Dream week... Too good to be true!

This week was so incredible! Sora Kelly and I have an incredible companionship. I have felt completely blessed to be companions with her. It's been so fun to continue training her. We've had so much fun this week and yet still worked super hard. For example, on Wednesday we didn't have time to do our language study in the morning and had an hour until our appointment with an investigator, but we were too far from our apartment to go home. Both Sora Kelly and I have always wanted to look around a Romanian graveyard... and low and behold 5 minutes from our investigator's home is a graveyard! Yay! So we decided to do our language study in the graveyard. As we walked around we read the headstones and learnt to say "rest in peace" and "may the land be soft"... which is a wish they say when people die. And then it was also cool because we were going to teach plan of Salvation to our investigator so we had a really reverent and spiritual discussion about after this life and left in the perfect Spirit to teach our lesson! Awesome! Sadly.... this dream week was too good to be true. On Thursday night we received another unexpected phone call from President Hill. He wants me to train again, starting this week. The conversation went something like this:

President Hill: Sora Rivera! I'm sending you a new missionary!

Me: What?

President Hill: I want you to train again, is that okay?

Me: What?

President Hill: I want you to be a trainer! We have new sisters coming next week and I need you to train one of them.

Me: Oh...

President Hill: Is that okay?

Me: Sure...

Haha! I was completely shocked! After being sent Sora Kelly and it was so perfect, and President said we'd be staying together until the end of April. But now Sora Kelly will be going to Bucharest and I'll have another brand new missionary this Wednesday! Wow! Talk about a huge shock to the system!

Sora Kelly and I have also been learning a lot this week. We've been really trying to focus on gratitude for the little things. For example... on Friday... EVERYTHING cancelled. I mean EVERYTHING! Tina started it off in the morning, by cancelling our lesson. Then, that afternoon we were supposed to go to Timisoara because they had a baptism going on there. The woman, Elena, was Sora Kelly's investigator when she was in Timi. Then we get the terrible phone call that Elena had decided to not get baptised. It was really sad, Satan was clearly working hard to tempt her and to find reasons to not get baptised. So that was super sad, but we still needed to take the train to Timi because the missionaries there were relying upon us to bring some cash to pay bills. So we rush to the Gara and find our that the train we wanted was cancelled because of the freak snow storm. Oh yeah... did I mention that it was snowing like crazy bad???! yeah! And my old boots were not protection my little feet! I was soaking wet and freezing! So then we waiting at the Maxi Taxi stop to take one to Timisoara. We waiting in the snow for an hour before finally we were able to get one and we went to Timisoara. Yet... despite all of this, the day ended up awesome! I bought new boots to save my little feet! The Maxi taxis were still running despite the snow... another tender mercy. It was amazing to see the missionaries in Timi. We also went to see Sora Kelly's favourite member in Timi, who is the funniest, and cutest old lady. So yeah... ended up a great day!

My favourite family here in Arad are the Sofroni family, (pronounced shofrony). They are a mum, dad and 9 year old girl Laura. The Dad, Dani, recently moved to England, to Birmingham actually, to find work, and they're all hoping to move there this coming year. Since they're moving the Mum, Mihaella, and Laura want to learn English. So this past week we went to visit them a couple times to teach them English. Laura is an angel child! I love her so much. She's very quiet and sweet. And always serves us drinks and wraps up food for us to take without her mum ever having to ask. They both practise English together and they've now started inviting their neighbour, Georgi, who's 13 years old, to join in the English lessons. Georgi is soo cute! She wants to go to Cambridge to university so she wants to learn more English too. At the end of the English lessons we share spiritual thoughts. It was super fun on Saturday. I brought along all the English money I had with me, all the coins and a 5 pound note and we played "shop" in English where they had to buy things from us. It was so fun. Then we shared a spiritual thought about staying strong through trials and we introduced the Book of Mormon to Georgi. She also now wants to come to church next Sunday. I really hope we'll be able to start teaching her more. 

In other news, not only is Sora Kelly leaving me, but both Elders are leaving too :( Elder Speth has been made assistant so he's off to Buch. and Elder Groberg is off to Chisinau. We've had so much fun together! It's going to be weird. My entire district is leaving!!! :( oh well... I trust the Lord and maybe my next companion and I will be besties and it'll be amazing.

Anyhoooo have an easy day! I love you all! I love this work! Thank you for your prayers! Keep the Faith!

