Hello My Wonderful Family,
Indeed, I am now writing you from the great, grand city of my missionary birth -- Ploiesti. As you must have assumed, given that I didn't write you on Saturday, I am no longer in the office. This last week was a very trying, challenging, and exhausting one, but much good came out of it. First, we spent much of it getting ready for the new missionary arrivals and their visa applications while I was simultaneously preparing to take my leave of the office by packing up all of my stuff and making sure I had Elder Hurley sufficiently trained.
Monday morning at 5:00AM Elder Bybee, the new office Elder arrived from Deva, where he was previously serving. He was to go with us through the visa process the rest of the week. That same Monday, we had to get new visas for two missionaries who had lost their residency permit cards. Not only is this quite an expensive process (about $200), but it is also a pain and took just about all morning. We had previously inquired into what we needed to do and were incorrectly told what taxes we needed to pay, so we had to go back to the bank and repay those taxes we didn't know of, etc.. Let's just say that instead of taking the anticipated 30 minutes it took about 4 hours. After that, however, we did make some time to go play soccer with about 20 other missionaries from Buc, which was a bunch of fun. This was truly a great time, and I was glad that we made time to go there.
Tuesday, the new missionaries arrived. Since there were ten of them, there were a bunch of transportation and scheduling issues that came up. Their plane got in about 1:30, we had a notary appt. for them at 2:30, and a doctor's appt. at 3:20. So the scheduling was obviously pretty tight in a big city like Buc and in a country like Romania where everything takes forever to do. We didn't get them into the notary until 2:40, so as soon as half of them had done their work there, we took them over to the medical appt. to get started there before going back to pick up the others from the notary. Everything worked out pretty well, but it took about 3 trips back and forth before we could transport everybody with their luggage from the airport to the notary to the medic to the chapel where other missionaries picked them up to take them out for their first night.
Wednesday, I was transferred. The APs had taken great pains for me to not find out my new destination, so it was a complete surprise when I found out that I was being transferred back to Ploiesti. What was even more surprising was to find out that I was to be serving here as a Zone Leader. Exciting, yes, but also a great responsibility that I'm not a hundred percent sure I want just right now. I suppose that the hesitancy I have is mostly in that I just don't feel at the peak of my game as far as teaching and working with investigators goes, having been in the office so long, but I will, of course, do my very best to fulfill the calling that the Lord, through President Ashby, has extended to me.
Thursday, we had Mission Council, which is the meeting that happens once a transfer with all the Zone Leaders, the Assistants, President, and selected sisters. We talked much about helping our investigators see the big picture from the beginning, about service, about using all the tools the Lord gives us, about finding when teaching and teaching when finding, about helping investigators keep baptismal commitments, and Elder Despain (my new companion) and I taught about resolving concerns by focusing on the Atonement of Christ. We will be teaching all of these principles to the three District Leaders in our Zone at the ZL/DL meeting we will be holding this week in Brasov. The District leaders, in their turn will be responsible to teach the missionaries in their district. Their are three cities, or districts, in our Zone: Ploiesti, Brasov, and Sibiu. All three of these cities have seen a lot of success recently and seem to be on the ups, so we are very excited for what will happen in the Zone this transfer!!
Friday through Sunday we spent teaching our progressing investigators, trying to find more investigators, and meeting with members. It has been a lot of fun to get to see everybody again. I am in a different part of the city now, but I still know most everybody we now work with. Elder Despain is a great missionary, who is in the group just under me. That is, he was the district leader of the set of Elders that arrived 6 weeks after we did in the MTC. Though he is a bit younger than me, mission speaking, he is my very capable, disciplined, and dedicated senior companion, and he is doing a great job of showing me the Zone Leader ropes.
I found out yesterday, unfortunately that Daniel, the man who was baptised on Thanksgiving a year ago when I was here, has recently gone through some really hard times and become inactive. His father died about a month and a half ago, and he is having a really hard time of it. I feel like the Lord has given me a chance to help him out, but I am struggling to know exactly how. I will continue to pray about it and trust that the Lord will guide me in my efforts.
Well, I have to get going. Congratulations to Courter on her awesome report cards. Belle is cute as ever with her Pizza and b-fast antics. Way to go Mom! taking on the kitchen project. Dad, it is ever a pleasure and great fun to hear from you. I wish you all the best and pray for you continually.
Much love,
Elder Walker
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