My Mission and Before

May 19, 2014

Hey Everyone,

Well. This week was exhausting. It was a really long and yet really short week. Normal. So the most exciting new of them all is that I am in Mihai Bravu with Sora Bischoff. And oh my heck do I just adore Sora Bischoff. She is such a hard worker and gosh we work so well together. 

I'm not going to bore you all with the little things of the week because well... I packed a lot and cleaned... a lot. Then we came down to Bucuresti.

It was so funny though. Sora Uhl and I had just gotten to our new apartment, but we didn't have keys and had to wait for some sisters so we just sat on a bench outside of my new apartment. Well I had all my huge suitcases over and it was so funny as people just stared and stared at us. Well one guy passes us and says a swear word in English and I just started laughing. He comes over though and starts talking to us about what we are doing there, about what we (as Americans) are doing here in Romania, about church and so on. He ended up giving us his number and wants to know a little bit more. It was so crazy. Haha. I just looked at Sora Uhl and said," I love Buch" I really really do :) 

So Wednesday, yes we've already passed Monday and Tuesday, we went to the gara to drop Sora Uhl off so she could get her visa and so there were a few exchanges that day. Short and simple it was a regular transfer day although it poured the entire day. It was so cold. Finally I got home later that night and just fell into bed. It was a fun but exhausting day.

Thursday. Gosh. Well we had MLC and discussed things in the mission and how we need to do exchanges and yeah.... Sorry. Not much else to say about that. I unpacked my mountains of stuff... we ate dinner. Yeah. that's about it. Sorry not very exciting.

Friday. We had district meeting. It was great. I feel like I have just been very blessed with District Leader's recently. He had us think about a time when we had done a unplanned act of service or when someone had done it for us. It was really interesting because I had this story come into mind that happened on my mission. It wasn't something I did though, it was something someone else did for me. It was when I was in Arad and well... being clumsy... I fell of a curb and totally ate concrete. I mean haha it was funny I was laughing but I fell really hard. I remember starting to get up when these 2 old homeless men come and pick me up. They were so nice and wanted to make sure I was alright where as everyone else around me besides me dear companion who came rushing to my side just stared and did nothing. I was kinda mad that no one else did anything, but it really made me think. I will always remember this old dirty homeless man and how he rushed over to help. He didn't ask for money, he didn't ask for anything really but he actually was sincere in wanting to know I was okay. But everyone else (normal people) just looked. How many people had probably looked down on this man and were mean to him and who despised him and yet he was the only one who helped. It just made me so grateful. It also made me think of what we do here. Anytime I ask a woman for help with her bag even if she says no maybe she'll think back to these two missionaries who tried to help. We just don't know what we can do to other's to help them! It was just a great district meeting :) I'm loving this transfer.

After Sora Bischoff and I did some planning. It was one of the longest planning sessions ever since we also had to plan for our exchanges. I'm really excited for exchanges I really am but I realized as we started calling other people to see when we meet it's so much harder. I mean usually we work around their schedules but now they also have to work around ours. 

We had a lesson later that night with our AMAZING new investigator. Literally I am so excited for all that can happen with her. Her name is Maya and she is one of the happiest people I have ever met. She is just always smiling. She accepted who we are and what we do. Sora Bischoff taught her 30 min of piano and we were walking around the church when she goes," There is something in this building that makes me feel so good. I just feel so happy and so peaceful every time I come here." She asked if she could come to church and she even wanted to buy a Book of Mormon. It was insane. We asked for a soft baptismal invitation and she said," Of course if the Book of Mormon is true I would be baptized." Sora Bischoff and I walked out of the lesson completely stunned. We really just had no idea what had happened. It was seriously CRAZY! She wasn't able to come to church this week though din pacate but we are going to meet up this week so we will see what happens!

Saturday. We had correlation. It's weird having correlation with an active member. haha. It was actually fantastic and I really am excited to see what can happen here :) It's going to be FANTASTIC!

