A Spoonful Of What?

Everyone loves a crazy food story right? I don't think I've had a good one since my first transfer and the chicken head soup but this week we went to visit a family in the branch. I'll attempt to paint the scene for you so you can experience the night along with us.

Having fun with the district

We arrived a little early so thought we'd go contacting in the park across the street. As we made our way over we saw the dad from the family making his way towards us with a big smile on his face. He was holding a grocery bag. "Hello!! Has you eaten? My wife cookeeng for you!" He says in his broken English. Knowing that he is currently out of work, it's a huge sacrifice for the family to feed us, so gratefully we smiled and told him we were hungry and couldn't wait.

We walked up to their apartment and walk in the front door. First off it's at least 100 degrees in their home, no AC, no fans, not even the windows were open. The 2 month old baby is sat in his little seat screaming, as the 2 year old girl also stood there screaming. The 4 year old was smashing his toys together and dancing. The mum was cooking in the kitchen and the dad welcomed us in. Immediately we were drenched in sweat. We then sat for over an hour as the food was being prepared, at the computer with the Dad as he showed us hundreds of photos and videos of their kids. Finally, after squeezing out our last "awh, how cute..." the food was ready!

We sat on the couch soaked in sweat, the baby was still screaming and the 2 year old was now throwing a tantrum in the hall. The tiny coffee table was pulled in front of us and we were given plates. The dad then brings in an enormous bowl full of, what he called, "greek salad". It had potatoes and peppers...(okay so far so good...) and boiled eggs and olives (not so good but tolerable) and some sort of grey slimy meat...Fish! (Death!) "Don't worry girls!" says the dad, "it's raw! Fresh from the black sea."

Did he just say raw?!

Yup that's what he said

Is he joking?

No not joking

RAW fish?!

What could we do? That was all they had made! Cleverly we took the serving spoon first and dished ourselves out a portion avoiding as much of the fish as possible. Barely a trace was visible on our plates. But the dad, thinking that we were trying to be polite, helpfully dished us up 2 more enormous spoonfuls absolutely loaded with fish! So what did we do? We ate it. (I should also at this point mention, that as missionaries, we're not allowed to eat fish from the black sea due to some nuclear spill 20 years ago, so if I end up with stomach cancer, I'll know why....)  Any hoo, we survived, and now we have yet another great story! After all life is about stories ;)

With Sora Polatis in our flat

Oh but have no fear... there is another food story for the week. This one is shorter though. Yesterday we went to visit a part member family. The mother brings out mamaliga for us to eat. If you don't know what mamaliga is, imagine the texture of thick oatmeal, with no flavor. Then she pulls out a jar.

 "It's sheep cheese! Straight from my father's farm! Not processed at all!!" She says as I pull out hairs from the cheese... "Oh that's just hair from the sheep" she reassures me. "Not processed!! Much healthier..."

It was sooo funny! It wasn't actually too bad to eat, it was more the psychological factor of pulling out the sheep hair hahaha!

Oricum (anyway)... I appreciate the sacrifice that the people make in order to feed us. It truly is humbling. These people are unbelievably generous and I love them to pieces!

Haha! What a crazy week. In other news, Sora Polatis has been super sick with a cold, so that's been tough, and lets see....  all active members from the branch are leaving for 10 days to go to the temple this week, but we have one or two lessons with investigators. Andreea is on track for her baptism and we should have our first Skype lesson with Ritta and Petre this week. In my studies, I've also been studying the New Testament this transfer! It's mind blowing. I was nearly brought to tears this morning reading the account of Stephen, in Acts. I love the scriptures. I know this church is true with my whole heart. I know that Joseph Smith saw Jesus Christ and God the Father, and I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.

va iubim! Sa fiti cuminti

  

Sora Jessi Rivera

Is McDonalds a Conspiracy?

Presentation:

Reflections in the water

This week, Sora and I gave our 3rd presentation together! It's kinda random, but funny. Sora Polatis and I always get asked to do presentations, we both love doing them though, so it's a good thing :) We were asked to speak about goals, so using the scripture 1 Nephi 14:1, we talked about stumbling blocks and how to overcome our stumbling blocks as we work towards our goals.

