The Reign of Queen Smith Comes to An End

Alas, my short lived time as an all-powerful sister trainer has now seen it's demise... well, as having been an STL for half a transfer, I can at least put that on a college application :D

TRANSFER NEWS:

Dun dun dun DUUUUUNNNN!! I'm training again.

Didn't see that one coming. I got a call Saturday night and it was President Ivory saying how he appreciates my hard work and how he wants me to finish my mission like a star training in Arad for my last two transfers so we can have "another 'me'" even after I die.  WELP, looks like I'll have spent my WHOLE MISSION in the west, half in Arad. Therefore, I'm not an STL anymore. Which I'm okay with, but it only means I have even more responsibilities now.... :) the "T" word.

The best part of all of this is that we're going to pull the best prank ever on my new missionary. Ready?   We're convincing her that the Smith's are my parents. LOL they're totally on board, too.  I MEAN, OF COURSE THEY COULD NEVER REPLACE YOU.

So this week because I was an STL and it was the last week and I still hadn't gone on exchanges (I mean, it's not like I knew I was an STL all transfer...) I tried to go on exchanges. So we planned on Thursday... and that didn't work so Tuesday... but then it was Wednesday... and then one of the sisters got really sick and so it never happened. WORST STL IN HISTORY OF ROM/MLD MISSION? Check :) Haha I'm kidding, I mean I tried everything I could and President knew about the situation so it's all good. But. Haha, that was pretty short lived :) 

Well, we found pumpkins finally. They were small and kind of unattractive BUT we found some at a piata. THANK GOODNESS. But three days later and suddenly Kaufland decides to get in a shipment of 100 pumpkins... after all that searching...

So we have been visiting one sister at her pastry shop, and every time she loves to give us pastries to snack on and she won't accept money from us. So this time, we let her give us some pretzel sticks and then we order cornuri cu rahat (croissant with Turkish Delight, my new favorite treat, 2 lei) and I toss 10 lei in the window and we take off as if we had stolen something, I could hear her screaming "HEY!" at us and we were laughing while munching on them. Well, lets just say that when Sunday rolled around I got in a lot of trouble from this sweet sister who didn't want us to pay for her treats :)

We took the Elders with us this time to the giant family in Zimand-Cuz and had a nice chat-not-really-lesson lesson. But we showed them a Mormon message from the Smith's computer and it goes to show how nice it will be for the missionaries that follow me after the iPads come in.

We saw Maria again and talked, and she opened up to us that she feels her son is troubled and hasn't been able to rest since his death. She says her soul is pained because she thinks his spirit can't rest because of the injustice over his death, that the family whose son killed Maria's son had paid the police and so her son is upset over that. She said she doesn't want to be baptized with those feelings. Well, I told her that she needs healing and repayment, and I told her that being baptized would heal her and going to the temple to be baptized for her son will be repayment. I don't know how much she took that to heart, but we'll see down the road.

We also met with Ioana and told her about the potential temple trip.  Well, she does really want to go and to be baptized. So then the weirdest thing happened. You know how in the scriptures it talks about Jesus or Alma or so on perceiving the thoughts of those they talk with? Well, I was thinking about why, if she wanted to be baptized so bad, she wasn't setting a date. And then it came to me. It's her parents. I asked her about it and she says they wouldn't like her being baptized. And suddenly I could read her mind. I asked her about if they knew her affiliation with the church and so on, and they only sort of did, but not that she was regularly coming.  What my guess is, and I'm not sure, is that she was waiting to graduate and move to America for college and be baptized then. Which would be all cool and what not. BUT. We're going to try to see what we can't do now. So this will be taking a lot of prayer.

Friday we had our Halloween party. We had about eleven people show up, two non-active teenage boys so that was awesome, and one of them came to church on Sunday. I've never seen him at church. The Smith's Facebook page has tons of pictures and videos from the party. It was great, we did dancing, pumpkin carving, cookies (because donuts are expensive) on a string... and it was a ton of fun but a lot of work putting together. The decorations were awesome, though :)

Saturday we finished English classes by watching Mickey Mouse Prince and the Pauper in English. Lol. and then....  we went circus contacting! It's exactly what it sounds like. It was mostly in Italian so I took that opportunity to ask the people around me, "We're not from here, what are they saying?" "It's Italian." "Oh, I see." "Why are you here?" "I'm a missionary!" and so on. It was exciting and I saw a penguin. No guys sticking their heads in a lion's mouth, though.

On Sunday we found out about transfers (except I actually got a call the night before). Sora Cox is going to Brasov, Elder Boydstun is going to Chisinau Moldova, and I'm training and Elder Dunkley's new companion will be Elder McArthur who is two groups ahead of me. AKA I'm not the oldest in the district anymore, AKA less people relying on me to translate everything... :)

Our Branch and me and my companion
on one of her last Sundays before transfers.

Today we spent P-day going to Timisoara. It was so awesome to go back to that beautiful city. Less exciting than I was expecting, but nice. And now here we are.

Singing for our Cultural Night event in Timi

I know that there are missionaries who are extending here, so maybe that extending canceling is only in that area or something. So I'll be talking to president about that.

Well, that's crazy news about potentially going to Italy... I mean, that would be three years living in Europe for me :) however the study abroad opportunities for like music and stuff would be phenomenal. Haha... of course, that is if it all works out that way.

Funny thing, we've been seeing Sora Krista in the hospital who suffered from a stroke and she's been in for months. Her whole right side was paralyzed but we saw her this week and she could move her right hand and leg. I was watching her and actually the thought of my grandparents flashed across my mind, which never happened there before, and I had an overwhelming feeling like something similar had happened. Well, it's nice to hear it's not nearly as severe and I hope and pray everything will go okay :)

Anyway, this has been a busy week, and next week I'll have a brand new missionary out of the MTC... well, let's just hope this goes well... :]

Sora with-a-fourth-on-the-way Smith