Courage!

What a crazy week we've had! It's been so crazy up and down that I think I'll just give you a summary of each day:

Door knocking

MONDAY: After P-day on Monday, we got bunged (stood up) so we went contacting. We decided to talk to people about the plan of salvation. And all was going well. A lady started talking to us and mentioned how her husband had died a few years ago. So we started to testify to her about eternal families and how God has a plan for us. She seemed interested and Sora Polatis then asked her what she felt the purpose of life is. She then talked for about 15 minutes straight about families and something, then Sora opened the Book of Mormon and started to read Alma 34:32. Half way through the verse, a guy came out of nowhere and start yelling at us and the lady, saying we were of the Devil and if she talked to us she'd lose her soul. He yelled at us, he yelled at the lady for even speaking with us. We were speechless as soon as the guy walked away, we hesitantly began to read the verse again, and the lady was naturally weirded out and told us to leave. It was so sad! We never quite get used to the fact that everyone here hates us. We were really bummed. But, on the bright side as we walked home, close to tears, we walked into our bloc and one of our neighbours was also walking in to her apartment. We said hi as we walked past her door up the stairs to our apartment, then she turns to us and goes, "Do you want some chocolate?" Of course, we took it and it was delicious!! :D Yay for tender mercies!

TUESDAY: Every lesson was bunged, sad day.

Cleaning Corn

WEDNESDAY: It was transfer day. Every single missionary in the mission except for a couple of the Russian speakers went to Bucharest, every missionary that was, except for us. So we thought we'd do something fun. We decided to go la tara (out of the city). An elderly couple in the branch live there, and the branch president really wanted someone to visit them, so we jumped at the opportunity and planned it for Wednesday afternoon. We go there, and somehow ended up "cleaning corn" for 5 hours. The corn was dried out for over a year, then we took a metal claw thingy and we scraped off the dried corn into an enormous barrel so that it could later be grinded down. We scraped and scraped until our hands were about to fall off, then Grandpa Vitel would reach into the barrel and pull out more and more for us to do. "Courage!" He kept saying. Then he'd go around the corner and bring in another huge barrel of corn.

Sora Polatis cleaning corn

And to increase the randomness of the story, the couple were originally from the countryside of Moldova. So their accents were super thick and they used different words than we'd ever heard so we honestly felt like it was our first week in the country again where everyone speaks around you and you pick up on about 3 words every 5 minutes! 5 hours straight of barely understanding anything! What a day!

THURSDAY: English contacting all afternoon with the new district. It was super hot out so we went block knocking English contacting. Got a few doors in in the face. Not as good as the elders though, at one point this week they got chased out of a block by a guy with a spatula hahaha!

FRIDAY: 2 lessons!! YEAH!! We were super pumped. Only problem, we got completely lost for like 2 hours. The addresses make absolutely no sense here and the lady we were visiting kept telling us to look for the red car. The red car????!!!! There were like 30 red cars down that 5 mile street! Sigh.

SATURDAY: Weekly planning and no love contacting, as usual. But that's okay! We're keeping up on our tans!

SUNDAY: Amaaaazing day! So we met with Ritta. Our Jewish investigator! Ritta and Petre had brought their photo albums! They were super cute! We're completely in love with them. They seriously the cutest couple ever, despite the fact their in their 60s. So anyway, the lesson! Ritta now believes in Jesus Christ!!! YAY! She had a dream this week that convinced her that Jesus is the Christ, then on top of that, she read 3 Nephi 11 and it was confirmed to her. It was an amazing lesson. I can't even describe how sacred and special it was. To go from not believing in Christ and now she believes that Jesus really is the Messiah... amazing! Definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my entire life. We also set a baptismal date with her for the end of September. Ritta and Petre are going to Israel for a month, but we've spoken to President Hill and he said that if they have Skype then we can do Skype lessons. Never did I ever think that on my mission in Romania would I be teaching a Jewish woman in Israel. Seriously awesome!

Then, remember the guy who contacted us on the beach and asked us on dates?? Well, he came to church yesterday!! Hahah!! We thought it was soo funny! We couldn't believe that he actually came! He stayed for all three hours too and even volunteered in Sunday School to read a verse. Haha! Little miracles!

Well that's it for the week! These missions are insane, but so funny! And full of good stories!!! I love you all! I know this church is true! Keep the Faith!

Sora Rivera