The line goes ever on and on...

Huge line to see a saint

Imagine the longest queue you've ever seen. I'm talking Disneyland Magic Mountain combined with a Beatles concert from back in the day. Picture that line... double it, and then maybe you'll have a idea of the queue that has been winding itself along the streets of Iasi over the past few days. You see, there's this saint - a lady saint, St. Parascheva. She was buried like 400 years ago, and apparently dug up like 80 years ago, and her body was somehow perfectly preserved, so the Orthodox church took her and buried her in the main church in central Iasi, and every year on her Saint Day, thousands and thousands of people come from all across Romania and Eastern Europe to pray to her and kiss her mummified hand in the hopes of healing and miracles and stuff. And since so many people come the city also chooses to celebrate the entire week with markets and fireworks. 

So the police set up road blocks and there's crowd control like crazy and the people go on and on through the streets winding there way up towards the church. The lamp posts all have big speaker/ megaphones attached to them too, so the priests sing from inside the church into the microphones so the thousands upon thousands of people lining up can hear the prayers. Lucky us missionaries live right next to the crowds of people so all night long for the past few days we've been lucky enough to be sung to sleep by the priests. 

Us at a Church

The queue  goes down the street where our little tiny rented out house where we hold church is. The police had blocked off the road and time and time again we've been having to convince the officers that we are not trying to cut the line but we are actually going to our church.... "the True church!" as one of the elders told the officer last night. I respect and admire the many people in the line who are truly seeking God, but we've also witnessed a lot of corruption in the past few days. 

The conversation with the Police Officers a few times a day goes something like this:  

Police Officer 1: Where are you going?

Us: To our church, on Strada Ipsilanti 28

Police Officer 1: There's no church there

Us: Yes there is, it's our church, the orange villa on the corner

Police Officer 1: I've never seen that church

Us: It's a house, we use it as a church

Police Officer 1: You can't come through

Us: We've been this way 10 times in the past few days

Police Officer 1: You can't come through

Us: We're just going to that orange building right there on the corner

Police Officer 1: No

Police Officer 2: Where are you going?

Us: To our church, that building, the orange one

Police Officer 2: Do you have proof of your church?

Us: Yeah, we can see it! It's right there, number 28 

Police Officer 1 (now getting bored): Fine..... 

And he lets us through.... it's crazy! The Senior Couple over Iasi were supposed to visit this weekend but they couldn't get a hotel so they'll have to come another week. I haven't seen this many people in a Romanian city in my whole mission. Tomorrow is the last day though, so by Wednesday we should have our streets back. 

Monica (our recent convert) and her little sister Miruna (age 6 - ADORABLE)

In afara de asta... this week has been lovely. We've had a few lessons. Sora found out she's leaving to Bucharest to be a sister Training leader with Sora Heim :( So we're sad to be separated. This transfer has been wonderful. But on the bright side  I'm going to be serving with Sora Kelly!!!!! :D :D :D I'm soooo pumped! We also went street boarding this past week and found a few more potential investigators. Today we went to visit a castle and took a thousand pictures, but my camera died early on, so we took pictures on Elder Rose's camera, I'll have to send them next week, but if you want to Google the castle it is called: "Cetatea Neamt" It was super fun and beautiful weather.

The church is true. I've seen so many miracles this transfer. I feel as though I've gained such a strong testimony that god really knows what's best for us. I love you all, and I thank you for your prayers. Keep the Faith!

Love Sora Rivera xxx

Chisinau and Conference

I love Moldova!

In Chisinau

I'm in love, I'm in love and I don't care who knows it! I'm in love with Moldova. Chisinau (pronounced Key-she-know) is absolutely amazing! The signs are all in both Russian and Romanian. The people all speak Russian and then a lot also speak Romanian. As you walk down the tree-lined streets of Chisinau, the people are usually chatting away in Russian, or Romanian with a thick Moldovan accent. It's fantastic! I was just loving it the whole time. I kinda felt like a boboaca again. Everything was brand new, the money, the language, even the transport. I went around like a crazy tourist taking photos of everything, and I bought the coolest Russian doll earrings, and a half size Russian doll for mum :D Sora bought a big fluffy Russian hat. It was awesome!

