Easter in Timisoara!

Hello all,

To answer a few questions: Arad is about 1-2 hour train ride from Timi, and it's the zone headquarters so yeah, most zone events are over there. And no, werewolf we just played in Timi for FHE :) and we'll probably play it again today.

During interviews we're usually asked things like, "How are you? Are you getting along with your companion? Have you quit smoking those cigars yet?" Just to kind of give Pres the gist of what's going on in little old Timisoara :)

I haven't gotten the package yet, I probably won't until transfers. But it's cool, it just means I get to celebrate Easter twice.

I am feeling loads better. I had started a slight fever last week but I still felt good so I went along and even played a ton of sports with the elders. I guess that wasn't very smart because that evening my fever was at 102 and I ended up staying in all day Tuesday. I rested, sweated, and even got permission to watch a couple of movies so that was fun, haha. I still went to English and FHE but I made sure not to contact anyone.

But by Wednesday morning it was down to 99 again, so we tried doing more but still took it easy. I felt good, though. We met with one member who made us this yummy cake with pudding and whipped cream... and it was seriously one of the best things I've tasted in Romania hah..

On Thursday we had district meeting, and we got a surprise visit from the ZL's who, when making their way to do exchanges in Oradea, got onto the wrong train and ended up in Timisoara instead. So after the meeting, Sora Hunt, Lee, and I went to Sora Mitin's daughter's house, because her daughter wanted us to continue to read to her son and Sora Mitin's grandson, Claudiu. That was cool. Then we went out to eat with all the Elders, as per usual when there's an exchange.

Friday we couldn't do a whole lot, because everyone in Romania is so busy getting ready for Easter. Easter is just as big as Christmas here. Everywhere was closed and we had no one show up for kid's English. We really just had institute, but all three girls came, even Elida who hasn't shown up for a while.

Easter Bunny sitting in a nest

Egg Dispensing Machine

Saturday morning we got up early to (surprise!) greet the new senior couple. We had only been told that they were coming here the day before, so that's exciting. This is the Hunt's last transfer, so we're glad the couple was sent here. They are really great and friendly so I'm excited.

Waiting to greet the new Senior Couple coming in on the train

We had to take two trips to transport all of us

We took Sora Alston to find some langosi while waiting

Success, we found a langosi stand, they are all over in Romania

Later we teach English class, which only Damaris and Edina show up because it's the day before Easter. So by English class I mean we talked about Romanian and American school systems for an hour. It was fun.

Then for the spiritual thought after English, we got an Easter video started when there's a huge CRASH-SHATTER from the church window and we're like, they've found the Mormons! One of our windows had been shattered, by a rock or something? But splattered on the window looked like mashed potato. The elders run outside to see where the culprit went. And then we notice, there are feathers in this potato. That's not potato. And, on the outside of the church, a dead, decapitated pigeon lied there in a pool of ketchup. I guess he wanted to hear the church message about Christ really bad, he failed to notice that GLASS IS NOT ENTER-ABLE. AND IS VERY SHARP WHEN BROKEN.

And then we went out to lunch. We stayed away from anything potato. We got permission to watch a movie for Easter, so we watched the Fantastic Mr. Fox. again. I can't get enough of that movie, it's so funny. Then we kind of hang out until midnight because we had midnight mass at the cathedral! We all bought candles, and as part of the Mass the priest lights his candle and passes the flame to the next person, and everyone is passing around the flame candle to candle saying, "Hristos a inviat! Adevarat, a inviat!" until everyone is lit. We then stood outside and watched the sermon, burning our candles out. It was awesome. BUT MY CANDLE BURNT OUT SO FAST by the time we took pictures, I had no candle left haha.

Going to Easter Mass

People gathering for Easter Mass

Picture of the Savior at the Mass

The Priest at the Mass

Each person lights the next person's candle

Our group with our candles, mine was already burned out

All of our district with candles

Sunday we had church, and because I'm mean I roped all the missionaries into singing an Easter song in sacrament meeting. I also spent all three hours translating for Sora Alston (the new couple) and that was good Romanian practice for me. Until she bore her testimony and I said "I am I thank that to be here" and Elder Speyer won't let me live that one down. I mean, he did say that the first step of the gospel is "repentance in Jesus Christ" the same day, so we all make mistakes.

Some of the members made us colored eggs to crack. In Romania you can hold a competition where you hit your eggs against each other and the one that doesn't break is the winner. Also, in Romania during Easter time, the greeting changes. Instead of just "good day" or whatever, everyone says "Isus a inviat!" (Jesus was resurrected) and you respond with "Adevarat a inviat!" (It's true, he was resurrected!) It's really cool. Everyone does it. Later we all had dinner at the Hunts with the Alstons. It was a lot of fun.

