I Faught a Good Fight, I Finished My Course, I Kept the Faith

Well, this it is, my last email as Sora Lee!  On Wednesday I will meet up with my parents in Bucharest and we will travel around Romania for a couple of days and then go visit my bro in HUNGARY!  I am just so happy!

I am so grateful I served a mission.. I have changed, I am much happier...more.... I don't know...focused?  Driven?  Hahah and I LOVE it.   

We had a very busy week and we will be busy all day today and tomorrow!  We have incredible investigators who are progressing and less active members who are becoming more and more..active!!!!  Just great things are happening in this little part of the world and I am just so happy that I could help in a little way.  

This week one of our investigators was praying and she said, „Pur și simplu, sunt fericită și mă bucur că am putut sa facem cunoștință cu aceste femeii minunate care au ajutat pe mine să fiu mai aprope de tine”.  We were so happy to hear that we were helping her feel closer to her Heavenly Father.  

We also got to meet with another investigator who invited two of her friends to come along.  They both fired tons of questions at us.  We answered them sweetly and boldly and defended our beliefs.  Her friend said, ”I am impressed by your dedication to your faith.  You are active, dedicated members in your church.  You are also very open, kind and accepting of other people and their beliefs” BEST COMPLIMENT a mission could receive. 

I wanted to share with you a set of scriptures that I feel like have defined my mission. I have learned the importance of continuously improving, changing and trying to be better than who you were the day before. I KNOW THAT WE ARE SUCCESSFUL AS WE CHANGE.

 They are from the Book of Mormon and I believe that these scriptures will continue to inspire me for the rest of my life.  

Alma 5

12 And according to his faith there was a mighty change wrought in his heart. Behold I say unto you that this is all true.

13 And behold, he preached the word unto your fathers,and a mighty change was also wrought in their hearts, and they humbled themselves and put their trust in the true and living God. And behold, they were faithful until the end; therefore they were saved.

 14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

I have had this change in my heart. I have changed my course, this gospel has changed my life and I know that I continually strive to be better, rely on my Savior, and do the things He has asked me to do, that I will always be happy.  

SEE YOU ALL SOON! :)

I have loved these people, I have loved the work and I love the Lord,

:) Sora Kendall Lee

Camera difficulties so not any amazing photos to send this week- sorry!!!

Photo 1: Advanced english girlies

Photo 2: Maria and Dima!!!! I love them so much!

Average lawyer office haha I just love how professional it looks

Cute friend of mine from the branch! Saying goodbye to Marina on my last Sunday!

The Last Week

First of all- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!  Where has the time gone?!  I am in the last full week of my mission.  It is bizarre.  But awesome.

So this week was like a full on roller coaster- ups and downs and everything in between!  We have 3 new investigator friends who are incredible.  We had a day where we planned 5 lessons and they ALL fell through. We did a lot of contacting and the more you do it- the more fun it becomes (and less awkward).   I thought I was going to die this week from a random sickness.  After a day of sleeping, I felt great.  I quote my companion, "Sora Lee I thought you were dying from cancer".  I guess it was pretty bad- I just felt tired.  Haha.  We did a lot of less active finding and had a lot of success- even if we got very very lost in some very very foreign parts of Chisinau!  We are excited to work with these members and strengthen their testimonies!

This week just really strengthened my testimony that everything we do, happens on the Lord's timing.  The work will hasten in it's time, when the people are ready to receive the message.   I've learned that hard work always pays off, even if we feel like nothing is happening.  Even if we don't see the results- it doesn't mean that there aren't any.  

Also, this week my companions "prepared me for my next step in life" and we listened to, who knows how many conference talks about marriage and dating and families....Hahaha I love them but I'm not ready for that next step quite yet......  I also learned that a tripod easily means three times the fun! Another thing- we randomly break out singing John Denver songs?  Haha we all agree that our parents raised us up with some good music.  I also learned that the expression is actually, "Play it by EAR" not "Play it by HERE"  Oops.  I thought it was like, "Go with the flow", "Take the day as it comes", "One thing at a time".  I'm an idiot haha.  Missions sure teach you a lot of good stuff!