Constanta is still awhsum:

All the missionaries in the mission make fun of the Constanta missionaries that all we do all day is lie on the beach and get a tan... well this week, we lived up to the stereo type with a district meeting on the beach! The Constanta building was being used this week for a single adult conference for Romania and Moldova, so it was full of people and we couldn't use the church, so next best option was the beach! haha! :D

Familia Oltiana

Familia Oltianu:

We have the best members in this branch! On Monday night we went to go visit the Oltianu family. They have 2 kids and one on the way, due in September. The parents were married and sealed in the temple and they are seriously the cutest family ever. We went to visit them just to have an FHE and share a spiritual thought, and hopefully receive a referral. Instead, we walk in the door and first off, Sora Oltianu has made us homemade donuts, and second, their Aunt Tina is sitting at the table and says she has questions about the gospel. We had a great lesson and now we're trying to work with Tina. I love these members! They're so full of love and will sacrifice anything for the missionaries!

Church in Romania:

Elders Lasater & Myler, Sora Polatis

I love Church in Romania! It's sooo funny! Maybe it's the language, maybe the culture differences, maybe the fact that the church is still pioneering here, probably everything combined, either way, I love church here. Yesterday for example... at church it was fast and testimony meeting. The district president, President Doru was sitting at the front of the room. There was a minute or two where nobody was getting up so he yells out, super loud, to his wife "Come on Sora Doru!! Your turn!!" hahaa! Next came Sunday school, where we heard that McDonalds is a conspiracy theory from Satan designed to overthrow the Word of Wisdom. It sounded funny in Romanian, but even funnier as I turned and looked at Elder Baielli who was translating for the senior couple. He just turned and looked at them, "I'm not translating that." Next came relief society where we were speaking about the role of women. I was translating for the senior missionary. The discussion went straight from, "Women need to support the people around them..." to, "Men are NOTHING! NOTHING!" The senior sister looked at me, startled, as I just kinda laughed . "NOTHING! They're worthless without us! We always work hard! They're nothing!!" I continued translating. Finally the Relief Society President was able to bring the spirit back and redirect the conversation, reminding everyone that we all have strengths and weaknesses. Maybe people are this entertaining back home too, I'll have to wait see.

Have a good week everyone! Thank you so much for your love and support and your prayers in my behalf.

Keep the Faith

Sora Rivera





Courage!

What a crazy week we've had! It's been so crazy up and down that I think I'll just give you a summary of each day:

Door knocking

MONDAY: After P-day on Monday, we got bunged (stood up) so we went contacting. We decided to talk to people about the plan of salvation. And all was going well. A lady started talking to us and mentioned how her husband had died a few years ago. So we started to testify to her about eternal families and how God has a plan for us. She seemed interested and Sora Polatis then asked her what she felt the purpose of life is. She then talked for about 15 minutes straight about families and something, then Sora opened the Book of Mormon and started to read Alma 34:32. Half way through the verse, a guy came out of nowhere and start yelling at us and the lady, saying we were of the Devil and if she talked to us she'd lose her soul. He yelled at us, he yelled at the lady for even speaking with us. We were speechless as soon as the guy walked away, we hesitantly began to read the verse again, and the lady was naturally weirded out and told us to leave. It was so sad! We never quite get used to the fact that everyone here hates us. We were really bummed. But, on the bright side as we walked home, close to tears, we walked into our bloc and one of our neighbours was also walking in to her apartment. We said hi as we walked past her door up the stairs to our apartment, then she turns to us and goes, "Do you want some chocolate?" Of course, we took it and it was delicious!! :D Yay for tender mercies!

TUESDAY: Every lesson was bunged, sad day.

Cleaning Corn

WEDNESDAY: It was transfer day. Every single missionary in the mission except for a couple of the Russian speakers went to Bucharest, every missionary that was, except for us. So we thought we'd do something fun. We decided to go la tara (out of the city). An elderly couple in the branch live there, and the branch president really wanted someone to visit them, so we jumped at the opportunity and planned it for Wednesday afternoon. We go there, and somehow ended up "cleaning corn" for 5 hours. The corn was dried out for over a year, then we took a metal claw thingy and we scraped off the dried corn into an enormous barrel so that it could later be grinded down. We scraped and scraped until our hands were about to fall off, then Grandpa Vitel would reach into the barrel and pull out more and more for us to do. "Courage!" He kept saying. Then he'd go around the corner and bring in another huge barrel of corn.

