Final Stretch

Howdy Family,

Well, indeed, this is the final stretch. I have only about 7 days of real missionary work left, and I am starting to feel the crunch. Though I don't anticipate a baptism in these final moments of my mission, I am pleased to leave behind a strong teaching pool of interested and progressing investigators for whoever may follow me here in Deva.

The really fun and exciting development here this last week has to do with a great new investigator we have named Ioana. While one of the last things we really need in this branch is more young girls, Ioana will be a very good member, I believe. She is part of a terrible trio with two member girls. One of them, Diana, is among the oldest members in the branch and, at 18, is probably the very best member missionary here. Recently, her good friend -- the other member of the trio -- Alexandra was baptized, and now they are seeking to help Ioana quit smoking and drinking -- social habits mostly -- that she may embrace the gospel in her life as well. The first time we met Ioana was when she came hiking with us and other youth last Monday for P-day. Since then, her friends have been trying to get her to talk to us. Saturday night, she finally caved in and said okay. We had a very spiritual discussion with her about the restoration, the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and how the gospel of Christ blesses families. Though unable to come to church yesterday, she said that since starting to read the Book of Mormon, she has been unable to put it down, that she just loves being with people from the church, and that she really wants these things in her life. MAN, how I will miss experiences like these when I go home!!

In other news, on Friday, we went to see Costel and his sister Andreea (two recent youth converts) at their home about a 40 minute walk out of town. We decided to take with us Felicia, also a recent convert and good friends with the youth, though she is a 46 year old widowed mother of three. On our way back from their home in the country-side, we were sheltered from the heat by large, ominous, low-hanging grey clouds. Unfortunately, being out in the plains, there was not much to shelter us from the thunder storm that was unleashed upon us. For about 10 seconds it seemed to be only a drizzle. But then the raindrops transformed into punishing silver dollar sized projectiles. Felicia, young at heart, tried to outrun the rain for a couple minutes. Eventually, however, she got tired, and, realizing that we were standing in ankle deep water and soaked to the bone, conceded her wet, sopping fate. So, purposely refusing to heed the fact that all our books, papers, and clothing, down to our skivvies, were completely saturated, we skipped, hopped, jumped, and sang our way back into the city. Upon arriving, we had to make an appointment with the branch president and tried to take a taxi. But the taxi driver, seeing us dripping and soaked, and indifferent as to the hail that had begun to pelt us, kicked us unfeelingly out of his taxi. On our way to President Fotea's by foot, Elder Armstrong and I agreed that we had probably never been as wet without actually submerging ourselves in water. My church shoes are still wet, the pants I was wearing are still damp, and many papers and pamphlets were destroyed or mutated. Kind of a fun mission experience!

On Sunday, Fratele Lott, one of my teachers from the MTC came and spoke at church. Apparently he served in Deva three years ago and is now touring Romania going to different Universities to introduce an ethics course that he and some BYU prof designed. A couple schools here have actually decided to adopt it and provide an optional ethics course for college seniors. Though I love Romania, there are few things this country needs more than a solid grounding in ethics to cut down on the corruption that penetrates all levels of society and especially state administration.

Thanks so much for taking care of the computer and the book. They will be very grateful. Congratulations to Courtney that she is going to be playing the hymns. I am not sure if I told you that that is one of my goals, but I am very jealous that she is already that good. WOW! Good job on the rewiring project, Dad. And keep up the reading Belle. Mom, you're amazing at all you do!! I too am excited to talk to McLean and Joe, and to catch up with everybody. I am thinking we will rent a car for a couple days here, spend Wed in Buc, Thurs in Pitesti, Fri in Ploiesti, and then return the car Friday and take a train to Bacau, where we can spend Saturday before heading to Deva for Sunday. For my luggage, I called a couple of people. The Romanian postal service would probably be cheapest way to send stuff home, though a decently large pain. Maybe we could just send home some boxes of books to lighten the load. I'll let you know more after I finish packing and all.

Well, I've got to get going, so I'll sign off. Can't wait to see and talk to you all next week.

Much love,
Elder Walker