May 20, 2013

Hello my loved ones!

Things are great here in Cluj-Napoca, and the work is just blooming. We have a really wonderful district who are just filled with the desire to work, and share the gospel with everyone.

I feel like things are never really normal with the last couple weeks of this transfer, there are just so many changes and so many things going on in general.

Last monday we went to go see Familia Iepure. Who is the branch president here. His wife Weronica is from Poland and so Sora Modzelewska just fits right in. It's really adorable and very cool to see how Sora Modzelewska has just molded into this branch! She keeps telling me that she feels that the Lord was preparing her, her whole mission to come to Cluj and be apart of this branch. I honestly feel that she will die her, I think she really wants to die here actually too. :) Anyways back to Familia Iepure they have the two most adorable kids. Dani and Simi. Super cute little boys and since Weronica is Polish and Mihai is Romanian and they speak English to each other. Weronica speaks polish to the boys and Mihai speaks Romanian to them. They obviously know Romanian best because well we live here in Romania! They understand all of those languages. So we were sitting and talking and Dani comes up to me and says something. And it doesn't sound Romanian and so I listen harder and I felt so dumb he was speaking to me in ENGLISH! "Please Come." He kept saying that over and over and I didn't understand him. Extremely embarrassing. President Iepure was laughing so hard. It was a good moment. :)
I think I told you about our wonderful little couple that we are teaching Mariana and George? Maybe? I'm just going to talk about them again because they are such wonderful blessings that have come into our life. They are pretty open about religions, but they are still orthodox and like thier religion which is totally understandable. We teach them 30 minutes of English and 30 minutes of Gospel discussion and this last time they agreed to come to church! I didn't get my hopes up but as we are walking up to the Villa and I saw their car I may have done a few heel clicks walking up to the front door. They were dressed in Sunday best and the branch just enveloped them with love. It was almost a perfect Sunday. The speakers spoke about what we wanted to teach them and they told us that they really loved împărtăşania. Sunday School not as good. But we still have lessons to teach them and appointments set so we are excited :)
They are such a loving couple who just laugh all the time. They are just so happy which is wonderful to see here. :)
The biggest blessing since I have been here? Sabina. Oh my goodness my heart just rejoices with her. Because I just love her so dearly! She has come to church every week since we have started meeting with her, she has agreed to every commitment, and has kept every commitment. She has read and prayed and has commented in Church. And she just is so humble, so willing to follow the example of Christ. She makes me feel so loved, which is strange since I am supposed to make HER feel loved! Yesterday we were talking and she just wanted to know about my life, and family, and what I like to do. And she must have given me 30 hugs within 10 minutes. And she just kept saying over and over how grateful she was that we were there for her and that I was just the person she needed in her life. Oh my goodness I can't even put it into words how much she made me feel so loved. The most beautiful part to me is when she was talking about my church and then looked at me and said well actually I guess it's my church now too. :) She is so excited to be batized on the 1st and she agreed to have pictures taken since she wouldn't let us take any pictures before. I can not even discribe to you how much I love this woman, and how loving she is, and how willing she is to follow Chist. It's the most beautiful thing I have seen here. :)

We had exchanges this week too. Well sorta. They changed some things out here with mission rules and ways to do things. Before each area would switch with a specific area. Like Cluj switches with Sibiu and Timişoara with Arăd and so forth. Well now we have Sister Trainer Leaders which is what Sora Ewell is in Arăd and so now the STL goes to all the areas she can and has an exchange with the senior companion to help them meet goals and be a better trainer or Senior companion. So Sora Ewell and her companion Sora Deruvo who was in the MTC with me came and we had an exchange. I was with Sora Deruvo and we just had a blast. I really like exchanges because I am forced to have to speak and try my hardest to communicate. And I just immerse myself in the language and with what we are doing. And I was complemented on my Romanian which is still really bad, but Romanians have mercy on me and just love that I am trying to speak in their language and they love that. They appreciate that oh so much. It really is just nice to see that I am progressing little by little in this country. :) Little blessings just matter so much to me.

