Buna Dimineata,
I'm not sure how correct my spelling is here especially since this computer doesn't have Romanian letters in it. So I'm sorry if the Romanian words I use do not translate correctly! I promise that I can say more words then I can spell... Anywho it has been a wonderful glorious week here at the MTC. And it is seriously crazy that I have been here for about a month now... I only have a week and a half. I'm a little nervous honestly, I don't know the language has much as I wish I did. My teachers, have I told you how wonderful my teachers are, they keep reminding us over and over again that when they left the MTC they knew about as much as we knew at two weeks. TWO WEEKS! I knew nothing at two weeks! So that gives me hope, and I know the Lord is blessing me as I look back at my first day here where my heart was pounding and I kept thinking why did I want to learn a language??? My mind no longer thinks that way just FYI, but it is just so cool to see how much progress I have made! It truly is the Lord blessing me, I couldn't do it any other way. It's also really funny we have a teacher named Fratle Boynton and he went to see the BYU Romanian Language Class. The teacher and him started to speak in Romana and then the teacher asked what they were saying. They way he told the story was so funny because to us he was speaking Romana and we understood everything and then he tells us that they were saying nu inslege, he then stops and says no they didn't even say that they said we don't understand. It was probably a have to be there moment, but it was so funny to us! We have been here four weeks and they have been in classes for over a year in this class and we understand and they don't. That is the power of the Lord. Have I just mentioned how AWESOME it is to be a missionary?
This week we have lessons we have about 8ish lessons? I think last week my companion and I had the most lessons so they let us have like two less lessons this week... Anyways so we were teaching our teacher Sora Wilson or as our investigator we know her as Stella. And I have to tell you that if I have a Stella that I meet on my mission, I will come home the most happiest person if I just get to have ONE experience like the experience we have with her. So let me tell you some "background information" on her. She works all the time and she has 3 kids. Who do not live with her. I guess it's something that is pretty regular in Romania. It's too expensive to get a divorce and get married and so when couples break up they just split up. If they have kids a lot of the time the kids end up living with their grandparents or a nanny of some sort. Isn't it sad? Oh also Romania has one of the biggest surplus of orphans. I mean it is absolutely ridiculous, they have way more orphans then they have room for. Before they were a "free" country the dictator I guess encouraged people to have a lot of kids. So what they would do is that the mom would have the baby and they just leave the hospital. It is the most horrifying thing that I can ever imagine but it's a big issue over there. Sorry little bits of knowledge of where I am going. Back to Stella so she has three kids who don't live with her, but she loves her kids so much. And she wants to see them as much as possible. As we are teaching her you can just see that she has been waiting for this her whole life and as we were explaining the Plan of Salvation and our purpose on this life is to return to Tatal nostru Ceresc and be with our families. She just stopped and said how can I get this. I want this, it was beautiful! She came to church, loved church, she even brought her kids which live hours away. We had a discussion on the importance of baptism and we had a "member" Sora Whiting "Mihaela" come and talk to her. It was the most beautiful lesson. She agreed to be baptized and we knew that the hardest lesson for her to accept would be Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. Since she works all the time, and she has to work to help her kids and to just live. So we had the Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy lesson. And you can just tell that she doesn't know if she can do this and she just has to work. And through the promptings of the spirit we were able to explain to her the importance, and we were able to find a scripture that just told her first let your sight be on the Kingdom of God and God will help provide for you. She just started crying. I think that is when it just became so real to me... the spirit is there. She can feel it and through the spirit and her faith in Jesus Christ she committed. I know that technically she isn't a real investigator and this is just the MTC, but it was the most humbling, amazing experience. To see the spirit touch someone so much and to agree to not work on Sundays when they have to work to provide for her household. That much faith in our Savior, to just follow Him.
It makes me think how much Faith do I have. If I wasn't born into the household I was in and if I didn't have this knowledge of the Gospel would I be so willing to accept the gospel? And just follow Jesus Christ. I sure hope so.
I can not wait to get to Romania, because even though I know that I don't know the language, all of the grammar principles, all of the conjugations of verbs, all of the vocab, and everything else that makes me nervous I know that if the spirit is there, then I have done what I have been sent there to do. Now I know I need to learn the language and don't think this is me saying oh I'm good I have the spirit. Hahaha as if. But I know that when I am making my best effort to speak and the spirit is there, that is when conversion starts.
I'll get off my little soap box here of how I have all sorts of revelations. It's pretty cool to see how I'm growing though.
We should get our travel plans today! AHHHHHH I'M SO EXCITED! And a little sad because I wont have my companion that I have at this moment in time. But I am just full of excitement!
Oh mom I did get my card to work and I took out 40. And I will probably take out another 40 next week before I leave. We are supposed to have cash on us just in case purposes. I keep hearing that we may have to pay for our luggage over there and then they will reimburse us... but they I have heard other things... I'm not sure what is going to happen when we leave for our flight. I will keep you posted though. So yeah I guess you can probably expect a call from me next week? Maybe from the airport... yes I guy just told me that we will call from the airport. So I think not quite sure but I believe we will be calling on Monday the 18th. It might be in the morning... so I'm grateful you all are early morning risers. Don't quote me though because I am not completely sure and we haven't gotten our travel plans yet. You will just have to wait until next week for more information on that. But I can only call once and leaving a voice mail counts. So make sure to answer the phone hahaha :)
You are all in my prayers every night. And I love you all just so much. Just know that I am super duper happy here and I love missionary work.
va iubesc!
