Week 8

LAST WEEK OF THE MTC!!!!!!

Oh my goodness it's my last week of the MTC!! Including today I have 4 days left!! I kinda freaked out the other day when I received my travel Itinerary. Ha-ha it's amusing now that I look back, I just became so nervous about leaving I just burst into tears... but I'm over that stage and now I'm just excited. Today is the last day I get to go to the Temple for the next 16months :( craaazy!!

Thanksgiving - Elder Jeffrey R. Holland came to speak to us!!!! It was awesome!! He really is a modern day Paul. He told us to "Buck up! Get to Work!" and stop saying "oh when I get back to real life..." He yelled, "THIS IS REAL LIFE!!! This is the most real your life is gonna get! Capital R capital L!" It was so awesome! He really helped me to understand how important and special is this opportunity. Everything the Lord does is to bring to pass the Immortality and Eternal Life of Man... and guess what... that's what we get to do for this limited time only... worry about nothing else but bringing people to Christ! AWESOME

I'm trying to think of interesting things to tell you about from the past week... other than an Apostle of the Lord coming to visit! The other day was pretty fun in class. My teachers Sora Whiting and Fratele Frandsen set up a room like a train and then had a timer going, if the time ran out it mean that the train was arriving at their stop. They then pretended to be passengers and Elder C and I had to go and try to get their phone numbers and an appointment. It was sooo difficult! We were trying to come up with interesting questions to spark their interest, often we'd try to lead it to the fact that we were not Romanian... then the person would ask... "What are you doing here in Romania...?" ha-ha and we'd smile and say in Romanian... that's a good question... hahahhaha :D yaaay! It's exciting and I can't believe that I'll be doing it for real next week... NEXT WEEK!! say whaaat??? Next week???! Yep that's what I said..!"

I didn't have any amusing Romanian mess-ups this week. Sorry to disappoint... but I'm sure by my first pday in Romania I'll have some good ones... and it would just be with my teachers this time... they'll be with reaaaal Romanian strangers.... oh my I'm nervous... but excited! :) Oh I also get to see Sora Macdonald this coming week, hopefully anyway, I believe she told me in an email that she'd be in Bucharest when I arrive so fingers crossed.

I've been studying a lot about the nature of God this week. Focusing on the scripture in 1 John... "God is love". It makes me think about how he really is our father and how much he loves me. I'm a daughter of God... that's so amazing! He knows me personally, he knows my name, who I am, what makes me happy what makes me sad. Elder Holland pointed this out how throughout the scriptures God calls people by their names. "Adam... Moses, my Son... Samuel Samuel! ....He knows us personally!" I can't wait to get to Romania and hopefully bring some light into people's lives, and help them to realize that they are children of God and that our Loving Heavenly Father knows them personally and that Christ has restored His church to the earth because He loves us so much. :D

Anyway... I'm out of email time!! I love you all... the next email won't be until a week of Monday... from ROMANIA!! :D   va iubesc!!

Love Sora Rivera