Sora Polatis cleaning corn

And to increase the randomness of the story, the couple were originally from the countryside of Moldova. So their accents were super thick and they used different words than we'd ever heard so we honestly felt like it was our first week in the country again where everyone speaks around you and you pick up on about 3 words every 5 minutes! 5 hours straight of barely understanding anything! What a day!

THURSDAY: English contacting all afternoon with the new district. It was super hot out so we went block knocking English contacting. Got a few doors in in the face. Not as good as the elders though, at one point this week they got chased out of a block by a guy with a spatula hahaha!

FRIDAY: 2 lessons!! YEAH!! We were super pumped. Only problem, we got completely lost for like 2 hours. The addresses make absolutely no sense here and the lady we were visiting kept telling us to look for the red car. The red car????!!!! There were like 30 red cars down that 5 mile street! Sigh.

SATURDAY: Weekly planning and no love contacting, as usual. But that's okay! We're keeping up on our tans!

SUNDAY: Amaaaazing day! So we met with Ritta. Our Jewish investigator! Ritta and Petre had brought their photo albums! They were super cute! We're completely in love with them. They seriously the cutest couple ever, despite the fact their in their 60s. So anyway, the lesson! Ritta now believes in Jesus Christ!!! YAY! She had a dream this week that convinced her that Jesus is the Christ, then on top of that, she read 3 Nephi 11 and it was confirmed to her. It was an amazing lesson. I can't even describe how sacred and special it was. To go from not believing in Christ and now she believes that Jesus really is the Messiah... amazing! Definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my entire life. We also set a baptismal date with her for the end of September. Ritta and Petre are going to Israel for a month, but we've spoken to President Hill and he said that if they have Skype then we can do Skype lessons. Never did I ever think that on my mission in Romania would I be teaching a Jewish woman in Israel. Seriously awesome!

Then, remember the guy who contacted us on the beach and asked us on dates?? Well, he came to church yesterday!! Hahah!! We thought it was soo funny! We couldn't believe that he actually came! He stayed for all three hours too and even volunteered in Sunday School to read a verse. Haha! Little miracles!

Well that's it for the week! These missions are insane, but so funny! And full of good stories!!! I love you all! I know this church is true! Keep the Faith!

Sora Rivera

Constanta again

Looking at the transfer list

I'm staying in Constanta!!! We found out transfers on Friday and Sora Polatis and I are both staying here in Constanta!!!!! I'm so excited! We were super nervous that I'd be transferred just because there are so many sisters that would be moving around. But it turns out that Sora Polatis and I were the two lucky ones who got to stay here by the beach! I kept joking around as I was leaving Arad, that I was heading to the beach for the whole summer! And so here I am! PERFECT! The Elders are switching it up a bit, but we're super excited for what this next transfer has in store. Sora and I were talking about it the other day, and we've realized that since tons of new sisters will very soon be coming into the mission, and we're some of the oldest, it means that this transfer is the calm before the storm! So we're going to make it the best transfer ever! :D Super pumped! And don't worry, we'll carry on taking photos like crazy ;)

Low hanging wires!

Last Monday, we had an interesting experience. We went to visit a lady whom we found in the Area Book. First off, it took us an hour to get there, simply because Romania directions are so crazy! The block numbers seem to go... C1, C2, P13, C6, A11, MZ 5 etc... yeah... so after walking around a great big lake, all the way down to the opposite side of town, and following the directions of multiple Romanians, we finally arrived at her home. [Side note]: When Romanians give directions it usually goes something like this:

Us: "Excuse me, do you know how to get to the Ciresc Restaurant?" 

Romanian: " Go straight ahead, turn right and ask someone else"

Its very kind of them to try even though they usually have no idea where to go. Ah well, we arrived! The lesson was okay. She believes the Book of Mormon is true and has read it multiple times, only problem is that she believes the Catholic Church is true and the great apostasy never took place. She also gave us coffee to drink and insisted it wasn't coffee. It's funny, how in just a matter of 2 weeks I've been given coffee twice! Sigh... Oh well! Mergem mai departe!