The church in Chisinau - check out the Russian sign on one side and the Romanian on the other

Us in Moldova

Domnul Cobeb - So on Thursday.... we'd stayed over night in Chisinau, and before heading back to Romania we of course had to go buy Russian dolls, hats, belts, bags etc. So there was 12 of us plus two of the missionaries serving in Chisinau as our guides.  The 14 of us had to stay together because our phones don't work in Moldova. We headed to the piata (market). It was huge!! Seriously enormous. It's this giant outdoor market/maze thing. It's a crazy maze of fruit sellers, and belt makers, and pretzel stands. We had a great time going through and finally finding the Russian hats. We then made our way down the street to find the Russian dolls. As we walked, all of a sudden one of the missionaries asks, "Where's Elder Cobabe?" We all looked around the group. ...there were only 13 of us. We lost Elder Cobabe!!!! We turn around, looking left right he was no where to be seen. Of course at this point Elder Ward, Sora and I (the only ones in the group with a sense of humor) burst out laughing!! We realized the last time we'd seen him was 40 minutes earlier back at the start of the piata. Half of us went back to the piata to see if we could find him. We searched and searched for about 2 hours, all the while, Sora, Elder ward and I were laughing and making up funny stories as to what was happening to our missing elder. Knowing Elder Cobabe, he probably hadn't even noticed the fact that he was missing. We started asking all the venders if they'd seen a young American-looking guy in a suit and tie. One woman said, "Try announcing his name over the loud speaker" So we run over to the administration building and had them announce it in Romanian over the loud speaker. We spelled his name out phonetically so the guy could read it. It was hilarious as we stood there, as if we're in the middle of Wal-Mart, "DOMNUL COBEB... your friends are waiting for you by the administration building". After nearly 4 hours of searching, he was eventually found. Turns out, he'd been looking at belts when we'd all accidentally left him.

Sora and I on my one year mark!

Year Mark - yay! one year on the mission! We went out to eat to celebrate. I had Apple pie.... it changed my life! Happy one year to meeeeeeee :D

Conferences - We had zone conference in Chisinau this week. It was absolutely wonderful. President Hill is always so inspired. My favorite quote from him was, "Tough missions make tough missionaries!" :D yeah! That's us!

Then this weekend, was General Conference. Again, absolutely wonderful! I only got to see half of it so far but I especially loved Elder Edward Dube's talk. He said, "It doesn't matter where you serve, it matters how". He was talking about "position/status" in the church but I also understood it as "where" quite literally as in the place where you are. So whether I'm in Iasi/ Constanta or hopefully one day Chisinau..... It doesn't really matter, it just matters what kind of missionary I am.

In Moldova

Russian & Romanian versions

Russian & Romanian versions 2

Andreea's Baptism in Constanta

Alright, have a great week everyone. We've got a busy week up ahead. It's transfer boards this Friday, I'm probably staying in Iasi, and Sora is probably leaving, but we'll see.

Keep the Faith!

Love Sora Rivera

p.s. The beautiful Andreea in Constanta was baptised this week!! She emailed me this photo from her baptism :)

1 Year!

Worst winter in 100 years...

Us with the sister training leaders

I first heard it from this slightly eccentric lady at church, but then I heard it from one of the super normal ladies, then I heard it from another person, and our whole English  class confirmed it...everyone is saying this'll be the worst winter in 100 years! People died because of the cold 3 years ago, but they're predicting it'll be even worse. I can believe it too, it's been freezing all week, and I wouldn't be surprised if it started to snow soon :(.  Meeeh I'm praying that everyone is just exaggerating. But just in case.... I wouldn't mind some hand warmers for Christmas? :)

