Comings and goings…the first of many

Wow! What a week! Everything has completely turned upside down and changed. The week started with a wonderful lesson with our investigator, Tina. Sora Cook and I both felt strongly prompted to speak to her about Temples. Then when we get there and start the lesson she goes, "I have a question, my parents died, before they ever had a chance to be baptised, and they never really read the scriptures much and they didn't know about the Book of Mormon, what's gona happen to them?" We then had a beautiful lesson about temples and Eternal Families. It was incredible to watch the tears well up in her eyes and the smile spread across her face as we testified of the blessings that come from the Temple. It was awesome!

Bye bye Sora Cook :(

That night, I helped Sora Cook pack, and I'll be honest, we were up late just sobbing and crying. I can't believe we've only known each other since the start of December. I love her with my whole heart. She's taught me more than I can possibly explain. The next day we had lunch at out favourite pizza place before heading to Buch. Paula, our amazing member from the branch, (the one I told you all about last week), she came with us and was quite entertaining. For example, Elder Groberg has never lost a staring contest. And Him and Paula went at it! Glaring into one another's eyes. Elder Groberg started to tear up and his eyes were twitching, and yet, Paula, almost by some incredible, super power, was even flinching. Sadly, Paula ended up losing after about 4 or 5 minutes because we tried to take a picture of the contest and the flash made her blink. Paula then walked us to the Gara to see us off on our train. She particularly had a hard time saying good-bye to "the blonde one" aka Elder Benson. Then our 11 hour train ride to Bucharest began. Gosh... I'll be honest it was AWFUL! We'd bough 4 tickets... 4 seats obviously, but of course the Romanian train had no room for luggage so we piled the suitcases onto two of the seats. We then took turns sitting on our remaining two seats while the other two people sat of the dusty floor in the leg space. We then played Monopoly deal and the card version of Settlers. What a strange site we must've been! Four "Americans" squished into two tiny seats, attempting to play card games on top of the tiny metal flip out trash can. After 11 VERY long hours we arrived in Bucharest. The assistants met us at the Gara and took Sora Cook and I too the one of the sisters apartments where we got a couple hours sleep before getting up in the morning for Mission Conference.

Thursday, Mission conference day, I finally met my new companion! Her name is Sora Drotar. She is from Arizona, but her parents are from Romania! She kinda has a similar story to my bestest friend, Ana. She is the youngest child in her family, the only one who was born in the states. She was raised speaking Romanian at home. She was also raised in a Pentecostal Romanian church, and has even been to some of the Romanian Pentecostal Youth conferences in Sacrament CA. Cool huh?! Her brother joined the church when she was about 17 years old and he went on a mission. His mission made her curious about the church. Why did he need to leave? etc. One of her sisters joined the church whilst her brother was gone, then just a year and a half ago, she too joined the church! So yeah, she's a convert! And she's incredible! She has an amazing testimony and it's soooo awesome to hear what things helped her to receive a testimony. She also speaks amazing Romanian, which is yet another thing she is teaching me. I just love her! She's got so much courage and hope and a beautiful burning testimony and she just loves to share it! I'm sooo blessed! I didn't really get a chance to get to know the other new sisters, but I can't imagine them being better than my wonderful new companion. I lucked out! Haha. I don't feel like I have much to teach her, I think Heavenly Father just knew that I had a lot to learn from this gorgeous girl! We went "Camera Contacting" the other day. Where we stood in front of the Primarie, and as people walked past we'd stop them and ask them to take a picture of us, which most of them would. We'd then say thank you and tell them we're not from here, which always leads them to ask where we're from and what on earth we are doing here in Romania?! Haha! Sneaky us! "Well, we are missionaries!" Its hard because if we just try and stop people to tell them about the church they just keep walking or yell at us, but usually people are nice enough to take a picture for the cute little foreign girls, which then gives us the perfect opportunity to talk to them! YAY! We found a couple of potential investigators on Saturday through this method.

The actual mission conference was good. Elder Kent F. Richards of the 70 came and spoke to us. I definitely felt the spirit teaching me some ways in which I can improve my missionary work. It was really cool. Also, random cool thing, Elder Richards wanted to interview a few missionaries in the mission, and President Hill chose me as one of them! So I got to have an interview with him. So that was cool. I told him a bit about my experience. I also told him what I've been learning about humility and intentions in learning the language. So he kept going on and on and on about how the language isn’t the most important thing, and I was like yeah I agree it's not the most important thing, but I think it's all about your intentions behind learning the language. I think that you need to be humble and be willing to submit to yourself to the Lord, and desire the language simply because it will help you to become a better servant in the hands of the Lord. So I said that it's just something I've learnt and I'm striving for.