And I had such a blast serving with my dear friend for that day. :)

I love this gospel. And I love being a missionary more and more each and every day! I love feeling the spirit and I work everyday to just have the spirit be my constant companion. I think that that may be one of my favorite things about being a missionary. Is that I feel the spirit all the time. And it testifies to my investgators and I all the time. It's the most amazing feeling. I can't imagine now how it would feel to not have this constant companion that just feels my life with such great stregth, hope, and happiness. I know that God lives and He loves His children. I see everday how He has prepared His children to accept and be apart of the Gospel. I have no doubt that He knows all of us and He knows His lost sheep. And He still loves them. :) Isn't that beautiful? I'm learning a lot about love lately. And it is beautiful, endless, and everlasting :)
I love you all :)
Sora Stewart

 

There was also this super cool guy that made this unicycle and was riding it up and down the street in front of the church. Have I mentioned guys wear short shorts.

Our wonderful senior couple. Have I told you how much I just love them?
OH I forgot. I got food poisoning this week. That was not fun. And I'm so grateful for these two because Sora Boyd goes right into mom mode and just took care of me. Since well I couldn't leave the bathroom floor that day. :) We have wonderful angels here ;)

The wonderful sisters in our zone :)

The Elders right before they were about to be taken into the police office :)

Sibiu :)

Sibiu :)

Elders in our sleeper train the next morning.

Super weird I KNOW!

Train Ride from Cluj to Buch

People love to take pictures of us when we face the sun and I can't see a dang thing! haha

 

May 13, 2013

Hello!
It's been kind of an odd week because of holidays and all these travels that we have had to do. I feel like the transfer really hasn't started and that we were kinda gypped! We had zone conference in Sibiu. And wow Sibiu is absolutely beautiful. You can see the mountains in the distance and I really miss looking at all the mountains from back home. That is something I never really thought I would miss. Sibiu is a little bit like Cluj where it's a lot of the cobblestone walkways and the old buildings where they are all different colors.
Anyways so Zone Conference we went to Centru to go contacting and well we ran into a little bit of trouble with the Police there where they said that we weren't allowed to pass anything out. Our poor Elders were in the station for about 30 minutes, we didn't know if they were going to be able to come back out! No worries everythings fine, but our big plan of our zone is to storm Western Europe with Books of Mormon. Our zone goal is to pass out 200 books in 6 weeks which is completely do able. We want a Book of Mormon in every home. Wouldn't that beautiful? And people here really see the value of books, much more than they do at home. They always ask us are you honestly giving these away for free? That's their first question not that they don't want to read it, but they are just astonished that we are giving out things for free. It's really beautiful to see how they value certain things.

We also had to travel to Buch this week for my visa. Remember how I said I really liked trains? Well, I'm not a huge fan of them anymore. Especially in the summer they are extremely extremely hot. And Cluj is really far from Buch. But now we are back here and back to work with our investigators!
We had a miracle come into Sora Modzelewska's life and mine or I should say two miracles. We ran in to this lady a few days before the Paşti just to ask and see how they celebrate and what they do and everything. It was a nice conversation and we announced who we were and told her what we teach. And she said she was interested and was really open about religions and would love to meet with us. Well after all the craziness of traveling we were finally able to meet with her and we thought it was just going to be her. But no she brought her wonderful husband. They took us in their car and drove to the church, where they just opened up their whole lives to us. They are such a wonderful family, where they told us how they have had trials with not being able to have kids but know that the Lord wants them to adopt. And so now we have 2 new investigators who are some of the most sincere people I have met here in the country.

A beautiful experience happened yesterday after church as well. Our wonderful investigator Sabina who has a date in 2 weeks and sincerely wants to be baptized we had a discussion about the word of wisdom... which well didn't really go over as well as Sora Modzelewska and I would have hoped it would have. But with the help of the spirit and the wonderful Senior Couple we have here she told us that she would like a blessing to help her with her help and help her with her not wanting to drink coffee. And in the blessing their were some wonderful blessings promised her and I saw as she was super uptight because she didn't really know how blessings worked or how these things happened, and then to see her relax her body and see that she was receiving the things that were being told to her.

