Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Many Blessings This Week






  Sister Ludlum, Sora Vann, Sister Peck 
                                                                                                                April 18, 2016

Hello Everyone,

So I had some awesome teaching experiences this week but I will get to those later :) 
First off, on Monday night they usually have fast food, and so I usually am not excited for dinner because I don't like fast food except for chick-fil-a.  But I was like there is no way they will ever have chick-fli-a for us. Guess what they had this week on Monday! CHICK-FLI-A! I was so happy! You know me, I was just like dancing in my chair the whole time I was eating I was so happy. :) 

Tuesday was a really hard day for me. I was just feeling really down and discouraged. That night it was especially bad, so I was praying for Heavenly Father to help me feel better and to feel loved. After I prayed I remembered about the "open when" letters my friends sent me. I picked one and read it and it was exactly what I needed. It made me laugh and feel loved. 

Wednesday was wayyyy better. I had a one-on-one teaching practice with my teacher Sora Pond (who is one of our investigators right now named Tensi). It went really well. It helped me get my confidence back up. Afterwards she told me that I did really well and my Romanian is better than I think. She told me she wanted me to start the next lesson with Tensi (two days away) and to do a lot more talking (Sora Nicol usually does a lot of the talking). I was super worried about it and nervous, so I prayed that whole day and the next day that Heavenly Father would give me the confidence I needed to open my mouth. He definitely helped me because that next lesson I was able to do so much more talking! Our lesson went awesome! It was the best lesson we have ever had! The spirit was super strong and we were just working off each other so well (which can be hard when there's three of you). So Heavenly Father definitely answered my prayers :) 

                                                                                         Vann, Ludlum, Peck, Synder, Overbay

On Thursday (I know I'm back tracking) we had TRC (which I actually don't know what that stands for) but we were skyping with a brother who served his mission in Romania and we were basically just teaching him a member lesson in Romanian. We went in wanting to talk about the Book of Mormon and we had a scripture to share. So we did that and afterwards none of us knew what to say, in English. It was going better and then bad and we were just like mumbling through. We finally just started talking about Romania and Sora Nicol asked him about his mission. He went into this long spiel about his mission. We were only able to catch parts of what he was saying. So afterwards we didn't feel like it went super well. Then our teacher came in and told us that David (the person we were teaching) had definitely gone into that expecting not to learn anything. But when Fratal Barney asked him what he learned, it looked like a light bulb went off in his head and he said that because we asked about his mission he thought of lessons he learned on his mission that he hadn't thought of in a long time. He said they were definitely things he needed to relearn. After our teacher told us that, we realized that that’s why we couldn't come up with anything to say about the Book of Mormon, because Heavenly Father had something else He wanted David to learn. I know the spirit was guiding Sora Nicol when she asked about his mission. As we talked about what had happened afterwards, within our companionship, we all felt the spirit so strongly that that is actually what happened. So cool! Heavenly Father knows exactly what each of his children need at every moment. I'm so grateful for that wonderful learning moment :) 
We got to hear the BYU Men's Choir this Sunday and it was amazing! We were sitting in the third row since Sora Nicol was asked to say the closing prayer for the meeting. Anyway, I love all of you! 

                                                                                                              Love

                                                                                                                     Sora Vann  
 
Sora Andrus, Sister Peck, Sora Vann, Sora Nicol 

Monday, April 11, 2016

Leap of Faith

 It's tradition to take a picture in front of the giant map and point to where you are going.




 Monday night our teacher told us they don't want us taking our language books into lessons anymore. She told us we need to take a leap of faith, trying using what we know, and trust in the Lord. I have to admitted that at first I was freaking out, but then I realized how much this will actually help us. Luckily we didn't have our first lesson this week till wednesday so we had a little bit to prepare. Our lesson actually went pretty well! I did more talking than I think I ever have in a lesson! I know that the Lord was definitely helping me out on that one. 

Thursday was awesome because it ended up being really nice outside so we got to do a lot of studying out there. Also for our lesson I had felt like I really needed to share an experience I had with prayer with our investigator who wouldn't pray because she said she was scared to. I had written out in Romanian what I wanted to say and had been practicing saying it so I wouldn't have to just read it and that way if could mean more. And I nailed it! I said exactly what I wanted to. I was able to just say it without looking at what I had written and I felt like it was exactly what she needed. I felt the spirit so strongly and she afterwards she thanked me for saying that and I could tell she felt the spirit too. 