So this is my last full week as a missionary. We are busy with a lot of lesson every day- I will drag myself to the finish line.  I really cannot express how truly grateful I am for serving a mission,  it has changed who I am- inside and out.  And I look forward to continually improving for the rest of my life.

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

:) Sora Lee

  

The view from our apartment

A pretty well

Lost- completely lost.  Purely candid shot.

Art inside of a bloc (apartment complex)

Heel click!

The TriPod Rolls On

Wow, I just have LOVED my mission and it's weird to think in 2 weeks all of this will be over.   Romania and Moldova have become a part of my life, a part of my identity and even though I will be going home, there is always going to be a part of my heart in these countries. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my mission!!!!!!!!! 

So we have been doing a lot more contacting this transfer than I have ever done in my whole mission (errr, since I served in Timisoara a whopping 18 months ago).  We are trying to find more people to teach and be more equally balanced in every aspect of our missionary work.  We have found a couple less active members and are working with them, while strengthening the active members and teaching new friends! 

Doamna Vicky is my favorite person ever.   We have been meeting with her pretty frequently recently and she is an incredible woman.  This week, we are going to ask her to be baptized and we are so excited!  She is this incredibly loving mother and she wants what is best for her children.  She has searched all over for a lasting happiness, but she told us she feels like this is the right path for her.  She truly has a light in her eyes and she is so motivated by her desire for a better world, a better life, and we know the gospel can give her that. 

So I have the calling as a young women's teacher in the Russian branch and I LOVE IT!   We get to work with Polina every single week and she is one of my favorite Russian members.  I've begun Personal Progress in Romanian and we are working on it together.  That one hour of church is probably the happiest I am all week!  

I am just so happy.  Just, ah, I have just like, this very hard to describe inner peace, this inner happiness... and I love it.  I want to feel like this my whole life!  

My companions are great, the tri-panionship "tripod", works hard rolls along, and gets along!  I couldn't ask for anything better!  

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

:) Sora Lee

The tri-panionship

Am average bus stop station in Moldova

Sharing a kiss with my family!!!!

 

Excited to see my brother in 3 weeks in HUNGARY!!!!  We got permission to see each other!!!! YAYAYAYAYA

Soaking Up the Micro Miracles

Update:  The tripod companionship has been temporarily dissolved because we are with Sora Mits, who has come to Moldova in order to apply for her Romanian visa (Australians need to apply outside of the country for whatever odd reason) and her process has been...corrupt and rather difficult so she will be staying her until it all gets worked out.  She will be serving with Sora Seare.

So my new companion is Sora Black! She is from the San Francisco area of California, she's 20 years old and is just the coolest person on the face of the planet.   She is the best missionary in this mission and I learn so much for her.  I know I will learn so much from her in these final weeks.   

Update:  I have been assigned to the Chisinau Russian branch so we will be involved in the missionary work there and it is very exciting!   I love the Russian members and I have the calling of branch chorister, which is super interesting because 1.) I don't speak Russian and 2.) My song leading never pleases anyone haha but hey I love it and I just roll with the Russian.

So this week we did a lot of contacting which has actually been really cool and successful!  We met a lot of really kind people and it was a very pleasant experience.  We do a lot of contacting and we are expecting about 500 people to be at our English classes so we will be very busy right until the end!

We also have this incredible investigator Vicky and she is just so great and she really wants to give her children the world.  We are going to ask her to be baptized this week.  We also are working with our recent convert Natalia and helping her learn how to teach the Young Women's class.  She has such a desire to learn and to grow her testimony.   

Nothing super big, wow, or overly eventful to report but just a lot of small awesome accomplishments, a lot of micro miracles are going on all around me and I just try and soak it all in.    

I seriously have no clue where the time has gone- mission time is 9,000x faster than real world time and I just want to grab it and super glue it down somewhere so it can't just slip through my fingers.

I'm grateful, so glad that I chose to serve a mission.   

