Travel Plans

Hey again everybody!

I'm writing right now for the last time at the MTC! I'm sooooo excited to go to Romania and so is everyone else in my district! We got flight plans last Friday. Sorry about not sending them in an E-mail. I guess you only get to send flight plans by email the day you get them if the day of your departure changes by more than 5 days or something like that. Instead I sent them in one of those bubble mailers with the memory card I sent home so you'll maybe get them today or tomorrow but I hope you get it in time to get the memory card back to me. It was just cheaper total to send the plans with the memory card so that's why. Sorry mom it seems like from your letters and the tape you sent that you're just checking email for flight plans like every 5 minutes or something. Sorry! I'm glad you saw Elder Ekins' plans already, though, because that's what my plans are like too. Anyway, now that I've stalled for enough time :)I'm so excited! :D So I'll buy a short calling card here and you can send me an international one (just like you said in your email, mom :)).

We've been learning a lot more about Romanian culture and stuff in the last week because Sora Petrisor says it's useless to try to teach missionaries the language in the last week because we won't pay attention (it's true. We're too excited by our travel plans). So she gave us a huge list of food we need to eat in Romania and stuff. Mom, you asked about if I needed food to take with me, and I don't think I will. Customs might take away any food I try to take on the plane, and I think I'll be able to get along fine in Romania with their food. They have lots of fresh stuff and we can pretty much just stop anywhere on a street and buy a meal if we don't have anything planned from what Sora Petrisor has told us. Thanks for the recipes too, by the way. They'll be useful for Sundays and mornings when I'm supposed to be in my apartment.

I'm excited to hear about the Chinese exchange students! It's so cool that you're having more students over, and I wish I could be there to practice my Chinese with them (even though I only know how to say "shut up and kiss me" and "who's your daddy?"). Still, have a great time with them. :)

Last night's devotional was really good and we had a district testimony meeting as usual afterward, which was amazing as well. Elder Rosenvall was talking during it about someone he knows who went to Romania right after communism ended during the riots and everything and about the miracles that happened to get him out, and he said that miracles only came after trials. Elder Rosenvall said that means that we need to pray for trials. :) I thought it was a cool thought and even though I probably won't be looking for trials on my mission I'll just need to push my way through to the miracles that come afterward.

I hope everyone's having a great summer! I love you all and I miss you (but not too much :)). I'M GOING TO ROMANIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love, Elder Abbott

P.S. for my family and mostly for mom because it's mostly business stuff: it's going to cost $75 to check my second bag onto the flight in SLC plus any overweight costs, but I think that I can keep it fairly cheap. I'll work it to get it as cheap as possible because I have the fees for overweight and extra luggage listed in my flight plans on a different page than the one I sent you (which, in case you didn't notice was a copy too, so you don't need to send it back). It's $150 for a bag between 51 and 70 pounds, so I'll try to get one at 49 and the other under 70 if I can't get both to 49 or under. I'm not worried about extra carry-on charge because it's only extra for a bag that's over 40 pounds, and I don't think I'll reach that unless I carry gold bricks in there or something like that. Thanks for the recorder! I'm keeping the tape you recorded and taking it with me but I'll send a tape back that I'm recording now when I send all the stuff I'm not taking to Romania back home. Also, thanks for resending the pedigree chart. Maybe I do have it but I didn't see it so it won't hurt to be safe. Tell Steph congrats! I'm sending her a letter so it should get there Friday or something. Tell her to watch for it if she's not leaving for her honeymoon too early.