Hello Family,
I'm here in Romania!! Whoo hoo. Sorry, but I don't have much time to write this week. Next week should be a lot longer. So, I got here, finally, at about 1:00 AM on Wednesday morning. We were picked up by the assistants and the President and his wife, then we went to a hotel, where I slept for about 2 hours before waking up at 6:30, going to eat the continental breakfast that they served, then, while waiting for the assistants to come back to pick us up, we went outside and sang some hymns in Romanian. It was pretty fun.
We had zone conference that day with about 90 missionaries. It was a super big transfer group. We all met in the Bucharest chapel and found out where we were going and who we would be with. I got paired up with Elder Miller, who had no idea before hand that he would be a trainer, and we were told to go to Ploiesti (Ploy- esht), where he had never been. They call that a white wash, when neither missionary has most recently served in the city where the companionship goes. It has only happened three times before in the last two years that a trainer and a trainee are whitewashed, but it happened to us, WHOOHOO!!
Elder Miller is super cool. He is from Chicago, and has been serving for a year and a half and has been in 6 different cities, so he knows what he's doing. He is currently serving as District Leader, so we have just a bit of extra work to do.
So, my thoughts on Romania. The cities are fairly dirty, there are stray dogs everywhere, they drive on the sidewalks, on the wrong side of the street if it's faster, they reverse in the middle of the road, there really are no rules. It feels like a video game, it's so much fun. We mostly get around in taxi, autobuz, tramvai (like San Fran trams), and by walking. I already have about 5 huge blisters, but they don't hurt too bad, they are turning into calluses.
I am trying to do 10 street contacts a day. I can understand most everything, but it is hard to speak very fluently. People are friendly, but only if you stop and talk to them, they don't like saying hi on the streets.