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

:) Sora Lee

Me on the struggle bus

Thinking about my missionary brother in HUNGARY!!!  Go BUDAPEST!!!!!

 I love my companion!

So close......

 I love pretty Chisinau

Worms = Baptisms

Wow. So this week was nuts.  NUTS.  Ah.  But so incredibly great.   

So Sora Barrera and I met with Cristina, one of our friends to go pick osme cherries with her at her mansion house.  We climbed up in her trees and filled bags with delicious cherries.  It was incredible.  We sat in the the trees just pulling the cherries off the branches and eating them.  It was incredible.  We then went to her townhouse countryside home and did some service there, watering all the plants.   It was a great day.   On our way home, Sora Barrera got feeling very ill.  We had a lesson at the church and she just could not contribute. She is a pretty tough cookie and she leaned over and said, "I honestly feel like I am going to die".   So I'm like, "Crud, what to do..." Ah.  We felt like we needed to read with Natalia form the Book of Mormon but we hadn't decided on a specific section to read with her.  I said a tiny prayer in my heart, asking for guidance towards a chapter.   

I felt strongly prompted to share the chapter on Lehi and his "Tree of Life" dream.   *** If anyone wants to read that I have the link here :

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/8?lang=eng

So I'm solo teaching essentially and I am breaking down each verse with Natalia.  Poor Sora Barrera is as white as a ghost.  And we get to the part about the fruit, more or less this verse:  

"And as I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore, I began to be desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit."

Now the fruit represents God's love.  And something like just clicks in Natalia's head.  Like, i could see her countenance change.  She was like.  "I have tasted this fruit, and I want to share it with others"....and she goes on to say, "And the rod of iron represents the gospel-like what you are teaching me".  And she just like lit up!   So we invited her to be baptized and......she said "Um, i'm not sure- I don't think my family would want me to change".    And I just told her, "You know the next step".    So we ended with prayer and Sora Barrera and I headed home.   

So Sora Barrera is like puking up a storm in between her little nap sessions.  It is like 10:30 at night and I got like 10 phone calls form Ecaterina, a recently baptized member, who is best friends with Natalia.  So I call her back and she like yells into the phone, 'Natalia wants to be baptized" and I'm like, "WHAT?!"  Hahaha and at first I didn't believe her and then Natalia gets on the phone and she's like, "hey so I was thinking about what you said and oh, i loved that scripture and yeah, I like this 'fruit' and I want to be baptized ON SATURDAY".    

So I relay this info on to Sora Barrera who is barfing down the hall.  And through her sessions she's like, "Wait what?!"  Hahaha

We still had like half the lessons to teach her and only 5 days. So I tell her she would have to meet with us every day in order to be baptized on Saturday, the 4th of July (which is hard because she lives very far away and is always working) and she says, "I want to be baptized on the holiday, i will meet with you every day so you can prepare me for my baptism".

So I told her OK lets do this!

I also told Sora Barrera that she needs to barf more often because her barfing brings miracles.  

***As I bit into a cherry I found out that that their were little worms inside them.....and that is what made Sora Barrera sick!  But hey, God works in mysterious ways.....worms = baptisms?

So this week we prepared her and ran around saying goodbye to everyone and their mothers because it was Sora Barrera's LAST WEEK because she goes back to America this week.  SO SAD I will miss her.  

We also had a 4th of July Party that was more stressful than enjoyable and I have no cute pics to send home because we just looked hammered and gross so sorry everyone.  Natalia was baptized right after the party.  She was worried because the water was "too cold" (idk not jacuzzi level warm).....it was like 100+ degrees outside....Anyways...the font is full and she is in the water and is like, "it's cold" and we are so tired and stressed and hopeless..... and then the elders come rushing in carrying boiling, and I mean BOILING HOT pots filled with water and just dumped them into the font before she was baptized hahah.  It was very memorable!  

Natalia is a great member already and has been assigned to be a Young Women teacher for my cute Russian little girl Polina!  I am so happy.  We are going to be Natalia's Young Women counselors.  I am so excited for that.  

