Oo de lally, Oo de lally golly what a week!

Guitar contacting

I feel like we English contacted nonstop... which we did. We tried every different form of English contacting that we could possibly think of, including guitar, chalk, flyers, posters, bloc knocking... everything! We've been getting lots of phone calls so hopefully we'll have a ton of new people at English tomorrow and we'll be able to find some people who are also interested in the gospel. 

We met with Elena on Saturday which was wonderful. I just love that girl. We're going to start doing language study with her every Saturday like we used to in Constanta! :D yaaay

Casa Poporului

Okay... so the real story of the week was on Saturday....

We were putting up English posters, walking down a street we've walked many many times. Sora was holding the posters and I was tapping. As we walked, I noticed a man following us. I had an uneasy feeling and said to Sora that we should keep walking, instead of stopping to put up a poster. Just as we turned away from the guy, he suddenly broke out into a full sprint and started yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs. We immediately grabbed onto one another and we both had the feeling just to stay calm, ignore him and keep walking. He ran all the way down the street until he was just behind us. He yelled and screamed at the top of his lungs, asking why we looked at him, why we wouldn't talk to him, and something about people and boys and I have no idea. Naturally we were terrified. He was inches from us, screaming and waving his arms! For some reason I felt that we should pretend to not understand him. I told him in English that we don't speak Romanian. He backed off a little, long enough for me to grab the phone. I called the Zone Leaders. Elder Hokkanen answered. All the meanwhile the guy followed and shouted and screamed! 

Our conversation went something like this:

Elder H: Alo, Elder Hokkanen pe telefon

Me: There's a crazy guy following us!

Elder H: wait what?

Me: There's a crazy man following us

At this point the man jumped right in front of us, waved his arms and screamed in our faces!

Elder H: What's that yelling?

Me: The crazy guy!!!!

Elder H: Oh, like there's a legit crazy guy following you?

Me: YES!!!

Elder H: o crap (finally understanding)... where are you?! Is he threatening you?!

Me: Eroilor (the area), and Yes, he's screaming in our faces so yes, we feel threatened!!

Elder H: we're 10 minutes away, Do you have pepper spray?!

Sora was way ahead of him and was already searching in her bag. She pulled out the pepper spray. Seeing that she had something in her hand, the crazy man backed off a little, yelling continually, as we continued to walk as fast as possible toward the nearest bus stop. We saw a few people up ahead. We ran up next to this old woman. The crazy man decided that since we now had the protection the people at the bus stop he'd continue to yell at us from the street, as cars whizzed past, honking at him.

The bus came and we escaped...safe and sound! yay

So that was our crazy story for the week! Weird huh... but we were protected by the Lord! 

This week, should be great, we're going to Iasi, and then next week we're going to Moldova for 4 days so we won't be emailing until Thursday.

Thanks for your prayers, I know they're keeping me safe! Keep the faith,

Sora Rivera

Sun With Teeth

With Sora Fletcher

First off, I just need to do a little shout out to Sora Fletcher. She's so awesome :D What a trooper too. Her first lesson here in Panduri was the drop lesson with our only investigator...rough... but she's always so positive. We are just loving life :) We also got a new investigator yesterday...yay

MLC - We had mission leadership Council on Thursday. It was really long, but absolutely wonderful. We have such inspiring missionaries in this mission at the moment, and President and Sora Hill, are beyond amazing!

The sun has come out! Yay! I duno what's happening to Romania's winter, but lately its been gorgeous. The fog has lifted and the sun has come out. Sora and I have been making the best of it, going to the parks and staying outside as much as possible. It's still a little chilly but the sun makes it bearable. Romanians have an expression "soare cu dinti" it means sun with teeth, for when it's sunny but a little cold.

With Smiley

We had this cool experience on Friday. We were chalk contacting in the park with two of the Elders and the Aviatiei sisters. Well there was this smecher guy, about our age who kept riding his bike across our plan of salvation. I told the others if he did it one more time I'd say something, and of course he did. So I yelled "Hei, ce faci?!" and he turned around and was all sheepish like "O, n-am voie?" and I was like NO! You're riding all over God's plan. Then we laughed and I asked him if he believed in God, and we were totally able to turn the contact into a great discussion about prayer and how we can ask God our questions. We ended up calling the elders over and having them get his number to meet with him. It was super cool.

Chalk contacting in the park

 We Nashed! Nasa means Godmother in Romanian, ie. we hosted the brand new missionaries their first night. So these are my two god daughters. They're so cute!

Well... that's about it, sorry there's not much excitement this week. Just normal stuffs...

Keep the Faith!

Love Sora Rivera

Let It Go!

