Brown Eyed Girl Takes on the World: September 2014

TUESDAY- WEDNESDAY- THURSDAY:

So this week we were SUPER OCCUPATA (busy)! We had an exchange in Galați which is 5 hours away by train. No AC. DEATH. I fell asleep for a little bit but then the sweat dripped off my nose and pooled into a little puddle on my chest and eventually, that puddle of sweat had woken me up.

Ha.

Gross.

So we had the coolest exchanges EVER. Sora Bynum served in the same MTC district with Sora Hovey in the MTC and I had served with Sora Parker in the MTC as well! It was like a little reunion!

While contacting we see this cute little old lady walk up to us and we were like, "Awww she is adorable". She starts playing with this little stray cat and we are just awed by her cuteness. We start having a conversation with her. So then the lady turns around and there is this HUGE axe in her hand hahahaha and we all just walk away really slowly.

Welcome to the Romania/Moldova Mission were we contact old ladies with axes. Beat that.

We also had several activities with the branch in Galați and one of the elders taught Sora and I how to tie a tie! Yay!

We headed back with all of the missionaries from Galați because they were heading to Iași for Zone Conference the next day. We contacted the conductor of our train! He was SOOO nice!

FRIDAY:

Zone Conference! It was basically the same thing I heard in Missionary Leadership Council and Zone training so nothing new to report here!

It's all about ENERGY, INTELLIGENCE and BALANCE!

SATURDAY:

We had English class and then after we had sports night with our students and investigators. We went and played futbol (soccer) in this field. I saw this cute little family and I thought, "How can I not awkwardly contact them?" So I grab a Frisbee and start playing with the other sisters next to this family.

They had 5 children, 2 babies and three little girls. So I called out to the little girls and asked if they wanted to play with us, because they had been eyeballing me for about 5 minutes. They all ran up and started playing with us. They were 10 (Maria), 8 (Anastasia) and 5 (Sophia) years old. They were SO CUTE. The cutest little girls. We played with them for about an hour and a half all laughing an talking to each other in Romanian. Sophia was always right beside me and staring at me and then she asked me where I was from and where my parents were. She thought it was so cool that I was American.

Their parents left and left the girls with us because they lived in the block right next to the field where we were playing. I told the parents that they had a cute family and beautiful daughters. They said thanks and left.

So then I think, "CRUD, I never contacted them!" So I start writing a letter for the girls to give to their parents about our English class. The girls went home and later we headed home. When we walked by their block they called out our names, "Surori! Surori! Pa surori!" (Sisters! Sisters! Bye sisters!) We walked backwards and waved goodbye to them until we couldn't see them anymore.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Final Thoughts - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I have so much hope for these people here. That experience with the three little girls helped me realize that those little girls will grow up to be people who are more open about the gospel and about missionaries in general. I just kept thinking about how cute and kind they were to us. I think we will leave a good impression of missionary work and the church on that family.

I am finding more joy in the work as I can speak and understand the language much more know. The most flattering comment is when Romanians compliment my accent and my grammar. I love seeing their faces light up when I say that I have only been here for 5 months.

I know that Heavenly Father is blessing me. I can hear it (and understand it! haha!) when the Romanian people talk to me. I know he loves me because he is helping me every day here.

Loving the people, loving the work and loving the Lord,

:) Sora Lee

Learned how to tie ties!

My home slice and Galați exchanges, Sora Parker

Sora Bynum, Sora Me, Sora Parker, Sora Hovey at Zone Conference

Well this week I had the WONDERFUL opportunity of celebrating my 6 month mark on my mission! Time really does fly!!!!!!!!!!! And being Sister Training Leader really makes it go so much faster!

MONDAY NIGHT: I high-fived the CUTEST gypsy boy. I'm a gyspy boy magnet and I'm kind of loving it. I can't give them food or money but I can give them high-fives!

TUESDAY: It was our first day of English class here in Iași and Sora B and I teach the advanced class. Basically, we get to talk in English for an hour so that is kind of nice! We played fun getting to know you games involving a bag of Skittles. Who doesn't like eating Skittles and talking about themselves?

After English, I went out on the church's balcony to take a photo and I found that someone had thrown us back one of our CLMs...at least they had the decency to put it in a bag. Hahaha...oh Romania....the work rolls forth...

We celebrated my 6 month mark that night with a prajitura (cake/dessert thing) and by drinking "kiddy alcohol" aka sparkling peach juice hahaha. We also wrote "6 months" across our shins so that we could take a cool photo hahaha. Sora B is teaching me how to do a handstand. Right now, I'm still against the wall but..... Eu am credința! I have faith!