best burgers ever with the sister training leaders

Crazy dog

There's this dog who lives in a house near the church. He only comes up to just below my knees, and he has a limp. His fence is broken so just as you round the corner there's a little gap where he is able to sneak out. Oh did I mention? This dog is the most evil vicious creature I've ever laid eyes upon....So anyway...Sora and I were on our way to a lesson this week, with our investigator, Maria. We'd just finished some street boarding and we were walking towards the church. As we started to come around the corner there was a giant puddle so Sora cleverly avoided it by going around into the street, I decided to avoid it by walking next to the fence.... the broken fence. Sure enough within seconds I realized my mistake as the little gimpy dog pokes his head out to see who dared to enter his territory. The tiny beast bore his teeth and started growling. "RUN!!" I hear Sora scream, and next thing I know I'm being chased down the street by a barking, ferocious, 3 legged dog. In an effort to save me, Sora MacDonald began calling the dog and waving her arms frantically, of course this then resulted in the little monster turning on her and chasing her! In the end we narrowly avoided being bitten and had to walk about 5-10 minutes out of our way in order to avoid being bitten and having to get rabies shots.

Such a missionary

Maybe it's the nametag... but I swear that on my mission I've been asked out then in the past few years. At the end of English on Saturday these two guys attempted to ask us out. They lingered behind and were like, "hey, so what do you two do for fun?" The shorter one smiling at me, and the tall one leaning in towards my companion.

"Oh, we teach about Jesus." We told them.

"Yeah, but in your free time...?"

"We teach about Jesus! All day... everyday!"  We told them, playing completely innocent.

"You don't have a day off?"

"Well Monday we have free time, but we just hang out with the other 4 missionaries"

Poor guys.

Peoples

We have a couple of cool new investigators, we found through English classes. And Maricica is doing well, still won't pay tithing, but otherwise she's doing great. The Iasi branch is super awesome, the people are so loving! I love them! :D

Zone conference is in two days.... Moldova!!! YEAH! I'm soo excited. I'm leaving the country, how cool is that?! We leave for Chisinau Wednesday morning, we have zone conference all afternoon on Wednesday, then Thursday morning we're going shopping in Moldova! :D I wanna buy a Russian doll, a Cyrillic bible, and I'm buying Colin's Christmas present there too, which he won't get until I come home in April but I'm so pumped!

Also it's my 1 year mark this week!! 1 year on the mission! say what?!!

And Happy General Conference week!! We'll be watching it together this Saturday evening and Sunday evening. Sora and I are making caramel popcorn, the elders have promised brownies and apple pie, so it should be a real party!

Loves! Keep the Faith

Sora Rivera





Randoms

Sorry my brain is being stifled by the cigarette smoke, thanks to the guy sitting next to me in this interent cafe and thus my thoughts are all over the place....

Exchange

I got to go on an exchange this week! the lovely sister training leaders, Sora Lund and Sora Polatis came to Iasi on tuesday and wednesday! We had so much fun! I went with Sora Polatis again. It's been 2 whole weeks since we were companions, but we still aren't sick of each other. It was such a fun exchange! We went out in the rain and english contacted all afternoon. I love that girl!

Peoples

Our investigator Maricica is an interesting character. She has blonde hair and bright blue eyes and wears the bright pink romanian lipstick. She's a total hippy and I love her. She has this friend called Maria. A much older woman, who's kinda crazy. Maria is a hunched over old woman, with just a couple of teeth. She uses a cain and always has a suspicious scowl on her face because of her poor eye-sight. Maricica feels sorry for her so invited her to church, how cute? I keep teasing Sora Macdonald that one day she'll be Maricica, and I'll be her crazy friend Maria ;)

Oh my gosh, I'm sitting in an internet cafe with a guy smoking up a storm! I'm dying waaaaaaaah! cough cough cough.... :(

Anyway....