It's such a miracle to me to see how the Lord prepares people. To see how He never abandons His children. And that He honestly has the most patience in the world. That everything is in His time, and His time is always the most perfect time. I am constantly reminded about this, because I get impatient, and I want things done now. Or I feel that sometimes the Lord just isn't answering things the way that I want them done. He is a perfect teacher for me.

I really LOVE being a missionary. I am learning so many new things and developing so many attributes that will affect my life forever. No wonder mom is so perfect :)
I love you all,

Sora Stewart

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Well good morning!
First off I would like to say I am super sorry for not writing for the past couple days. Easter is a big thing here. And I mean big. Like bigger then Christmas is in the States. It's super crazy. So everything has been closed for like 4 days here. So on P-day we weren't able to go to the library and write. And then yesterday we traveled to Sibiu for our zone training and well we left at 6 in the morning and didn't get back until 9. It's been a long couple of days.

I'm not even sure exactly where to start with everything because there has been so many changes and so many things going on.
I'm well and safe here in Cluj and with all the excitement with Easter going on it's been really nice to have time in my personal study to study the Saviors life and to look and go over His Atoning Sacrifice. It's been really peaceful and beautiful. Everyone here in Romania is out saying "Hristos a înviat!" and then the reply is  "Adevărat a înviat!" My new companion loves to go over to people and just say it so that way they will respond it's super funny to me, just because she gets all giddy when others say it back. It's been a good time to go contacting with all these people going over to orthodox churches and just sitting outside hearing the preachers. The Churches here all have these speakers on the outside so a lot of people sit on the benches outside while you hear the preachers repeating prayers and singing... I think it sounds like people are moaning. Not many people here are blessed with the gift of song. Which is why I have been asked way to much with Sora Ewell as my companion to sing. WAY TO MUCH!

Anyways this week has just been super super crazy and we have another crazy week ahead of us. Sora Ewell and I had a bunch of lessons ready before she left Cluj. The members really loved her a lot and our investigators so there were some tearful goodbyes. So as we get ready to head to the Gara, which is a story all in it's own, for our 9 hour train ride. And because it was Easter everybody was heading down to Buch so we sat in seats for 9 hours... I was exhausted. Some super interesting news though as we arrived at the Gara and get the luggage to where it needs to go I noticed a missionary who looks so familiar. And I just stared at him until I saw his name tag which said Elder Davis. Turns out we were on the Church History Tour together! Suzy, Jenni, and I would always hang out with him and his cousins. He is the grandson of Brother Bunker back home which is how they ended up going on the Church History Tour. This world is just super small!
Well my wonderful companion Sora Modzelewska. She is from Poland and she is a serious ball of fire. Haha serious she has red hair. She is very serious about the work and she speaks Romanian perfectly. Well at least to me it's perfectly. Every person we come in contact with just tells her how amazing her Romanian is, they are all super impressed. And she speaks super super fast. She is super nice and is just really loving.She is a fighter after all having only been a member for around 3ish 2ish years and then wanting to serve a mission. And you all keep saying that I will have to work on my language skills and that is super true but not for the reasons you all think. She speaks perfect English and actually she only speaks to me in English. She doesn't want to speak to me in Romanian because she wants to work on her English skills. So I have to work 10 times harder now on my Romanian. Anytime I try to speak Romanian to her she responds in English. But she is always willing to help me which is nice.

We basically have a new district here since the only people that stayed were Elder Staheli and myself. And we have the most interesting group of missionaries. A very very blunt, not afraid to speak their mind group. Our district meetings are very interesting if I do say so myself.

Now on to our work here. We have two more baptismal dates and sadly we lost one baptismal date.

Our wonderful Spanish speaker Karen said that she would be baptized. With much much hesitancy, but she is still eager to learn and I hope that we have calmed her nerves. She is just the sweetest person and just has this desire. She's quick to read her scriptures and follow the way that she feels will bring her close to Christ. Also she is just super cute with her husband. As he is the member and she will always just say to us, he needed me in his life because he needs to increase his spirituality. I just adore them. So we will hopefully be having her baptism on June 1st!

