Dracula's Castle

Hi Everyone!

Another week in beautiful Brasov! It is still raining on and off, but we had a lot more sun this week so it was great. And it is plenty warm outside now.

Missionary work has been a little rough this week.  I really do feel the Lord supporting me through this though. I can always turn to him in prayer and my faith is bolstered a little.

I did have the wonderful opportunity to give my first talk in Romanian on Sunday! It really wasn't that hard for me either. I spoke on faith, using the same tree analogy I used in my farewell talk, and some additional thoughts on faith that I have picked up on my mission. The first counselor who had asked me to give the talk gave me a strangling hug after the meeting (He's a pretty big and tall guy), so I guess it must have been alright. Also, after church that day, I think I really started to feel that I am beginning to love Brasov. I really feel like a part of this branch now, and that has a big impact. We have some stellar members here.

I also did my first exchange as a district leader with Elder H this week. It went really well, and Elder H's friendly good-natured attitude really helped me out. We ended up doing a full contacting day, but it was a good exchange. We even got a phone number from a former english student for the other companionship to work with, so we felt very satisfied.

And today for P-day, we went to Bran Castle! The Ploiesti district came too so we had a good fun group. The castle isn't huge, but with Vlad the impaler as a claim to fame, it attracts a lot of tourists and has been restored well. It was a little busy with tourists, but it was a really cool experience. It had a great view from the top and a really nice but tiny courtyard in the middle.

 

Spiritual thought for the week comes from my talk. A common mistake we make as humans is the desire to have a perfect knowledge of everything, even when it comes to faith. But we cannot talk about knowledge as the same thing as faith. They are distinctly different. With knowledge, the goal is to come to a 100% understanding if something is true or not. But faith runs on a different scale. We cannot have a perfect, 100% understanding with faith, since there is no maximum boundary imposed on faith. Faith grows stronger infinitely as long as we continue exercising it, and it can become even more powerful than perfect scientific knowledge.

Thanks for reading! Love you all!

Elder Lybbert