~ Merry Christmas 2020 ~
From Romania with Love
We hope this year (even with the crazy pandemic) has brought to you the feelings of comfort, joy and good health. It has been so wonderful to connect with so many friends this year, either by media (which I am not very good at), email or actual person to person contact! New babies have been born and loved ones have passed on to the other side of the veil, but we are happy to be alive and moving forward even with the roller coaster ride that we are on!
Being on a Mission has been truly wonderful. The hardest part is missing our family and the special events that are happening with them on the other side of the world.
Mindy and Jakob are still in New York: Jakob changed jobs, Kobe came home from Mexico and deferred his mission until next year (because of the pandemic) and the boys are thriving in-spite of the pandemic. Marcie and Jamis are in Colorado; they bought a home and moved right around the corner from where they lived before. Having their 5 kids home for school (also because of the pandemic) has been a real challenge but they have endured well. Willie and Grace are in North Carolina: the girls are doing great and have a wonderful backyard where they spend many hours playing. Emma is growing and sailed through her last surgery with flying colors! Robbie and Kelli added little Scarlett to their family and are living and taking care of our home in Alpine (UT). Having 3 kids has been an adjustment but baby Scarlett is a happy, calm baby and a joy to their family (this was a tough one to miss but with technology as it is it made it a tiny bit easier not to be there to hold & squeeze her). Kenny and Lindsay are in American Fork (UT) and Kenny still travels back and forth to Cambodia for Moo Moo Farms. Lindsay loves having a place in America to call home, Penny loves getting together with her cousins and they are expecting baby #2 next year! Timmy and Sarah bought a home in Spanish Fork (UT) and love being homeowners! Millie is growing in leaps and bounds and got a baby harp from Sarah’s folks this year ~ it is the cutest ever (Sarah plays the harp and will be a great teacher for Millie). They are also expecting baby #2 next year!
We've had a wonderful year in spite of the circumstances that are surrounding the world. As missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints we have had the opportunity to do a variety of things!
We had only been here, in Romania, less than a week when my Dad passed away, I had to make a trip back to the CO/OK for 10 days. I got to see all my relatives so that was the best. I also got a throat infection that lasted forever. Back in Romania Billy was holding down the fort and once I got better we hit the pavement at 100 miles a minute! It hasn’t slowed down much but that is good!
Bill and I have enjoyed serving in Romania and cannot believe how fast this last year has flown by! We have been involved in so many fun and exciting things. We love the country of Romania and we’ve had the opportunity to travel throughout the country. Our young missionaries are amazing and it is always bittersweet when they have finished their full time service and head back home. Here are a few pictures that highlight some of the things we’ve been involved in!
YSA Activities
Here in Romania we are still operating under very strict virus guidelines so we have to plan our activities to comply. Regardless, we have tried our best to keep YSA activities and YSA participation growing.
Each week on Saturday night we have a YSA activity at the Bucharest Mihai Bravu Church. At the beginning of the year we were only getting maybe 3 or 4 YSAs to the activities on a Saturday night and now we are averaging between 25 -35. We have been liberal on our definition of a YSA and allow ages 18 - 35 to attend; out of this group we normally average about 10-15 non-member Friends.
These activities are planned by our District YSA representatives, a young lady and young man, but we offer a lot of guidance and support (and games).
From our observation, many young adults in Romania have never had the type of social interaction that we are used to with young adults in the USA. Consequently, having activities is something they enjoy and have never experienced. The missionaries also attend these Saturday night activities and invite friends that they have met on Facebook. Since the missionaries can only meet with the friends for lessons online or at the chapel they will invite the friends to come early to the church and have a lesson before the activity. Saturday night activities seem to be a good time for everyone, with their same generation, to meet together, get to know each other and support each other.
Likewise, most of the baptisms that have taken place over the last year are within that 25-35 age range so it has been good for new members to have the social interaction with people their own age.
Some Saturday nights we have a movie. For the movie Bill has taken some LDS themed movies like “The Saratov Approach”, etc., and added Romanian subtitles. Then we use the church's big screen projector in the gym to make it like a theatre. The chairs are all spaced for social distancing and afterwards we have some sort of refreshment.