Spiritual Thought for English

At the end of each English class we give spiritual thoughts that are aimed to spark peoples' interest in the church. On saturday, Sora and I were assigned to give the spiritual thoguht. that morning, during studies we both felt prompted to use the questions of the soul and how the book of mormon can answer them. We started by writing on the board 3 of the questions of the soul, 1. What is the Purpose of life? 2. Why does God allow suffering and trials to happen? and 3. Is there life after death? Since, we only had 5 minutes we just answered the first question using the Book of Mormon and invited the class to speak to us if they were interested in knowing more. After we'd finished, a woman, Theodora, came up to Sora and said, "I want to know the answer to that second question!" We set up a lesson to meet with her for this week. Another different woman came up and spoke to me about the questions. It was just soo cool because it was exactly what they needed to hear.

Crumpets!

We had a branch activity on saturday and I made crumpets! It's funny how I've made crumpets more on my mission then in my entire life.


We get to go to Chisinau next week for zone conference!!! :D It's in Moldova!!! That's a whole other country! I'm super pumped :)

Happy Birthday to Mum!! 

:D yaay! Our new investigator, Maria (different Maria then the crazy old lady, this one is normal and very nice), also wishes you health and good fortune! :)

YAY!

The church is true! life is grand! The Lord loves us. Recently my scriptural theme of life has been Philippians 4: 11-13 read it......

Keep the Faith!
loves

Sora Rivera

Botezed

Botezed

(The subject line for this email is really a shout out to Sora Cook.... I'm fully aware that botezed is neither english nor romanian.... I guess it would translate in Romanglish to baptism'd)

Lessons learnt this week:

1. Random strawberry-smelling powder + milk + freezer... does NOT equal ice cream, no matter what the packet says.

2. Turnips make all the difference!

Sora MacDonald was making Bors. A kinda soup stuff with vegetables. She kept wining saying that it didn't taste like Romanian Bors. But, Sora Heim had convinced her to buy a turnip. I somehow had always thought turnips were an imaginary vegetable made up by Beatrix Potter. Turns out, they exist. They kinda resemble a mangled potato, but they're super hard. After trying for about 10 minutes to cut the turnip I finally succeeded. I purposely cut it into defined triangles so that as we ate the soup we'd know exactly which pieces were from the turnip. We threw in the turnip  and finally about about an hour of stewing, Sora MacDonald squealed excitedly that it was tasting Romanian. Maybe it was the 3/4 bottle of sour soup bors stuff she'd also added... but I think not, I reckon that turnip made all the difference!

3. I'm still terrible at football... and all sports

We had a sports night where we played football this week with the YSA. Bineinteles Sora and I were dreadful and kept getting distracted until a ball would fly past our heads. But after about an hour of playing and about 19 attempts by Radu, setting me up for a goal, I finally scored! yay :)

4. Liver is not for eating

I ate a stew.... it had liver. I think the entire liver was in my bowl. It seemed to multiply as I ate it. The texture was somewhere between a sponge and gritty oatmeal.

5. I duno what I learnt by this but it was cool...

As we walked home from sports night we met a really cool lady who was rescuing a cat. There was a tiny little kitten and she was trying to find a home for it. And no... she wasn’t a crazy homeless woman, she was a put-together business woman who just happens to care about animals. She gave us her number and wants to know more! yay :) oh and don't worry, we found a nice lady who has a cat lady for a neighbour, she took the kitten home.

6. This work truly is the Lord's work.

We as missionaries get a front row seat to people's conversion process, but if there's one thing I've learnt from watching Monica's baptism on Saturday, it's that, this had nothing to do with me. 3 days before I got to the city she randomly came to church and told the sisters that she wanted to be baptised. She'd been to EFY (Especially For Youth) this summer and gained a testimony there. We went through all the lessons with her, and she was beautifully accepting of everything. As we moved onto tithing, she said, "oh yeah I know that, it's where you give 50% of everything you earn right?" ... we quickly informed her it was only 10% a very pleasant surprise for her. All day Saturday, and yesterday as she received the Holy Ghost, I felt like Ammon, Alma 26:11-12:
 11 But Ammon said unto him: I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my bjoy is full, yea, my heart is brim with cjoy, and I will rejoice in my God.
 12 Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name forever.


The church is true!!! Loves!

Keep the Faith