was a simple matter to climb down five feet, kick open the window, climb inside, quickly strip off the rope, and run inside before getting stung. Though it was quite an adrenaline rush, I’ll try my best to avoid repelling from 4th story windows in the near future. J Honestly, I was never in any real danger, so don’t freak out. If there’s a message for younger generations, it is to make sure you know your Boy Scout knots.

Well, I think I’ll end on that note this week. I love you all. I’m thankful for your support. I love the gospel and have great joy in being a missionary. I can’t wait to hear from you again next week.

Much love,
Elder Frahm