My friend Alin passed away this week.
Bacau really won't be the same without Alin.
Alin was mentally around 10 or 12 years old and he became one of my best friends.
I met Alin my first day in Bacau. He took me and my trainer out for pizza and let me teach him the restoration in very broken Romanian while my companion talked to our landlord on the phone. He said I spoke Romanian perfectly even though I definitely didn't.
He gave all the missionaries nicknames. Mine was Sirena. It's a long story and I think I'll keep it to myself for a while. Every time I talked to him, he'd start the conversation with HEY SIRENA! in a voice that really can never be replicated. Alin taught me a loooottttt of patience. Like I said, he was mentally around 10 or 12, and he looooved to sass the missionaries.
He spoke English perfectly (well, almost perfectly ☺) and he loved to tell me "don't freak out man!" and "be strong!". Throughout my mission, when I told people I served in Bacau, I often got the reaction "Oh that's too bad that means you had to deal with Alin" but I can honestly say that my time with Alin taught me as much as the rest of my mission combined.
Throughout the past four transfers that I've been away from Bacau, I talked to him on almost a weekly basis and I can't even express how much I'm going to miss hearing HEY SIRENA!
He changed my life. He changed my mission. I am sad beyond words that I can't talk to him anymore, but I am so happy for him to no longer be suffering. I'm grateful that I was lucky enough to know him, and I look forward to seeing him again someday.
Marius Alin Toncu 11 December 1979 - 20 May 2017
Hard Rock Bucharest and BookFest
MONDAY 22 MAY
So Monday after we emailed the stuff we had set up to do fell through soooo we went Metro contacting and ended up in Herestrau Park.
I talked to a Japanese lady with a superrrr cute dog and then and American dude and his daughter but turns out he's from Romania and moved away when he was 20 or something. I also got orange juice from an orange juice machine and it fresh squeezed my orange juice for me and it was freaking good even if it was a little scump (pricy.) THEN! So when we got home I was like lol my feet smell real bad so I decided to wash them in the bathtub cause forreal forreal they were STANK. So I put the plug in the hole. That's when everything went real bad. So the plug has just been sitting on the side of the bathtub for as long as I've been here and apparently that's because IF YOU PUT IT IN YOU CANNOT GET IT OUT. Our tub was full of like two inches of water and we had no way to get this water out. And like we kinda needed to shower the next day so it was important. So after exerting our best efforts (a table knife, a box cutter, and a magnet) we gave up and called the elders. Thank goodness for Elder Lemon and Elder Meek cause they just rushed right over, we let them in our building, and then I have no idea what they did because we had to stay outside while they were in our building. Like an hour and a half later they came out and were like "it's fixed" and I really have no idea how they did it but our bathtub drains now. It just doesn't really function as a bathtub because we can't put the plug in. Fun time.
TUESDAY 23 MAY
So on Tuesday we went to a member's house and made chec (pronounced almost exactly like cake but not quite).
It's almost exactly like cake but noooot really. Like if cake had 3x as many eggs. It was good but not my favorite. Then we met with a girl named Andra who thought she'd cancelled on us but she texted the number we don't really use a whole lot so we didn't see it... oops. It was still good. We teach her English. Then we taught English class and it actually didn't suck. Whooo-hooooo
WEDNESDAY 24 MAY
Okay. Hard day. We were gonna go help a member in her garden but she lives like an hour out in the country. So we put on pants and took a maxi taxi all the way out there and it turns out that the other sisters told her we changed to Thursday so she was no longer expecting us. So that sucked. But then I got the call that made the day actually really suck. My good friend Alin from Bacau passed away this week. I'll talk more about that later. But it was just overall a rough day. Later that day we had to go work at BookFest. We had a booth about the Book of Mormon. It was actually pretty cool. The other sisters were there with us.
Sora Warwick started her mission in Bacau too so she was also close with Alin and we were just notttttttt having a good day so after BookFest we four went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. It was good. I want a TShirt but they're 139 lei (like 40 bucks) so we'll see.
THURSDAY 25 MAY
We had BookFest first thing in the morning from 10-12.
Then we met with Diana. She's 17 and awesome. Most of her lessons have been in English (she's been learning about the church for a year) and her English is really good but there were some questions she had about the church that I was like hold up.... so we switched to Romanian and we were able to clear up some questions she's had for a long time. It was really cool. Gift of tongues is cool. Then we got bunged but that's okay because someone randomly called us and wanted to go to McDonalds. Unfortunately that's probably the last lesson we'll have with this person.
