Peoples

Sora DeRuvo and I

I think one of my favourite parts of being a missionary is meeting people and learning from people. This includes companions, other missionaries, members, investigators, people on the street, neighbours. Everyone. There's a quote which Elder Neal A. Maxwell quoted in his talk, 'Brim with Joy' (which I highly recommend by the way), "How much larger would your life be if [you] could become smaller in it... You would begin to be interested in [others]. You would break out of this tiny...theatre in which your own plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers." I've started to skim the surface of what this means here on my mission. There are people that affect your life, some if large ways such as a companion, or an investigator, some are small ways but still powerful. I love it. I wanted to tell you about some of the "people" of my life, here in Arad. There's piata lady, a tall woman with dyed blonde hair and little glasses. She always gives us an extra apple or a bunch of grapes for free. Her simple acts of generosity are so sweet. I love her. Then there's our bakery lady. She's very pretty and speaks a little English. "Hello Hello!" She exclaims as we walk in, to buy yet another one of her delicious apple cakes. "Try Try!" she says as she pulls out her latest dessert, for us to taste for free. Our neighbour, Alexander, is one of my favourites. He stands outside in the morning smoking a cigarette. He tells us "don't hurry! Don’t hurry!" I guess he's watched us sprint for the Tramvai far too many times, but he's so cute and always watching out for us. Our building's cleaning lady, is another one of my favourites. She's a super old baba with the headscarf wrapped around her white hair that she's dyed bright red. She has thick glasses which exaggerate that she's slightly cross eyed. She always wishes us good morning and health and a good day, and tells us not to work too hard. She also always checks to make sure we're dressed warm enough. It's amazing how I can be so far away from home and family and yet I've found my own little Arad family here. Everywhere I go there are kind people, people willing to listen to this poor little English girl attempt to speak Romanian, Taxi drivers always give us advice to stay away from certain parts of town, and even the cute little street dogs sometimes follow me around and wag their tails as if to say "Yeah! Good job Sora!" I love being a missionary.

Caught in a shower

This week I received my new companion. Yet another "daughter" haha. Technically I think I'm considered her "trainer" but honestly I've never met someone so prepared to be a missionary. Her name is Sora DeRuvo from near Milan, Italy. She is 21 years old, was born and raised in the church. She's so cool! We've been having so much fun together. We laugh about everything. She speaks excellent English and she also speaks Romanian very well. Luckily because Italian and Romanian are similar she has a little bit of an advantage, also because she's already learnt English so she knows good techniques as to how to learn a new language. We have been having a great time, finding people, contacting for English Classes, and teaching. She actually started her mission in the Rome mission so she's already served a bit of a mission, then she went to the MTC and now she's here so it's cool that she has some experience for me to learn from. Funny, random fact, apparently Italians also believe in "current". Let me explain for those of you who don't know. "Current" is when there's a draft of air, when more than one window is open, or a door and a window are open and there's a gust of air flowing through. They believe that this air makes you sick, or will cause pain or will make your teeth fall out. Apparently, Italians have the same thing except they call is a "hit of air". In district meeting the other day we discovered that Sora DeRuvo believe in it! Heeheee. She knows that we don't believe in it and all of us were laughing so hard as she tried to make her case for it and rolled her eyes as we all didn't believe her. Oh I forgot to say... my whole district is now new too. Elder Speth and Elder Groberg left and now we have Elder Adams from Idaho, and Elder Taylor from California. Elder Taylor has served here in Arad before so he's returning, the branch were really happy to see him back.

Transfers were super fun this last week too. Sora Kelly and I had to say good bye which was heartbreaking! I love that girl sooo much and I really hope and pray we can be companions again sometime soon. She's going to kick butt in Bucarest though. I also got to see Sora Cook! YAAAY! It was awesome! I love that girl! She looked all beautiful at 6am as we got into Buch after travelling all night. Of course, after a 14 hour journey she still looked amazing. I also got to spend the morning with Sora Macdonald! Oh I just adore far too many of the missionaries in this mission. Sora Hill always talks about how incredible the missionaries in this mission are. It's so true. Sora DeRuvo having served also in the Rome mission agrees, she can't believe how amazing the people here are. It' incredible to serve with these people and learn from their experiences and amazing personalities.

In other news... Tina came to Church! Yay!! It was super cool to see her there. Sadly she didn't stay for the whole time but it was honestly just incredible that she came at all! YAY! She looked so bright and happy as she sat in sacrament meeting and all the members were super welcoming. We've changed her baptismal date to the 5th of April, so lots of prayers, faith and hope will be needed for it to go through. She's spoken to her husband about the baptism and he didn't say no this time. He said it was her choice. She said he kinda changes his mind day by day, but that's better than the outright NO he used to give, so yaaaaaaaaay! Little miracles are happening and big changes are on the way.

I love you all! thank you for your prayers and support and your letters. I love and appreciate you

Keep the Faith! This work is truly great and marvelous!

va pup

Sora Rivera