Hugs and Crosses

Update

A Lovely member family 

So remember that guy who yelled at us on the street a couple weeks back? The one who was said we were form the devil.... yeah that one. So guess who we saw on the bus the other day?! The bus pulled up and Sora and I got on the crowded bus. I looked around and I made eye contact with a tall fellow, glasses, white t-shirt. He seemed to recognize us and looked away immediately. I paused for a moment, Sora Polatis smiled at me and glanced towards him. I looked over at him again and noticed those classic "saint" bracelets around his wrists. (They're these little wooden bracelets with tiny pictures of creepy look icons of saints). Aha! It was that same guy. He looked so disappointed to see us on that bus. He glanced over and turned away, quickly crossed himself and muttered a prayer under his breath in order to protect himself from our "evil presence" haha! Bless him... he's just doing his best with the limited knowledge that he has. He genuinely believes that we're from the devil. Silly man.

Church

Everyone is at the temple this week in the Ukraine.  At 9.50am yesterday there were 3 members at church and 6 missionaries. One super super old lady walked in, and in her tiny little squeaky Romanian voice she says, "There are so many of us!" haha It was hilarious. I don't know why but sarcasm is a thousand times funnier in Romanian, especially coming from a tiny old woman. In the end we had 12 members and 6 missionaries. But, I was actually really grateful because for Sunday school we just watched some of general conference. I love love love general conference. Especially in Romanian now that I can understand it. I especially enjoyed Elder Perry and President Monson speaking on Obedience. I'm so grateful for the words of modern-day apostles.

Service at a café

So I forgot to tell you, but we started a new service project. Basically we go to a café and youth aged 10 - 15 come. And we speak to them in English. We play games, teach them skills, make bracelets etc. All in English. And the owner of the café brings us free lemonade. It's awesome! Last week we played Mafia. They're pretty good at English, and are getting better the more they speak with us. It's so fun, it's one of the highlights of my week! And last week, as we were leaving the café a woman came up to us asking for a Book of Mormon. Ce awesome?! :D

Hugs

On Saturday evening we were on our way to centru to search for an address of a less active member given to us by the branch president. We were sitting on the bus and a controller lady came over to check to see if we had tickets. She started reading Sora Polatis'  name tag. "Where are you from??!" she asked us. "England and America, we're missionaries" we answered. Next thing we know she starts hugging and kissing Sora on the cheek. She calls over the other controller ladies to tell them about us. They all though we were beautiful and wonderful. She was sooo happy and funny! We gave her a pass along card. Then the bus stopped and they all hopped off and waved good bye... random. But that's not all.... we were walking home later that evening and this random lady comes running over to us saying, "sisters!!" and she hugs us and kisses us on the cheek. Turns out, she's an old English student, possibly an old investigator. We invited her to church and also to English classes again. These nametags really draw a lot of attention!

Alrighty, well, that's about it for this week. I'm still reading the New Testament, about to finish Corinthians, I should be done in just over a week. yay! It's been a wonderful experience. So far, in love with Romans chapter 12! super cool. I know this church is true! I know that Jesus Christ lives!

Loves! pace voua

Sora Rivera