Sora Rivera

Just a Smile

Ceau la voi!!! It's so cliché to say, but the weeks are starting to fly by. It scares me! As of today, I've been in Romania for exactly 3 months!! I want to start this email by telling you about an experience I had just yesterday but it really helps to sum up what we're doing here. As a missionary, my purpose if to invite others to come unto Christ. After church yesterday, Sora Drotar and I got onto the busy Tramvai. For some reason, 1.30pm on a Sunday is a busy time of day, and the Tramvai was packed. It's pretty difficult to speak to people about the resorted gospel when your face is pressed against their shoulder, so I was a little gutted to not be able to contact. But I looked around and saw a little old lady sat in the corner. She had a black wooly hat over her thin white hair, and giant glasses perched on the end of a wrinkly nose. Sora Drotar was squished up next to her. I made eye contact at the lady and smiled. She looked at me and smiled back. She then looked to her right at Sora Drotar who also smiled at her. She smiled back. "Are you students?" the lady asked. "No, we're missionaries!" Sora Drotar told her. "Oh, that's why you smiled. I've been so sad for a long time, and you two are the first people to make me feel happy." She told us. "Why are you sad?" Sora Drotar asked. "My husband died 6 months ago." She then jumped up, realising she was at her stop. "Ceau!!" she called as she rushed off the Tramvai. As the Tramvai drove away she stopped, smiled and waved! We smiled and waved back. Of course, it would've been amazing to tell her about the plan of salvation and set up at time to visit her. But it was still incredible just in those 1-2minutes to bring a light into her life. Bring some hope back into her heart. Amazing.

Since Area Book contact has proved so fruitful for us in the past, Sora Drotar and I decided to Area Book contact this week. This is where we search in the records for people who've been taught by missionaries in the past and see if they're now ready to receive the restored Gospel. We spoke to and went to visit a man named Edi and his family. He has 3 gorgeous daughters and a lovely and supportive wife. Sora Cook told me about Edi before so it was really awesome to understand what she was talking about when she described him as... "different". So we arrive at his apartment, a little stressed, after getting lost on the way. We climb the stairs and find waiting for us, a middle aged man, thin moustache, his belly tucked into his dark blue sweatpants. His remaining 3 hairs on the top of his head were sweaty and combed over as if to hide his shiny bald spot. His dark socks pulled up high. We sat down and his wife came home, pleased to see us. She's a strong catholic and not really that interested but wants her husband to have more faith so pleased for us to be in their home. We began asking his religious background. And asked him why he thinks there are so many religions in the world. BOOM! He starts talking and talking and talking! He went off on a huge string of analogies, something about old fashion televisions, and the internet, and something about German mothers, and George Washington. Anyway... We taught him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in between his analogies. He kept saying that he thinks every religion is true, and tried to explain why using even more analogies... something about different languages, pilots, food, and husbands. I had a cool experience in the lesson though. I testified to him, "I know this Church is true."

"No!" He said, "You think it's true, you feel it's true."

"No!" I testified.

I felt like Jeremiah and his "Burning Testimony" from the Old Testament. "I know it's true."

"You feel" he said.

"I know!" I said more powerfully. He then went quiet and just listened, and I was able to finish my testimony. It was so cool to receive another witness in myself and I really do know that it's true and I know why I'm here. Edi said "no" to all of our invitations but we still left on a good note and his 13 year old daughter who was there is going to come to English classes. So who knows, maybe in the future, his heart will be softened.

The Lord truly knows what he's doing. We met a new investigator the other day. We decided to go block knocking using surveys. Surveys are pretty good because even if people don't want to hear from us usually they're willing to answer a couple questions and we leave them with a positive impression of the church. On just the third door, there was an older lady and a young student, Diana, who lives with the lady. We began talking about the purpose of life and they invited us in. We ended up staying and having a 2 hours lesson with Diana. The older lady was super nice and fed us and gave us food to take home, but she wasn't as interested. Diana was really interested though and wanted to know more and more. She reminds me a lot of myself. She's 22 and studying Pharmacy. Anyway, she agreed to read a chapter of the Book of Mormon before our next appointment and she's especially interested in what happens after this life so net time we want to speak about the Plan of Salvation. It was just sooo cool. Usually block knocking consists of a whole lot of doors in our faces, but that day, the Lord blessed us for our patience and lead us to find someone new.

I love you all! Thank you for your prayers and your letters and your support. I promise I'm working on replying to every letter I receive, it just takes time! But know that I love you all and I am appreciative of your support.

Keep the Faith! I know this church is true!

Love Sora Rivera