The last couple days are sort of a blur. Sora Drotar and I came back from Buch on a sleeper train so we got some rest. We've been doing lots of contacting and also planning. She got to meet Paula who took a little while to warm up to her but now thinks she's amazing. The branch, yesterday, of course fell in love with her. The Arad branch is completely incredible, I could never imagine them not liking a missionary. I can't possibly express the joy I feel every Sunday as I walk in and see Sora Mogos. She's the Relief Society president, and I can honestly say I've never met anyone more Christ-like. Her heart is so full of love for the people around her. When she hugs me every week, it's as though my Grandma is giving me a big hug, as though I'm the only person in the world who matters. She many trials in life, a lot of persecution from her family members, and yet she continues in faith!

I'm running out of time, not really that many funny things happened this week. Sorry to say. I saw a man walking around carrying a bunch of pigeons... but that's not really that strange for Romania.

I love you all! Thanks for your support, love, letters and most importantly, your prayers.

This gospel is sooo true! Keep the Faith

Sora Rivera

Remember that one time...

It's strange how since the age of 17, I've felt at home in this country. Crazy things happen, the language is terrifically hard, and the people are completely different from the Brits, and yet... I feel perfectly at home. I enjoy the feeling of being outside of my comfort zone. I'm so far from my comfort zone that it's hard to remember what my comfort zone ever looked like. Yet, not matter how comfortable I become, I'm still surprised by the crazy things that can happen. But anyway.... our wonderful investigator, Tina, still hasn't smoked, and still reads the Book of Mormon everyday. Sadly we couldn't meet with her last week because she was in Bucharest but we have a lesson with her tomorrow morning. The journey to Tina's is an adventure! I loves it! So I will share it with you:

Adventures with Sora Cook on the Tramvai

We say a prayer and leave the apartment. We of course take the lift, which, though small, is quite fancy for Romania. On the way out of the building we say hi to our neighbour, Alexander. He's smoking down on the porch of the building, his tall Russian hat plopped on his head, just over his bushy grey eyebrows. He tells us we're going to be late and rolls his eyes...as usual. The building cleaning lady exclaims we're not wearing enough layers. It's not too cold today! She laughs and wishes us health and a good day. Our slightly crazy neighbour, Maria, blesses us as we walk towards the Tramvai stop. My favourite... Gheorge! with his cute one tooth, and giant fluffy hat is taking a stroll around the blocks. We stop to say hi. He once again, asks me if in Scotland they speak English. I once again tell him that it's on the accent, which is different. "Oh thanks! I've been wondering!" he smiles.

We now have to rush because our Tramvai is coming. We hurry towards the Tramvai stop, past the illegal cigarette cartel, and the cute scruffy dog, across the street, and right on time, the Tramvai pulls in. We board and sit down. The homeless, drunk man smells bad so we sit nearer the front. The lady next to me glares at my nametag and before I can get a "Good Morning!" in, she moves as far from me as possible. A cute old lady boards a couple of stops in. She sits next to me. Her bright pink lipstick stains her 3 teeth and her headscarf is wrapped tightly under her chin. I speak to her a little and she thinks we're very cute. No, she doesn't want my "book" or to come to church, or to come to English classes, but how very "cute" we are. Sigh. The Tramvai gets closer to centru. The crowd starts packing in, and Sora Cook and I stand to allow the babas and the old men to sit. We're now squished into a crowd. It's a little hard to contact someone when your face is pressed up against their shoulder. As we pass centru to Bul Rosu, the Tramvai empties and we can once again sit. Usually, at this point, we go over our lesson plan for Tina. The Tramvai picks up speed as it heads to the outskirts of the city. Across the bridge, there are a couple fishermen along the banks of the big grey river.

