ALIN

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