 Monday the Oradea and Arad missionaries came to Timi to play laser tag. Unfortunately the place was closed for Easter, so they were all stuck in Timi ha,ha. The Internet place was closed, too, so that's why I'm writing a day late. So we ended up going to the park to play more soccer and basketball. The elders also tried a lot of slacklining... Later we all went to another soccer game! Poli Timisoara vs. Cluj. Timi lost again... But! We got to see the elder's investigator, Wilson Kneeshaw play. It was pretty awesome. Kneeshaw singled Morby out in the audience, I'm pretty sure that made his whole mission.

And that's this week.

Easter is a great holiday. Isn't it so perfect that it's celebrated in springtime? Just after the earth life has slept over the winter, the flowers and grass come out again. I love the energy and refreshing-ness of spring.


I don't like the bugs, though.

I love you all! Have a good week!

Sora Smith

Zone Conference in Arad

Hey family and friends,

Sorry I don't have a lot of time to write today, I'll try to get to the important details . . .

Here's the temple picture I told you about last week
and me in my new glasses, the wind was blowing

Notice which temple they "borrowed" for their store front?

This week we had Zone Training Meeting in Arad. Again. It was... normal. Boring. I said a prayer.

Arriving at the Zone Training Meeting in Arad

Me and my companion at the Zone Training Meeting

Our hotel room in Arad

We played a pretty brutal game of werewolf (you know, like mafia but with more rules.) It was intense, and I don't think Elder Middlebrook is going to forgive me any time soon for throwing a cookie at him. Oh, sorry, "biscuit," my bad.

At the end of the week we had interviews. I know, already?  They went great.

Waiting for President and Sister Hill to arrive

President Hill

The Hills arriving at Timisoara

The last couple of days I've been fighting a fever, so it's been a little slow work wise. Don't worry, I'm fine. But maybe I shouldn't have played soccer and basketball today... but it was a lot of fun with the Elders and the random Romanian kid who wanted to play with us!

Our Zone out Street Contacting

My companion and I in a scary elevator

District Meeting

No "see" food please

Guitar Street Contacting

So a cool thing happened, remember how we went to see a soccer game? Well, the Elders contacted one of the PROFESSIONAL players on the Timisoara team, who is from England and doesn't know Romanian, so the Elders are going to teach him Romanian. Isn't that legit??

Our Zone at the Soccer Game

Our investigators with us at the soccer game

Our tickets to get into the soccer game

As far as the ping-pong competition with Morby is going.......... let's just say I haven't won yet but he says I've been getting better!

Our Last Zone

Anyway,  that's about it. Hope you all have a good week, I miss you all, and don't do anything stupid!


The church is true, the book is blue, Jesus was a Jew and you can be a Mormon, too!

Sora Smith

Saying Goodbye to Elders Montoya and Ormsby

Elder Montaya

Elder Ormsby is now serving as the Branch President in Bacau

Some Pictures from our paint-balling trip to Arad

I Can See Again!

Hello everyone,

I got the new glasses and they've been working great for me. The total came to just under 600 lei, so that's just under $200 so the money you gave me was perfect. My prescription has gotten worse, so it's probably a good thing I got new ones now...

Edina

Apparently Edina has two broken ribs... why she didn't recognize this sooner, I don't know. And she still walks around like a normal person, haha. She was telling me how she'll survive the apocalypse, even if her heart is outside her body, she'll survive. And I'm inclined to believe that.

So on Monday night, Ormsby cooks us all this roast. No need to double check, you read that right. He cooked a roast for our Goodbye Dinner.   Anyway, Elder Ormsby and Montoya left Monday night and I've missed them since. They became some of my best friends on the mission.  

On Tuesday we got to meet with Victoria again, the girl testing into Cambridge. She's doing well, and we gave her a nice thought but she's not really progressing at all and I wish we would have talked about something more... in-depth and can help her progress. She's become an "eternal investigator" and nothing's going to happen with her unless she can take a BOM. What's keeping her from it, I don't know.

We went contacting and made our way to the temple.  Proof that plagiarism is big in Romania lol. Picture attached.  (Nicole forgot to send the picture, so maybe we will see what this is next week).

We also had FHE, and I started my quest to beating Elder Morby at ping pong. We have a 15 game limit. If I can beat him ONCE, I get to paint his nails and he has to keep it for 24 hours. If He beats me in all 15 games, I have to eat a vegemite sandwich.

