The end of the beginning

Another pic from the Branch Barbeque

The Fotea Family

The Branch barbeque

Bro. Fotea

The view from our balcony the morning we woke up and the city was full of smoke.

Castle in Hunedoara, Romania

Buna Ziua everyone!

We just had transfers announced to us today, and guess where I'm going!... Deva! I've been called to serve another transfer here in home sweet home. Elder Benson was the other junior companion in Deva and he was from my MTC district, but he's not staying. He is going to Alexandria. He is one of the only 2 missionaries out of my MTC district of 13 who will be changing cities at this transfer. The other is Elder Rosenvall, who is going to Moldova! Elders Hyatt and Nelson are staying here in Deva as branch president and district leader, and we are getting Elder Samoila as our new missionary. He's a native Romanian and is going to be in his 3rd transfer. In other transfer news, Elder Brayden Martin (who some of you know) is going to Pitești for this next transfer, and will be a trainer!

This week has been a great last week of my first transfer. We had a lesson this last Tuesday with a lady who decided that she wants to quit smoking, and who stopped us in a park a few weeks ago to ask us if we could help her. It was super cool to see someone take the initiative to stop for herself without any prompting or asking by the missionaries at all. It's especially amazing because every single one of her neighbors has at least one of their family members who smokes, and all of her closest friends are smokers as well. She even said she wanted to help some of her other friends stop smoking, which is great! We spent a lot of time with members this week, as we had a branch activity barbeque with members and investigators. It was very fun and great to see the members get together.

I went on a transfer with Elder Benson last Saturday. It was very busy as we had English classes to teach as well as the barbeque. By the time those ended we had about 45 minutes left in our day before we needed to meet up again with the other elders, so we just did street contacting on our way to our meeting place, which was about a half hour walk away. We talked with some cool people and it was really fun. It was a little different because we are both beginner Romanian speakers, so we had no older, experienced companion to rely on when we couldn't say something. It was a great experience.

Today we went to Hunedoara, a city about a 30 minute bus ride from Deva. We went to a castle there which was very beautiful and fun to walk around. We took lots of pictures and I'll include some for all of you to see.

I'm loving Deva and I guess now I get to love it for another 6 weeks! I hope all of you are doing great back home (or at school) and that you're all starting to get settled into the new school year! I hope all of you have a great week and I'll talk to you again next week!

V-am pupat!

-Elder Michael Abbott