Sora Stewart
ps. I love all your letters. But I always forget to bring them with me when I am writing letters home so if there are specific questions you want me to answer I'M SORRY! I'll try and write a hand written one today in romanian :)
I'm not sure how correct my spelling is here especially since this computer doesn't have Romanian letters in it. So I'm sorry if the Romanian words I use do not translate correctly! I promise that I can say more words then I can spell... Anywho it has been a wonderful glorious week here at the MTC. And it is seriously crazy that I have been here for about a month now... I only have a week and a half. I'm a little nervous honestly, I don't know the language has much as I wish I did. My teachers, have I told you how wonderful my teachers are, they keep reminding us over and over again that when they left the MTC they knew about as much as we knew at two weeks. TWO WEEKS! I knew nothing at two weeks! So that gives me hope, and I know the Lord is blessing me as I look back at my first day here where my heart was pounding and I kept thinking why did I want to learn a language??? My mind no longer thinks that way just FYI, but it is just so cool to see how much progress I have made! It truly is the Lord blessing me, I couldn't do it any other way. It's also really funny we have a teacher named Fratle Boynton and he went to see the BYU Romanian Language Class. The teacher and him started to speak in Romana and then the teacher asked what they were saying. They way he told the story was so funny because to us he was speaking Romana and we understood everything and then he tells us that they were saying nu inslege, he then stops and says no they didn't even say that they said we don't understand. It was probably a have to be there moment, but it was so funny to us! We have been here four weeks and they have been in classes for over a year in this class and we understand and they don't. That is the power of the Lord. Have I just mentioned how AWESOME it is to be a missionary?
This week we have lessons we have about 8ish lessons? I think last week my companion and I had the most lessons so they let us have like two less lessons this week... Anyways so we were teaching our teacher Sora Wilson or as our investigator we know her as Stella. And I have to tell you that if I have a Stella that I meet on my mission, I will come home the most happiest person if I just get to have ONE experience like the experience we have with her. So let me tell you some "background information" on her. She works all the time and she has 3 kids. Who do not live with her. I guess it's something that is pretty regular in Romania. It's too expensive to get a divorce and get married and so when couples break up they just split up. If they have kids a lot of the time the kids end up living with their grandparents or a nanny of some sort. Isn't it sad? Oh also Romania has one of the biggest surplus of orphans. I mean it is absolutely ridiculous, they have way more orphans then they have room for. Before they were a "free" country the dictator I guess encouraged people to have a lot of kids. So what they would do is that the mom would have the baby and they just leave the hospital. It is the most horrifying thing that I can ever imagine but it's a big issue over there. Sorry little bits of knowledge of where I am going. Back to Stella so she has three kids who don't live with her, but she loves her kids so much. And she wants to see them as much as possible. As we are teaching her you can just see that she has been waiting for this her whole life and as we were explaining the Plan of Salvation and our purpose on this life is to return to Tatal nostru Ceresc and be with our families. She just stopped and said how can I get this. I want this, it was beautiful! She came to church, loved church, she even brought her kids which live hours away. We had a discussion on the importance of baptism and we had a "member" Sora Whiting "Mihaela" come and talk to her. It was the most beautiful lesson. She agreed to be baptized and we knew that the hardest lesson for her to accept would be Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. Since she works all the time, and she has to work to help her kids and to just live. So we had the Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy lesson. And you can just tell that she doesn't know if she can do this and she just has to work. And through the promptings of the spirit we were able to explain to her the importance, and we were able to find a scripture that just told her first let your sight be on the Kingdom of God and God will help provide for you. She just started crying. I think that is when it just became so real to me... the spirit is there. She can feel it and through the spirit and her faith in Jesus Christ she committed. I know that technically she isn't a real investigator and this is just the MTC, but it was the most humbling, amazing experience. To see the spirit touch someone so much and to agree to not work on Sundays when they have to work to provide for her household. That much faith in our Savior, to just follow Him.
It makes me think how much Faith do I have. If I wasn't born into the household I was in and if I didn't have this knowledge of the Gospel would I be so willing to accept the gospel? And just follow Jesus Christ. I sure hope so.
I can not wait to get to Romania, because even though I know that I don't know the language, all of the grammar principles, all of the conjugations of verbs, all of the vocab, and everything else that makes me nervous I know that if the spirit is there, then I have done what I have been sent there to do. Now I know I need to learn the language and don't think this is me saying oh I'm good I have the spirit. Hahaha as if. But I know that when I am making my best effort to speak and the spirit is there, that is when conversion starts.
I'll get off my little soap box here of how I have all sorts of revelations. It's pretty cool to see how I'm growing though.
We should get our travel plans today! AHHHHHH I'M SO EXCITED! And a little sad because I wont have my companion that I have at this moment in time. But I am just full of excitement!
Oh mom I did get my card to work and I took out 40. And I will probably take out another 40 next week before I leave. We are supposed to have cash on us just in case purposes. I keep hearing that we may have to pay for our luggage over there and then they will reimburse us... but they I have heard other things... I'm not sure what is going to happen when we leave for our flight. I will keep you posted though. So yeah I guess you can probably expect a call from me next week? Maybe from the airport... yes I guy just told me that we will call from the airport. So I think not quite sure but I believe we will be calling on Monday the 18th. It might be in the morning... so I'm grateful you all are early morning risers. Don't quote me though because I am not completely sure and we haven't gotten our travel plans yet. You will just have to wait until next week for more information on that. But I can only call once and leaving a voice mail counts. So make sure to answer the phone hahaha :)
You are all in my prayers every night. And I love you all just so much. Just know that I am super duper happy here and I love missionary work.
va iubesc!
Sora Stewart
ps. I love all your letters. But I always forget to bring them with me when I am writing letters home so if there are specific questions you want me to answer I'M SORRY! I'll try and write a hand written one today in romanian :)
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