Sister Hunt took this Photo of our New Elders, Elder Speyer (Our DL)
and Elder Morby after playing Ping Pong

Wednesday we borrowed Sora Hunt's guitar and tried sing contacting... the thing is, no one was really outside so it didn't work. We'll have to try again another day... when there's more people outside.

Later we had a lesson with Dalia, the 10 year old girl. Her English is constantly getting better every time. I just want to get her dad more involved and really investigating. I want him to meet with the elders. Lol but things don't always work out the way you want them to and it works a lot of patience :)

We also surprise visited our Elders and we ended up getting dinner. It was kind of sad... because most missionaries were down in Buch on transfer day... I missed getting to see everyone :( Oh well, another six weeks and MAYBE I WILL

Thursday, (Happy birthday Lara and Daniel!), we went to seminary and two of the girls came with us! We had to walk the entire way, though. Normally, Elder Hunt gives us a ride because it's kind of far out there, but since there were more of us, we walked.  Afterward, we took the new Elders to get that yummy cocoa.

Friday we had district meeting with Speyer as our new DL.  It was different. What's weird is this is the fourth new DL in a row for Timi, it's kind of crazy.

So on Friday we had kid's English. Claudiu hasn't been coming, but these other two siblings have and it's been fun. We went over "who, what, when, where, blah blah blah."  Then I taught institute and all three of the girls were there! I felt like Elida kind of fell off the face of the planet for a while.

Saturday we did "slackline contacting."  Which is exactly what it sounds like. Elder Speyer is a... how do you say it, slackliner? He ties a line between two trees, does a little circus stunt, and hey, people are stopping and talking to us.

Then we throw a little surprise party for Sora Hunt's birthday. I baked a cake, we had party hats balloons and everything.

Then in the evening we got to watch conference live. The Saturday Morning Session, anyway. Unfortunately (and by that I mean fortunately), there was no live Romanian translator so we had to watch it in English... oh darn.

Sunday we watched the Saturday afternoon session and I saw both Adam and Jeff and a ton of people I know! I got excited and fell off my chair... maybe more than once. Then we watched Sunday morning live. I have yet to watch the Sunday afternoon. I made rootbeer. It was tasty.

Today we ate out with the Elders and went bowling. I'm not good at bowling at all. BUT I SCORED 112!!!! Which is pretty good. For me.

And now we're to... well, now.  I'm sitting in an Internet Cafe listening to smooth jazz music and writing my family home.

The end.

Psych, you probably want to know more about the new Elders.  Elder Speyer is from Texas, he plays golf, and slacklines. He's one transfer above me.  Elder Middlebrook is from Australia and I'm going to be honest, I have a hard time understanding his humor.  He fed us all vegemite. Gosh, it's so nasty. He's two transfers above me.

Anyway, that's this week. I'm still alive. And in Timi.

Still.

Staying in Timi!

Hello all,

Transfer boards came out on Saturday, and I'm staying here in Timisoara while Elders Montoya and Ormsby are ditching. The Elders replacing them are Speyer, who I haven't met yet, and Middlebrook who is from Australia.  This last transfer was a lot of fun, and I'm gonna miss Montormsby, but I'm going to have fun this next transfer too.

I'm going to pick up my glasses today, actually. The money you left me should be more than enough still. But... I don't know yet :) I still need to pick them up.

This week was a cool down from the crazy schedule I had last week.

We went to the Poli Timisoara vs. Vasliu match, it was a blast! Poli was beaten into the dirt, though. I was sandwiched between Edina and Damaris, and after Poli is already losing pretty bad I shout out, "Mai am speranta!" and Damaris says "N-am." and Edina says "Nici eu." ("I still have hope!" "I don't." "Neither do I.")  But it was still exciting and now I know all the rules of soccer now . . . there are none.

On Tuesday we had English. Normal. We did a review and had our students do this role-play where they're trying to convince us "storekeepers" to return a scarf. Then we had FHE, two of the girls came and we played a lot of ping pong.

Wednesday we had a lesson with the 10 year old Dalia and her cousin Paula. We taught them English, then talked about Alma 32 and how faith is like a seed. They both read and participated and are the sweetest two girls, I love teaching them.

Later we had a family history class for our members. The Romania/Moldova Mission is starting to get family history going. It's hard because the family record archives are closed off in Romania. The church has been trying to make a deal with them to be able to copy the records, and I think just recently they were able to get some headway into it... I'm not sure of all the details. So now we're starting up family history contacting and we had a class on Wednesday to introduce it to our members about familysearch.net and so forth. It seems like a lot of people here don't see the need to store this information or write it down, but we'll see where this goes with time.

