On the Up

As a warning... this email may seem a little all over the place. My brain is currently in that blaaah all over the place mood. It's possible because all I've eaten is 2 bars of chocolate today... but anyhoo...

Tina came to church again! And guess what?? I met her husband! This is a huge break through! The husband didn’t want her to stay for more than just the first hour, so after sacrament meeting Tina met with our branch president so that he could get to know her a bit. And then she hurried outside. Perfect! I thought! Her husband was clomping to pick her up. So I ran outside just in time to see a taxi pull up and a giant man step out of the back. "this is Miki!" Tina said, "And Miki, these are my beautiful girls!" He was very friendly and we shook hands and he had a great big smile on his face as we told him how much we love Tina. It was so cool! We were actually able to meet him. And... Tina has invited us over to have a lesson with the two of them tomorrow where we're going to speak about her baptism and ask for his permission for her to be baptised this weekend! I have prayed long and hard about this. I've poured my soul out to God on behalf of Tina, and I know that the Lord is in control. He knows and loves Tina and He has a plan for her. I sincerely hope and pray that His plan incudes her baptism this Friday, but if not I will have patience and faith in Him and His perfect timing.

Us with a dead cat

English classes... English has started up again. Sora DeRuvo and I went block knocking, contacting and we did just about everything we could possibly think of to raise awareness of the English classes and to invite people. And... we had a nice size class. 8 people came! Okay, I can hear the chuckles, for most cities, 8 people is a terrible turn out for English. Iasi, Cluji and Timi tend to get about 80-100 people... but 8 people for Arad is excellent! Go us! Last time, the most we ever got was 5 people and that only happened once. So 8 is a decent number and it was the Catholic Easter on the weekend and more people have promised to come next week. YAY! English is one of the largest sources of finding people in this mission. It's cool because we start and end each class with a prayer, and then at the end we have a spiritual thought and people are often naturally curious. Half the members in this country were found through English classes. We already have 2 potential investigators through just the first class. Yay! Things are looking up!

Random Baba wandered into the photo

Familia Sofroni... so my favourite family in the branch are this cute family called the Sofronis. Sadly, they want to move to England and Dani, the Dad, has already moved and is looking for work there. But on the bright side they want help learning English so twice a week my companion and I have been going to their house to teach them English. And, even cooler, they invite friends and neighbours over to learn English, and then afterwards we share a spiritual thought. So currently they have a 15 year old girl staying with them. Her name is Roxi, and sadly she's married to Sora Sofroni's 20 year old nephew and she's possibly pregnant.... but anyhoo, every time we've gone over, Roxi has been quite uninterested and quiet. She'll sit through the English lesson, and look around and play with her hair during the Spiritual thought. We gave her, her own book of Mormon, and tried to commit her to read a chapter and pray about it. She did not keep the commitment and still seemed very uninterested. Then on Saturday we had an English lesson and Roxi actually participated quite a bit. Then afterwards we read the chapter she was supposed to have read the Book of Mormon (Alma 32) and we talked about its message of Faith. I then shared my testimony of the power of the Book of Mormon to change lives and to bring us closer to Christ. She listened but still didn’t seem too interested. But I was speaking to Laura, the 9 year old daughter of the family yesterday at Church, and she told me that Roxi actually read 2 chapters of the Book of Mormon by herself on Saturday night after we left! Amazing! Shows how much I know! The Spirit was working the whole time and she's starting to grow in her faith. We're hoping to speak about the First Vision and Joseph Smith next lesson. I love being a missionary and getting to watch the Spirit work in people's lives.

Last week we also had Zone Training meeting, which is at the start of every transfer. Sadly it was snowing super bad and Sora DeRuvo and I had been all the way out at Tina's house. Then because of the snow the Tramvais were late. The meeting started at 12pm and it was 1158 by the time the Tramvai came. We ran to the church and were about 20 minutes late! Ugh! So embarrassing. We ran in dripping wet to see the entire zone of missionaries, and the assistants, sat pleasantly around a big table. So embarrassing. Everyone then teased us since they'd all come from other cities and yet the only two people who were late were the two sisters who actually live in Arad... ugh typical! Silly weather! I'm sick of this snow and rain! Bring on spring and summer!

Anyway I love you all and I love Romania and I love being a missionary. This church is true. Our Lord and Saviour restored his true Church through Joseph Smith. I know God lives and I know he loves us. Happy Catholic Calendar Easter! (It's not Easter here until May 5th, because we go by the Orthodox calendar)

Love Sora Rivera

Dream week... Too good to be true!