We have the coolest new investigator! She is Jewish! Adica, from Israel jewish! She's the wife of one of the members here. They got married about a year ago. He is the Romanian Christopher Walken Look-alike! Fur reals! I'll  take a picture with him this week! But anyway... she is so cool! And wants to be baptized. Only flaw is that whole not believing that Jesus is the Christ yet. But no worries! She has the desire to know and understand. We're super excited to be teaching her!

With Elena

We had the best branch activity on Saturday! We organized a minute to win it activity! Romanians are sooo funny, because they're a little reserved at first but if you ease them into the situation they get really enthusiastic! We played all sorts of hilarious games and everyone loved it. We played that one game where you start with a cookie on your forehead and you have to get it down into your mouth. Well our branch president, Alin, was like "gross, I don't wanna eat that after its been on my face.... Ugh that's impossible!" But his competitive side won out and he just had to have a go! Then he managed to be the first person to do it! He scrunched and screwed up his face and shook his head as we all cracked up laughing. Then plop! It goes straight in! He then munched the cookie, turned to everyone and yelled, "The church is true!!"  hahaha it was amazing :D

We had a random/funny experience this week. So there we were, 9.25 am. Not having the best day in the world. We were out sitting on the beach ... crying. Then this guy walks up and asks if we could take a picture of him. I guess we must've looked super confused because he was like, "Uhh? What's wrong?! It's just a photo" So anyway we took it and he then sits down next to us and proceeds to tell us his life story. We of course used the opportunity to teach him the restoration and the plan of salvation. He asked us to go on a date with him and his brother, we invited him to come to church and meet the elders :) Gotta love being a missionary. You know you're a missionary when a cute guy asks you out and the only thing you can think of saying is, "No thanks, have you heard about our church?!"

I wanted to share with you a little more about my mission here. This is something that President Hill shared with us last week in his weekly email. He usually does a question and answer session. This is one of them from last week:

Sora Polatis and Sora Lidia

“We've had another week with all zeros. Our lessons didn't work out and we weren't able to find any people that were interested in the truth yet, but we are still looking. Should we be worried about our low numbers?”


ANSWER (from President Hill): I'm so sorry that your planned lessons didn’t work out. That, unfortunately, happens a lot to missionaries--probably all over the world. Just one of the "occupational hazards" of our assignment! We just pick ourselves up off the floor of despair and move forward! I know you're trying so hard! And some weeks you don't even have any "Key Indicators" to report that except zeros! But, never fear, I was a Germany missionary and I fully understand the challenges of România/Moldova missionaries!! You never have to explain low numbers to me. I know you're working hard and often have "nothing to show" for your efforts--except those unreportable "touches" that might someday pay dividends. Just keep trying. Never give up. Never, ever give up!

This wasn't me, that week, but I certainly have had weeks with 100% zeros. in the past I just love how understanding our mission president is. This mission still has multiple branches with missionaries as Branch Presidents. Can you imagine? a little 19 year old as a branch president?! Seriously! We are still building the foundation for the church here. The church is growing, slowly and surely! And I can't wait to see the day, where the church begins to really thrive! This mission isn't about grand events! It's about the little acts, the seeds planted, and the small steps being taken.

With Sora Polatis

Alrighty frumoșilor! Vă iubesc pe voi! Sunteti minutați! știu ca Isus traiește!

mă iubiți!

Sora Riveră

The Fruit Of Our Labours

Scary Fridge: Before

Only in Romania.... so most people if they've heard of Romania, just think of Dracula. Well, this week, Sora and I cleaned out a fridge covered in blood. Allow me to elaborate. On Tuesday all of us missionaries and a couple members from the branch went to one of the member's homes to help him clean, cut wood, and do some yard work and stuffs. It turned out to be a bigger job then we'd expected. So we agreed to return on the Saturday after English. Sora and I had been inside cleaning and clearing out the old cabinets. It was disgustingly dirty. The member lives there with his mother who has Alzheimer's. On Saturday afternoon we returned and he asked if we'd clean out the fridge! "Of course!" we said. The eccentric grandma was wandering around telling us about her three granddaughters as we grabbed the cleaning supplies. A little puppy covered in fleas nipped out our shoes and we opened the fridge door. Sora and I couldn't believe it! There was blood, frozen blood, dripped and splattered all over the inside of the fridge. It seemed to have originally come from a huge piece of meat on the shelves. We asked the lady what the meat was. "I don't know" she said, a little confused, and opened the back to look, "Porc" she said proudly, and then went back to dusting the shelves happily. I don't know if it was porc, beef, or I don't even know... but whatever it was, it was disgusting! But anyhoo, we cleaned and scrubbed and the fridge was a beautiful sparkly white by the end. Don't worry we got some good photos and an even better video! And afterwards, the member from the branch was so grateful that he went to his plum trees and filled bags of plums for us to take home! We called them, the fruit of our labours! 

