Gotta Dance

The Palace at Iasi

We had a "dance" activity on Saturday. I absolutely love the Iasi branch! they're so great! When Sora and I arrived all the chairs were pushed to the edges of the room, there was a little table in the corner with chips and peanuts and drinks, and there was a laptop up the front with speakers plugged into it. We looked at one another and groaned thinking of a typical awkward Mormon dance. But, it turned out to be hilarious! We had a great turn out! Even a couple of students from English showed up, and then all the youth from the branch, and a bunch of the adults. They taught everyone traditional Romanian dances. Then we had Karaoke! Me and one girl, Aurelia, rocked Adele, 'Set Fire to the Rain'. I was a little worried that the branch president was going to have a heart attack from laughing so hard! The elders dedicated a song to the entire district: Taylor Swift 'Never getting back together' - since transfers are next week. I think the highlight of the evening though was Elder Ward dancing a tradition Romanian dance with an older woman from the branch. I never thought I would love ward activities so much, but they're awesome here!

Exchange

We had an exchange this week with the Sister Training Leaders, Sora Polatis (my old comp) and Sora Lund. They came for Pday and the next day. It was a lot of fun. We went bloc knocking and we took pictures everywhere. We visited a couple orthodox churches on Pday and took jumping pictures outside it, then we got chased away by a nun... good times in Romania.

 

Us in front of a pretty church

Tradition

Us and Maricica

This week, Sora and I were privileged to be able to go to institute. We had a potential investigator, who we'd been trying to get hold of, call us about 10 minutes before institute and say she was coming and we could meet afterwards! So we rushed to the villa just in time! And President Yachimov of the Panduri Branch in Bucharest was visiting. Radu Stoica taught the lesson. I'm sooo excited to go to institute when I get home! It was wonderful. Then President Yachimov got up to speak about Laman and Lemuel. He spoke of Arabic Traditions and how Laman, as the oldest son, had the right to all their father's greatest possessions, but what does Nephi do? He takes them! He takes the liahona, the plates and Laban's Sword. So that's why Laman felt "robbed". He didn't really care about revelation or commandments of God, he just cared about tradition. So fast forward 400 years to the sons of Mosiah off to teach the Lamanites. They had been taught the false traditions of their fathers that the Nephites had stolen from their forefathers. Then President Yachimov compared it to how nowadays we shouldn't care more about traditions than the commandments of God. This is perfect for Romanians, because that's exactly why the church struggles so much here, it's because being Orthodox is a tradition! I didn't explain this well, but sufficeth to say, it was awesome!

Only in Romania/Moldova...

They don't understand supply and demand very well here. For example there's this donut place. It sells plain donuts and chocolate donuts. They always run out of chocolate ones by 11am and yet have plain donuts to spare all day long. So instead of making more chocolate donuts, because clearly they're in higher demand, they just tell you to come back the next day earlier in the morning.  Another example: One store in Moldova sold poptarts. So naturally, all the elders got excited and bought all the poptarts in the whole store. Every time they restocked the poptarts the elders would by them all. Until one day they went in the store and there were no poptarts. "Where are the poptarts?" they asked the storeowner. "I don't sell them anymore, every time I got them in, you would come in and buy them all!"

Crazy kiddies

Iasi! Sora Kelly and Irina walking

We had a lesson at this lady's house on Saturday. Her name is Irina. We walked into the house, after the ordeal of attempting to find it, and we were greeted by big hugs from her 4 little children, the oldest just 8 years old. We'd never met the family before. They're distant relatives of Monica, the recent convert. But those kids were adorable! ...and crazy! There was yelling and clapping and running and laughing and hugging! I loved it! We taught them the alphabet in English and how to spell their names. Sadly, they're quite close minded, so even though they loved us, they didn't seem too interested in the gospel. We’re going to have one more lesson with them this week to see if they keep any commitments.

We find out Transfers on Friday... hopefully Sora and I are staying here in Iasi together, but if not I'm sure It'll be great wherever/whatever it is. I love this work! This Church is so true! Don't allow small things to get in the way of obedience to God's commands.

Keep the Faith

love Sora Rivera