FRIDAY 26 MAY
District meeting! Nothing super out of the ordinary. I made lemon bars and the district was happy. They were kinda gross but everyone said they were good so that's cool. Then we had lunch and then more BookFest. Then we met up with Simona and Romeo and they're just about the cutest people ever. They're saving up to go to the temple this summer to get sealed. Last time we met with them we joked about bringing lemon bars and she joked about making tiramisu and guess what? We both came through 😎 they also loved the lemon bars. And she assured us several times that her tiramisu was coffee-free and it was adorable and also super delicious.
SATURDAY 27 MAY
WHAT A DAY. So half of Romania had a youth activity mini-MTC thing and guess who was in charge of it? My district. So we had to basically do everything and we didn't really have a whole lot of time to throw it together and at some point everything fell apart but it pulled through and was a lot of fun. Then we had (surprise) more BookFest! Two of our elders came with us because it was busier because weekend.
It was fun. We had a TV in the background playing Meet the Mormons (in Romanian) the whole time so I've watched that movie about 10 times in the last week. It's a good one if y'all are interested. That was all we did because the youth activity went until 4 and then we had BookFest from 5-7 and then an hour to travel home and we still had to weekly plan. It was a weird day.
SUNDAY 28 MAY
So guess who got to go to BookFest instead of church? Us. I mean I think it's a little counterintuitive to send us to BookFest instead of church but they said someone had to be there the whole time it was open soooooo for the first time in a LONG time, idk at least a year I missed church. :( sad. but BookFest was cool.
Then we came home and had lunch and finished weekly planning and then I had a lesson with my best friend. I mean literally my best friend. I got permission to Skype my friend Jane from home who's been interested in the church in the past and it was one of the best days of my entire mission. I love that girl so much. Hi Jane. Shoutout to you.
MONDAY 29 MAY
Today I:
-slept in (oops. but our phone was in the living room so I really didn't hear the alarm. Also PDay)
-grocery shopped and BOUGHT A WATERMELON. Last week we got pineapple but watermelon was cheap this week and we're really excited.
-searched for a pizza place that no longer exists before finally giving up and going to a different pizza place.
-met some American dudes that looked like bikers with sick tattoos that are here volunteering in orphanages and NICUs playing with babies all day. They invited us to come help. We're trying to figure out if we have permission to do that.
-got yummy ice cream.
That's about it! Stay tuned for this week part two because I'm going to send out another email. love y'all!
Sora Lucy Gleason
România/Moldova Mission
July 2016-January 2018
I've been a missionary for ten months and I still feel like I know nothing! (lol)
TUESDAY 16 MAY
So first thing Tuesday morning we had our final interviews with President and Sora Ivory before they leave. Our companionship was supposed to be second or third, I don't remember, but they were already behind schedule so we ended up in the office for 40 minutes helping Sora DeSpain (senior missionary) laminate stuff. I freaking love laminating. I need a laminating machine when I'm old. Anyway so my interviews went SUPER well. I love the Ivorys and I'm going to be really sad when they leave. After interviews, we went to Pizza Hut for lunch and our waiter was a total jerk but it was still good food. Then we went to visit a member named Valerica. We ended up talking about Donald Trump somehow and I said I just wanted to go live on the moon and she was like "but there's no gravity" and I was like "yeah I could just bounce everywhere it would be great" and this old lady just dies laughing for like straight five minutes. No joke. After Valerica we went to visit a friend who works at a dress shop and then we had to teach English. The trend continues: I hate teaching English. It's the worst part of my whole week lol.
WEDNESDAY 17 MAY
We went district contacting on Wednesday. We were supposed to have whiteboards but we just went park contacting instead. We were talking to some old lady who wanted our help finding the Red Cross and somehow the conversation turned to why we're in Romania and what that awesome book is we're carrying. At this point a girl about our age sitting on a bench jumps up and is like TELL ME ABOUT THAT BOOK! And she was just super excited about it. The old lady got bored and left and we ended up talking to Claudia for about 15 minutes about the Book of Mormon and where it comes from and what it teaches about and she was really excited about it. We exchanged numbers and gave her a copy of the book and we're really excited to meet with her soon! After that, we bought a member some pizza and took it to her and taught her some English. Then we got bunged hardcore by two people and I don't remember what we did instead.
