Orthodox Easter

This week was awesome! It's getting hot now and it's crazy because when I got here to Ploiesti six weeks ago it was cold and snowy and now it's hot and humid-ish and I know it's going to get worse but it's a step. Also this week we got to do some service for M..., our investigator, and it was fun. We helped deep clean part of her apartment and it looked way better when we finished. It still has a lot of work to do and we're going back tomorrow to help out more. But it was super legit that she actually let us come clean her house because there are so many Romanians here that refuse service. It's just how their culture is. She was saying she'd be ashamed to have us come over but after we pushed her long enough she finally gave in and let us come. She's also a super cool investigator even though we're kinda just at the beginning. She kinda confuses us a little with the Church of Christ I think too. Like she believes in a "universal church" and then it doesn't matter if she does Orthodox stuff, Church of Christ stuff, or anything else. But we're working with her and we just haven't been able to actually teach her a legit lesson yet which is mostly the problem. Just short ones after English classes and stuff.

Also this week we had Palm Sunday which was pretty good! The branch made the little traditional crowns they make here on Sunday and it was cool. There are so many traditions here for Easter it makes me wish we had more in America. They had people walk all over the city Saturday with palm fronds and then Sunday we had the crowns and it was also flower day and everyone got flowers, then this Friday is the recognition of Christ's crucifixion which last year when I was in Pitesti was celebrated with a live reenactment of the betrayal, trial, etc. On Easter they'll have the lighting of candles at midnight, and then there's the tradition of breaking eggs, then for the 40 days until ascension day everyone greets each other with "Christ resurrected!" "Truly he resurrected!" instead of normal greetings. They do a lot of stuff.

I hope all of you have a great week leading up to Orthodox Easter!
Hristos a înviat din morţi cu moartea pe moarte călcând, şi celor din morminte viaţă dăruindu-le.

Love, Elder Michael Abbott