Exhausting Week!

Wow, things have really been crazy in Timi! It's like a completely different mission here!

It's weird hearing about the world over there and how much it's changing. It will be so different when I get back.... exactly a year from today! That's weird, I feel like I only just got out to Romania. But at the same time, it feels like I've lived here my whole life. Weird. Just weird.

As far as speaking Romanian with companions/districts go, that's extremely difficult to do. We're encouraged to "SYL" (speak your language) in order to better practice the language. Sora Merkley and I made a goal to turn Sundays and Wednesdays into 100% SYL days, but otherwise, we speak English. It's a lot different than if we were to have a native companion, because if there's something neither of us know, we can't learn immediately. In this mission, the missionaries learn the language a lot slower than other missions. But hey, I'm working hard so I'll be there soon! ...or maybe by the time I get home.

Still no snow. Which is super lame. I can get by today without a jacket. Of course, I don't, because every Romanian will give me funny looks, ha, ha.

To answer some questions from the last home email, I actually heard "Let it Go" by Idina Menzel when I was getting Christmas music on iTunes, and it sounds amazing. But, it wasn't her that sang the Romanian version, it would be kind of hard to have to sing the same song in a bunch of languages you don't know. The song in Romanian is "S-a întâmplat" ("It Happened") and the singer was actually also incredible. I was amazed at how good the voices in Romanian were, in fact, some of the songs I prefer in Romanian, lol.

I can't really answer the question about the Mcdonalds food in Romania, I never had it much in America so I can't tell a difference. Tastes like American fast food, anyway.

So! A little more information this time!

It's really different being in an 8 person district. I like it! If one set of Elders can't go contacting, talk to the others! If one set of Elders aren't listening, talk to the others! If you need a change of pace from them all, you have a Senior Couple! Lol. No, but actually our Elders really are great! Elder Stinson is our DL, and he reminds me a lot of our cousin Brad, actually, in looks and personality. Good, responsible, and always says to have a great evening after he calls us ha, ha. His companion is Elder Bliss who is really funny and when he's dedicated to something, he's dedicated. Elder Montoya is from D.C., and he's a lot of fun. We all fake slap each other because of him. His compy is Elder Morby, who I don't know if you remember, is the Elder who we met at the airport right before we took off to Romania. So, he's technically "in my group" but I wasn't in the MTC with him.

Elder Stinson and Elder Bliss

Elder Montoya and Elder Morby

Sora Merkley is from Vernal, and she is a lot of fun. Contacting is a lot of fun, I actually thought I'd never enjoy contacting in my life. But we make it a blast. We get along great, I really enjoy being with her.

This is us (in the background) practicing street contacts and presenting a message

The Hunts are awesome! (I have to say that, I think they read my blog...). Just kidding, of course they are really awesome!  It's great having a Senior Couple in the mission, adica, (in other words) missionaries who are responsible over the age of 19/20......... lol. Work is easier with them around.

Timi is booming. My first day here, we had two lessons scheduled. One of them fell through, but I mean, way to hit the ground running. We've only had 3 since, but that's already more than I had in Craiova! What else is funny is Sora Merkley says last week was the lowest number she's ever put in for lessons, before that her lowest ever for a week was 5. Ha, ha, I was lucky to see one a week in Craiova or Oradea. It's nice knowing that that's what I set-up for other sisters though, replacing me in those cities. I will always be their first sister mish, muahahaha!

Oh yeah, so we currently have like, 16 investigators. More than I've had collectively! The nice thing is, that means we hardly contact here. I haven't had 16 total from my previous cities, lol. It's really weird teaching a bunch of people I don't know, though, and who I haven't found myself. I haven't done this until now.
 

One investigator is Victoria. She's the first one I met. She's 17 and trying to get into Cambridge.. so she's extremely smart. Apparently she's asked a lot of really good questions, like "How did God get a body?" or "So does that mean there's a Heavenly Mother?"  I wasn't there for those. I came later. We've been trying to get her to take a BOM, but something is keeping her back. Probably that her dad is a priest. So that's our focus for her: take the book! You'll love it!