We had a miracle come into our lives on our first day back to Cluj. After we had talked to Karen we kept getting calls from President Iepure and other members saying that the Boyds needed to take us to this ladies house. So we went of course and this lady who is just the most gentle person I have ever met said she was ready to change her life. She was a referral from one of our members and had taken one discussion before but just wasn't ready. She told us the things that had happened in her life that made her more interested in hearing what we have to say and she has already accepted a baptism date for the 26th of this month. Her name is Sabina and she is around 35? Maybe. She's come to church and she just loves people. I don't know if I have ever felt so much love from an investigator before. As we leave our lessons for her she grabs my hand and hugs me and just tells me to take care of myself and it just touches my heart. The Lord really prepares His children. I don't understand exactly how He does it, but I know that He does.
We were dropped this week by sweet Nicolette, there were too many conflicting things going on, and I don't think she felt very good about keeping the word of wisdom. Also with Sora Ewell leaving and being replaced by Sora Modzelewska who are completely too different people, was really hard on her.

Also a little blessing in my life are the Boyds. I seriously love them and I don't know what this branch or us would do without them. They do so much for our investigators and they just have this love and sense of humor about them that everyone sees, and people here in Romania love older people. They have this respect for them. Not that they are old. Anyways but that's why my Subject is about is Elder Boyds sits in this chair that rocks way back and just starts being his cowboy self from Wyoming. He's funny I love them.

Another blessing this week is that I was having a hard time. I think with the members as they had said some things about an inactive that just made me furious. Because they just didn't or don't or don't want to understand that they have to love everyone despite the choices they made. And they just didn't want to help. It was a big mess anyways and I was just praying for comfort and praying to just remember how it is in my ward back home if they were out there talking to the in actives in our ward and loving them and wanting to share the gospel and just not being ashamed for who they are as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And so I was reading in the Liahona when something caught my eye that said this women who lived in Nevada and was traveling to Alaska. Obviously I think of Sister Rather since that's the only person I know and sure enough I look down and see that she wrote the article! And it is about her sharing the gospel on a plane with a lady who had just lost someone she loved. I just started crying because I am so blessed. I am so blessed to have been in a ward so loving and to just have the gospel. It was just that simple answer to my prayer. I can't tell you how blessed we are honestly!!!! And I just want to tell her Sister Rather that I'm so glad she wrote that article and I'm so glad that I read it. It was a true answer to my prayer.

I want to talk a little about Easter since we were allowed to go and see the Midnight Mass on Saturday Evening. What they do or, what they say, is that this fire comes from heaven down to Israel and so these churches go and take the fire and bring it back here and then in the Mass or service or whatever it is the Priest go around lighting candles. And everyone has a bunch of candles. They try to take it home without the flame going out and supposedly you would have good luck. Me being the person I am, I thought it would be really funny blowing candles out. I didn't do it of course! But to me that would be funny :) Anyways we went into the church and it was just dark and they have prayers going on and everyone has these candles and they have these robes on and everyone comes in and kisses this picture of Jesus... They don't clean this picture. It sounds pretty unsanitary to me just FYI! And then all these priest come out and start lighting peoples candles. That was a scary moment there. I don't know if I have had so many open flames by my face, clothes, and hair before. This poor lady in front of me had her hair burned... It was a very beautiful sight though with everyone there in unity to worship Jesus Christ for his Resurrection. Reading scriptures and saying these prayers and songs.

It just made my heart ache though to see how much they could know or could have if they were to accept our message. If we were able to tell them and say you see how beautiful this is our message can give you joy you can not yet comprehend. Where everyday you could wake up and say I know who I am, I know where I'm going, I know why I am here. And it would make you the happiest you could ever be in your life. Because this gospel is real, and it's complete, it's full, and it is true.

I know that it's true. With all my heart and mind I know. Why else in all honestly would I be here in Romania trying to speak this language that just does not make sense to me. I love this Gospel and I love my Savior. I know it's true, I know it's true.

