Deva Downlow

Hello Family,

Whew, how time flies!! I am getting ever sadder as I start to truly realize that my time here in Romania is drawing to a close. I am so very thankful to be here in Deva, as I truly do love this branch, and we have some promising investigators. This last week was, in spite of taking a night off to write my Yale essay, one of the very most successful weeks of my entire mission. Not that our investigators are quite ready to make a baptismal commitment, but I felt as if we organized our time in such a way that we were able to talk to a whole lot of people, and we used members to help us teach almost every lesson, which is always a plus. In fact, we have been letting the recent converts here teach US rather than us teaching THEM, and it has turned out to be a very good idea, as they learn a lot better when THEY ramble on about gospel stuff than when I ramble on about gospel stuff. The members here are really just amazing!! We have been working with them a lot and it is fun to see the youth enjoying their time together, to have the older members tell us about friends of theirs that we could teach, and to see them all visit each other in the course of the week.

This week, we had three new investigators come to church for the first time, including two English students and a friend of a recent convert lady. They all seemed to really enjoy the service. I conducted for the very first time in Romanian as 2nd counselor in the Branch Presidency. It was fun, especially since it was fast and testimony meeting. It was sad to realize that, except for the one Sunday that I spend here after you come, that was my very last testimony meeting in Romania. *tear*

Wow! Is next week really Mother's Day. No way! I hadn't thought about it at all. I suppose I will give you a call at around 4:00 my time, which would be about 9:00 your time. Is that too early. I guess not. If it is, then I can't really hear from you until then, so you'll just have to wake up. Sorry... kind of. I get up at 6:30 every morning, so I don't feel too bad. :p

President Ashby's name is John Howard Ashby.
Elder Facer's is Mark Rolla Facer.

Well, I have to go to get ready for an FHE in half an hour. I love yer all.

Much love,
Elder Walker