Revelionul cu Elena si Andreea 

New Years

La multi ani everyone!!! A few people have asked if Romania has any special new years traditions. Nope. Not that I'm aware of, just normal fireworks. President gave us permission to be out until midnight and to go to centru to see fireworks. We went with a bunch of the YSA in front of Casa Poporului (the huge parliament building)  to watch fireworks. It was so fun! I got to spend new years with Elena and Andreea! Loved it :D Gaah, little scarey though because I only have 3 months left :/ 

Frozen

All right, I gotta throw a shout out to Frozen. It's amazing! We went to see it for one of our Christmas movies with a ton of the elders and one of the Senior Couples. I loved it. Sora and I have been singing all the songs nonstop. Super funny. I even translated one of them for language study. :D

Transfers

I'm staying in Bucuresti as a Sister Training Leader and my new companion is Sora Fletcher! She's amaaazing and I'm sooo excited. Also, we've been talking to the other STLs and it looks like we'll get to go visit Moldova this transfer :D I'm so pumped! This transfer is going to be amazing.

Testimony Meeting

Graffiti Contacting (on Official Graffiti allowed boards)

Okay, so I know I've explained before that Romania's church meetings are the funniest and most awesome church experience ever. Yesterday's was truly spectacular. One of our investigators, who we've been trying to drop for a while due to her lack of desire and slightly crazy nature, got up to bear her testimony... So she gets up and starts with, "I've got three things to say. First, the behaviour of some members here is terrible!" She then starts listing off all the things members have done to offend her. "next," she continues, "the Book od Mormon has been horribly translated". She then went on to demand that the branch president organize and re-translation. "Finally, I just want to say this church is full of discrimination..." Before being asked to sit down, she managed to list off many ways that nonmembers are discriminated against, such as not being allowed to teach Sunday school... Well, normal, it was super awkward and random, and after she sat down everyone was kinda looking around to see if the testimony meeting would rebuke her or ignore her. But, thank goodness, Roxana, a beautiful, angel young girl got up. She is 12 years old. Just her and her Dad are members. She innocently went to the front and filled the room with the Spirit as she bore a perfect and simple testimony. I loved it! I was so proud of her. Wonderful sacrament meeting!

Also I've restarted the Book of Mormon, planning to finish in the next three months. The power of that book is incredible. Read it!

Love you all. Keep the Faith!

Sora Rivera

Last Email of 2013

Little Miracle

Me and a Bird

So a few weeks ago, I accidentally lost the Book of Mormon I was carrying in a Xerox. I thought I'd just left it at the church building but a few hours later we got a phone call from a lady who wanted to read the Book she'd found at a Xerox. The man who owned the Xerox wouldn't let her take it, so we agreed to meet so we could give her, her own copy. Well... normal... she bunged us, twice. She seemed really flakey on the phone and very suspicious, not even telling us her name.  So we weren't very hopeful when she called us on Monday wanting to meet that evening. We decided to give her another chance and sure enough she showed up! She turned out to be a woman from here in Bucuresti who was actually raised Muslim, but is super open and free in her beliefs. We took her on a chapel tour (first time I've ever done that!) and she loved it! She asked questions non-stop and wanted to take home every manual/hymn book she saw. We limited her to the pamphlets and the Book of Mormon. She then called us the next day to thank us and she wants to meet again! Yay... so that should be fun :D

Update... I'm still sick :/ meh... but on the bright side we have hot water again. It came back on Christmas day. Now it's switching between 5 seconds of scolding hot to about 20 seconds of freezing cold, but that's better than 100% freezing. We went on a mini exchange on Thursday so Sora Heim could still go to our lesson. She went with Sora Stapley and Sora Polatis chilled with me in the apartment. I was bored, so we got permission to watch Anastasia, which we watched in Romanian. It was hilarious! :D 

Us and President and Sora Hill

Christmas was great! We got to play games in the morning with the Elders, then we headed off to the legendary Sora Gorzo's apartment for lunch. It was.... well it was edible, but then afterwards we went to President's house for games and dessert. After which, we went to the Internet cafe and we got to Skype! yaaaaaaaaaaay! It was so fun to see my lovely family. 

The Hobbit Dragon in front of the IMax

Carolling: on Tuesday we went caroling all day, i think it was about 7 hours in total. We caroled to the public and then went around visiting members, less active members, and their neighbors. It was exhausting but so fun! Even President and Sora Hill came with us for about 2 hours. :D

Oh my, I can't believe 2013 is over! My "black year" as it's nicknamed on the mission. The full calendar year on the mission! It seems like just a few weeks ago, I was with Sora Cook and Elder Groberg and Elder Benson in Arad on New years eve... and now.... well, here I am in Bucuresti 1 year later. Time flies!

love you all! Keep the Faith! and Happy New Year!!!

Love Sora Rivera

photos, me and a bird, us and president and Sora hill, and the hobbit dragon that's in front of the imax :D