I love you all!
Sora Stewart



OH yeah I chopped off all my hair... :)

The big Orthodox church

Sora Modzelewska and I first day in Cluj.

 

Some of our elders in our district Easter!

There were so many people there for this thing!

April 29, 2013

Good Morning Everyone!
Well it has been an eventful week in the lives of Sora Ewell and I. And I just absolutely love it. Last week I talked a little bit about the Salt Mines. It was really cool I thought. Way different then I thought it was going to be. But hey when you go into a cave that is literaly salt from head to toe, it's really not going to be what we think it is. It was really fun and it's just nice to be around the people from our district here in Cluj. Later that evening we got to work and went on visits with all of our "to be" progressing investigators. Sora Ewell and I like to leave little notes on their doors with spiritual quotes, scriptures, messages really just to tell them and show them how much we love them and that we are thinking about them. They really love it. It's always surprising to me how much people just want love in their life. And here they don't really show it so when we do these acts they just think it is the greatest thing in the world.

A little run through of how our week has been and what are some of my favorite experiences. Sora Ewell and I have been looking for opportunities to serve our fellow members. They do so much and they are so strong here and to help them understand us a little more we asked if we would be able to help them with anything in their life, cleaning, gardening, anything. And finally Sora Iepure called and asked us. Sora Iepure is the Branch President's wife and she is wonderful. She is from Poland and has the two most precious, crazy kids. Her parents were coming in town and so she needed help with organizing and doing these things so we came on over. It was such a humbling experience. Her parents are obviously not happy with her joining the church and as she told us her conversion story and just how they are now. They don't have very much, and yet they just give up everything to serve others, and just to help others. I am just baffeled at how much they do for everyone. When we finished and it was time for us to leave she just stares at us and says,"I'm going to make an omlet, it wont take very long and while it's cooking you can share the message with me." Trying to refuse anything here is just in vain as we sat in her kitchen and watched her open her fridge and just say basically bare walls. They just give everything they have. It is a seriously humbling experience and the branch is so grateful to have them. I am so grateful to have them! It was also just such a precious experience as her kids are dragging Sora Ewell and I around and they just call is Familia mea, (because they can't remember our names) It was so cute! AHH I LOVE THEM! haha.

Another wonderful teaching experience was with our investigator Karen. Now Karen is from Peru... and knows only Spanish. It's really kinda hard to teach someone who doesn't know English or Romanian. And I barely know Romanian as is. But it was so beautiful to be in their house and to teach them the Plan of Salvation and to just watch her as she is listening to everything we are saying reading everything that is in front of her. She just has this desire to know. And then her sweet husband. How he just helps her so much with the language and he has this desire for her to know and to be baptized so that way they can be sealed together in the temple.

Nicoleta. Wow, this woman is absolutely amazing. And everytime I'm with her and just everytime we teach her I am baffled by her willingness, and I am baffled by her spirit, her desire, and how she is just prepared. We teach her every day practically and she just waits for us to teach her more and to read in the Book of Mormon and wow. Did I mention she set a baptismal date :) Ahhh I'm so excited because she wants to be baptized!

It was so endearing! We were teaching her a part of the Plan of Salvation and at the end we ask her if she will get baptized, she says yes. We say by someone holding the proper priesthood authority, she says yes. We say on May 11, and then she hesitates and says she can't. We were so confused so we ask her why and she says that she has to get married first. How on earth did she know this??? We never explained that before and so she told us that in all the things we have given her she read it and knew she couldn't get baptized yet. And now she said that once her "husband" is out of the hospital she will get married. This is only one of the few reasons why I love her so much and why she just continues to amaze me. This week she was told she has to move... she was already living in a little shack and now she will literally be on the street. She desires to have a better life, and have a life of just happiness and so now she wants to get a job and have a place where she can have comfort. And as she goes through these times of heart ache do you know what she does?! She reads the Book of Mormon. Last night we went over, because she was having a really hard time and well she has a Word of Wisdom problem and we have to help her with this obviously. Anyways we just wanted to give her some peace of mind and so we come over and she is just so excited. So excited so we sit on her bed and she shows us this verse she found reading her Book of Mormon.