The next three girls are Elida, Edina, and Damaris, three high school friends who have had all the lessons, and even had baptismal dates for a little bit, but something happened. Still trying to push for those.

Next is Maria, a woman from Nigeria in her early 30's with a crazy and sad background story. She works at the hospital, but either doesn't get paid at all or is paid so little because she's not a Romanian citizen, so she relies on her boyfriend's wallet. Such a strong and amazing lady, and this week we're going to help her quit smoking with a program made by the church.

Those are the big ones. I haven't met much of the rest of the investigators. Well, there is also Tibi, but I'll tell more about him later.

The mission in Timi is so different. There are weekly branch activities, like FHE, institute, seminary... those didn't exist in my other cities ha, ha. The branch has about 15 active members, and Sunday School and Relief Society can get pretty.... scary. Two sisters in particular like to argue a lot, haha.

Family Home Evening

We've been doing some contacting for English classes which start tomorrow. Apparently Timi gets a LOT of English students, so that will be exciting.

There's one sister in Timi who is very old and has been battling cancer more than half her life. She has a wonderful spirit, and we go there occasionally to read her the BOM or Bible. She's so funny, she likes to joke about going with us to the disco tech. And, she shows us she can lift herself up from her bed, and she's grinning ear to ear. What a sweet lady.

We had zone conference last Tuesday in Arad. Nothing special happened. A bunch of missionaries talked. I was asked to play the piano... (why does everyone think I can play???)

Zone Conference Object Lesson on Cooperation and Working on Common Goals

Sora Merkley gave Elder Morby a haircut. It was funny watching him clean the hair off himself with a vacuum....

On Saturday we went to an Orthodox Monastery with Tibi. Tibi is a taxi driver the sisters contacted before I got to Timi, and who is interested in religion and wanted a copy of the BOM. He took us to the monastery, and that was... well, let me say this:  When people build things out of faith, it's really beautiful. It was a nice place with many interesting paintings.  But gosh, was I relieved to get out of there.

Sag Monastery near Timisaora

Driving us back to the city, Tibi tells us Goliath (as in David and Goliath) was 5 stories high, and that he found a dinosaur whose tip of it's finger was a ten story building.   That's great, Tibi.

I gave a talk on Sunday about how the Book of Mormon answers the questions of the soul. Talks will be so easy when I say them again in English. I tried using as little notes as possible.  Well, I almost did it.

And then today! We went laser tagging! The three girls came (3 Investigators) and brought some friends, so there were 12 of us playing. It was fun, but I'm definitely out of my game.  So I wore pants today, for the first time in months. They didn't fit me in the MTC, but they fit today! What good news, lol. I'm relieved, and weirded out. I'm wearing jeans.

Anyway, that's kind of how things are going. I've been super exhausted this week. Sora Merkley and I are doing the Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred (exercise program) ha, ha, and so I've been pretty beat. But it's good beat and in 20 more days, I'll be shredded.  Lol.

So I wrote enough for this week and last. This blog will make quite a novel.

I don't know what else to write.

Um, the Book of Mormon is true! I'm reading in Mosiah right now, and I read recently about the people of Limhi who were in bondage, and the Lamanites are persecuting them so the people of Limhi are fighting back, but they don't get anywhere because they're slow to remember their Lord.  So, they stop fighting and are praying a lot, and what I love is that, instead of causing that they should be released from bondage, God grants them with strength to endure the trials.  I love that, because that happens today. Sometimes we think, "just take this problem away!" But, what needs to happen is that we're just able to better deal with the problem.  And then, after they exercise their faith in the Lord, the people of Limhi escape the bonds. 

Anyway, that's about it. We're hoping one of these 16 can turn into a baptism this transfer!

We'll see.

Sora Smith

Timi!

Hi all,

 

Sorry this week, I don't have a whole lot of time! 

