Brown Eyed Girl Takes on the World: Ugly Shoes = Miracle Makers

This week was incredible. Sora Trebas and I only have one more week together before Transfer Boards come out next week. They usually split up the trainer from the trainee so we are bummed but we decided to make these last few days "perfect" days! We had an incredibly busy week and we were so happy that we got to have another "perfect"day. I have also been in Bucharest for 6 months.....CRAZY. I wonder if I will be transferred to a new city....cine știe?

6 months left . . . . .

SACRIFICES

One thing that my mission has taught me is how grateful I should be to have so much freedom to make my own choices. Back in the states, you can do just about whatever you want- and people recognize that everyone has their own agency. Want to have purple hair and run around in your undies? Go for it. Do your own thing, do what makes you happy. Here, it's a lot different. If you stray away from the "norm"you are an outcast. You're shunned. This week while meeting with several ward members, we learned of the sacrifices that they had to make to become members of the church here. People gave everything up and I never had to.

We have an incredible investigator who was kicked out of her apartment, dropped by her friend base and is now struggling to find a job because she is meeting with "the Mormons". Her testimony touched my heart. She called us after church one day and said, "Sora Lee, I don't understand what I am doing wrong. I came to church, and I felt so much peace and happiness, I have never felt that way before in my life. You are good people, peaceful people with good hearts. I don't know why people hate you, or this church. But Sora Lee, I can go through all of these problems because I know that this is true, that this is something good. It is my choice to change my life. It isn't my landlord's choice, my mother's choice or my friends' choice, it is my choice".

She is so right.

UGLY SHOES AWESOME STORY

My dumb knee has been giving me flack this week so Sora Trebas got me to wear my classic sister missionary clunker shoes. Embarrassment. The most stylish city in Romanian and I have refrigerators strapped to my feet haha.

Ugly shoes = miracle makers.

We had the perfect day that day! It was incredible! So SO great!

Ugly shoes = magic (?)

While waiting at the post office to pick up a package we had a really awesome experience. We see this man walk in with an American flag hat on and I'm like, "Yes, we have to talk to him!" So we get chatting and he is like, "Your Romanian is great, are you Romanian? " HAPPIEST DAY OF MY MISH and I said no, I'm American. And he asked us why were here. We told him we were missionaries with the . . . and pointed to our name tags. He had never heard about the church.

"Ați auzit despre Mormonii? Suntem :) "

And once I told him we were Mormon he kind of shut off. I took it as an opportunity to explain to him why that's our nickname, and told him about the Book of Mormon. Taught a little baby lesson in the post office, as I'm sitting on a half broken bench up against a moist wall. The man was humbled, thanked us for the information and wished us a very sincere "good luck" with the work here. We gave him a card with more info on it and invited him to learn more before he left with his package.

So in all of the hurry and scurry in the post office, this man comes up to us, and starts talking to us in English. Come to find out that he is from Italy and is working in Romania. He asked us if we worked here (name tags make us look so official) and we told him no. So he asked us who we were. So we told him! He was so cool and we taught another little baby lesson right there.

It was just awesome. Thank you ugly shoes, thank you!

YEAR MARK

We celebrated my year mark at the Hard Rock cafe. Our waiter, Bogdan made it so fun for us- he let us choose all of the music we wanted to hear! Ha ha! Talk about a tender mercy of the Lord! Most of the ingredients were imported from America . . . and . . .we learned that American dairy products WRECK US. But anyways it was a super cool moment and we shared a little message with Bogdan as well. We also did some "normal people contacting" as we grooved along to Queen! For some reason...people here think Mormons can't sing or dance or listen to music or use computers........people honestly think we are Amish or cannibals.

True fact.

LOVING the work, LOVING the people and LOVING the Lord.

:) Sora Lee

Photo 1: I wore the ugly shoes!

Photo 2: Leebas at eh Hard Rock!

Photo 3: Some of the coolest members ever, the Brînaru family, who sacrificed SO MUCH to join the church. They also live outside of Bucharest La Țara, or in the countryside and we headed out there to visit them this week!