Other nights we will have games. During the summer these games were outdoors but when the weather changed we had to move indoors. We will play regular party games like Missionary Tag, Do You Love Your Neighbor, etc., and then we have a number of physical games like 9 square in the air, giant Jenga, ping pong, root beer pong, pounce, badminton, bow and arrows, and several others. During the summer when we were outside we also played water balloon volleyball, toss the water balloon, soccer, frisbee and pickleball.
We had a YSA traditional USA Halloween party (and a Primary Halloween party earlier that day). None of the YSA or Friends had ever celebrated or been to a Halloween party before so it was really fun for them.
Church
Due to the average age of members attending Church in Romania and the average age of Friends that the missionaries are finding on Facebook we pushed for a long time to create a separate group for YSA. This idea was not accepted for a couple of different reasons but fortunately with the rule limiting indoor meetings to 50 people, the Sacrament meeting at the Mihai Bravu branch was getting close to reaching the limit. Consequently, it was decided a second Mihai Bravu branch meeting would be held at 1:00 each Sunday. We attend the 10am Sacrament meeting at Panduri then head over to the 1pm meeting at Mihai Bravu with the missionaries and that is the meeting they invite most of their Friends to. The 1pm meeting works much better for YSA age kids also because they do not have to get up so early. Many of the YSA have to ride public transportation to get to the chapel and it can take them 1 - 2 hours. Therefore, to get to the regular 10:00am meeting it means they have to get up at 7:00am or so on a Sunday morning which seems to be an issue. Of course, we realize church times should not be structured for the convenience of those attending and they should make the sacrifice to attend for the right reasons, but half the kids we get to the 1pm meeting are Friends that are just investigating the Church and are not members or have testimonies yet. We have found making church attendance as easy as we can for them, at this stage in their progression, is best until they develop a testimony on their own.
We spent some years working at BYU with the YSA wards there and even in these wards a large percentage of the members were all returned missionaries and yet there is a noticeable difference in attendance between the meetings that start at 9 or 10am and those that start at 1 or 2pm on Sundays. In a perfect world it should not be this way, but this is reality. Bill thinks it is the nature of the YSA beast.
Anyway, the 1pm Sacrament Meeting is not an official “YSA” meeting, it is just a second meeting for the Mihai Bravu branch due to the virus restrictions but as it turns out the 1pm meeting is the meeting of preference for most YSA and Friends. We imagine when the virus restrictions are over the 1pm meeting will be combined back with the 10am meeting but the branch president will make that call.
The other real benefit to having the 1pm meeting is it has given our new YSA members a chance to gain leadership and service opportunities. For example, we had a YSA baptized in Sept and he was called as a counselor in the Mihai Bravu branch Sunday School presidency. As small as the Mihai Bravu branch is, this calling really does not do much because there are no youth classes, no gospel essential classes, etc., there is just the one Sunday School class for everyone so there is not a lot of responsibility for a SS Presidency counselor. However, this new YSA member was asked to organize the SS for the 1pm meeting. The new member has stepped up and called 4 YSA Sunday School teachers, has made a monthly schedule for teaching, and assigned lessons from the Gospel Essentials manual to the teachers. We use the Gospel Essentials manual for the 1pm meeting because most that attend are relatively new members and non-member Friends. Likewise, a new YSA member that was baptized last year and serves in the Mihai Bravu Elders Quorum branch presidency has been called to make sure the sacrament is set up and administered at the 1pm meeting each week. In addition, a new YSA member that was baptized a couple of months ago and has been ordained to the office of Priest is assigned to make sure we have Aaronic Priesthood holders to pass the sacrament each Sunday. The 1pm meeting is giving these YSA new members the opportunity to serve and learn leadership that they would not have had otherwise.
On a side note, we had a non-member YSA age Friend bare her testimony last week at the 1pm meeting. As part of her testimony she shared the below analogy. Bill thought you might like to read this, he had it translated from Romanian. The sarmale she refers to in the analogy is a traditional Romanian food.
"One day, while I was talking to the missionary sisters and trying to find out what is the difference between the Bible and The Book of Mormon and also why there are so many religions, I thought that I could compare The Book of Mormon to the original recipe, the perfect recipe of "sarmale".
"So, I told sisters, 'I think that God gave his people, in the beginning, a perfect recipe of "sarmale"; but some of the people have forgotten many of the details, ingredients, or the way of preparing sarmale, and others have changed some of the ingredients, thinking that they are better chefs. The perfect recipe from the beginning was the Bible, which has been translated, reinterpreted and/or modified by humans. Consequently, it appeared many religions considered they have made a better recipe for "sarmale".