------ So I am in a triple companionship here in Chisinau now.  4 weeks left and I am serving with Sora Black from California (I served in the same Bucharest district as her and I love her) and Sora Seare who I think is from Utah...I don't know much about her!  But it will be great!!!!!

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

:) Sora Lee

Photo 1: Some photos of Natalia (in the blue dress)- she is actually SUPER HAPPY here!  Moldovans just don't smile with their teeth.

Photo 2: Ecaterina is her recently baptized friend and is very artsy.

Photo 3: Bye Sora Barrera!

Congratulations Natalia!!!!!!

Thumbs up from Natalia and Ecaterina!!!

Party time!

Eating the BEST watermelon

The best family of all time

When people look at you who do they see?

Hey everyone!!!!!!  This week went by so freaking fast it is insane.  Seriously, I don't even understand how time speeds up on a mission... I really don't.  

This week we were super busy asalways and this week we will be even busier because it is Sora Barrera's last full week!  It is so weird....I do not want her to go!  Saturday is Transfer boards and I will find out who my knew companion will be for my last mini transfer....#13...the extension.   I am freaking out.  Dar, totul va fie bine :)   

Some of the hightlights this week were making Bors Rosu with our favorite Russian members.  I seriously love them so much and they are teaching us Russian phrases to use in our lessons with Dima and Maria, whose native language is Russian.  It is great!  I love Bors Rosu and I will probably make it once a week when I get home from my mission.   

We taught Maria and Dima this week about the restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ and how through the prophet Jospeh Smith, all of the origianl doctrines or teaching of Jeus Christ were made whole and corrected, after years of being misinterpreted and forgotten.  We taught them in English but got to say several key phrases in Russian that really invited the spirit into the lesson.  It was incredible.   We also really love heir dog Charlie- she is so cute.   

But yeah, all is well, I am happy and healthy (no more worms!) and looking forward to these last few weeks.  

We attended the Russian sacrament meeting on Sunday because we had an investigator there with and we got the little translator earpiece things (which are so handy) in order to understand the speakers.  Now one of the translator ladies isn't fluent in English so sometimes her words are a little off, close but not the right word.   She was translating this scripture: 

Alma 5:14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

She was so cute because she changed the word "countenance' to "face"  So she said, "Have you received his image on your faces". And I just loved that so much- I mean seriously, when people see our faces, will we remind them of the Savior?  Just kind of a cool thought for this week.   

Loving the work, loving the People and Loving the Lord,

:) Sora Lee

http://browneyedgirltakesontheworld.blogspot.com/

And the pictures . . . .  

 A Bors Rosu feast

My favorite Russian family

 I LOVE THESE PEOPLE - maria and dima!!!!

I love my colega!!!!

One of my favorite street paintings In Chisinau

Light Attracts Light

Well, 6 weeks left and I am running out of things to say haha.  Things are going great but it is all just so normal for me now....It is hard to give you the latest news!  But I will try my best!

We did a lot of contacting for Meet the Mormons and we had some really cool conversations with people!   We left people with the idea that we Mormons are actually super normal people!  So score!

All of our investigators have gone out to the countryside (La Țara) for the summer (boo) so we have some finding to do! 

Round 2 of Meet the Mormons went a lot better (this time it was in English with Russian subtitles) and we think more people came because it was an English film.  SO yay! 

But probably the highlight of this week was our lesson with Maria and Dima, a Russian couple who live in the apartment above the Pinder Family, one of our senior couples here- oh they also speak PERFECT English.   They are the coolest people ever. They definitely do not act or carry themselves like Eastern Europeans.  They are just SO HAPPY and they stand out. They have this joy, this light that just radiates from them.  I sound like a nut case but they really do.  Dima was telling us, "I said good day to this man once and asked him how he was doing and everyone and the trolleybus looked at me like I was crazy".  DIMA WE FEEL YOU WE UNDERSTAND.  The Pinder Family went on to tell them that they have this light in their eyes.  