This week was so incredible! Sora Kelly and I have an incredible companionship. I have felt completely blessed to be companions with her. It's been so fun to continue training her. We've had so much fun this week and yet still worked super hard. For example, on Wednesday we didn't have time to do our language study in the morning and had an hour until our appointment with an investigator, but we were too far from our apartment to go home. Both Sora Kelly and I have always wanted to look around a Romanian graveyard... and low and behold 5 minutes from our investigator's home is a graveyard! Yay! So we decided to do our language study in the graveyard. As we walked around we read the headstones and learnt to say "rest in peace" and "may the land be soft"... which is a wish they say when people die. And then it was also cool because we were going to teach plan of Salvation to our investigator so we had a really reverent and spiritual discussion about after this life and left in the perfect Spirit to teach our lesson! Awesome! Sadly.... this dream week was too good to be true. On Thursday night we received another unexpected phone call from President Hill. He wants me to train again, starting this week. The conversation went something like this:

President Hill: Sora Rivera! I'm sending you a new missionary!

Me: What?

President Hill: I want you to train again, is that okay?

Me: What?

President Hill: I want you to be a trainer! We have new sisters coming next week and I need you to train one of them.

Me: Oh...

President Hill: Is that okay?

Me: Sure...

Haha! I was completely shocked! After being sent Sora Kelly and it was so perfect, and President said we'd be staying together until the end of April. But now Sora Kelly will be going to Bucharest and I'll have another brand new missionary this Wednesday! Wow! Talk about a huge shock to the system!

Sora Kelly and I have also been learning a lot this week. We've been really trying to focus on gratitude for the little things. For example... on Friday... EVERYTHING cancelled. I mean EVERYTHING! Tina started it off in the morning, by cancelling our lesson. Then, that afternoon we were supposed to go to Timisoara because they had a baptism going on there. The woman, Elena, was Sora Kelly's investigator when she was in Timi. Then we get the terrible phone call that Elena had decided to not get baptised. It was really sad, Satan was clearly working hard to tempt her and to find reasons to not get baptised. So that was super sad, but we still needed to take the train to Timi because the missionaries there were relying upon us to bring some cash to pay bills. So we rush to the Gara and find our that the train we wanted was cancelled because of the freak snow storm. Oh yeah... did I mention that it was snowing like crazy bad???! yeah! And my old boots were not protection my little feet! I was soaking wet and freezing! So then we waiting at the Maxi Taxi stop to take one to Timisoara. We waiting in the snow for an hour before finally we were able to get one and we went to Timisoara. Yet... despite all of this, the day ended up awesome! I bought new boots to save my little feet! The Maxi taxis were still running despite the snow... another tender mercy. It was amazing to see the missionaries in Timi. We also went to see Sora Kelly's favourite member in Timi, who is the funniest, and cutest old lady. So yeah... ended up a great day!

My favourite family here in Arad are the Sofroni family, (pronounced shofrony). They are a mum, dad and 9 year old girl Laura. The Dad, Dani, recently moved to England, to Birmingham actually, to find work, and they're all hoping to move there this coming year. Since they're moving the Mum, Mihaella, and Laura want to learn English. So this past week we went to visit them a couple times to teach them English. Laura is an angel child! I love her so much. She's very quiet and sweet. And always serves us drinks and wraps up food for us to take without her mum ever having to ask. They both practise English together and they've now started inviting their neighbour, Georgi, who's 13 years old, to join in the English lessons. Georgi is soo cute! She wants to go to Cambridge to university so she wants to learn more English too. At the end of the English lessons we share spiritual thoughts. It was super fun on Saturday. I brought along all the English money I had with me, all the coins and a 5 pound note and we played "shop" in English where they had to buy things from us. It was so fun. Then we shared a spiritual thought about staying strong through trials and we introduced the Book of Mormon to Georgi. She also now wants to come to church next Sunday. I really hope we'll be able to start teaching her more. 

In other news, not only is Sora Kelly leaving me, but both Elders are leaving too :( Elder Speth has been made assistant so he's off to Buch. and Elder Groberg is off to Chisinau. We've had so much fun together! It's going to be weird. My entire district is leaving!!! :( oh well... I trust the Lord and maybe my next companion and I will be besties and it'll be amazing.

Anyhoooo have an easy day! I love you all! I love this work! Thank you for your prayers! Keep the Faith!

