Sunday! Day 26

Soooo what a great day! There were a lot of unfamiliar faces at church today .. it is crazy to think that out of the whole city there are only 12 or so really active LDS members. Today there were probably 6 or 7 visitors whom none of us had seen before. One of the women, her name was Mihaela said that that was her first time attending church in 6 years.. pretty cool. She was sitting behind me and tapped on my shoulder. When I turned around she said 'be patient and be wise'. It caught me off guard.. not your typical greeting. She went on saying 'be patient and wise with these people'.. I never found out exactly what or about whom she was speaking but it is great advice.. just a little unexpected advice! My mom gave me this quote that says 'to handle yourself use your head; to handle others use your heart' I think that wisdom is not so much thinking.. but processing with an open mind and open heart.

At 3 pm we decided to visit a monastery with the girls, Mihai, Petru, Radu and Aurelia. We all packed into a bus to head outside of the city. We had to hike through the forest a little ways and it was such a refreshing hike. I miss hiking as crazy as that sounds.. we walk everywhere here but not being able to go to the gym, hike, or even run outside is making me go a little crazy.

The monastery was so peaceful. It was built in the 1600's and had a very middle ages feel to it. The art inside the chapel was so gorgeous. It was pre-renaissance so the art was all a bit stoic and primitive but still breathtaking. The sound of a monk singing praises rung melodically through the chapel and it was so amazing. I sat in a pew seat and just took it all in. The sound of the monk singing joined with the ebbing candle lighting was lullingly lethargic. I loved watching orthodox individuals enter the chapel, cross themselves and kiss the pictures of the saints. I saw a mother guide her little son through the steps and it made me smile. I loved seeing how faithful these people were and I could definitely feel something here. Not only the monks, but the church goers who came here were all actively seeking a relationship with God and it was really cool to see and to feel.

This is where people come to light candles for prayers for people. There are two sides, one for the living and one for the dead. Petru was telling me that you can submit a name to the monks for them to pray for.. every day you want them to pray for that person it costs you 1 leu (romanian dollar). Basically.. the more money you have the more prayers you get. What a strange

concept. Strange at least, for me as a mormon because I believe in being able to have a personal relationship with God. Orthodox Christians pray to Saints as their advocates to God.. this is similar to our belief that we pray in the name of Jesus Christ.. but completely different from the sense that saints are just men like our prophet and apostles.. whom we would not pray to. Regardless of the distance that the Orthadox church seems to put between man and God.. I was deeply impressed by the faithfulness and dutifulness of these people I see in everywhere in Romania.

Us goofing around! It was definitely fun with the crew there.. I had a really good talk with Aurelia today about her and her boyfriend. She speaks a bit of english, less so than Mihai or Radu so the language barrier was difficult. Initially I thought that Romanianswere surprisingly open about things that we consider private (family issues, financial issues, hardship, loss of job etc.) but I was realizing that they are not open so much as this is life for them

Everyone here has such a hard life and we have heard so many tragic stories.. noone's life is easy and therefore the stories about a mom who has to work because her husband is home with cancer and 5 kids making less than $150 a month are not as crazy to them as it is to us. It correlates with the infamous romanian saying 'this is life'. It makes me wonder why I am so blessed with a solid whole family who loves me, great friends, a loving boyfriend who my parents accept and support, a job, college education, a house, a phone, a laptop.. a functional government and democratic home country.. not to mention a gym pass.

Interesting fact: all of this land is owned by the church so that the monks can grow all their own food, wine, etc.

So we all ascended up a narrow and secret stairwell into a pretty bell tower that overlooked the entire monastery and surrounding farmland. There were names and prayers written all over the inside of the bells with chalk and on this wooden beam with pen. Petru was saying that people write down prayers and names of people that have wronged them (he gave an example of lending someone a lot of money that you need and they dont pay you back). When the Priests ring the bells and pound on the wood with mallets.. they pound the names wreaking a

justice of sorts. A picture of the beam and mallets is below.
I loved visiting this monastery. I had a lot of time to think and relax. It was a much needed breath of fresh air.. literally.

On our walk home it started to rain and the trail turned into a straight up mud-slide... at least for us Americans! Petru made a joke 'oh look.. now you look like Romanian!' haha we were all just waiting for Petru to slip and fall in the mud in his suit and tie but we were not so lucky.