THURSDAY 18 MAY
Zone conference! It was a really good one but I won't bore y'all with the details. After that we visited a couple who is preparing to go to the temple to get sealed in August. They're a few years older than us and they are just absolutely adorable. They fed us super good chicken and vegetables and the husband builds wooden models of temples and right now he's finishing up Salt Lake. That's their favorite temple. It was super pretty.
FRIDAY 19 MAY
Since we had zone conf, we didn't have district meeting. We just went district contacting again. It was a huge fail because a crazy guy started talking to us at the very beginning and then wouldn't leave us alone for the rest of the time we were there. So that was fun. Then we went to KFC for lunch and then we went to visit Bianca at work. She's adorable. Then we headed to a bookstore to language study. We ran into the other sisters there and after a while some of the elders showed up so district language study? It was fun. The elders had one of their investigators with them and he's super cool. He's Nigerian but he was born in Romania because his parents work for the embassy but he went to middle and high school in NYC and now he's just here to finish college. He's really cool. After that we had a member visit and she spent the whole time telling us about this company that sells vitamin supplements and how they're literally the best thing ever and made us promise to buy some when we're back in America.
SATURDAY 20 MAY
More English! Ugh. Then we got bunged again. Bummer. We went to visit the Bogdan family. The mom is a member but she doesn't come to church and the rest of the family isn't members. But the two kids, Mihaela (10) and Edi (6) really like the church and Mihaela just finished reading the Book of Mormon. We talked to the kids about Samuel the Lamanite and then they taught us some Romanian games :) imagine Down By The Banks but in Romanian. It was fun.
SUNDAY 21 MAY
I translated Sacrament meeting and it was fun. I honestly love translating even though it's super nerve wracking. It's a blast. After church we had a conference call with all the missionaries in Bucuresti (there's like 20 of us or something IDK) because we had to work out shifts for an event coming up called BookFest. Basically it's like actually, I have no idea what it is except that we all have to work this event. So I think we're just going to be talking about the Book of Mormon and a tradeshow type thing but IDK. Anyway so conference call and then we went for a walk in the park with an investigator named Ane. She's suuuuper cute I really like her.
MONDAY 22 MAY
Basically we cleaned and grocery shopped and I had KFC again and that's about it. Whoo-hooooo
Sora Lucy Gleason
România/Moldova Mission
July 2016-January 2018
Mexican food. Spaghetti with ketchup. Shaorma. Happy Mothers Day!
This is like the only picture I took this week. Elder Lemon on the left Elder Green on the right on our way to lunch. That's the Arc de Triumf and it's the reason Buc used to be called "little Paris."
WHAT A WEEK. I don't know if I can do daily summaries like I've done in the past because we are literally SO DANG BUSY HERE EVERY SINGLE DAY but I'll try this week and then if not idk I'll figure something out
SO....
MARTI 9 MAI
So on Tuesday we went to go visit a member named Sora Lature who I've actually visited before when I was here on exchanges in January. She didn't remember me but that's okay. We also went to the mission offce at some point and I had a package! Thanks for the Takis. You know who you are. We also grabbed a Book of Mormon in Serbian for our friend from Macedonia. She speaks Macedonian, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Romanian. Then we met her at the mall and had a kick butt lesson with her. She's super cute and accepted the book and I just love her. We got donuts.
MIERCURI 10 MAI
We went to visit a member named Valerica and I basically fell asleep in her house. Idk I was just exhausted. Whoops. Oh well. She has a pet bird though and I hate birds. We also met with a super cute family to teach their 10 year old son English. They're awesome. And the mom told us that she started praying like how we taught her to pray instead of just saying Tatal Nostru (The Lord's Prayer) and she said that it makes a HUGE difference and she feels more peace and comfort after praying now :) So that's awesome.
JOI 11 MAI
On Thursday we went to visit another member, Sora Sergentu. It was her late husband's birthday, so she made his favorite food for us. She's super duper sweet and I really like her. We went less active finding as well and we found this old guy... He wrote a ton of poetry about America (in English) and he wants us to get it published for him. It's actually decently good poetry but we were just like, uh, we have no way of getting this published for you we're twenty year olds with no connections. We're sending the elders to him :))))
VINERI 12 MAI
District meeting! So my district this transfer is HUGE. Elder Lemon was in the MTC with me, Elder Green flew to Romania with us, Elders Sewell and Meek have each been here for three months, Sora Warwick goes home next month, Sora Sterrett three months behind me, and then Sora Nowjack and I :) After district meeting we went to lunch together at a restaurant called 18. It's on the 18th floor of a skyscraper. It was pretty good and decently priced. Then we had a lesson with a member named Mirela and then headed over to an investigator named Mihaela's house. She's ten years old and just finished reading the Book of Mormon and she LOVES it. Ah. She's freaking great I love her.