The Tramvai slowly empties and we arrive the end of the line in Aradul Nou. The gara (train station) is small, and super muddy. But don't worry, there's a meat stand if you've been craving some raw steak. We trudge through the thick mud towards the real train tracks, away from the Tramvai line. The homeless people don't bother us, as we start our trek down the tracks. In Romania, there is no electrical rail so there’s no huge danger of crossing the railway tracks. We walk down the tracks for about 5 minutes, carefully listening out for trains, until we reach the small muddy pathway, which leads to civilization. We trek through the mud and walk down a couple streets, past the corner where we found the cute puppy about a month ago. Finally, Tina's apartment blocks are in view. We cross the road and head to the large yellow blocks with the dark red staircases. Number 24, is around the back and one flight up. We walk up the stairs and we see Tina. She waits by the window. With a huge smile she waves and runs around to open the door. It's such an amazing feeling! The smell of smoke is gone, her scriptures and liahona are out on the table and half a grapefruit is sitting on a plate for each of us. "Fetitile mele! Asteptam!" (My girls, I was waiting). Tina is so incredible. I feel so blessed every time I meet with her, just to have the privilege to be a part of her journey towards Christ.

Paula


In other news... we've started working with Paula. She's a 19 year old girl who was baptised about 2 years ago. She's been less active for quite a while and was actually hit by a Tramvai in November of last year, so she's been in and out of hospital. But now she's doing a lot better and has just started coming back to Church and meeting with us. She was raised in a Casa de Copii (children’s home/ foster home), so she has a few social issues and is super clingy. But she just needs love! And so Sora Cook and I just love her to pieces! And she adores us! She's one of the funniest people I've ever met. She was a little cheeky thing the other day after a lesson we had with her. But that night she called us and apologised for her behaviour and the next day came to institute and brought us cards to say she was sorry and how much she loved us! Oh she's just so cute! She's a tiny thing. The 8 year old boy in our branch, Manu is about the same size as her. She's really good friends with Manu actually. Her pure innocence combined with complete bluntness is amazing. Our branch mission leader Edy, has a non-member wife, Timea, who's pretty apathetic towards the church and she's very stand offish. But the other day, at institute. Paula yells to her "Hey! Why are you sitting over there by yourself?! Come sit by us!" and Timea actually listened and came over. "Do you like it here? Why are you grumpy??" Paula asked. Hahah! It was so funny and sooo blunt! But the coolest part was that Timea actually laughed and started to open up. She said she did like it but she was nervous. "Oh you don't need to be nervous!" Paula said, "These people are really nice!" It was so cute! And it was amazing to see Timea start to come out of her shell. I love how Heavenly Father uses all of us to bless the lives of others! Paula's lack of social skills became a great strength!

Remember that one time where I was being made a trainer after just 2 transfers... YEAH! So I'm a trainer starting THIS Wednesday. Sora Cook is heading to Chisinau in Moldova! I'm heartbroken to see her go, but also excited for her new adventures. I've heard that the branch is incredible there and I know she's going to be amazing there! I'm just selfishly sad, and want her to stay with me! So on this week, I'll be getting a boboaca of my own! I'm really nervous! Usually President Hill calls people to let them know that they'll be training, but nope.... I found out on Saturday as we looked up the Transfer board. I'm a trainer!! YIKES! I can't believe it. I'm still a boboaca! But I'm also excited to grow and learn from the experience and to allow the Lord to teach me as I attempt to help my boboaca to have an amazing start to her mission.

That's about all I have time for this week! I wish I had more time so I could tell you all about the things I've learnt in my scripture study this week! I've been reading more in my "Prayer" themed Book of Mormon. I've been reading about Ammon, and Alma and Amulek. They were the most incredible missionaries and I've been learning from their example different ways in which I can improve as a missionary! :)

This church is true! and I know that I'm exactly where the Lord needs me to be! I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet! and I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God!

Keep the Faith

Sora Rivera

Waffles, lessons, interviews

This week was another wonderful and beautiful week in Arad. It started out last p-day. After internet we headed to G's house. Remember G? The spy, the secret service guy who knows everything, the one with whom we were caroling until after midnight on Christmas eve... yeah him... so anyway we went to his house for Waffles! He has a nice waffle iron and he decided to make waffles for the missionaries. He also had just come back from Paris and brought each of us Eiffel Tower key rings. He then walked us to the grocery store because he was "meeting someone" ...whatever that means. He managed to terrify both Sora Cook and me. G apparently thinks it's super funny to just slip into the background unnoticed and jump out and scare us when we least expect it. Probably something he learnt on the job ;)

