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

When in Iasi

Me in front of the Palace

This week has been great! Haha, I just wrote that sentence and thought back to how actually we were bunged (ditched) every single day! But it really was a good week anyway. We went la Tara yesterday, adica, we went out of the city, then we got stranded, because the person we were visiting said we couldn't come, then since it was Sunday there were no more buses going back so we had to call a member to come drive out and rescue us. It was hilarious and there were many photos involved. We also had 1 lesson with Maricica. She's still her hilarious hippy self. Still won't pay tithing... but loved learning about the second coming yesterday in church, maybe I should mention "fire insurance" ;)

An Awesome Church

The biggest Dog I have every seen

Not tons to report this week, so I wrote a poem to give you "a day in the life of me" Enjoy:

Six-thirty, the alarm sounds beep!

Was that really just 8 hours of sleep?

I roll out of bed, slump onto the floor

and speak with my father in Heaven once more

Get ready, then studies, we prep for the day

Review some grammar and new words to say

We call our appointment, "We still on for 2?"

"I'm working!" she says, "I can't meet with you!"

Our other appointment just gave us a beep,

we call her back, now she can't meet!

Cards, pliants and books, we're off to the street

We need to find more people to teach!

We stop a man, "What's the purpose of life?"

With a wink and a grin, "to find me a wife!"

Next we stop a woman, "Have you heard of this book?"

"I'm orthodox!" she yells, with a dirty look

The next young woman wags her finger at me,

"Hey!" I say, "We teach English for free!"

"Where?!" she asks in English, "I is knowing just some."

""Here's the address," I say, :You really should come".

We walk past the gara, and over the tracks,

Over the sketchy bridge, watch out for cracks!

A couple of hours, a few people've been nice,

They want to come much closer to Christ.

Now we are hungry, I really need food!

A chocolate filled covrig will brighten my mood.

Eating, we meet a girl who's seen us before

But now she's interested and wants to know more

We go home for dinner, what should we eat?

Burritos of course, just leave out the meat!

After dinner we'll go, to a member's home

She hasn't been to church and she's feeling alone

At the door we make sure, to remove our shoes quick

then put on their slippers. or else we'd get sick

we talk and read scriptures, invite her to come back

For Christ will make up, for all that we lack!

We go home for planning, to finish the night

The lessons I've learned in my journal I write

Lights out 10.30, I'm ready to sleep,

Only 8 hours till I again hear the beep.

Also....I've been studying 3rd Nephi this week... Jesus is the Christ! He's not just some guy with good morals... he is our redeemer and our Saviour. Love him, serve him! Keep the Faith everyone!

Love Sora Rivera

Zone Meetings in the Attic

Me in Bacau

I is knowing English...Another beautiful week here in Iasi with my beautiful companion trecut prea quickly! Some bright spark decided to have the entire church villa painted, beginning on Tuesday, which also happened to be the first day of English Classes! The furniture was pushed up together in the center of every room and covered in tarps. So all of our students and potential new investigators arrived Tuesday evening to a little ghetto table on the street outside the church, where we had them sign up and register their names and phone numbers. It was a little random but on Saturday we had a real first class, and it was awesome! We have a bunch of potential new investigators, including one girl called Flori who is coming to our advanced class. She speaks awesome English and thinks we're super cool ;) So despite the painters, English is looking hopeful! 

In the graveyard at Halloween

Our Zone in the Attic

Zone Training... Also din cauza the paint, we had to move our zone training meeting to Bacau. Bacau is a 2 man city. Adica the district consists of 1 companionship of elders, one of the elders is the branch president and the other is the district leader. Since it was just a 2-man I'd been thinking it was some dinky little town, turns out its actually a decent size city. It reminded me a lot of Arad. We arrived in Bacau, Wednesday, around noon after a 2.5 hour maxi taxi, to find out that the same people who'd decided to paint our villa were also painting the Bacau villa. We walked in to find paint fumes and tarps covering the furniture again. "Don't worry, we're going to the attic!" the zone leaders informed us. did they just say attic? yes they did.... 

We climbed the old wooden stairs to the cold, dusty, attic, where the elders had arranged chairs in a circle around a white board. They brought an extension cord up so that one of the Elders could play a keyboard on his lap. Surprisingly, it turned into a fantastic and uplifting meeting, including words from the apostles, magic tricks, and bow ties. We gave a presentation about using time wisely and accountability. And being the only sisters in our little zone we of course had made cute little handouts! For a musical number, I sang 'I know that my Redeemer Lives' in Romanian. It was really good to sing properly again.

Only in Romania...There's a little shop here in Iasi that specializes in clothing for fat people and translation.

 and Bacau :)

This scripture has been playing on my mind all week... Mosiah 4:9 Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.

I know that God's plan is perfect, and the Atonement is infinite. Love you all! Keep the Faith!

Sora Rivera

Pics: me in Bacau and Bacau :)

Goody Bag at a Funeral

A graveyard....

This week we'd had a service project all set up to go help an elderly man clear out his yard and house. We showed up on Thursday morning, with some of the branch members and the old man refused to let us do anything to his house. Poor guy... anyhoooo, we started making our way home, walking with the BP as we passed a cemetery. He asked us if we'd like to look around so of course we jumped at the opportunity to be shown around the cemetery by a native. It was huge! The endless rows of huge stone crosses and marble caskets stretched up a large hill towards a church. Alongside most of the graves was also a little table and chairs. "Picnic at Great Granny's grave anyone?"

The picnic

Turns out that the table and chairs is for a tradition they have. At the anniversary every year they have a priest come and sing and family and friends gather and eat bread together so that the spirit of the person will have "bread on high".

Tramvais

As we walked through the cemetery, we found a funeral and somehow accidentally joined it. Everyone was very cheerful looking, and they were all singing along with the priest. They the little picnic bench was covered in food and a pretty blue table cloth. As we were standing further back, watching the priest sing and the men nail the coffin shut, a woman came around handing out "goody bags" and somehow I ended up with one. It contained a candle, bread, matches and a towel. I looked anxiously to the BP but he said it was fine and asked if he could have some of the bread.

Graveyard

Peeps in a cart

Happy Halloween....

My new apartment (just kidding!)

We had a Halloween branch activity this week. Sora and I dressed up as Robin hood and Maid Marian. we even made a bow and a couple arrows from sticks, it was very creative if I do say so myself!

Translating...

We had interviews with President and Sora Hill this week! They are so funny! President starts every interview with the same corny joke, "So, Sora Rivera, given up those cigarettes yet?"

They then stayed for church on Sunday, and they spoke. I was translating for Sora Hill and for the BYU intern girls during Relief Society as usual, and I had a cool realization. Mariana from Constanta was once reading the English Seminary manual and translating it into Romanian. After expressing my awe for her language talents she assured me that one day I could do it from Romanian into English. And yesterday, at church, I did it! No one had brought the English Liahona, so as the teacher read the Romanian talk, I read along in English, translating on the fly. It was an amazing blessing!  :D

Peeps.....

We've been worrking with a little family, who are currently less active. Three kids, 5 year old, 9 year old and 14 year old. They are the cutes kids and we had a really cool lesson this week about the Holy Ghost. The best part though, was that the mother and the 9 year old boy came to church this week! :D

Monica gave her very first talk this week! She did a great job! It's soo cool to see her flourishing in the gospel.

Iasi

The Church is true! I know that Heavenly Father loves us, and loves Romania and Moldova and this is His work!

Love you all,

Keep the faith!

Sora Rivera