Celebrating 18 Years of the Gospel in Moldova!

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Hey everyone! I am back! I hope you all had a wonderful couple of weeks and a great Mother's Day. I loved talking to my mom and I hope you all had the chance to celebrate your mothers and any other important women in your life. I am so grateful to my mom, friend's moms, aunts, grandmas, and young women's leaders who have been such great examples to me in my life. I love you all!

These past few weeks have been crazy and exciting for sure. We have found a few new investigators. One is Natasha, we contacted her right when we got to Chisinau and invited her to English practice she has been coming for a while now but wasn't interested in taking the discussions. She started coming to game night and loves it and agreed to meet with us! She is awesome and we are really excited to teach her. Another one is named Ira. We found her in the park and she was really interested in finding out about the Book of Mormon. We met with her this week to give her the book and do a church tour. Something with the weather being warmer makes everyone a lot more willing to talk to us so finding this week has been a blast and really successful! 

This week we also had a super cool service opportunity with the humanitarian couple in Chisinau. LDS charities donated 1000 wheelchairs to the disabled citizens of Moldova. It was all run by Rick Johnson, a physical therapist and an amputee himself from Utah. It was super fun to help and serve. It also involved using the missionaries as translators to communicate which was rough (haha) I definitely need to brush up on my wheelchair assessment/amputee vocab!

That night we had a really special experience. It was the 18 year anniversary of Moldova being dedicated for the preaching of the Gospel. The hill where President Ballard dedicated Moldova is right behind our apartment. The senior couple, the Checkettes, and all of the missionaries (14 of us) hiked up the hill that evening and read the dedicatory prayer and had a testimony meeting. We fasted the whole day until the hike and it definitely brought the Spirit so strongly to our circle of missionaries. It was one of the best experiences and was such a great reminder of my purpose here in Moldova. The sunset happened right as we were singing "The Spirit of God" and I just felt so grateful to be able to serve here in Moldova. Afterward, we all went to the senior couple's apartment to break our fast with a huge spaghetti dinner and homemade chocolate chip cookies. One of the best days so far. 

Love you all! Hope you have a wonderful week! 
Cectpa Daines

Pictures!!!
1. Getting stuck in a huge rainstorm this week. I love summer rain!
2. Game night scavenger hunt by the lake.
3. Sun setting on dedication hill.
4. Dedication hill overlooking of Chisinau.








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