WEDNESDAY: We contacted it up all morning and also went with the other sisters to look at apartments for them. We found a great apartment but when we called president for permission to make a contract he said no.......It's a lot of drama and kind of a hard subject to talk about. The other sisters really want to move out of our apartment because we have zero room in our apartment for them. It was supposed to be a temporary stay but now they will be staying the whole transfer...I feel so sorry for them!

That evening we hopped on a train to Bacău for our exchanges and it was a sauna in there. No one believes in opening windows for a breeze because they say that it will make you sick. They call this "current". I hate current haha. So I fall asleep in my sweat and when I wake up there is this little boy and his mom sitting next to me. He is going off about how he loves Angry Birds. Sora B and I are eavesdropping on their convo, which no one knows we can actually UNDERSTAND what they are saying but alas, we can. So Sora Bynum and I start talking in Romanian about our favorite iPhone app games and this little boy looks straight at me with a shocked face. "Wait, you speak Romanian?!" was written all over his face. So I start talking to him in Romanian and he just starts laughing and laughing and we start laughing hahaha. We would ask him questions in Romanian like, "How old are you?", "What is your name?"...etc. So after every question we ask, he would respond to us then lean over to his mom and whisper in her ear how to say that question in Romanian. So we would say, "Ce faci?" (How are you) and he would say "Bine" (fine) and then he would ask his mom how to say "How are you?" in English. He would turn back to us, smile and say with the cutest, thickest Romanian accent "Haaahhwwwairrrrr yooooo?" Hahahaha! It was so cute! We did this for about 10 minutes back and forth.

Then, his mother started talking to us and she asked us who we were and all of those golden questions missionaries are just waiting to answer. I actually misunderstood one of her questions but it turned out to be super cool! She asked "What do you study?" And I thought she meant, what do we study as missionaries so I just went off and bore my testimony about the Bible and the Book of Mormon and how we study for 3 hours every day hahaha. Then she cuts in and says, "No, at university" And I just started busting up.

But hey, I got to bear my testimony!

THURSDAY: We had our exchange with the sisters in Bacău.

BRACE YOURSELVES FOR MY COOL STORY.

So while we wen out contacting we decided to stop at the Piața (open air market) and buy a watermelon to eat for dinner. I had a Book of Mormon and a Bible in my arms as we were walking through the Piața. A woman shouts out to me in Romanian "You read from the Bible?!" and I look up at her and tell her yes we do, every day. And then she asks, "What is that other book behind it?" And I tell her it's the Book of Mormon, another testament of Jesus Christ. She asked questions and I answered them, all of these Romanian words coming to my brain that I had no idea I knew. All of these vendors also joined in the conversation. We were talking to about 6 ladies. They couldn't believe that we were so young, so far away from home and that we wee here just to serve people. They keep asking if we were getting paid to be missionaries and every time we said, "No, we are volunteers" they just freaked out. They thought we were the cutest people ever.

Then, this man comes up behind me and taps me on the shoulder and starts talking to me about if we believe in the trinity. Haha so I say no, we don't, we believe that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are three separate people. And then he takes me Bible and inspects it. He tells me it is the one he reads too. He opens up to this scripture in John , the one that says "I am my father and my father is me.." And I tell him that we believe that we believe that they are united as one, that they are more like one team, than one person. He understood but didn't like my answer. Nobiggy. He was really nice about everything though. We gve him a CLM and he said he wanted to read it. The Bacau elder's phone number was inside it and we said if he had questions he could call them and meet up. His daughter though was actually super interested in the Book of Mormon though and we got to talk to her for a few minutes about it. She asked if she could have one and we were like YES WAIT YOU JUST ASKED US FOR A CLM! Best part was...SHE LIVES IN IAȘI! We were so excited about this happening that we forgot to get her number. Ooops. ......But it is in the book......

That night we ate sarmale with the Bacău elders (Morby and Ormsby who I served with in Timi) and it made Sora B and I super sick. We have food poisoning. Fun stuff. Instant diet.

We also slept on the couch/love seat in the Bacău sister's apartment that night. SUPERUNCOMFY. The reason why was because the previous night we had gotten eaten alive by bed bugs in the guest bed. We had Sora Case spry bug killer on the mattress but it never dried in time for us to go to bed. We layed on the wet bug spray and we got really itchy (not a good idea) and we exiled ourselves to the makeshift bed in the living room ahahah.

It was an experience.

SUNDAY: I translate for the BYU students during Relief Society. It really surprises me that I know more Romanian than I think I do.

I AM BY NO MEANS GOOD AT ROMANIAN. I definitely eat the humble pie every day here. Trust me.

---- I LOVE the work here! I have never been more happy in my WHOLE life!

Loving the people, loving the work, loving the Lord!

:) Sora Lee

FRIDAY: Home sick with food poisoning.