SAMBATA 13 MAI
Saturday we took Sora Sergentu for a walk in the park and then we met with a member named Geta. We ate spaghetti with ketchup and it wasn't as gross as it sounds. We went to go visit a guy we met block knocking who invited us back BUT his wife was NOT HAVING THAT so she kicked us out of our block and said if we ever came back she'd report us... but like we have a member who lives there. So. Not sure how that's gonna go.
DUMINICA 14 MAI
CHURCH IS ACTUALLY THREE HOURS HERE INSTEAD OF TWO. AND WE HAVE A CHAPEL INSTEAD OF A HOUSE. It's bizarre. I feel like I'm back in the states. Our companionship goes to Young Women and it was a ton of fun. The YW pres fed us :) Sandwiches and brownies. They were so good. Then we came home and had lunch (yes we just got fed but we were hungry) and then headed to the mission office to skype our families! It was great. That took up most of the afternoon/evening. It was a good day.
LUNI 15 MAI
So today we cleaned and grocery shopped and I finally almost finished unpacking and then we went to one of the millions of malls in Buch with Soras Sterrett and Warwick and had MEXICAN FOOD! It wasn't 100% the same but it was really good and actually spicy and I was really happy. Then we came here and now I'm emailing. Later we're going to visit the member who lives in the block the lady kicked us out of so pray for us, lol.
Sora Lucy Gleason
România/Moldova Mission
July 2016-January 2018
To quote Michael Jackson: HELLO BUDAPEST!
MARTI 2 MAI
So on Tuesday we moved more of our stuff from the old apartment to the new apartment (we started moving last week but I didn't write about it) and then we went to visit Sora Nitica (the member who's like a million years old.) She's good. Her Orthodox friend was there and he was praying when we got there and prayed for like 15 minutes but also said "amen" like every 30 seconds so we kept thinking he was done... nope. Never done. After Sora Nitica we ran to the store and bought a new toaster because we needed one for the new apartment and then went to English. A member named Andreea taught our beginner English class because since Elder Hansen went home, his companion was just in a trio with the APs until transfers. So I was in a two sister city again :) For almost two weeks. They left Wednesday morning (last Wednesday not the one I'm about to talk about).
MIERCURI 3 MAI
On Wednesday we got out of the apartment a little early because I wanted McDs breakfast. They stop serving it here at 10am which is STUPID. So on Monday we got there at like 955 and waited in line and just as I got up to the front they flipped the menus and stopped serving breakfast. I was NOT happy. So we went back on Wednesday around 9 :) I got my McMuffin and it was glorious. Then we had to do some more stuff with our old landlord and move some more stuff and then we went to have a lesson with Elena. She's someone we found in the area book last week. We met with her last week and when we walked in, she had a triple combination on her desk and she said she'd read the whole thing like 6 times. She's awesome, she just doesn't want to get baptized again because she's already been baptized Orthodox. But she's super nice and she gave us strawberries :) So today we decided to teach a Resto lesson but she likes to talk a lotttt so it was hard to keep it on track. But it was still good. Then we traveled for an hour and a half to go visit a member and her investigator friend (they live way out in the country so we had to take a maxi taxi to get there and then walk for 20 minutes) AND SHE WASN'T HOME. This wasn't a random visit. She knew we were coming so I was really not happy. Getting bunged sucks anyway but getting bunged out in the middle of nowhere la tara? It's horrible. So then we came back to the city, did language study, and then had branch scripture study. A member named Kate from America taught. It was so strange to talk about church stuff in English again. It felt real good.
JOI 4 MAI
Thursday morning we got lost because the elders didn't give us great directions to this mall we were gonna go contacting at so we ended up at the wrong mall. Not a big deal but we were looking forward to seeing something new, not the mall we already knew existed. But that's okay. We met with a member named Corina. She's really nice. We ran to the beach with an empty waterbottle because Elder Farnsworth (not the elder who went home, the other one) is finishing his mission for real this week and he forgot to take a bottle of sand from Constanta before he left. So we got him some sand.
