A couple weeks in the life...

Family Dearest,

Hi there. Sorry that it has been a bit since I was last able to write! I have been really incredibly busy, but things seem to be calming down a tad. this last weekend we took the long anticipated, twice delayed audit roadtrip to the western part of the country. There we visited 6 cities, conducted 4 audits, drove a total of over 30 hours in 3 days, and completely exhausted ourselves.

Friday, we left at 10:00AM from the office and drove the 8 hours to Cluj. On the way, I read part of a book lent to me by Sora Facer and highly recommended called the Peacegiver. It is about the atonement and its practical application in our lives, and it is, indeed, very, very good. About 2 hours outside of Cluj, and stuck in heavy traffic due to an accident, my head felt as if it would explode. I had been keeping very busy for the last week making preparations for the audits, doing payments, dealing with apartment owners, and training Elder Hurley in visa, membership and financial duties. Add to all that the unpleasant accident of Salt Lake taking the safety measure of closing down the internet port through which we communicate with our bank, thus making online banking impossible. I became quite familiar with TJ, Derek, Peter, Alvin, and Gary (the helpdesk crew and their supervisors working in UT with missionary tech support) over the three days in which we couldn't do the banking we needed to pay phone, electric, utilities, rent, customs, insurance, salary, and other bills and expenses. Not to mention the need to access the bank to retrieve statements of tithing deposits, etc.. in preparation for our upcoming audits. (Aaargh:) We had been so busy, in fact, that we would office get to the office around 9:00 and not leave until 10:00PM -- a pattern that I am working hard to annihilate!! Thus, I think the stress of travel just kind of did me in a bit. After doing the audit, however, we went to stay with the Zone Leaders in Cluj (Elders Adams and McKeeth, who were actually in my group in the MTC, where they were companions but never really got along. They are now doing some really good work, though, and have just had 4 baptisms!) and I found in their apartment a giant bottle of ibuprofen prescribed to a missionary who went home about 6 months ago. They let me swipe it, and I took enough to settle my head down for a while.

Saturday -- We woke at about 4:45 to get up in time to leave and pick up the Facers from their hotel. From there we drove to Arad to make an appointment for a 10:00 audit. From there, we drove to Timisoara, where we had a 2:00 audit, and we then returned to Arad to stay the night at the Bremners' -- a senior couple living up there. They had us to dinner with the missionaries in Arad and an investigator family of theirs. Elder Bart was one of those missionaries, having just been transferred there, so that was fun. The family was a younger couple and a 2 year old girl. They were very nice, we had a pleasant supper and then a really powerful experience of discussing the gospel and sharing our testimonies.

Sunday -- Again, we woke at about 5:00 so we could leave and make church in Deva at 10:00. Elder Hurley and I spoke on prophecies from the past being fulfilled in our lives. I focused on the fact that prophecies are often dualistic, providing both warning and hope. I discussed the dichotomy of increasing wickedness in the world compared to the hope of personal progressive perfection by heeding the prophecies and commandments of God's servants. It was great fun! Much less fun was the subsequent audit. The branch president in Deva is a young returned missionary with a wife and little girl. He is a great guy, but, unfortunately, a horrible record keeper and not much for a financial secretary. Thus, when he got some numbers mixed up last year in November, they just started making things up hoping to even everything out until everything just became such a mess that we spent 2.5 hours trying to figure out February to no avail. Finally, we gave up, scheduled a return visit for this next Monday, and took our path home. On the way home, we stopped by Sibiu and dropped off some supplies, etc.. I drove from Sibiu to Bucharest. We got home, ate, and fell exhausted into our beds.