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

We did not show her this verse. I sat there with my mouth hung open because I had no idea what to even say. I'm not teaching her. She's teaching me. She was so excited to have found this verse and this scripture and then to tell us how it's helping her. We were then prompted to teach her the word of wisdom and she said she would keep it. That she would stop smoking and drinking. I don't even know what more I can say about this beautiful person. Everyday I am just shocked, by how much the Lord loves my companion and I. He puts these beautiful people in our path, who want to follow Christ. And it just always shows me how the Lord does not forsake His children. He loves all of us. What a beautiful wonderful statement that is. He loves ALL of us. 

Transfers are this week! And I will be staying here in Cluj-Napoca. But my wonderful beautiful companion will be leaving to Arăd. Which is super sad for me! I have really loved my companion and she is such a great example of a devoted disciple of Christ. I am super excited for my new companion though! Her name is Sora Modselewska! She is from Poland and yeah I had to practice saying her name for about 30 minutes with Sora Ewell because I could not say it. Have I told you that I am grateful to be learning Romanian? Because I am in these cases when I don't have to learn Polish... Sorry Amy. Sora Ewell has been companions with her before in Constanţa (right by the Black Sea) and has said nothing but wonderful things of her. She is a convert to the church I think for about 3ish years... I could be wrong. And she has just given up everything to be here on a mission, her career, her family, everything. She just sounds so amazing. So I'm excited to be with her. She is just so loving and sacrifices everything. The mission president in Poland actually writes her every week because her family doesn't. I'm surrounded by these strong people here!

I feel so blessed to be here. And so blessed to have had the opportunities of teaching here and teaching back home. I feel so grateful for what I have back home, and I took so much for granted. I still do. Being raised in the family I have. Where the Gospel is the center, where we know we will be together forever. To have the morals that I was taught and to live by them. Not to mention the daily things that I have been given in my everyday life. I am so grateful to have the ward family I have. To have had wonderful friends in the gospel that help me along the way. They don't have this here. A lot of them have no communication with their family after they are baptized and when they join the church. They have found the most beautiful thing in this world and yet they are despised by their peers. I haven't had to live this way. And yet they are still so strong in their faith and they come to church every week. They have us in their homes and wait for us to teach them. They love us missionaries. It's amazing. I don't ever remember doing that back home to anyone. And I wish I would have treated everyone I met back home as a person who could accept the Gospel. I don't know what difference it would have made or what success I would have had. But if I would have done this, what person would have changed their lives. "I will give up all that I possess, yea, I will forsake my kingdom, that I may receive this great joy." "and if there is a God, and if thou art God, wilt thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee." It's happened before. And yet we haven't taken the opportunities that we have every single day.

I love you all so much.

Sora Stewart

 

 

April 22, 2013

Wow! I can not believe that this is our last week of the transfer. Super crazy. I feel as though time has really just flown by. It's a weird concept really to have everything just go by super super fast and then it just goes by super slow at the same time.
Anyways we (Sora Ewell and I) have had just a super crazy busy week. Which is exactly how I love my life. I'm really amazed too that we were able to do all of these things within this week and it's really just a huge blessings. It's honestly hard to think of everything that has gone on this week because we really have been just super busy. I will try to start from the beginning.
Last P-day we went to the senior couples house outside of Cluj. They are just wonderful, some of the sweetest, most humble people I have ever met. And we love Sora Boyd. She is just a fireball, she tells all the time to take notes about how to treat our future spouses when we get home. She's super cute. We came over and just talked and made cookies. She told us stories of her life and just about how much the Lord has blessed her life. We then continued to contact which is our favorite thing here in Romania.

Side note: As I am being trained I have to watch the district movies on how we can work with certain things and improve our missoinary skills. The district is completely not real. I am being serious. There is a joke around here that they should make a Romanian district and when they ask us to translate what people say, we would just have to lie because they don't say very nice things to us sometimes. Or it would just be an interesting district show because... well we contact a lot... it would sure be entertaining though.

