My Mission and Before

June 10, 2013

Hello again!
I'm running out of things to say to start off my letters. I need to be more creative. Anyways. Tranfer board was in and Sora M and I are staying here in Cluj together for another transfer. President actually told her that she will die here in Cluj. Which I think is great because the branch here absolutely adores her.

We have had another busy week here in Cluj and I am extremely happy with how the work is going here. We have some awesome Elders that are hard workers and all of together we really try to get things done. It's super funny to me, because Elder B acts so much like Spencer. He really could be like a Stewart cousin, it's great anyways. Anytime we go group contacting, knocking on villa's is what we did this week. It's kinda a competition for us. We love to try and see who will be let in past the gate, and who will be able to actually talk to people. So the work is progressing and we are really trying hard to just get as many investigators and inactives to come to church as possible.

 

We have had some sweet wonderful lessons with our beautiful investigator K. She really is progressing towards baptism, and it's fantastic to see how she started off very defensive and very uncertain and now to see her full of questions and telling us that her doubts are minimum. It's really interesting how we teach her, because she only speaks spanish, we have to have our translator Sora K and we use the scriptures a lot. Obviously it's the evidence for everything we teach about! Anyways everytime we have a lesson with her she asks Sora K for colored pencils and then while we are reading she just highlights everything. She loves the Bible and she read the whole Pearl of Great Price within like 3 days! Which was kind of an accident, but she loved it and she told us it really made her understand the Bible a lot more. She is slowly starting to read the Book of Mormon but I have noticed the more and more we use it the more she reads it and is recognizing that it is profound scripture, that it is true. She has a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But she has told us that she really doesn't have as many doubts now.

 

We have started to teach this wonderful bright young girl named D. We teach her half English and half Gospel principles. I don't even know what to do with her. She is so bright, so smart, so dedicated. Everytime we come over she just shows us how much she has memorized and what she has worked on. And I just stare at her, probably because I have a hard time memorizing all those verbs myself, and I just tell her I can just talk to you and help you that way. Haha cause honestly I don't know English grammer. Honestly now it's hard to teach English. We don't really have consistent things going on and it is just super confusing. Super confusing. I don't know how I speak it... well I speak it just not grammatically correct.

 

Anywho, we had a fantastic P-day this week. We traveled a couple hours to a place called Sighişoara it was absolutly beautiful! The streets were all cobble stone which made it kinda hard to walk on... but the buildings and the colors wow. We found this one building that is older than America! Not really that shocking, but it was so fascinating. We traveled around the whole town taking pictures and we walked up to this grave yard which was honestly like a scene taken out of Harry Potter. (It really wouldn't surprise me if this is where it was taken from) We just had an absolute blast together as a district. And of course we went up and saw a castle. They wouldn't let us take pictures inside or they would charge us, No Thankyou, but we got to take pictures all the way at the top of the tower. The whole time I was there I was thinking to myself, "I am having a hard time walking up these stairs and through these doors with flat shoes and a dress. How on earth did midevil woman with the big poofy skirts and shoes walk up these stairs! Also the shoes that they wore the heel was in the middle of the arch! Super super weird to me!" Anyways we have had a great day there. Lots of stares. They don't really see missionaries there. Except for every 6ish weeks haha :) When the next group comes in.

I'm sorry to hear about Andrew... that's horrible and I will keep his family in my prayers. It's definitly strange to hear about things that are going on at home and how things are changing all the time. Aren't we grateful to know the Plan of Salvation and to know our purpose and know who we really are in this life. Our full potential! That's something that I have really been looking at this week and studying. I challenge you all to take out your blessings and read them. Read them over and over again. Look at the blessings Heavenly Father has promised us. Look at the qualitites we can have. Look at the person we can be. How beautiful it is that that is the way Heavenly Father sees us. That is the way He must picture us, with all of the divine potential in the world to be righteous standards and to bring others into the gospel, whether it's directly in our families, or whether it's with people on the street.

I love you all very much. And I'm grateful to have you in my life. How blessed I am. I look at my companion who is a sweet heart and very strong minded. Being a member of the gospel for 2 years serving for a little over a year. Being the only member in her family and out of her friends that she had had. I am amazed at what she has accomplished and the person she is. How strong she is in the gospel and unwaivering. It makes me ver appreciative of her. Of how she wants to go back to Poland and build up the church there. Even though the church there is even smaller than it is here, I didn't think that was possible. Even though she knows that it will be hard and that there is a lot of challenges that will come her way. She wants to be that strength in her country. And for me. I feel so blessed. So very very blessed to be born of goodly parents. To have had an AMAZING ward. AMAZING friends. Amazing stories, and experiences in the gospel since I was a young age. How honestly grateful I am.

 

Love you all!
Sora Stewart