Scary Fridge: After

Chalk Contact with Random Pony

With the Elders

Also.... another random fact about the service project, one of the member's friends/relatives was sat in the corner the whole time making some sort of vodka/whisky. We invited him to church, but he said he wasn't interested and then proceeded to tell us many racist ideas and plans. One of the newer missionaries was there, kind of listening. He's still at the point in his mission where he doesn't understand much of what people say. As Sora and I sat listening the Nazi-Romanian, I kinda of wished I still didn't understand. Oh well... people just need Jesus! That’s all I can say! :D


I gave another talk yesterday! YAY! The topic was "being examples worthy to follow". I based the talk around the scripture from Romans 5:19 about obedience. It was really fun. I love giving talks! Especially in Romanian. It's excellent language study. Also this week, Sora and I finished Alma and Helaman in the Book of Mormon. We're trying to finish it by next Wednesday. One thing that Sora Polatis and I love is how much the Book of Mormon uses the word "astonished" It's sooo funny! It's everywhere! Have a look out for it as you're reading. I have the goal to read the entire standard works before the end of my mission too. Next transfer is New Testament! I'm very excited :)


We had a fun experience on Thursday. The Elders were on exchanges and the two trainees were put together. Elder Collison and Montoya. Collison has only been here 9 weeks and Montoya just 3 weeks. So we decided to take them chalk contacting. It's a really nice, fun and relaxed way to contact. Perfect, for newer missionaries. They're both still terrified to talk to people! But chalk contacting is easy because you draw out the whole plan of salvation on the ground and then explain it to people, and if you forget what to say, it's right there on the ground in front of you. They did amazing! At first they would barely say a word and would just point and the pictures I drew. But by the end they were stopping people and explaining the whole thing and inviting people to learn more! I remember that feeling, when I was new. Just fearing that people would say stuff and I wouldn't know what to say back. So it was sooo fun to help them to become more comfortable with contacting and to relax and enjoy mission work.


We had the coolest experience on Saturday evening. We were walking home from the church after correlation meeting. As we were coming up the street we saw a little old lady from our block standing in the middle of our street. Her name is stella, me and Sora Caruso met her back in May. She has pretty severe Parkinsons. We went up to her. "Hi Stella! How are you?!" I asked. "I need your help!" She said, in a panicked voice. She looked so scared. She took my arm and we very slowly crossed the street. "Are you heading home?" She asked. She was shaking very bad and could barely walk. "Yes!" We told her. And we began our long journey back to the block.  She'd gone for a walk in the park nearby and had been struggling to walk home for an hour. She had been praying for help and then boom! Heavenly Father sends two little missionaries to help her get home. It was soo cute! She told us about her life and the countries she'd visited. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew her and she told them all that we were her neighbours, helping her home. She lives with her daughter 2 floors below us. It was such a joy to be used by the Lord to serve her. I was filled with love for her! I thought about the scripture, love thy neighbour! Yes! That's why we're here. To love God, and to love our neighbour.

I love this work! This week is transfers, and I hope I get to stay in Constanta with Sora Polatis, but if not, I'll serve wherever he wants me to go. Love you all! Keep the Faith

Sora Rivera xx

Happy 4th of July and stuff

Buna Ziua Dragii Mei!

This week! Wow, I can hardly believe that's it's been a whole week already!

Making Pres Hill put on the Armour of God

Presentation: So this week in Zone Conference, Sora and I were asked to present again. This time, we were asked to present on English Contacting. 50% of the baptisms in this mission come from English classes, so it is vital that English classes are packed full. And since both Sor a Polatis and I find some presentations boring, we were determined to have fun with it. We took the Armour of God from DC 27 and changed it into the Armor of English Contacting! We took all the key points of how to be a good contactor and made it into the Armour. We then dressed up President Hill in colourful Armour that we'd made. It was so funny! President loved it! and so did all the missionaries. The entire zone conference halted in order for everyone to take photos!

