My Mission and Before

December 16, 2013

Hello all,

Sorry I am writing this a bit later today. Right now our branch president and his wife are in the States visiting family and Mariana is the institute teacher so they do institute via skype. So we had to wait for missionaries and the two YSA to be done with their class. I just love hearing them and watching them so it's all great for me. :) 

Well it's been another week in Romania. Constanta lately has been a little hard to contact in. Maybe I should start from the beginning. Nobody is here. Haha just kidding but really it kind of feels like everybody has just left Constanta it's super sad. Since Sora Newell and I don't have a ton of investigators we've been doing some contacting or "trying" should really be the word. 

We went on exchanges this week with two great sisters Sora Rivera and Sora Heim. Sora Heim leaves this transfer and Sora Rivera will shortly follow her. It's weird to see people leave the mission some that are leaving right now we are all super good friends. Anyways so we went on exchanges and Sora Rivera has served in Constanta before so she was super excited for that. :) We went and had a lesson with Andreea. Love her. We talked about the Holy Ghost and it was so good. I love lessons with Andreea. She is seriously just so amazing I'm always like," Andreea what do you want to learn more about or what can we help you with." She just always has an answer and she just always wants to learn more! Tomorrow we are going to talk more on the birth of Christ. Anyways, so we had a beautiful lesson with Andreea and then we went over to visit Familia Olteanu. Such a precious strong family here in Constanta. They technically live La tara of Constanta so we had to take a 20ish minute maxi taxi over there and it was just so great. We continued to talk about the atonement of Christ and how we can have faith in the Savior that He suffered all and so everything will be made up through Him. It was beautiful :) I really wanted to focus on "normal people" contacting through this exchange. And what I mean by this is just talking with people through out the day not being afraid to approach them in a store or bus or wherever. Doesn't matter just talk to them and be a normal person. :) So we did that quite a bit and then the four of us got together in Centru and sang Christmas Carols! It was so fun and this cute and I mean DARLING gypsy girl came over to us because she was so happy we were singing. She was just smiling the whole time. Really made me entire week, something as small as that. 

Then the rest of this week we were really trying to focus on contacting... problem is that most of the places we usually contact at are not busy AT ALL! It's crazy where do people go? At night we go block knocking and that... well nobody really opens there door... but we went one night and this lady answered and we were doing a survey for how they celebrate Christmas and the birth of Christ and she let us in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HELLO THIS IS AMAZING! That was the first time EVER that I have ever been let into a block! AMAZING! It was short and simple but after the survey we really realized that she is a great potential. We are hoping to meet with her again... she wasn't super interested but she has seen missionaries before and hello she let us in! And that never happens! Wish us luck on that one... or actually pray for us? That would be great.

We did meet with Alina this week and it was a good lesson. She is progressing... just not in the way we would like or I should say as fast as we would like. I know that people have to progress in their own way but gosh it sure is frustrating sometimes. We talked about the importance of scripture study and prayer. She does pray all the time but not about specific things so she hasn't really received an answer about the church or about the BoM or about Joseph Smith... the whole time while we were talking though and sharing scriptures she very much took it in and realized she wasn't doing all that we asked her to do. We are going to meet with her tomorrow with Andreea :) So we are hoping that will go. Andreea just has so many amazing experiences and it's so much better coming from members then missionaries sometimes it really is. Especially here. Love that we have a really supportive branch. 

Well and obviously along with my title I turned 22!!!! Remember that Taylor Swift song? 22? hahaha basically everybody has song that to me. I can finally say that now because I am! It was a little surreal turning 22 because I remember just a year ago I was home! It doesn't seem like that long ago! I do remember the agonizing wait of 5 months to go on my mission! Hahaha and now I'm here in Constanta, Romania. I celebrated my 22nd birthday right next to the Black Sea serving as a missionary. I really couldn't ask for anything more. :) My birthday was more of a normal day but on Saturday night we went out with our district to Niko's which is this greek restuarant that I love :) You know you're serving with a bunch of Elders when they take a napkin off the table "secretly" and pass it around so that everyone can write on it and then give it to me as a card. I may have just put it in my journal it was just too funny! Then on Sunday Andreea. Sweet sweet Andreea gave me a gift which I am obsessed with! They are these heart hand warmers that you can use over and over again! IT"S SUPER SUPER COOL! Plus I'm always cold here now so they are even more perfect for me :) Adore her I do :) Our English classes sang me happy birthday and it was just great in general. Excited for this next year and all that's in store!!!!!!! :) 

We've had a bit of a hard time with potentials and just getting lessons with people because it is Christmas and New Year's time and everybody is just planning and doing things. We called our precious park people that read this Book of Mormon and came to church they said they would like to meet with us but not now because of the celebrations that are going on and all the planning. It was so sad!!!!! Hopefully we can meet with them soon though. I will not give up on them!

Well and as far as this upcoming week Sora Newell and I are going to go around the entire city to see what areas are busy and what areas we haven't explored yet. If we haven't found it, other missionaries probably haven't either so we will just introduce ourselves over there! :) We really need to find out new areas that are full of people since... nobody is here and I am going to go crazy if I am not doing anything! Here is to finding people this holiday season :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!
Sora Stewart