I shared the scripture from Mathew that says, "Ye are the light of the world....." and then we watched a 2 minute video called "Datorita Lui" or "Because of Him" (link attached below).  
https://www.lds.org/youth/video/because-of-him?lang=eng

They felt it.  Maria cried and Dima just had this pure smile.   We invited them to take the lessons to learn more about how they can have a fresh view of themselves, of God and of the world.  They said that they were excited to learn more.  I LOVE THEM and this couple has the potential to change the church here in Moldova.  I feel like these people are the reason why I needed to extend. I feel like they have been my lifelong friends. 

Lightness and darkness cannot exist at the same place, at the same time.  Light chases away darkness, and even a small light can make a difference in a dark place.  That is one thing that I have learned on my mission.  Not one good thing ever goes unnoticed.  A small light makes a big difference, even in the darkest place. 

I love my Eastern European mission and no matter where you are in the world, people are drawn to light- to goodness, to happiness, and I know that only the gospel of Jesus Christ can bring that into our lives. 

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

:) Sora Lee

P.S. Sorry I am dumb and only took 3 pictures this week.

 

This is Ștefan Cel Mare și Sfînt (Stephen the great and holy) and it says, "Moldovans, so Romanians" . . .  it makes more sense in Romanian hahaha

 Polina and her mom Natasha- the coolest Russian members.  Polina climbed a cherry tree for me and ripped off one of the branches so I could eat the cherries!  Haaha.  I LOVE THEM!  We are also learning how to bear our testimonies in Russian so we can tell them!

                                       I LOVE MARTY and he lives right near our house! 

Everything Is Not What It Seems

Wow this week was nuts.  We were so busy preparing for Meet the Mormons Chisinau Premier and also for our presentation at Zone Conference (Sora Barrera and I had the pleasure of speaking to the other missionaries about the importance of consistency-yay!).  To put it simply, it was a very busy and all over the place week.  I also started my visa paperwork and that took a lot of effort to say the least.  We were eagerly waiting the night of the premier, anxious to soo how many people would show up.  Sadly, only about 100 people showed up and in a theater that sat 350 people...it wasn't much.   Even sadder, there were only about 10 members there.  The film began to crash 5 minutes in, weird subtitles kept popping up, children were screaming and running around the theater.  People left and I felt like we had failed big time.  I sat through the whole movie, unable to enjoy it.  I just kept thinking, "how can anyone feel the spirit through all of this freaking noise?".  I felt so upset.

The movie ended and we headed outside to greet the movie goers as they left.  5 of our potential investigators emerged from the theater and I was dreading their reactions.  But to my surprise, they were all smiling, BEAMING and they had tears streaming down their faces.  

One of them came up to me and said, "I feel so good inside, so...so happy...I cannot even describe it.  I want to share how I feel right now with everyone else.  Can I bring my friends to the next showing?  Would that be ok?"

I was so happy.   We had gotten so worried about the number count we had forgotten what really counted, what really mattered.  We may not have gotten new investigators from the film but we were able to leave our friends with a strong impression.  They HAD felt the SPIRIT and their hearts had been changed. 

They left and Sora Barrera and I just sat and hugged each other for about 5 minutes straight.  Our theme for the night?  Everything is not how is seems.

I know that God works in his own time and in his own ways.  Those ways may seem weird to us, even frustrating and annoying but he just knows what is best for us.  He will make sure that things, when done with the right mindset and heart, will ALWAYS work out for our own benefit.  He loves us.  He truly loves his children. 

Again, I am so grateful for my mission.  It has helped me learn so many important lessons.  If anyone is considering goiing on a mission, DO IT.   Prepare yourself, pray and go for it.  It will be the best decision of your life. I promise you. 

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

:) Sora Lee

             WE FOUND A GIANT BENCH!  And look how grossly white I am on the lower part of my body....Uneven tanlines are the WORST!

                                                What I wear to clean the mold off our ceiling

 Finding this Walmart bag in the crannies of our kitchen cabinets reminded me about this place (I had completely forgotten about Walmart)

   So we discovered that our drapes (if placed correctly) make us look like arabic princesses?