Thursday we had our last district meeting of this transfer. We all had shared something that we learned this transfer... and then we met the elders at Pizza Hut for pizza festival. Well, except for Ormsby and Stinson. Montorby was on an exchange with the ZL's, and we tagged along so it was the six of us eating pizza and talking about talking to animals and whatever. Later we get a text from Ormsby about how mad he was that he missed pizza festival...

Have I ever told you about Pizza Hut in Romania? It's not like it is in America.  No joke, it's like, borderline classy. I know. Pizza Hut. It's like, sit down here's-a-menu-let-me-take-your-order restaurant. And we just had pizza festival where you pay 22 lei and eat as many little pizzas as you want. I can barely eat one... but the elders seemed to enjoy it . . . except for Ormsby lol.

I also taught seminary again. I tried getting the three girls to come along, but they never responded...

Friday we went to one of my favorite members house to visit. Sora Negriu had been a little sick earlier, so we go to say hi and she feeds us this really good green bean soup. We talk a little about family history, and she shared these great stories about her family.

Sora Negriu

When we were on our way back from Sora Negriu's, I get a call from Edina, one of the 3 girls.

"Sora Smith? How are you?"

"I'm fine, how are you?"

"I'm fine."

"So what's up?"

"Sora Smith, I don't think I can come to institute today. I'm really sorry."

"Oh, why's that? Did something happen?"

"I was riding my bicycle home from school when a car hit me really hard."

At this point I'm like, what! And then I could hear the beeping of a hospital monitor in the background. I asked her if she was okay and if we could come see her. She said we couldn't, but that Damaris and Elida were with her. So I said call me as soon as we can come see you.

So now I'm all worried and in panicky mode when like a half an hour later I get another call.

"Sora Smith?"

"Yeah, are you okay? How are you feeling?"

"I think I'm going to come to institute today."

"You really don't have to. If you will do better resting at home, that's what you should be doing."

"Well my dad said I don't need to stay at the hospital and I don't really want to go home so I'm going to come to institute."

So, she came to institute. She explained the whole thing with Damaris and Elida, that she had completely rolled over the car and her bike is completely bent out of shape. She was sore and shaky, and I'm just like, "Do you need to go home??"

It was also Elder Hunt's birthday, so we had cake and made homemade rootbeer to do rootbeer floats. Rootbeer doesn't exist in Romania. It was so nice. Every Romanian that had tried rootbeer hates it and says it tastes like cough syrup. But the three girls loved it!

Making the Rootbeer

Happy Birthday to Elder Hunt

Hurray for Rootbeer Floats in Romania!

Saturday we had our last English class. We just played Boggle the whole time, lol. And then we watched Wreck it Ralph in English with Romanian subtitles with our students.

Then we walked around Timisoara for about 2 hours looking for a court to play soccer in. The one we initially wanted was occupied, so we did a lot of walking until we found one... sort of lol.  Everyone else that we invited bunged out, so we ended up with us missionaries, Damaris and Edina. Yes, the girl who was hit by a car the day before.  And then I played soccer for the first time in my life. It was so much fun. I was goalie at one point and when the ball makes it to me I kick it... backwards into our own goal haha.  At the end Elders Montorby teamed up the two against everyone else. And they beat us. Pretty hard. But I'm not entirely sure they didn't cheat..........

Sunday was normal. The six of us missionaries sang "God Be With You Till We Meet Again". Elder and Sora Hunt are trying to put on a branch choir with virtually every member in the branch. We did a practice, and it actually turned out sounding pretty good. Elder Hunt had me explain some of the music symbols... that was difficult to do in Romanian.

Our District

Aaaaaaand.... that's it.

A couple of days ago I was thumbing through the Bible dictionary when I came across a bunch of information about the compilation and creation of the Bible, like about the council that was held in 90 A.D. about the authoritation of books. And about the apocrypha, which is a collection of books that were considered part of the bible, but taken out because of them not being 100% canon. And in D&C it mentions those books in Apocrypha and how they are mostly correct, but there do exist in them some unauthorized changes made by man that make them not completely canon, and in this way, the argument that the bible was changed and incomplete is valid. Not to mention the religious texts that were not preserved through time. What I'm really coming across with all of this is how necessary it is that we need the Book of Mormon. You can't say that there aren't gaps in the Bible. There are a lot of people, especially here in Romania, that say the Bible is IT and there's no more religious text that can be the word of God. But, given the information that there were other books that were not included only shows that it is not complete.

Anyway, I'm going to go now. I have a goodbye party to attend with everyone who is leaving this transfer.

Love you all,

Nicole