...si un An Nou Fericit ( . . . and a Happy New Year!)

I haven't heard anything about travel since I received that call about which airport I was going to a long time ago... maybe I'll call the office or something. That would just be too bad if I can't go home because someone forgot to make arrangements :)

This week I don't have much time to report so this one will be a bit shorter. Sort of.

Ghiti's wife (Mariana) is doing well, she is involving her daughter in law and sister with her lessons and that's been awesome. She has one of those personalities where she acts like she doesn't care, but you can tell she loves it and she loves to have us over and talk about the gospel. My goal is to get a baptismal date with her before I leave, because Ghiti is convinced I'm the only one that has enough convincing power to do it. Hopefully that will be good for their marriage, too. He isn't baptized yet because he is married to Mariana but has a girlfriend (which Mariana knows about). We're hoping that her getting baptized could influence him to do the right thing and follow in her footsteps and the message of the plan of salvation will be enough to make things right. That's what the gospel is for.

Sora Routson, Me and Mariana

We've been meeting with more people, but it got really hard right around New Years because everyone was busy celebrating and we couldn't get much done those few days. Our New Years wasn't that spectacular, in fact I was feeling pretty ill and we were all told by President to be inside by 9, so we ended up going right to bed and slept through midnight celebrations. We had wanted to do something with Ioana but she wasn't getting in town before 9, so we really didn't do anything.  The next day the streets were deserted. We were able to meet with Mariana and Maria (who is also doing great).

Well, that was the end of the black-out year. What a crazy year it's been. A little anti-climactic way to end it but holidays just can't be the same, I'll be home soon enough to party the right way :)

We've also been trying to teach Dan to prepare him for his baptism this Saturday, but it's been really hard to teach him. Normally if it's spouse problems, the spouse is against the church. Well his wife wants him to be baptized. So what's the problem?  She doesn't want us to teach him, she wants to teach him, and she's not understanding that we have to if he's going to be baptized.  It's great that she wants to help out. It's great that they're doing this together. But, it's been frustrating she's not been letting us teach.  She takes over the lesson, and tells us we aren't doing it right. But, we've hopefully figured out a solution and we can finally get him taught and ready before Saturday. It'll be a lot of work... but that's what I'm here for.

I'm starting the Book of Mormon again from start to finish, but this time I'm doing a "red-letter edition". I read about it and thought it was cool so I'm trying it out. It's when you read through and mark every time Christ or God is speaking in red.

Well, that's all the big stuff, and unfortunately all I have time for. So Happy New Year, and two more emails!

Sora Smith