               The spy paperwork begins (ie Moldovan visa paperwork- oh and NO smiling allowed)

Picking Strawberries and Building Friendships

This week was such a cool week.  We have some very promising "VIP" investigator friends that we got to bond with this week so that was so great.    The first one is Cristina and she is a lawyer here in Chisinau.  We met her in the visa office and became best friends.   We set up to meet with her and she's like, "Oh girls, I have to go out to my town house to pay the workers for installing the windows.  Hop in my car and we can go there really fast and and then grab dinner after".  WHAT.  Okay yeah...she is awesome.  So we are sitting in her super nice car and she gave us a tour of her countryside town house.  It's like the Moldovan version of the house from 'The Notebook".  It's right next to this beautiful lake and it is so peaceful.  After words, she took us back to her family's home, MANSION and we sat on her back porch and ate the most delicious cherries in the world and talked to her brother, her mother and her cousin about who we are and why we are here.  

Then, she's like, "Let's go pick strawberries in my mom's garden"  So we head through the back gates and it opens up to this huge field filled with strawberries and other types of fruits and veggies.  The strawberries were so small but SO DELICIOUS.  Even the ones that were half white tasted better than the ones we have in America!!!!  It was so great.   She is going to New York/Washington DC for the next 3 weeks on vacation so we won't be able to see her.  Sora Barrera's parents are going to take her on a tour of the DC temple grounds though!   It will be so great and we are excited to hear about that experience!

We have been preparing for the Meet the Mormons movie premiere this Friday and we have had soooo much success so we are hoping we get a pretty good turn out at the theater that night.  

Also, we visited Olia, a young mother here in Chisinau who called us and asked us if we could come help her.  She has this horrible infection in her foot from a bug bite- she lives in the barely constructed humble home I mentioned a couple emails ago.  Her foot is swollen and has a dark purple color.  She drags her foot around because she cannot move it.  We helped her prepare dinner for her family because she couldn't walk around comfortably.  We just helped her cook and clean her home and she was so grateful and you could just see the relief on her face.  We didn't have a big spiritual message prepared or anything but we got to help her and pray with her and it was enough.   "When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God" -Mosiah 2:17

On Thursday, went down to Bucharest this week for MLC conference and the biggest theme I took away was the importance of being humble and allowing yourself to change for the better.  President told us we could determine the success of our missions by how much we have allowed ourselves to change and that made me so happy because I have felt myself change so much.  He also advised us to "control the things we can control"  and to move forward through the hard times.   

I also shared my Birthday cake Oreos with some of my friends there and they LOVED IT!

THANK YOU PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS FOR THE BIRTHDAY PACKAGES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love my mission.  Seriously, so grateful that I came on a mission.  It continues to change me and change is so good. 

Loving the work, Loving the mission and Loving the Lord,

:)Sora Lee

                                                     Most delicious cherries of my life

                                                              More belated birthday fun!

                                                             Dinner with the soras!!!!!

                                                           I LOVE SORA BARRERA!!!!

                                                                   And the party is OVER

You Can't Spell "Struggle Bus" Without "US"

Hey hey hey everyone!

This week was a great week and thank you too everyone for the birthday emails I got!  Wooo!  21! I had a real great mission birthday.  We actually had a "birthday week" because Sora Barrera had her birthday on May 28th so we celebrated together!!!!  It was fun!  I love her so much and I am so glad that I get to serve with her this transfer! 

ABOUT THE BIRTHDAY

So my birthday started out with a surprise cheesecake breakfast from the sisters! They showed up at our apartment before church and we had a cheesecake breakfast together.   We all headed to church and I had to teach Relief Society that day- which was fun because only the younger ladies were at church that day!  It was like young womens/singles ward haha and they all sang me happy birthday and we bear hugged- I was soooo happy.  Ward members bought me little bouquets of flowers and Polina, a little Russian member girl (we are tight) brought me balloons in my favorite colors!   She is incredible.  We headed home and finished studies and weekly planned so It was actually a very relaxed day which doesn't really happen!  