VINERI 5 MAI
We had District Meeting via Skype with Elder Farnsworth and the elders from Craiova. It was weird. Then we met with a recent convert named Mihaela and talked about the ten commandments. Then Pizza Hut :)))) They have this lunch menu that's super great. soup or salad and a small pizza and dessert for 22 lei. That's like 5 dollars. It's wonderful. Then we called a bunch of people from our area book and had games night.
SAMBATA 6 MAI
Transfer boards! I'm in Bucuresti now :) I only spent 6 weeks in Constanta (one transfer) so I got one and outed. But I'm really glad. It was a hard transfer for me and I'm excited for a fresh start. So after we found out where we were going, we taught English and then came home so I could pack. While I packed, we watched all of The District. All. Of. It. All 5 discs. It was fun. Also I have too much stuff. Also at some point we went to a street food festival in old town and it was super fun. We met some people from the military base who did not look old enough to be in the military. I thought they were like 17. They were nice.
DUMINICA 7 MAI
Sunday we had branch conference so that meant that President and Sora Ivory came.
Elder Farnsworth also came with another elder so that he could say goodbye to everyone.
Conference was really good. There was food afterward. We got to take home the leftovers. For a second I got really excited because I remembered we had leftovers but then I also remembered that I'm currently in Bucuresti, not Constanta, and those leftovers aren't mine. Dang it.
LUNI 8 MAI
We woke up early this morning to catch our train to Buc. Getting my luggage outside to the taxi was fun because our apartment block doesn't have an elevator. Whoo-hooo. Then we trained to Buc, and I met my new companion at the gara. Her name is Sora Nowjack :) She's from an island near Seattle and she just got finished being trained, so she's pretty new! I'm really excited to be with her though. This is going to be a great transfer :) We went grocery shopping and then I tried to unpack, then I gave up on unpacking, and now we're emailing :)
To explain the subject line: MJ did a concert here once or something and he greeted the city by saying "Hello Budapest!" not realizing that Budapest is a city in Hungary and that he was actually in Bucharest, Romania :))))
Also I made ramen this week and I was really happy about it because I haven't had top ramen in a longggggggggg time.. and shout out to Alex in Cluj for the sriracha sauce :)
Sora Lucy Gleason
România/Moldova Mission
July 2016-January 2018
The Fourth Missionary
This week's email is going to be a little different from how my emails normally go. This has probably been the hardest week of my mission. A lot has happened, I've learned a lot, and I'm ready to let the experience change me for the better.
So the title of this week's email is in reference to a talk given by Lawrence E Corbridge, a former mission president. I'm going to attach the talk for anyone who wants to read it. It talks about the four types of missionaries that exist, and why we should all strive to be the fourth missionary. (Link to the talk at ldsliving It's the second one referenced in this article.)
This talk hit home this week as one of my good friends in the mission made the decision to return early and not finish his mission. His decision affected every aspect of the work during the past seven days. It was a really hard week, and my heart aches for this elder. As much as I love and care about Elder Smith (name changed, obviously), I came to realize this week that he embodied the characteristics of the first missionary. The first missionary is disobedient and does what he wants to do. As a result, the first missionary is either sent home or chooses to return home early. The good he would have otherwise done goes undone. He forgoes development and is not changed by his mission.
Elder Smith and I became good friends during our time here together in Romania. I knew he was struggling; We talked about it often. I just didn't know how to help. I have realized during the past week that the best help I could have offered this young man wasn't a sympathetic ear during a game of ping pong or the shallow words to "just hang on; it gets better". No, I've realized that the best thing I could have done would have been to share this talk. Maybe he'd read it before. Maybe it wouldn't have helped. But maybe it would have made a difference. It would have at least made a difference in how I'm feeling this week.
I'm trying to hold on to the perspective that all things happen for a reason. I've decided that the reason for what happened this week was to teach me a lesson. I need to work a little harder and be a little better so that I can end my mission and say that I was the fourth missionary. The fourth missionary:
-is obedient and worthy
-totally surrenders their will
-consecrates themselves
-desires only to do what the Lord wants for them to do
As a result, the fourth missionary:
-is changed by their mission
-is content and happy
-gains great knowledge
-feels satisfied with their missionary service
 |
| These are the 4 types |
I'm still really sad to have had to say goodbye to Elder Smith. I'm sad that he made the choice that he did. I regret that I didn't do more/better/different things to help him. I've reached a fork in my mission road. I can choose to let this derail me, or I can choose to let it be a springboard into bigger and better things. I hope this wasn't too much of a downer email, but it's all I could do this week.
Sora Lucy Gleason
România/Moldova Mission
July 2016-January 2018
