My Mission and Before

April 1, 2013

Goodmorning!
Or whatever time it is there in the USA. There has just been so much going on that I don't even know where to start. Oh I guess I could start off with the fact that they now changed the rules on emails. They now technically have no limit on time and we are allowed to email friends, family, and recent converts. So Jessica you can now cheer up. So that's why it is now being sent to more than you Mom. I promise I'm not breaking any rules and that way you don't have to search for emails everyweek. Hooray.

Okay now to start off with this week I agreed to give a talk in church. Why? I have no idea since I have only been here for two weeks, but hey I might as well just let the members know that I'm serious about the work here! So I gave a talk yesterday on Trials of our Faith. I thought it was good. I don't really remember how I was speaking or really much about me standing up there speaking, but I felt the spirit which is really my number one goal here! I bore my testimony, which I didn't need notes for, and I went and sat down. Now I think I was filled up with so much who knows what because the President Iupure (the Branch President) got up and said something in Romanian that I totally didn't understand. Then Sora Ewell came up to me and told me that he said, "Is there any doubt that the Lord has blessed with the ability to speak Romanian." Isn't that cool! Even though I really can't most of the time. It takes me a really long time to translate and then speak in my head. I'm understanding pretty well though... I hope. Anyways so there is blessings that come EVERYDAY here. The members all came up to me after and told me that they understood and they loved my testimony and my message. It really does bring me hope that hey I will one day speak this language!

We have made a goal this transfer for our area (Sora Ewell and I) they told us they only need 20ish more members to be continually going to church, inactive or new members, for them to build a chapel here. They land is already purchased but they just need a little more and then they will start doing it. So this is our goal to have the inactives and our current investigators build and we will be able to have a chapel.

We taught quite a few lessons this week. So I will just share some cool experiences! I told you last week that we were going to be teaching a lady who only speaks spanish. Well we really had no idea how we were going to go about doing this but just the same we did it. We went over to their house and they have their friends over Alma (who speaks spanish) and her husband Tomas who speaks every other language on this planet I swear! Now Alma and Tomas are actually inactive members of the church, they are the most sweetest people, and so for this lesson to work they were the ones that had to teach their friend Karen. It was super difficult, speaking wise, but the spirit was their and we were able to find out so much of how we need to work with Karen and how the spirit testifies to her. We have another lesson this week with her and she is progressing which I am super thrilled about. And in the process Alma and Tomas are coming to church and they are getting more involved so they can go to the temple. I love this gospel and how it brings families together!

We are also teaching this wonderful lady named Claudia, she is Catholic and I think I told you a little bit about her last week. She is AMAZING! She is so ready and willing to learn and she took what we gave her and read it within the day! It is absolutely amazing, we shared the Plan of Salvation and she just thought that it was so beautiful!

We also started teaching this family the mother is an inactive member and she has a daughter who is 9 that we are teaching. Who is in the picture I will be sending you all. The children are super crazy and it was kinda hard to do the lesson with them literally jumping from furniture to furniture and playing songs on youtube. But then Sora Ewell (she is super amazing, I'm super grateful to have her as my trainer) decided we should sing some church/primary songs. And we did it brought the spirit back in and we were able to teach her, she is really hesitant on baptism, but she loves us which is a step in progress!
I have to tell you about the Militaru Family. They have been investigating the church for 7 years, I have never heard this term until now, but they call them Eternal Investigators. Our zone leader thinks they should be called Professional Investigators because they know how to be progressing enough but then to not be progressing at all to accept huge commitments. So my companion and I have just been searching for ways that we can bring these wonderful people into the church. The mother and the children know so much about the gospel, they really do. They have studied it, prayed about, they know that it's true. The problem is that the dad won't let them get baptized and he just gives a hundred excuses for them not to be baptized. He never really sits in on lessons but he basically invites us over to teach his family. It makes no sense to me. But our goal with them is to have them meet over at members houses the whole family so we can actually teach him. Share our experiences with him and hopefully we will be able to touch his heart and just show him how much we really really really love their family. I'm not kidding when I say this family is amazing, they are so loving!

I have gotten acquainted with some members too this week! How many times can I say I love these people in one letter??? I don't know but I do I love them. They are so loving, they love us as missionaries, you can feel the love they have for all the members and the new investigators. It's just such a site to see! And they speak to me like I know what they are saying which is cool when I do know what they are saying. They always aske me why I am so quite and Sora Ewell just laughs and then I have to explain to her I'm trying to find ways to respond fast enough before the conversations changes and my speaking skills are not fast enough haha. I think this is why they like me is that I'm not afraid to just speak to them "wrong".

We did a bunch of contacting this week and there were some super cool experiences! We had our zone training this week which our zone leaders never told us about. Thankgoodness we were already at the church for a lesson. But we are working on contacting with doing short powerful statements. So me and Sora Stapley went on splits. (They loved the fact that they put the sister who has been out one week and then the sister who has been out 6 weeks together) We went and contacted and we actually got a number and he was super awesome. And then the other sisters met him and then the AP's met him too. This is no coincidence! The Elders have already contacted him and are working with him. The Lord works in miraculous ways here!
We were also doing English Contacting (passing out flyers for our English classes) and we ran into this guy who lived in the USA for like 10 years. Knows English perfectly and we invited him to come to institute with us that evening and he said yes. He is super religious and may not be completely in love with our religion because he just doesn't believe that the priesthood power can exist here on earth. But it was super awesome that we met him for like 15 minutes talked about religion. He agreed to come to institute, stayed the whole time, and after to hang out with us missionaries, and then took a Book of Mormon from us.

I really just love this work here. I love sharing the gospel and just being apart of this work is amazing. I can't think of anything that I could be doing that would be better then this. I'm counting my blessings day by day as we listen to conference talks in Romanian every morning and I am able to understand more and more. I can really trully feel the blessings of the spirit come and I really do know that without the Lord's help I could not do this. There would be no way. I pray everyday to increase myself in conversation, knowledge, spirit. I don't want to be complacent, and I always do want to be put out of my comfort zone so I can be the person the Lord wants me to be.

I love you all so very much!
Love,

Sora Stewart