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