Me and Sora Krista and Fratele Krista from our branch

Investigators... So Ramona cancelled on us this week :( Called us from a blocked number and said she'd let us know when she was free. Sora Cook and I, both rolled our eyes... typical... heard that one before, probably never see her again, BUT Ramona called us the day before yesterday and actually set up an appointment for us to come over this week! Yay!! Just goes to show, that we need to have more faith, because clearly Heavenly Father knows what He's doing! Tina is just wonderful! We had 4 lessons with her last week! She's completely ready to be baptised. She asked for a blessing this week to stop smoking. When the sister missionaries originally met with her 3 years ago she was smoking a pack a day but since then has been cutting down. For the past number of months she'd only been smoking 2 cigarettes a day, but she really wanted to stop and told her husband not to leave her any money for cigarettes anymore. The Elders came with us on Wednesday morning and gave her a blessing. It was a super spiritual and beautiful experience. And... she hasn't smoked since! She said she hasn't even had the desire to smoke. She knows that the Lord has really been helping her. She also said something really cool the other day that I keep forgetting to say. She told us that she feels as though she knows me. There’s a familiarity about me and the moment she met me she felt love in her heart. Amazing! Since her husband is still so against her baptism we've moved to the end of March and we're continually praying that his heart will be softened. We have a new investigator. He's an amazing old man, Ioan. 72 years old! He comes to English classes and last week came to church for the first time. He's been learning English for just 1 year so that he can go visit his daughter and granddaughter in England. We had an amazing lesson with him about prayer and how to recognize answers from our prayers. It was so beautiful, he told us that he feels as though he's never received an answer from a prayer and then he asked us how we know if we've received an answer. We were able to speak to him about our experiences, and share our testimonies with him, that we know that Heavenly Father will answer his prayers. 

We had interviews this week with President Hill, Sora Hill and the assistants. One sad thing we found out though, was that it's almost certain that Sora Cook will be leaving Arad :( I do not want her to leave at all! But at the same time I did kinda see it coming. She's been in Arad her whole mission.. 8 months! That's a crazy long time. Most of the Sisters seem to stay in one area 3-4 transfers. So yeah, we're almost certain that she's leaving so we've had a bit of a pity party and eaten a few too many chocolate bars.

This Saturday we have a branch Valentines Day activity. Sadly, there's no activities committee in our branch so the missionaries and Edy (our branch mission leader) end up running the activity. But we have some fun games planned, and we'll be making valentines cards and decorating cookies so it should be fun. And we're hoping to have a few investigators there, and also a few of the mai-putin active members. Fingers crossed, it should be fun.

I've been studying a lot about consecration this past week or so, the talk "Consecrate Thy Performance" by Elder Neal A. Maxwell, really helped me to understand not just the principle of consecration but also how we can apply it in our lives. Consecration isn't just about material things, it’s about humility and entirely submitting yourself to the lord. Amazing!

Anyway, that's about it for this week. Keep the Faith!

Sora Rivera

Chicken on the Tramvai

Ceau ceau!! This week has been a roller coaster...as usual! It's amazing to me how as a missionary you can be crying and heartbroken in the morning, then rejoicing and laughing by the afternoon. But this week I've again learnt a lot, and I continue to recognize the Lord's hand in my life as I take part in His work.

Fun on the Tramvai?

Random funnies... Sora Cook and I were on the Tramvai on the way to the church for our district meet on Thursday, when all of a sudden we hear a loud high pitched squeak. Sadly, it isn't too uncommon to hear strange noises on the Tramvai so at first we didn't think anything of it. Then it happens again. A loud, high pitched... this time more of a SQUAWK! I look up ahead and see a man, looking very nervous, fidgeting with a plastic bag. SQUAWK! It happens again. "There's an animal in that guy's bag!" I whispered to Sora Cook. "I think it's a bird." "No, it's just the Tramvai." She said, looking very confused. SQUAWK!!! It happened again. "Okay, or maybe that guy has a bird in his bag." We then arrived at our stop so purposely walked to the front exit, peering into the man's bag as we left. It was a chicken! The man had a chicken on the Tramvai. Probably was his dinner that night, but I don't like to think about that... I'm going to blissfully imagine that he now has a pet chicken named Gheorghe.