Just a quick question/answer this week, maybe I'll have more time later.

To answer your question:  McDonalds here is just like it is in America. Not romanianized, same old burgers and fries.

My new companion is so amazing. Sora Merkley's from Vernal, UT. Super down-to-earth and we get along great. 

 

Sora Merkley, Me, and a Member of the Branch

 

Our district is great, the elders are Elder Morby, Montoya, Stinson, and Bliss, and we have a senior couple, the Hunts. 

 

The Hunts

 

We have so many lessons in Timisoara! There are 16 investigators! All ones I didn't find myself! And we hardly ever go contacting, there are so many lessons here. Haha,  We're starting English Classes in a couple of weeks.

 

Meeting some members of the branch

 

Timisoara is a very different mission area than what I've ever known. I love it here.  The city is beautiful, I've missed the west. It's structurally pleasing rather than Craiova where all the buildings are gray, haha. 

 

The weather's warm, actually today I could have gotten by with only a sweater. Where's the snow? No clue. 

 

Language is coming, it's better to practice it now with these lessons we are finally able to teach. I'm saying things more than "Hi, we're missionaries and we-- oh, okay, have a good day." lol. 

 

The scriptures are great. Romania is cool. And I'm sorry it's so short today, next week I should be able to give you more information!

Have a good week!

Sora Smith

La mulţi ani şi sanatate, blah blah blah nu pot să vorbesc în limba Română!

Transfers are happening this week on Wednesday. I'm going to . . . (wait for iiiiiit): Timişoara with Sora Merkley! What's strange is that, even though we opened this city, both Sora Ralls and I are leaving Craiova and going to another city while Sora Newell and a trainee are being whitewashed here. Well, they now have a few people to work with, so that will be good!

Timisoara

Sora Merkley

We've been able to meet with the two nursing students again. We just had a small lesson about prophets and how this church is the same that Christ established, and they seemed to accept that well. They are so great, they want to keep meeting and even go hospital contacting with us. The sad thing is we're leaving. What a bummer. But we told them all about the next missionaries coming in and we're planning on setting up a lesson for Sora Newell with these girls, so that's good.

We got to watch two movies for the holidays, so we decided to watch "A Goofy Movie" on January 1st. I found that movie dubbed in Romanian, and since it's one of my favorites, I just had to get it... but we watched it in English anyway, hahaha.  The next day we watched "Frozen" with our district. It was so good! And we actually watched it in Romanian. I was proud of myself - I understood the whole movie! And the songs were so beautiful - I don't know how they are in English, but in Romanian they were amazing. I'm going to come home and see it in English and be like, "Hey, this isn't the same movie!"

Yes, I was able to see the family videos that you sent and download the music. Yay, I have music that isn't Christmas music again!  Thanks Jeff and Adam!

I loved the Christmas gifts. They were perfect.  It was a perfect Christmas!

We went to the hospital again a few times. I love hospital contacting because they really love us being there, too. We also have gotten quite a few numbers and people telling us how much they want to come to church. I guess when you're out there serving people, they tend to think your message must be pretty good.

Hospital in Craiova

New Years was amazing. We wanted to eat out, but everywhere was closed so we ended up at MCDONALDS again, yay! But then my district went to the roof of our apartment and played games until midnight, (we got permission to stay up). We also ended up tying a thread to my superman action figure's ankle and bungee jumping him from the seventh story. It was awesome.  Then we went on the roof and watched as Romania lit up in fireworks. It was like we were in the middle of a giant firework show, 8 stories up in the air. Everyone was setting off tons of fireworks, it was the best firework show I've ever seen. That, and I celebrated 9 hours before you. Best New Years ever.

Anyway, that's about it. This next transfer is exciting, Timişoara (Timmy-shwara) ;) is a really big city, and there will be 8 missionaries there instead of 4. And, apparently there are a lot of lessons going on over there, so I'll be really busy this next transfer! (AND maybe I'll see a baptism... what?)!

Sora Nicole Smith