Sora Rivera

Just a Smile

Ceau la voi!!! It's so cliché to say, but the weeks are starting to fly by. It scares me! As of today, I've been in Romania for exactly 3 months!! I want to start this email by telling you about an experience I had just yesterday but it really helps to sum up what we're doing here. As a missionary, my purpose if to invite others to come unto Christ. After church yesterday, Sora Drotar and I got onto the busy Tramvai. For some reason, 1.30pm on a Sunday is a busy time of day, and the Tramvai was packed. It's pretty difficult to speak to people about the resorted gospel when your face is pressed against their shoulder, so I was a little gutted to not be able to contact. But I looked around and saw a little old lady sat in the corner. She had a black wooly hat over her thin white hair, and giant glasses perched on the end of a wrinkly nose. Sora Drotar was squished up next to her. I made eye contact at the lady and smiled. She looked at me and smiled back. She then looked to her right at Sora Drotar who also smiled at her. She smiled back. "Are you students?" the lady asked. "No, we're missionaries!" Sora Drotar told her. "Oh, that's why you smiled. I've been so sad for a long time, and you two are the first people to make me feel happy." She told us. "Why are you sad?" Sora Drotar asked. "My husband died 6 months ago." She then jumped up, realising she was at her stop. "Ceau!!" she called as she rushed off the Tramvai. As the Tramvai drove away she stopped, smiled and waved! We smiled and waved back. Of course, it would've been amazing to tell her about the plan of salvation and set up at time to visit her. But it was still incredible just in those 1-2minutes to bring a light into her life. Bring some hope back into her heart. Amazing.

Since Area Book contact has proved so fruitful for us in the past, Sora Drotar and I decided to Area Book contact this week. This is where we search in the records for people who've been taught by missionaries in the past and see if they're now ready to receive the restored Gospel. We spoke to and went to visit a man named Edi and his family. He has 3 gorgeous daughters and a lovely and supportive wife. Sora Cook told me about Edi before so it was really awesome to understand what she was talking about when she described him as... "different". So we arrive at his apartment, a little stressed, after getting lost on the way. We climb the stairs and find waiting for us, a middle aged man, thin moustache, his belly tucked into his dark blue sweatpants. His remaining 3 hairs on the top of his head were sweaty and combed over as if to hide his shiny bald spot. His dark socks pulled up high. We sat down and his wife came home, pleased to see us. She's a strong catholic and not really that interested but wants her husband to have more faith so pleased for us to be in their home. We began asking his religious background. And asked him why he thinks there are so many religions in the world. BOOM! He starts talking and talking and talking! He went off on a huge string of analogies, something about old fashion televisions, and the internet, and something about German mothers, and George Washington. Anyway... We taught him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in between his analogies. He kept saying that he thinks every religion is true, and tried to explain why using even more analogies... something about different languages, pilots, food, and husbands. I had a cool experience in the lesson though. I testified to him, "I know this Church is true."

"No!" He said, "You think it's true, you feel it's true."

"No!" I testified.

I felt like Jeremiah and his "Burning Testimony" from the Old Testament. "I know it's true."

"You feel" he said.

"I know!" I said more powerfully. He then went quiet and just listened, and I was able to finish my testimony. It was so cool to receive another witness in myself and I really do know that it's true and I know why I'm here. Edi said "no" to all of our invitations but we still left on a good note and his 13 year old daughter who was there is going to come to English classes. So who knows, maybe in the future, his heart will be softened.

The Lord truly knows what he's doing. We met a new investigator the other day. We decided to go block knocking using surveys. Surveys are pretty good because even if people don't want to hear from us usually they're willing to answer a couple questions and we leave them with a positive impression of the church. On just the third door, there was an older lady and a young student, Diana, who lives with the lady. We began talking about the purpose of life and they invited us in. We ended up staying and having a 2 hours lesson with Diana. The older lady was super nice and fed us and gave us food to take home, but she wasn't as interested. Diana was really interested though and wanted to know more and more. She reminds me a lot of myself. She's 22 and studying Pharmacy. Anyway, she agreed to read a chapter of the Book of Mormon before our next appointment and she's especially interested in what happens after this life so net time we want to speak about the Plan of Salvation. It was just sooo cool. Usually block knocking consists of a whole lot of doors in our faces, but that day, the Lord blessed us for our patience and lead us to find someone new.

I love you all! Thank you for your prayers and your letters and your support. I promise I'm working on replying to every letter I receive, it just takes time! But know that I love you all and I am appreciative of your support.

Keep the Faith! I know this church is true!

Love Sora Rivera

Comings and goings…the first of many

Wow! What a week! Everything has completely turned upside down and changed. The week started with a wonderful lesson with our investigator, Tina. Sora Cook and I both felt strongly prompted to speak to her about Temples. Then when we get there and start the lesson she goes, "I have a question, my parents died, before they ever had a chance to be baptised, and they never really read the scriptures much and they didn't know about the Book of Mormon, what's gona happen to them?" We then had a beautiful lesson about temples and Eternal Families. It was incredible to watch the tears well up in her eyes and the smile spread across her face as we testified of the blessings that come from the Temple. It was awesome!