Monday - Wednesday -- Things were extremely chaotic, as we had to catch up on all the work we had missed while gone. I spent almost 6 hours working on Deva's financial records before finally tracing everything back to November. In the process, I was nearly debilitated by a very powerful migraine and felt sure I would pass out on our walk home that evening. I ordered a large pizza on the way home and ate about 3/4 of it, as I hadn't eaten all day. I slept in the next morning, and felt much better.
Monday, I had neglected to mention, we finally did the visa work for 5 out of the 6 new missionaries – all except Sora Gallo who was in Arad. This time, we had paid the insurance and had all our papers in order and got all five of their papers processed without a problem. Plus, there was a nice girl working there instead of the hard-headed guy who has been our opponent of late, so that was refreshing.
That very same day, we also had the chance to take a visit to the Russian Embassy. A Romanian missionary, Elder Malesh, currently serving in the Samara Russia mission, was required to come back to Romania to renew his visa. Thus, we were assigned the duty of seeing that this happened. The Russian embassy, just to one-up the opacity and obnoxity of the Romanian one, actually closes at 12:30, which made it great fun trying to get everything done and taken care of, as his flight did not arrive until 9:50. He flight was delayed, so he didn’t arrive actually until 10:30, he got to the office at about 11:00, and we zoomed over to get his medical insurance. At 12:10, we headed straight to the embassy hoping that we had everything, and praying that they would be nice to us because Elder Malesh speaks Russian. We got there at 12:35 and the guards told us that the place had already closed. We tried the intercom anyway, and Elder Males, speaking Romanian, received the same response. He then started speaking Russian, explaining that the flight had been late, and that he needed to turn everything in today, so they finally let us through. We had scheduled for him to go to Pitesti that night, where he is serving temporarily until his visa papers come through, so we were very relieved to be admitted. So, things worked out better with the Russian visas then they originally did for the Romanian ones.

Thursday – This day we took a sleeper car (I guess it was Wednesday night, really) to Oradea to have their audit, as they could not be there when we were there last weekend. Thus, I got my first chance to have a sleeper bed on a train. It was actually a really cool experience, and I even got to sleep in – HURRAY! – as the train, which left at 10:40, did not arrive in Oradea until 9:50AM. Elder Hurley and I slept in one booth (I got the top bunk) and Elder Facer got another one all to himself. It was pretty clean, and very cool with the window down, even in the summer time. (No, it has not yet begun to cool down at all.) We had a really good audit in Oradea, and then hurried and jumped back on a 11:40 train back to Bucharest. Elder Hurley and I got McDonalds while Elder Facer went to buy train tickets and, at 11:30, we found ourselves panting and hacking and cursing the irony of being out of shape office Elders carrying bags full of McDonalds trying to make the last train out of Oradea until 6:00 that evening. We did make it, however, for which we were much relieved. On the train, we had two really good discussions with men with whom we shared a cabin. The one next to me was a man of German-Hungarian descent originally from Oradea but living in Brasov. He had been deported to Russia as a 17 year old for his German heritage after the conclusion of the war and the decree at Potsdam in 1945. There he spent 5 years in a labor camp, where he learned Russian and, ironically, forgot his German. He now speaks Hungarian, Russian, and Romanian, and has recently written a 400 pg book on his experiences in Russia. Unfortunately, he wrote it in Hungarian. He accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon, to be delivered by the missionaries in Brasov, as I didn’t have an extra on me. Elder Hurley and Elder Facer talked to a man from Sector 3 of Bucharest who accepted an invitation to come to church with his wife. At the end of that day, Elder Hurley’s body started to give out, and he seemed to have inherited my headaches.

Friday—We finally got to go home early, or should I say, on time (at about 3:30) with the hopes of doing some block knocking. Unfortunately, though, Elder Hurley’s migraines just wouldn’t go away, so he ended up sleeping from about 4:20 yesterday until this morning. He feels better now, though.

Well, that was the past couple of weeks. I hope I haven’t bored you too much!

As for your news, I am really excited that the Penrods are moving in next door practically, I am thrilled about Courtney’s new teeth that are being processed and braced, I am glad that Belle escaped alright from the great cookie fire of ’06 (and I still love her even if she calls me the ‘bald guy’ *exasperated grin*), and I also congratulate Courtney on her PERFECT first math test of the year. Way to go Courter!!

I was wondering if, Mom, you had happened to get Elena Oros’s birthday e-mail she told me she sent you. Also, as for a package, I think I would like gummi bears, I loved the barbecue sauce, and oreos would be good (they are great in shakes). Of course, I would also just love a tape from you guys. I love hearing your voices. I will try to think of more stuff, but I just don’t really have very many needs right now.

I love you all very much. I thank you for your encouragement and support, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. I know that the gospel is true and that the Lord is truly in charge of His work, in which I am participating. I am very thankful for the chance to share the light of truth with the people of Romania, and I know that my Redeemer lives and loves us.

With much love,
Elder Walker

P.S. Jenn, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned, is training again!! She had a couple of great investigators get baptized just a couple of weeks ago, and then she was transferred from Sundsvall, where she has spent her entire mission until now, to Lund, where she is assigned to work as an outreach companionship contacting and teaching almost exclusively 18-30 year olds. Pretty neat experience!!