Another random funny moment…We were walking back form our Friday afternoon service project. The Elders were heading back to their apartment for lunch and Sora Cook and I were heading to a member's home, so we were all walking through Centru together, when all of a sudden this old lady in a trench coat and wooly hat grabs Elder Benson by the hand, exclaiming that he must be from England, and he needed to come and marry her daughter. She kept pointing at his blonde hair, and jumping for joys saying "Anglia!!" (England). Sora Cook, Elder Groberg and I were all busting up laughing. She then turns to me, and demands that I write down her address so that Elder Benson can come visit. Elder Groberg helpfully passed me a pencil and I scribbled down the address and Elder Benson continued to be baffled by the crazy lady. She then decided that he must be Prince William! and she was so excited she smacked him on the shoulder and cracked up laughing. By this point, we didn't think things could get any funnier/stranger... when we see one of our favorite crazy ladys in the city walking towards us. The first crazy lady is still yelling about how she's met prince William as the second lady walks past with her thick bottle glasses, and only two teeth saying "Ceau la voi, Mormonii!!" (Hi Mormons!!). Finally after a few more minutes of the first crazy lady making Elder Benson promise to come visit her daughter and give her blonde royal bloodline children, we were able to get away. I think missionaries attract crazy people. We're a magnet for them. Maybe it's the nametag... but either way crazy people seem to find us.

With Tina

Investigators..... We've had some great success with Tina this past week!! YAY! She's just doing wonderfully. When we finally met with her after she'd cancelled about 5 times she apologized and she said that she knew it was Satan trying to tempt her and distract her from her path to follow Christ. She recognized that when she doesn't meet with us she loses the Spirit in her life and she regrets it every time. She we met with her twice last week, and we have 4 lessons planned for this week. We've talked about the Plan of Salvation and about the Restoration. We also have a great lesson about prophets and we gave her a Liahona so she can read the latest conference talks. She is a perfect example of feasting on the words of Christ. She reads everyday from the Book of Mormon and the pamphlets we give her, and now from the Liahona. We're going to introduce the Doctrine and Covenants to her this week and I can just imagine her crying for joy when she hears that there's even more revelation and words of God to read! Oh she is just so cute! Sadly her husband still won't give permission for her baptism or for her to attend church. But we are praying constantly for his heart to be softened and we fasted for them yesterday. I know and have faith that his heart will be softened and that Tina will be baptized. I recognize though, that it will be on the Lord's timing so we must be patient and continue in faith. If the Lord can soften the heart of Pharaoh to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, if he can heal the raise the dead and heal the blind, if he can do other miracles such as appear to a 14 year-old boy, I know that he can soften the heart of a grumpy Hungarian man so that his wife can be baptized. We just have to be patient. 

Other investigators... Ramona is still progressing! YAY She's the one whom we met block-knocking. She is a young student, very kind and really open to meeting with us. We had short lessons about prayer, but she still won't pray in front of us. We're aiming to have a member in the lesson with her next week. One amazing thing about our tiny branch is that everyone is a convert! So everyone knows what it's like and remembers learning to pray out loud, or remembers their first time at church. So we're hoping by having a member there she'll have a friend and have someone to relate to. 
Another investigator is a super old man names Ioan Batrana. He is in his 70s and he started learning English through our English program a year ago! and wow is he good at English! He speaks better English than I do Romanian. His goal for learning it was so that he could speak to his 12 year-old granddaughter who lives in England. He came to church for the first time yesterday! and we're aiming to have another lesson with him soon. He's the cutest old man, and it just goes to show, that it's never too late to learn something new.

English... We started English classes this last week. They're okay. We contacted like crazy!! Giving our leaflets and advertising. Yet we don't have many students. The biggest problem is the location of the church. It's in a very bad area of the city. So although the building is super nice it's in a far away area, which is also not the safest part of town. We’re hoping to get the church moved into the centre of the city in the next few months. But we did have a few really nice brand new students turn up and a couple of them said they were interested in learning more about the church as well as learning English... fingers crossed!

Anyway that's about all the news I have this week. Sora Cook and I are just having a whale of a time here in Arad. We find ourselves laughing constantly. We also make homemade tortillas and make ourselves burritos almost everyday... not that you really care... it's just a random fun fact! :P

This work is incredible. I can't even express the joy in my heart as I see people begin to accept the true Gospel. I love being a missionary! I love this Church and I love the opportunity to testify of my Saviour everyday.

Keep the Faith!

Sora Rivera