God, finding about that, realized that his Church has to be restored and He has to resend to the people, the original recipe of "sarmale", for all people to eat "sarmale" made according to the same recipe and let everyone know that this is the real, original recipe.
That is how The Book of Mormon appeared, written on gold plates, by the prophet and historian Mormon and later translated by the prophet Joseph Smith.
You must try "sarmale" made according to this original recipe so you can compare it to the others that you have tried so far. Good appetite! ".
This is from Gabi who is not a member of the Church but who is studying the Book of Mormon. For us, The Book of Mormon does not take away from the Bible but adds to it the truths that were lost or changed. It will better clarify and add to the "original "recipe from Jesus Christ that was changed throughout the many years of translation. Gabi's understanding is phenomenal!
Missionary Lessons
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With the virus the missionaries do all their "finding" on Facebook and are not allowed to teach anywhere face-to-face except at the chapel or another members home. Consequently, we have regular meetings at our home with the missionaries and their Friends. Normally, we invite the Friend to come to dinner and then afterwards have a lesson and games. It is much more personal to have the lesson in our home then to have the lesson in a classroom at the chapel plus it gives us a chance to meet these Friends which are almost exclusively YSA age due to the Facebook finding techniques.
Re-activation
Bill took the district branch list and printed out all the YSA age members. With this list he contacted each of the members, active and less-active, either through Facebook or any other contact information for them that we have. Once we have made contact we try to meet them and just get to know them. Some are very hesitant for a number of reasons, so in some instances I have even promised that when we meet we just want to get to know them and we will not talk about religion; normally then they will agree to meet.
With this approach we have had some success with re-activating several YSA. One particular is a 30 year old girl that has been less-active for the past 5 years. When Bill first contacted her she said she did not want to have anything to do with the Mormon Church or its members. We spent 2 or 3 months just talking and getting to know her online until she agreed to let us come meet her. One thing led to another and now she is teaching the 1pm Sacrament meeting Sunday School class, she is speaking in Sacrament Meeting this coming Sunday and last Sunday she received her Temple Recommend. Now her brother is going to start taking the missionary lessons and her mother, who is not a member, has asked for a Priesthood Blessing. We are using this same process with adult members also and have some success with re-activation.
Other Efforts
We work with the Humanitarian Missionaries, Elder and Sora Falslev, on projects whenever we can! These activities are so much fun and help the many families in Romania who have needs that are now being met because of the Falslev's efforts. We are blessed beyond measure to have them here and to have the funds that the Church distributes to countries all over the world to help those in need.
In addition to the above YSA efforts, Bill is serving as the Executive Security/Clerk in the District Presidency and Jamie serves in the RS branch presidency and helps with the primary.
With the virus restrictions the Mission President has only been able to travel to Romania twice. The Mission Home and office is in Hungary so we have also been helping with a lot of the mission duties here. This includes taking care of the mission vehicles, doing apartment inspections, hosting the missionaries that are going home by having them stay with us, taking them to dinner and participating in their farewell testimony meetings.
These farewells have been some of the most spiritual meetings that we have had the honor to participate in. As senior Missionaries we would normally not have this privilege because it is usually done at the Mission Home with the Mission President and his wife but because of travel restrictions we have been able to have the missionaries that are going home, in our home for this occasion. We zoom with the President and his wife and it is such a remarkable experience for us. We all share our testimonies and the spirit is so strong and it is the most bitter/sweet moments of our mission (we have definitely looked for the silver linings during the pandemic and this truly is the best one).
We also help with transfers and anything else that needs to be done. We love it here, we are tired most days, but are happy that we can find things to keep us busy and provide opportunities to serve.
Every night before we go to bed we evaluate our day; most days end with Bill saying, "I think we did some good today!" As we celebrate this most sacred time of year, the birth of our Lord and Savior, may we continue to go about doing good and remembering Christ in our lives each and every day as we let His example shine forth from us. May you have the most blessed Christmas and Happy New Year! We only have 1 year left to accomplish all we need and want to and we pray that this will be enough time to do it!
Te iubim și ți-e dor de tine ~ sărutări pentru tine!
(We love you and miss you ~ kisses to you)!
Elder and Sora Matthews
