Romania at Last

ROMANIA AT LAST!!!

I don't look anxious about leaving at all do I?

Ceau Ceau!! I'm in ARAD!!!!!!!!!!!! That's right!! ARAD!! :D Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayy!!! So I know my teachers probably laughed when they heard this because they knew that Arad was the city I was desperately hoping to be assigned to! :D so yay... go me/go the Lord for assigning me here:) oh and for those of you who are curious... Elder Criscenti went to Craiova!

Okay so backtrack... rewind...

The final week of the MTC was crazy and awesome! It was super hard to say good-bye to my wonderful teachers! They helped me so much and my testimony increased greatly in the MTC, and I know that was in part because of my teachers who challenged me and encouraged me! I hope you'll all enjoy the pictures... I don't have any on my camera of Sora Whiting and I... because I forgot my camera on her last lesson :( But needless to say they're amazing and I love them!

Then came Monday...... We flew to Detroit... then to Amsterdam... then to Bucharest... For some reason I wasn’t able to sleep at all on any of the flights AND I'd had a nervous/restless night's sleep on Sunday night... so needless to say by the time I arrived in Bucharest I was exhausted. But... cool experience, in the Amsterdam Airport, Elder Criscenti and I spoke to a lot of Romanians, and got a conversation going with a man named Stefan from Galati. He's married with 4 children and had been working in Amsterdam was a couple weeks and was excited to get home to his children. We told him what we were doing and he was very interested. Then we told him about the Book of Mormon. We didn't have a Romanian Book of Mormon to give him... I had my own triple combination, which is marked and noted, but he asked if he could read it during the flight which of course we said was fine. Afterwards we then got his number and told him that missionaries could contact him and give him his own copy which he was pleased about.... so then 2 days ago I called the Elders in Galati to give them the referral and they texted us yesterday saying they spoke to him and are setting up an appointment :) Yaaaaaaaaaayyy!! Missionary work!!! It was so cool! and all in Romanian... I'd been afraid that arriving in Romania would be like the Best Two Years... the scene "That's not the language they taught me in the MTC..." haha but for the most part it's been going really well

Sis & President Hill

Okay so then I met President and Sister Hill and my trainer Sora Cook. Sora Aly Cook is from Sandy Utah, she's a dancer and just the cutest thing and a super obedient and hard working missionary! I just adore her. This is her first time training, this is her 5th transfer but she's just awesome and really loves and appreciates my input. We're making a great team and learning a lot from one another. We get along really well, and have had lots of fun in just the past few days! We have a lot of hope and faith for our little city of Arad. President and Sister Hill are super funny! They told us funny stories of Sora Hill's childhood, and President Hill used to be Dean of the Marriot Business school at BYU so he has some great stories too. 

Me & Sis Cook

So Arad is a 12 hour train ride away... so Sora Cook and I stayed over night at the some Sister's apartment in Buch and then the next day we had meetings and things and then waited at the train station for a very very long time. It was freezing! but there were lots of missionaries there to make it fun... Then our train was almost 2 hours late so at 1.45am we boarded the train to Arad with our elders. In Arad... there are two sisters .. Me and Sora Cook, and two elders, Elder Benson (an Indie, blonde haired, ridiculous boy but he has an amazing love for the people) and there’s Elder Groberg (and smiley elder with a strong spirit and big heart... and yes his uncle was the John H. Groberg). 

Train on the way to ARAD

So the four of us went to our train compartment.... a sleeper compartment for us to share for the next 12 hours... which was about the size of a shoebox! yeah... we laughed so much when we saw it and Elder Groberg and I had all of our luggage, because Elder Groberg was transferring from Ploesti to Arad... so yeah... it was hilarious... and we had a lot of fun! The elders and Sora Cook and I all get along great and we had a lot of hope and faith for the wonderful city of Arad.

Ok so ARAD - it's a typical Romanian city... full of ya know... Romanians... haha :) I loves it! It's a beautiful city though, honestly, despite the fact that right now it's buried under about 4 feet of snow. The day I arrived there wasn't even an inch of snow, just light layer of sleet... however right now a blanket of snow doesn’t even begin to describe it... maybe a comforter of snow... and mattress of snow... a duvet of snow!! (I'm soooo glad we bought those snow boots mum ;) )

Snow - lots of snow!

The branch has about 20-25 active members. They’re so cute!!! I love them soooo much!! They are few but they are strong. They're faith is like nothing I've ever seen. My first lesson was with a couple, the Sebyesten' (Nu stiu cum se scrie) but they’re so cute and they nicknamed me "boboaca tare" (meaning... the amazing duckling) J. A duckling is what they call a greenie (brand new missionary). Sora Sebeysten is so funnny and speaks super slow and draws her words out. Here they say the word "fine" spelt... fain like the english word fine... but it means like excellent... so they say "ce fain??!!!" in ways that we'd say "how great?" haha They send their love to Fratele Sandberg by the way. I also met with Cristina Chira who send her love to Sora Wilson, she'd been less active for a while but it starting to return to church. Then... yesterday... Sunday... I met Dana Gergelie... the reason I had wanted to come to Arad was because in the MTC I taught an investigator, Dana, who Sora Whiting pretended to be. I met her! She was baptized over a year ago and her husband Ghitza was baptized a few months ago. They have a 7 year old son Cristi who will be 8 at the end of December, they send their love to "Sora Ausen" aka Sora Whiting. I was sad to learn that they'd been less active and Sora Gergelie hadn’t been to church in 6 weeks but we called her on Saturday and then they all came to Church yesterday!!! :D It truly was a miracle as well because there was sooo much snow!! We are hoping to meet with them this week. They’re a beautiful family and we hope they're going to start coming back to church.

Someone doesn't read the DO NOT OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS labels!!!

Okay I'm nearly out of email time and I need to email President Hill... LOVE YOU ALL!!!!! Thanks for your prayers. We really really need them!! We don’t currently have any progressing investigators but we have some lessons set up for this week and lots of potentials that we'll be contacting... so we need all the faith and prayers we can get!!

LOVE you all!! Keep the Faith... oh btw... I've been studying prayer in the Book of Mormon... just so you know if you want to study with me :)

Love Sora Rivera