In language study this week we started learning about cases. they are seriously the craziest thing ever. I don't have time to explain them but go look them up and your mind might be blown. Anyway that's pretty much it for this week! I love all of you guys! Te iubesc! I leave in two weeks ! AHHH! and my birthday is in 13 days! 

Love Sora Vann





                                                                                               Our little group of Romanian Missionaries

Monday, April 4, 2016

Be Careful What You Ask For




 Sora Andrus, Sora Vann, Sora Nicol
  
Buna Everyone!

This week was by far the craziest week we've had so far! Its funny because at the beginning of the week Sister Nicol wrote in her journal about how nothing crazy had happened to us yet...

So Monday was sad because the Portuguese left us. Then that night we decided to do a district inventory because the Elders in our district have had some problems getting along. It ended up being a super awesome experience ! We each went around and gave everyone in our district a sincere compliment. There were a good amount of tears and lots of love in the room, it was exactly what the elders needed. 
Wednesday I think takes the prize this week for being the craziest day. It started off with us doing our weekly service and we got the job of cleaning toilets in a girls residents building. While we were doing that the fire alarm went off because that day they were checking all the fire alarms in all the buildings. Afterwards we felt pretty gross and couldn't wait to go shower. On our way back we joke about how awful it would be if they check our buildings fire alarm while we were in the showers. That didn't end up happening, but we did mange to lock ourselves out of our room after showering. We were all pretty much in towels so I called down to the front desk with the phone in the hall. They asked us to send someone else down to get our key. Luckily lovely sister Baity was willing to go down and get that for us. As she was leaving the fire alarm starts to go off in our building and they make the announcement "Men will be coming in the building, please make sure you are appropriately dressed". We start like laugh crying because we are like of course this would happen, and we have no idea what to do. Luckily the Brazilians came to our rescue and sister ludlum quickly stuck her head out of her room and yelled Soras! Come get clothes! So we run in there and throw on random clothes and headed outside. We eventually did get into our room but we were a half hour late to class. That afternoon we got to host (welcome the new missionaries) and that was super awesome. We also got our new Portuguese elders and sisters, and they are awesome. 

Thursday was another crazy day. Every night we go around and give hugs to all the girls since we are the sister training leaders. We go into the new portuguese sisters room and one of them is just sobbing. We start talking to her and realize that she wants to go home. She is shaking, she hasn't slept, she hasnt eaten anything really since getting here. We talk to her and try to calm her down. We decided that she really needed a priesthood blessing. So I call down to the office to ask them to call our zone leaders. Its like 5 minutes after lights out so they tell me they cant call them and our options are to calm her down ourselves or bring her down to the office and have her call the district president. I was so mad. We ended up taking her down to the office and talking to several people including her parents. We didn't end up going to bed till 1:30 so it was a long night, but worth it. The whole night I felt the spirit so strong and I could feel how much Heavenly Father loved   and cared for that sister. I knew she was Heavenly Father's choice spirit daughters. It was an amazing experience to be able to feel that so strongly.

Needless to say we were all dead tried the next morning. We thought we could take a nap in the morning because the elders were teaching but we weren't. When we told our teacher what happened she said we couldn't go take a nap and I just started crying because I was so tired and frustrated. After that I was just really unhappy and complaining and stuff. Then as a district we read 1 Nephi 2 and talked about how Nephi and Lamen an Lemuel did the same things but they did it with different attitudes and that made all the difference. It was a very humbling experience for me. I felt like Heavenly Father was saying to me "Where is your faith that I will take care of you? stop complaining and being mean." So I said sorry to my companions and the elders and put my attitude in check and my day got a ton better. 

General Conference was so freakin awesome! I felt the spirit so strongly and definitely heard things that Heavenly Father wanted me to hear. My favorite talks were definitely President Uchtdorf and Elder Hollands! But I really like what one of the sisters said that the Holy Ghost teaches us in the way we learn best. I thought that was so cool and juts testifies that Heavenly Father loves and knows each of us personally. Sunday night we actually got to watch Vocal Point perform so that was awesome! Anyway I think that's everything! I love all of you guys! I know that Heavenly Father loves each and everyone of you and He will take care of you if you put your trust in him! Te Iubesc! 

Love Sora Vann   







                                                                                                 


                                                                                                           


The Elders have had a hard day!                                                                                                            Silly Elders!