COOL EXPERIENCE

So one of our investigators, Ecaterina's sister, whose name is too Russian for me to spell, we have decided to begin teaching with the Russian elders because Russian is her native language.  So Elder Findlay begins leading the Restoration lesson and we are all just sitting there- picking out a few key Russian words we know.   We see her face change and she became so peaceful.   We felt this incredible, comforting feeling fill the room, almost out of nowhere.  All of us Romania missionaries looked at each other.  The we realized that Elder Findlay was saying the first vision, and it had brought the spirit so strongly.   For those of you who don't know what the first vision is, it is Joseph Smith's account of  what he experienced after he prayed and asked God which church he should join. ( If you want to read more about Jospeh Smith and his experience you can look here: https://www.lds.org/topics/joseph-smith/testimony?lang=eng ).  

Even though I do not speak Russia or understand Russian I was able to see the Holy Ghost bear witness of the truthfulness of this message.   It was so incredible and it was an experience that I can never forget.  

WE ARE TEACHING A TV STAR

So Natalia, one of our coolest investigators works as a talk show host on a local tv station and we had dinner/lesson with her and her friend with one of our senior couple this week.   She had to hurry out in order to make it to work but she told us we could watch her on tv!  So about 20 minutes later, we turned on the channel and there she was!   She is helping the church get good media coverage here in Moldova and she is helping us promote....

MEET THE MORMONS MOVIE PREMIER IN CHISINAU

Yup!   So meet the Mormons, the church's documentary that hit theaters not too long ago got translated and dubbed over in only 4 languages Spanish, French, German and ROMANIAN and we are going to have a huge premier here this upcoming week!   We are so excited and very blessed and honored that we have something so cool in our mission language.   It is going to be big and we are eagerly awaiting to see how it all works out!

GOODBYE TO ZINA AND THE GIRLS

Zina will be going to work in England for the summer and the girls will be living about 5 hours way from Chisinau with their grandparents while their mom is gone.  It was very hard to say goodbye to them but we look forward to our awesome Skype lessons!

SMALL AWESOME MOMENTS

We were on the maxi taxi or marshooka and we here this little boy maybe four years old going off in Russian and then he started singing "a, b, c, d....." IN ENGLISH.  We both died with happiness!   It was so cute.   

I saw this stray dog and I wanted to help it out and give it some food when out of no where, this young teenage boy comes out of the store with this huge, I mean huge can of dog food.   He pulls out a pocket knife, and cuts open the can and dumps all of the food into his shopping back, folds it up like a plate and sets it down beside the stray dog.   My heart melted.   And my hope in humanity was restored.

RANDOM SEMI GROSS THINGS

So hey, I'm Sora Lee and I can't cut a break with weird health things on my mission so this week we found out that we have HEAD LICE!  Super fun.  It's so great I cannot even begin to tell you how truly fortunate we are! (Read with sarcasm).  My tongue also turned black from a weird reaction to some medicine I took.  I guess it's a pretty normal thing because on the back side it says under symptoms that a "rare but harmless blackening of the tongue may occur after consuming this medicine".  That gave me quite the scare.  BUT HEY I'M GOOD!

I just am obsessed with my mission and I am so happy that I have the chance to be here in these 2 countries.   I have this deep, inner happiness inside me and it is so weird but I am just so grateful for everything I've learned and done and look forward to making these last 9 weeks insane. 

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

:) Sora Lee

I love Miss Polina!   She brought me balloons for my birthday- in my favorite colors!

Thank you Sora Koth and Sora Uhl for this awesome cheesecake and macaroon breakfast!

Birthday present to myself- yay!  Allergies!

Happy Birthday Sora Barrera!  (Look at her getting all those bday phone calls)

Hugging my favorite family goodbye!

We love you!!!!!!

Our investigator is a TV star

Where you can find me after a long day

Our faces when we discovered we had lice.  Yup, we were even on the phone with Sora Ivory when we took this epic pic. 

And hey look!  My tongue turned black.   A normal medicine side affect!