Bye Iasi

View from my desk this morning

4 - 3 - 2 .... 4 transfers in Arad, 3 in Constanta, and now just 2 in Iasi, I'm heading south for the winter. I'm off to the capital city of Bucharest. Buch has 2 branches, each with a chapel and 1 group. I'll be serving in the Panduri branch! I'm very excited to actually have a chapel. I have no idea how many members are there, I think around 60 active members. It'll be a very new experience for me. I'll also be a Sister Training Leader. Basically my assignment is to go around on exchanges with the sisters and tell them all how awesome they're all doing. Doesn't seem too difficult. And... Sora Polatis is in Buch in the other branch so I'll get to see her a lot too :D. I'm really sad to leave Sora Kelly and Iasi, city and branch. We've had a fantastic transfer, but the Lord needs her to train one of the little boboacas coming in. So I'm getting booted out. Lucky duckie, she's going to be an amazing trainer.

So enough about transfers.... What did we do this week?

Monica and the Shaorma

Our Recent convert, Monica, was in the hospital this week. She has been coughing non-stop for about 3 months and they thought she has pneumonia. So the elders and us went to the children's hospital on Tuesday. First off, I don't care how sick I get I'm never ever ever going to the hospital in this country. I've seen public toilets cleaners than that place. Anyhooooo she was doing a bit better so we sat and talked with her in her room. We asked if we could bring her anything, and she said, "Yeah! a Shaorma!" Shaoarmas/Shwarmas/Shawormas (I've seen it spelt many ways) are these wrap sandwich greasy delicious food here. So the next day, we set out on a trip to find a Shaorma place close to the Hospital. We walked and walked and contacted along the way. We called it "Shaorama" contacting. We finally concluded that none were within a 30 minute walking radius, so we took a tramvai back towards centru. We got off and asked this lady if there was a place close by and she pointed us up the hill saying, "yeah just up there"

The Orthodox church

But it was more like another  30 minute walk until we found this dingy little hole in the wall with a fat cat sitting in the doorway, and a fat Turkish man selling shaormas. We bought one, walked another 30 minutes back to the Tramvai stop, then accidentally took the wrong tramvai. Instead of heading straight to the hospital in encircled the entire city before finally arriving back at the hospital. In the end it was worth it though. Monica loved her shaorma and she got out of the hospital the next day.

We found a cow

Getting Bunged

On Friday we got bunged 3 times, but on the bright side we found a cow!

Maricica

Maricica is still the same. She's soo funny. She invited us to an orthodox church on Thursday with one of her friends who was participating in a ceremony to save the souls of her dead ancestors. Of course, we went. Maricica, was never really raised orthodox, so she'd never been. We arrived at the church to find tons of people and tons of food. It resembled the funeral picnic. The priests then went around blessing everyone, and the people participating in the ceremony gave the priest a list of names of their dead ancestors and he gave them a wooden picture of Mary a piece of bread and a towel. The whole time Maricica was like telling me to take photos. Ugh, spot the tourist! But i did it anyway :) 

At the Orthodox ceremony

Once everyone participating had their towel and picture and bread they got into a semi circle and shook their towels up and down while the priests sang. Then they came inside and shook the tables covered in food and said the Lord's Prayer. Then the Priests went around blessing the food and pouring wine all over it. Then everyone there, including us, is given a bag of food, little portions of everyone else's now soggy food. It was fascinating.

After it was over and we were walking away looking for a homeless person to give our bag of wine covered food to, this old lady came up to us from the church and hugged an kissed us.

"What's your name?"

"Kelly" Sora replied.

"That's too hard to say, I'll call you Maria!" she said. "What's your name?" Now, turning to me.

Seeing that Kelly was to hard, I thought Rivera would be even harder, so I said, "Jessica."

Again the old woman paused, "I'll call you Ana. Maria and Ana! I'll pray for you both!!"

hahahahI love Romanians!

Table of Food

Thanksgiving

Happy thanksgiving for this week! I'm grateful for my Saviour and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and that he restored his true church through Joseph Smith. I'm grateful for the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and all the words of the prophets, ancient and modern. I'm grateful for my family and my friends. I'm grateful for Romania and Moldova and that I can be here as a missionary and serve these wonderful people, many of whom have become my greatest and dearest friends.

“When thou risest in the morning, let thy heart be full of thanks unto God.” Alma 37:37.

cu drag, Keep the Faith!

Sora Rivera