Half the sisters in the mission at zone conference

Service: We had a super cool opportunity to do service last week. We'd set a goal to do a little extra service everyday: to constantly be on the look out for random acts of service that we could be performing. On Tuesday night we arrived in Buch for zone conference the next day. We got on the metro and headed towards the sisters apartment. There was a lady there, who had a giant bag on a teenie tiny trolley. They lady was a little older and was really struggling with all of the hundreds of stairs everywhere. We went over to help and she quickly told us no no. Then we continued and she got off at the same stop as us, where she was going to have to climb another huge set of stairs. Everyone was rushing past her even though she was clearly struggling. We went over and asked if we could help again. This time, she accepted and we carried the giant bags up the stairs. "Where are you from? What are you doing here?" She asked us. "We’re missionaries, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." We told her. "I knew it!" she said, "I knew you were with God. You're angels!" She thanked us, wished us health and then left. It was so cool, to help her out and to give her a good impression of the church and missionaries.

Our English class is soooo cute. They brought us flowers!

English Class: We've been continuing our English class with the little girls! They’re seriously adorable and improving very quickly. It's been so fun trying to come up with new games and creative ways to keep them entertained. They completely adore us too! On Saturday all four of them walked in, holding bouquets for us! I hope I can teach a family class every transfer for the rest of my mission!






Stuffs I learnt: We had a great zone conference! I couldn't possibly write everything that I learnt but I'll just share my favourite part which was the sisters meeting. Our Sister training leaders, Sora Cook and Sora Kelly, prepared the most beautiful meeting for us. We talked about the talk by Jeffrey R. Holland called "The Other Prodigal" (http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2002/04/the-other-prodigal?lang=eng) It was perfect! It's an amazing talk about not comparing ourselves to others and also being happy for others. It was exactly what I needed to hear. It's really difficult sometimes to not compare myself to others, but this talk really changed my perspective.

Our awesome district: Sora Polatis, Elders: Cobabe, Collison, Montoya, Taylor

Branch Contacting: As I've stated in previous emails... this branch is soooooooo legit! We went contacting in centru with members of the branch this last Saturday Morning. We had a display up with photos of families and a giant Book of Mormon stand. We then sang and took turns contacting people on the street! It was sooo successful! We got a bunch of phone numbers and people really enjoyed the singing and people were, for the most part, saying really positive things about the church. Sora and I were in charge of the music. It was especially cool as we sand Hark all ye Nations in Romanian, and a bunch of different people came up to ask us what our church was all about. The members are so key in missionary work! If anything, this mission is preparing me to be the best member missionary ever!

Happy times with Sora Polatis

Investigator: We had an excellent lesson with Andreea on Saturday evening. she's been working tons so we've hardly been able to meet with her, even though she has a baptismal date. But we were finally able to catch up this Saturday and she's doing soooo solid! I love that girl. I don't know if I'll be lucky enough to be in Constanta in September but whoever is, will definitely be seeing a baptism. We went through the baptism interview questions with her and she was completely solid on all of them. My favourite was asking her if she believed Christ to be her saviour. She looked at me almost surprised, "I don't just believe," she said "I know!"

Me on the rocks

Little miracle: Last week, after internet, Sora Polatis felt prompted to invite the library lady to English class. The woman looked at the little flyer, shrugged and just put it on the desk. But a few days later apparently a man came in, speaking English, and the lady gave him the card. And now... he's being taught by the Elders and he came to church yesterday! How cool is that? He is from Iran originally but has lived in Sweden for like 20 years. He really enjoyed church. I hope he continues to progress. But either way, it was just another little reminder of how much God knows us and is in complete control!
Okay, I should best be on my way! I love you all! The church is true! Romanian rocks, despite their fears of air-conditioning...sigh. Keep the Faith!Sora Rivera

Photos from Constanta

Here are some extra photos, including the promised night gown photo, plus the promised dirty water photo...

Romanian Sun Splash?!

With the Young Women

From the Cookies Lesson

Dirty Water from our taps! Ick!

Elena, Andreea, & Elena's Little Sister Eva

Touching the Black Sea

Night gowns rule