We met with a less active who actually paints and draws at the park. She's super cool. She's also just really funny. When we talked to her on the phone she said," No you can't come to my house my husband loves cats and so he has 8 cats! you just can't come over with all of them." It was super funny. So we met at the park and just talked about how we need to put Christ first.

Then later on in the day we did some contacting. We met a girl on a bench in the park and first started talking about English but later on it turned into the gospel. I was really impressed by her faith in Christ and how well she knew the Bible. really though it was pretty cool. I wanted to share something though with her and she takes my Book of Mormon and says," This is not the Bible." I explain what it is, then she looks at me and says," Girls I love you both so much already. I don't want to offend either of you but look. This is of the devil. You need to repent. You need to see the light. The holy ghost and God just will not stand for this. Leave this religion. Leave this book and see the light. come to the true church of Jesus Christ."

Umm yes I was offended. I had listened to her and only wanted to say something where she tells me that my religion is of the devil? REALLY!? Sora Bischoff and I both just said," You know what. We know that it is true. We have applied it, read it, and prayed about it. It is true."  She just would not let us talk after that so I finally just said," Hey I have listened to you patiently for the last 15 minutes. I want to share something and you need to listen." I was not the most polite person by this point but I am not going to let her tell me that I can not know that it is true. So I read a part of Moroni 7 and she quietly mumbles that what I read is correct. She kept trying to convince us and wanted us to read all these books about how the Holy Ghost just does not speak to us through our feelings and all this other stuff. It was a bit frustrating. And not the best way to end the day. Sora Bischoff and I as we walked off just said a pray and just continued the rest of the day. 

Sunday. CHURCH! It was weird. I mean no it was great it was just crazy. There were like 35 people there not including missionaries. It was CRAZY! I loved it. It's just so interesting to me the difference sometimes of actually being in a dedicated building of the Lord. I went to church in a chapel people. It really was cool. :) 

Church was good. There are a lot of wonderful people there and I am excited to work with them. There is this super cute older lady named Sora Alexandru. Oh my gosh I just love her already. She's pretty old but she just dances around the church she gave a BEAUTIFUL talk in church and she just has the sweetest spirit. In Relief Society the door was open and one of the sister's calls out to her and says," Sora Alexandru since you are so young you should get up and close the door." So she gets up and basically skips all the way there. It was so funny! She is just so happy and playful. I really really want to meet with her. 

We did some more contacting later on. Met an English couple. Haha I freaked out it was funny. They were just like... why is this weird American talking to me?! :) I liked it. 

We had a lesson with another new investigator named Anca. She is so cool. Right now her husband is meeting with the Elders and she asked if we would come and visit her so we did. She is actually not Orthodox. Not normal. She reads the bible every day multiple times a day and she just has an amazing faith in Christ. We talked a lot together and we really wanted them to read the Book of Mormon together. I had just this feeling that they should read 3 nephi 11 and so we started to talk about it before. They were both amazed. We talked about how when Christ said there are other sheep that I have that are not of this fold and part of that meant the people in America. It was just super cool talking to people who have actually read the Bible and have tried to read it and apply it in their lives. They started talking about how they never understood what that meant and they always figured that meant the Gentiles but now it just made so much more sense. They both agreed to read and everything. So I am excited to meet with them again.

In that visit though they brought up a lot of things about the Bible things that I absolutely didn't understand before my mission. After that lesson though I just remember feeling so grateful that I have taken the time on my mission to study all the gospel's. I am just so grateful that as I do study more in the Old, New testament and as I study the Book of Mormon, D&C, and PofGP nothing contradicts each other they just all grow together. It's just such a huge testimony builder to me and I am so grateful.

That's really about it for this week. I am super excited for all that we have in store for this week. We should have our first exchanges this upcoming week and I am just so excited :)

LOVE YOU ALL!
Sora Stewart

p.s. GET BETTER GRAMPS! I'm expecting you when I get home! And CONGRATS Lindsay!