Second Day!

     It's the end of our second day! It's about 12 am over here, and we are all pooped! But another amazing day! After breakfast this morning we all rounded up and walked to church. It's not really a church- the locals call it the "building" which is because people are not allowed to start churches I believe is the reason why. It was definitely a small congregation. . . I counted about 20 people besides our team of 16.  I was super nervous this morning during the first part of the service because Pastor Travis told Chelby and I we would be giving our testimonies. We knew we were going to be the first ones going, but we thought we would do it in a youth service! It was awesome having such an encouraging team though. Imelda prayed with me and Pastor Travis really encouraged us. I had everything written down and studied, but when I got up there, I think it was my nerves that made everything fly out the window. I ended up talking about the transitions I was going through, how God shines in my weaknesses and how He's just taken away so many of my stresses and replaced them with his strength, and about my cousin Crystal (who lived in Targoviste a while ago). The people really helped me get through it with their amens and yeses! ;) Chelby did an awesome job; she was extremely nervous as well but her whole testimony was just straight from her heart and spirit lead. She talked about growing up in RSP and quoted an awesome scripture verse, the people loved her! She pretty much cried through most of it, which made tons of other people cry! She was just really clear and her testimony was extremely touching.
     After church, we went out to lunch with the choice of yummy soups. I tried a meatball soup that was delicious. Nikki, who has been like our guide, has been doing an amazing job with hooking us up with yummy food! She is the sweetest. She is actually still really good friends with my cousin Crystal and gets excited talking about her! While at lunch, some of us youth dared each other to try these green peppers. We each took a bite. You can just imagine the pain we were in. Pretty much caused a scene but everyone laughed! Chelby screamed out, "I feel like I ate a dragon!" Lol quote of the day. After lunch we walked around the city looking for a park Pastor Travis told us about with a view of Dracula's Castle and the heads of a bunch of different rulers in their history. The park was beautiful, but we want to go back with some of the kids from youth so they can tell us more about the history. We enjoyed ice cream cones while there- the soft serve ice cream here is so yummy! After walking in the park we went back to our hotel for a couple hours while I enjoyed a glorious nap while everyone else played spoons!
      We then went to their evening church service which is held in an art school with a much bigger group of people. Imelda and Jason gave their testimonies tonight and did an awesome job. Pastor Travis gave a sermon tonight where we all helped him by being super funny and acting it out. Tristan and Tom were the stars if the show. Everyone came up to us after saying how they loved it. It was a funny sermon, but was really powerful. When were done, we were able to pray for all the people who wanted prayer which was an awesome experience. I met new girlfriends I prayed with who were extremely kind! We then went out for a tradition Romania dish which was this sausage in a sauce, and like what I think was cornmeal with an egg and cheese on top of it. Now I LOVE food and am not picky at all! But this was extremely hard to get down. I forced myself to eat about half the plate and snuck it to the waiter when no one was looking. But other than this one meal, everything else has been great! Lol. We were able to skype the church during dinner as well as youth group which was awesome! There is actually LOUD Romanian music playing right now in our hotel because apparently every weekend there is atleast 5 crazy Romanian parties. So I'm going to head upstairs to bed! Love you all. Oh, a great thing: we figured out our converter didn't work because when I plugged in the power strip, it blew out. But tonight we discovered we blew out the circuit breaker so all we had to do is turn it back on & now we can use our converter!! Huge relief. Now I'm able to charge my laptop and camera whenever I want which is super convenient. Not being able to charge my camera is the reason I don't have alot of pictures for this blog post!