Craciun Fericit !

So it's been a fun crazy week of Christmas! To start off, we decided to give our friend Maria (from the Christmas targ) a Book of Mormon and show her the "Light the World" video. She loved the video and wanted to share it with her family and friends! She was also pleasantly surprised about the Book of Mormon! She could tell we were sharing it with from our hearts and I think that made the difference for her. She said she would start reading it that night! 

Wednesday was Zone Conference, and that was really good as always, and we had our big Christmas concert that night. Sora Dusenberry and I had handed out over 600 flyers for it in the past two weeks, so we were really hoping lots of people would come. They didn't. haha We only had two people come, but thats okay. One of the guys we had given a flyer to, ended up meeting with the Elders later that day and when he realized that we were from the same church, he took it as a sign, and is now investigating the church! The concert was awesome :) I got to see Elder Wilkes because he played piano for it! Love that kid!

Christmas Eve was super fun! We went over to a member's house in the morning and helped her make christmas sweets! It was a lot of fun and she said she was so glad when we called. She really needed that! She has two little kids and Sora Dusenberry was able to play with them and keep them entertained while Sora Kiss and I did the baking :) Then that night, we went Caroling with the Elders to different members! It was a lot of fun and the members were really enjoying it :) Sora Dusenberry and I opened and put on our matching Christmas pjs that night! (there's pictures)

Christmas was a lot of awsome! Sora and I had a lot of fun opening presents together in the morning before church. At church, we sang a lot of Christmas songs and read the Christmas story from the Bible. Afterwards,we went to a member's house named Felicia and she gave us the Romanian Christmas classic, Sarmale! She also gave us a lot of desserts and we couldn't finish them all so she gave them to us to take with us. We decided to go give them to the people that were working at the Christmas targ and they all loved it :) 

It was great getting to Skype my family of course! Oh and we had a white Christmas, so that was great :) That's about it! I hope you guys all had a great Christmas and that you have a great new years as well! Love you lots! 

Love Sora Vann

5 Days till Christmas

Our attempt at a Selfie in the snow.

This week I had to give a talk in church. I wasn't too excited about because I don't even like giving talks in english at home; let alone in Romanian. But I got a lot of help from people and it actually went really well :) I talked about reading the scriptures. When I was half way done writing out my talk in Romanian, I had a member who knows english, correct it for me. Some sections she would just add a couple of words or something here and there, and then some sections she would be like - I'm just going to rewrite this sections...oh well haha I'm still learning. The second half I had our investigator Teo correct and I think she went a little easier on me or something, because she didn't rewrite any sections completely. Teo also came and supported me at church when I gave the talk! Every time I would look up, I'd see her smiling face :) So that was awesome. 

Our Ward Christmas Tree

We were super excited to teach Vanessa about the restoration this week and she was excited too. But her finals and school got in the way and we weren't able to teach her about it before she went home BUT we were able to give her a Book of Mormon :) We kept pushing back when we were going to meet and then eventually she said I'll see you after the break. Then we told her that Sora Dusenberry will probably be gone by then. She got so sad! She started crying. So we decided to make it a priority to go see her right then. It made her day and she was so happy about the Book of Mormon! We ended up missing almost all of English class on Saturday but the Elders saved us and took our class for us. Totally worth it though :) 

Other things:

We got utterly lost going to one member's house this week. We walked around for about an hour in the cold trying to find it and finally did! The member felt really bad for us.

We gave a friend we made at the Christmas Targ, some sugar cookies we made and it made her day! She was so happy! 

We also surprised visited a lot of members this week, who every time turns out, they really needed it :)

That's pretty much it for this week! Next week is going to be craziness with Christmas and such! Have a great Christmas everyone! :) I love you all! 