Anyways. We basically contact at all times when we don't have lessons set up. But the Lord has blessed us for our efforts these past couple of weeks and has shown us some miracles. Which I honestly hav really appreciated.

Miracles

1. Nicoleta: So Nicoleta is a women who works outside our apartment building... ummm by the trash... She basically just makes sure that no one goes through our garbage. And yeah that does happen quite a bit here. Anyways we weren't really sure what her circumstance were and so we weren't sure we should teach her. It's a much longer story that needs be. But she isn't homeless and she just loves to talk to us. And everytime we would just say hi she would ask for more pliants and different things to read. So we decided to teach her. So we started off with the restoration since she was already reading the Book of Mormon on her own without us telling her to do anything. And at the end we asked her when she knew these things are true will you get baptized. And she just stared at us like we were dumb. And said of course! Hooray! Our first soft baptism invitation accepted! And as we visit her more and more she has continued to read and study, she is just a little miracle that has come into our lives. It actually reminds me a lot of Alma the Younger and teaching the Zoramites, and how no one would listen. But because there were the poor and the humble they were able to accept the gospel. It just reminds me of her situation. She really is a sweet heart.

2. We were contacted: Who said being an American in Europe was ever a bad thing I don't know. Because it really came in handy. We had sister exchanges this week, which I will get to later, and Sora Ewell was just getting back when we went to say hi to someone. We were speaking English before and then switched to Romanian and had a conversation for about 5 minutes. When these twins were just standing off to the side waiting. Then we start walking and they approach us ask us who we are, if we are American, why we are here, and if we can meet up sometime. THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN HERE! Gave us there phone numbers and they now want to meet up this weekend and they said they would come to the activity Friday night. Little miracles :)
3. Karen and Marin: Karen and Marin are the couple I talked about probably my first week here. She only speaks spanish and for the past couple weeks he has been out of town. So we haven't been able to have a lesson. We were able to finally get a lesson in and she came to church. Not only that but she was fellowshipped by at least 6 different members, mind that there are only about 30 that come every week, and there was a sister that translated Sunday School and Relief Society for her. It was so beautiful to see. :)

4. The Members: We really have to best members in here. And I really don't know how to explain the power and the strength they have. They are literally the only active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in a whole city. They are all converts. They all have multiple callings. They all rely on each other, and they all love each other so much. And they understand the importance of missionary work, way better then I ever understood before my mission. President Iepure actually had a branch fast for the missionary work here. HE set this up, and it was successful. People came and they fasted and they understood the importance of it. Can you imagine being in a place where everyone has trully converted to the gospel and they are so converted to the Lord, that they have all changed their lives and they were all nonmembers at a point, and they share their story every week.

We also had Sister Exchanges this week, Sora Ewell went to Sibiu with Sora Stapley and Sora Lund came here with me. So Sora Stapley and I had to kinda well direct everything since these were our towns. And Sora Stapley is only a transfer ahead of me. So it was a new adventure for the both of us. We had lessons set up all day long and so we had to get busy. Now we take buses everywhere and we went to go do a member visit, to obtain refferals, and I had never been there before. Needless to say Sora Lund and I were totally lost. We were actually in the right area just the wrong block and so our sweet Sora Iuşan had to walk out of her house and get us. The next day Sora Lund and I had a bunch of lessons set up and then in between we just contacted. It's really interesting to be with other sisters and see how they contact and do things. I really loved having time with Sora Lund. It all ended in craziness though as Sora Lund and I went to take a maxi taxi to Sibiu and what do you know it left an our early then it was supposed to and we missed it by ten minutes! So this caused craziness for everyone as we all had lessons that evening and needed to get back. So they all (zone leaders and the sisters in Sibiu) Ended up traveling to Cluj. I felt super bad for Sora Stapley she had about a total of 17 hours of travel within 3 days.

Everything did work out though and now we are back to our original companions.

I love you all so much.

Sora Stewart