2 Brothers, 2 Missions, 2 Stories: Give it away, Give it away, Give it away now (Ben letter 3/11/2019)

Well this week has been quite interesting, the most interesting thus far. On Monday morning my comp and I were just eating breakfast like normal humans, then we get a call to the office where they tell us to pack up, be ready at the office in 20 minutes. So luckily our district helped us pack and we were on our way. Our trip went something like this: 1 hr train ride to salt lake airport. Delayed flight due to bad lights for 4 hrs. 10 hr flight to Amsterdam. Fighting for new tickets with broken English to then proceed to the Kyiv flight from Amsterdam. 3 hour flight to kyiv whilst having a 2 hour conversation with a Ukrainian man who doesn't speak a lick of English. Land in Kyiv and go directly to the flight to Chisinau, about a 1 hr flight. SO after all that good stuff, and being awake for 30 some hours I finally get to sleep in my new home. We live on the 11th floor of this concrete apartment complex and it's pretty nice. My comp is named Elder Marshall and he is from Nevada and he is super dope. Everyone likes him. He is a guy a little taller then me, really good baseball pitcher. He has been out about a year. So yeah there are 8 Romanian speakers and around the same amount of Russian speakers here in Moldova.

Fun fact about the culture here, Curent. Curent is something that will get you sick if you're not careful. Its where the air currents (wind) "go in one ear and out the other", and you get sick. So we will be in the trolley buses and it will be wicked hot, because nobody will open the windows because it will cause a curent to come in, thus causing air to go into the ear. There is a story of an elder that passed out and nobody knew what was wrong with him so they rushed him to the hospital. The doctors asked if he slept with the AC unit one, and they said yes. So he then got diagnosed with "curent". Which was not good because there was actually something wrong with him. But yeah no matter what kind of sickness you have, the doctors will always first ask if you sleep with the AC on. It is common on a windy day to see old men with cotton in their ears to block "curent". The younger generation is more progressive, so they think current cannot be caught outside, only when a curent comes inside a house or bus etc.

For a spiritual thought, it is always important to be a disciple, so people will know what you are all about. Just randomly starting religious conversations around here doesn't really work so we teach English. After they come to English class for a while they start to wonder about why Americans are here in Moldova and why we are nice, so they hear us out. If you're doing the right things and being a good example of being a disciple, people will notice and missionary opportunities will arise.

te iubesc

Varstnicul Stanfield

We were able to video chat with him Sunday night right after we got off the phone with Cubby. The first thing I noticed was an awesome tight european haircut, and the next was a huge round bruise in the middle of his forehead. He kept changing the subject whenever I asked him about the bruise. Finally he confessed that he got a suction cup from a little toy goalpost stuck to his forehead when they were playing a flip game of football. I had a good laugh. I learned that there are 3 areas in Moldova and 8 Romanian speaking missionaries and the next one to leave doesn't leave until next December. He'll have very little diversity. Hope he likes those 7 other missionaries!
They meet up with members of the church and other missionaries a lot to eat out. He said food is really cheap and I would be jealous of the grocery store prices. He said his apt is really nice and even has a washing machine in it. But they have to take this really wobbly elevator up the 11 flights. But he's not worried, "it hasn't broken yet". The gap between the poor and rich is big. A lot of BMWs on the streets but most are poor and take the busses which are packed full at all times of the day.