Bye bye Sora Cook :(

That night, I helped Sora Cook pack, and I'll be honest, we were up late just sobbing and crying. I can't believe we've only known each other since the start of December. I love her with my whole heart. She's taught me more than I can possibly explain. The next day we had lunch at out favourite pizza place before heading to Buch. Paula, our amazing member from the branch, (the one I told you all about last week), she came with us and was quite entertaining. For example, Elder Groberg has never lost a staring contest. And Him and Paula went at it! Glaring into one another's eyes. Elder Groberg started to tear up and his eyes were twitching, and yet, Paula, almost by some incredible, super power, was even flinching. Sadly, Paula ended up losing after about 4 or 5 minutes because we tried to take a picture of the contest and the flash made her blink. Paula then walked us to the Gara to see us off on our train. She particularly had a hard time saying good-bye to "the blonde one" aka Elder Benson. Then our 11 hour train ride to Bucharest began. Gosh... I'll be honest it was AWFUL! We'd bough 4 tickets... 4 seats obviously, but of course the Romanian train had no room for luggage so we piled the suitcases onto two of the seats. We then took turns sitting on our remaining two seats while the other two people sat of the dusty floor in the leg space. We then played Monopoly deal and the card version of Settlers. What a strange site we must've been! Four "Americans" squished into two tiny seats, attempting to play card games on top of the tiny metal flip out trash can. After 11 VERY long hours we arrived in Bucharest. The assistants met us at the Gara and took Sora Cook and I too the one of the sisters apartments where we got a couple hours sleep before getting up in the morning for Mission Conference.

Thursday, Mission conference day, I finally met my new companion! Her name is Sora Drotar. She is from Arizona, but her parents are from Romania! She kinda has a similar story to my bestest friend, Ana. She is the youngest child in her family, the only one who was born in the states. She was raised speaking Romanian at home. She was also raised in a Pentecostal Romanian church, and has even been to some of the Romanian Pentecostal Youth conferences in Sacrament CA. Cool huh?! Her brother joined the church when she was about 17 years old and he went on a mission. His mission made her curious about the church. Why did he need to leave? etc. One of her sisters joined the church whilst her brother was gone, then just a year and a half ago, she too joined the church! So yeah, she's a convert! And she's incredible! She has an amazing testimony and it's soooo awesome to hear what things helped her to receive a testimony. She also speaks amazing Romanian, which is yet another thing she is teaching me. I just love her! She's got so much courage and hope and a beautiful burning testimony and she just loves to share it! I'm sooo blessed! I didn't really get a chance to get to know the other new sisters, but I can't imagine them being better than my wonderful new companion. I lucked out! Haha. I don't feel like I have much to teach her, I think Heavenly Father just knew that I had a lot to learn from this gorgeous girl! We went "Camera Contacting" the other day. Where we stood in front of the Primarie, and as people walked past we'd stop them and ask them to take a picture of us, which most of them would. We'd then say thank you and tell them we're not from here, which always leads them to ask where we're from and what on earth we are doing here in Romania?! Haha! Sneaky us! "Well, we are missionaries!" Its hard because if we just try and stop people to tell them about the church they just keep walking or yell at us, but usually people are nice enough to take a picture for the cute little foreign girls, which then gives us the perfect opportunity to talk to them! YAY! We found a couple of potential investigators on Saturday through this method.

The actual mission conference was good. Elder Kent F. Richards of the 70 came and spoke to us. I definitely felt the spirit teaching me some ways in which I can improve my missionary work. It was really cool. Also, random cool thing, Elder Richards wanted to interview a few missionaries in the mission, and President Hill chose me as one of them! So I got to have an interview with him. So that was cool. I told him a bit about my experience. I also told him what I've been learning about humility and intentions in learning the language. So he kept going on and on and on about how the language isn’t the most important thing, and I was like yeah I agree it's not the most important thing, but I think it's all about your intentions behind learning the language. I think that you need to be humble and be willing to submit to yourself to the Lord, and desire the language simply because it will help you to become a better servant in the hands of the Lord. So I said that it's just something I've learnt and I'm striving for.

The last couple days are sort of a blur. Sora Drotar and I came back from Buch on a sleeper train so we got some rest. We've been doing lots of contacting and also planning. She got to meet Paula who took a little while to warm up to her but now thinks she's amazing. The branch, yesterday, of course fell in love with her. The Arad branch is completely incredible, I could never imagine them not liking a missionary. I can't possibly express the joy I feel every Sunday as I walk in and see Sora Mogos. She's the Relief Society president, and I can honestly say I've never met anyone more Christ-like. Her heart is so full of love for the people around her. When she hugs me every week, it's as though my Grandma is giving me a big hug, as though I'm the only person in the world who matters. She many trials in life, a lot of persecution from her family members, and yet she continues in faith!

I'm running out of time, not really that many funny things happened this week. Sorry to say. I saw a man walking around carrying a bunch of pigeons... but that's not really that strange for Romania.

I love you all! Thanks for your support, love, letters and most importantly, your prayers.

This gospel is sooo true! Keep the Faith

Sora Rivera