Love Sora Vann

And A Partridge in a Pear Tree

(So sorry I forgot to post this last week)
                                              So Sora Dusenberry and I did a ton of running for buses this week! Try running a 150 meter sprint in a pencil skirt! It's something else!  haha 

For our branch's weekly activity this week, we had a talent show. Our district sang the 12 days of christmas for it and it turned our being quite funny. We got a lot of laughs and the members really enjoyed it and we had fun doing it :) 

My super cool story of the week though is about our new friend Vanessa! She is one of our English students and she is awesome! :) Sora Dusenberry and I both noticed her and felt something special about her. One day after English, she came up to Sora Dusenberry and said I need something from you- I can't find you on Facebook! Sora gave her our number instead and she said she would text us. Now usually that means we might hear from them and if we do it's like in a week or something but she texted us that night! We suggested meeting up sometime and she said how about tomorrow? We said of course! She was super excited about meeting up too! When we met up with her we just talked for a little bit getting to know her and everything and then we showed the new Christmas video (which you can find on lds.org its called Light the World :) with her and she cried! She loved it. Later we invited her to take the lessons and she said she would love that! She even asked if she could come to church ! We are going to be teaching her about the Restoration tomorrow  and we can't wait :) 

We also have another friend named Teo, who has been taking the lessons for a little bit now but still hasn't read the Book of Mormon. We had planned to talk about prayer in our lesson with her this week but when we started talking I felt like I needed to change it and talk about the Book of Mormon again. I was very bold with her and said if she really wants to know if this book is true or not, if this church is true or not, she needs to read the book and pray about it. I promised her that if she did this, she would receive an answer. She said she would start reading that day :) and when she came to church, the first thing she said to me was I have been reading the Book of Mormon! with the biggest smile on her face :) She was so happy and I was so happy for her! 

Other fun things of the week: 

-I have now had to start layering my tights to keep my legs warm enough 

-we played that game where you possibly  get hit in the face with whipped cream (and I did haha)

-we went to a Christmas concert at the Pentecostal church sunday and it was super cool :) 

-this week was also saint Nicholas day and Sora Dusenberry was sneaky and filled my boots with candy :) How sweet! 

-we went and visited a huge out catholic church today and it was so pretty!

I think that's about it for this week! I love you all.  

Hope you have a great week!

Love Sora Vann!

Happy Birthday Romania!

So this week was super fun because Thursday was Romania's National Day! But I'm going to start at the beginning of the week! 

Monday, we had FHE with the Kiss family and it was your classic kid crazy FHE. It was so much fun! We did the spiritual thought and it was about the iron rod (in 1 Nephi 8 & 11) and then the Elders did a game with a string and following the iron rod. It was a lot of fun :) 

Tuesday, we made chocolate chip cookies to take to different people. Everyone we have gave them to loved them, because they don't have anything like them here in Romania. :)

So Thursday! They had a parade in the morning with all the military trucks, tanks, and police cars and everything so that was cool :) Then we went and talked to people in the Christmas terg they have set up for all of December and looked at all the little stands. We also got to be there in the center when they turned all the Christmas lights on at 7. Then everyone sung La Multi Ani the happy birthday song in Romanian and its was so awesome! Everyone was so happy! :) Then they had fireworks! :) It was snowing while we watched them! I have some cool videos of it for you guys. :) It was so great being out feeling the happy energy of the day! I'm sad I only get one December 1st on my mission, but it sure was a good one. :) 

 I got sick this week again, grrrr. I started to get sick Thursday and probably shouldn't have been outside as much as I was but I just couldn't stay in! Friday, I wasn't feeling too great at all and I was trying to decide if we 

should stay inside and rest or go out.

 I wanted to go out but felt like maybe it would be better to stay in. So as I started my studies in the morning, I prayed that Heavenly Father would help me know what to do. As I was reading in the Book of Mormon, I read a scripture that talked about not running faster than you have strength and everything needs to be done in order. I knew that was my answer to my prayer and so we had a chill day. I'm feeling better now, so no worries!  I did end up going to the doctor on Friday and he looked like a crazy scientist and barely spoke any English, so that was fun! haha. 

 I hope you guys have a great week!  I love you guys! 

Love,
 

 Sora vann!