Exchanges

Where to start.....

We had an investigator this week who fed us nasty, nasty cheese and a lot of it too. Luckily there was bread. She is a super nice old women though so we couldn't even be upset. We also somehow managed to spend like 2 1/2 hours at Getta's house (one of our investigators). Granted, we were making sarmale but still, and we only had like a 20 min lesson with them that wasn't really even a lesson. Bascially we have been friend zoned and we need to somehow fix it. Oh by the we are lucky if our lessons are just an hour. Romanians love to talk! A lot. 

But we did have an awesome lesson with one of our members. We wanted to share a conference talk with her. So I picked one out, read it in English, and then highlighted the parts I liked in the Romanian copy. Afterwards Sora Jerez read through it and she started crying. She told me it was exactly what she needed to hear. (It was Elder Hollands talk from this last conference). Then when we shared it with our member it was definitely what she needed to hear as well :) You all should go read it, it is seriously so awesome! I will put the link to it at the buttom!

We got caught in a crazy rain storm this week! We were in the middle of this little town outside of Brasov going to visit a member (dirt roads) and it just starts pouring! We pretty much just got completely soaked! It was one of those moments where we couldn't help but just laugh. At one point Sora Jerez lifted up her boot and water just poured out of it! Needless to say after we had our lesson with them we had to go home and wash and dry off her boot which was covered in dirt and mud and completely soaked. 

(These are the before and after the rainstorm pictures)

We had exchanges this week which were fun :) Sora Spangler bought me mint chocolate chip ice cream :) We visited a member and then tried to go less active finding but we weren't able to find anyone. haha but hey I got ice cream :) OH! we also had pizza with them before they both drove back home. Domino's pizza here is so good! It has cream cheese in the crust! I know it sounds kinda weird but trust me its awesome :)

Sorry I don't have more to say but have a great week! :)

I love you all!

Love Sora Vann

The pictures are from our super awesome FHE activity we had :)

me and sora Spangler (please excuse how we look we pretty much spent the whole day sweating!)

The pictures above are from the Family Home Evening I talked about last week.

This is a picture some parents visiting Brasov took of the missionaries this past Sunday.  I love getting those.

A Nice Cold Cup of Buttermilk

So to start off the week we finally had people show up to our FHE (family home evening) activity and it went super well too! We played the game "Signs" for the activity part and there was a ton of laughing :) 

 Wednesday, we went to visit a lady that we had met at Sora Jerez's doctor appointment, and she fed us so much food! She fed us a big bowl of vegatable soup (which was super good and you pretty much have to eat it with bread or else they will yell at you) and then she gave us a big bowl of some type of soup with just peas and chicken in it. Then she gave us cheese and tomatoes and more bread. And the kicker. We were sitting outside when we started talking about the cow they have. Then the next thing we know she is bringing us out this huge glass of milk from their cow; but it wasn't milk. It was lapte batut, which is actually butter milk. I don't suggest ever drinking straight butter milk! It was the sourest thing I have ever tasted! Luckily we had cookies that we could eat with it. So that was quite the                 experience. 

Friday we had to go down to Bucuresti for a doctors appointment for my visa. It was hot there! It was 105 degrees. Luckily we spent most of our time in AC till it was time for our train ride back to Brasov. We got on the train and it is so full! There were more people than there were seats, which like never happens. Its 105 degrees, there's no AC on the train and it also doesn't have windows that open. We definitely felt like we were melting. But luckily after an hour it started to cool down as people got off the train and as we ended back up into the moutains. I'm so glad that I'm in Brasov for the summer! Thank you President! 

We have a less active family that we meet with every week and we have been working on helping them with reading the sciptures. This past week, they read way way way past where we had asked them to read to.  The mom said that she could feel the difference the scriptures were making in her life! It was so awesome to hear her say that! I know that I have definitely felt the difference reading the scriptures has made in my life. I know they are true because of that difference. She also told us that she has seen her husband pray before he leaves for work every morning. I'm so excited for them :) I can see the difference the gospel is making in their lives and how awesome that is. 

I think thats everything I got for this week. Sora Jerez's foot is doing just fine by the way :)

I love you all! 

Love 

Sora Vann

Oh, by the way a less active took us to go see an opera! We saw Carmen. So theres a picture of the theatre and one of her and I. 

other pictures: the piatas (the place with the fruit) and a picture of the moutains

 This is the wonderful sister who took us to see Carmen

                                                                                                           The theatre where we saw Carmen 

I Got to Pet a Cat!!

Don't worry I have pictures of the cat! Actually it was a kitten :)

So lots happened this week. First off, I went to a vegan restaurant with one of our potential investigators. I thought I could probably find something on the menu I would like, but it was actually pretty hard. I decided on zuchini spaghetti. I was like, I can totally eat that and it will probably be pretty good too. But then it turned our that it was raw, like completely raw. I ate like a third of it and then Sora Jerez came to my rescue and ate the rest of it (she actually really liked it). 

On Friday, we had a lesson with one of our investigators named Ancuta. We were teaching her about the restoration and it was going really well actually, but then after we talked about Joseph Smith and first vision. The lesson just started to crash and burn. She started talking about random things that she believed. Then she would ask Sora Jerez what we believed about it. Sora Jerez would tell her and then Ancuta would tell her that she was wrong and why. Sora Jerez was just trying so hard not to argue with her. She handled it super well actually. I was just sitting there listening with her kitten asleep on my lap, so I was pretty content even though the lesson didn't go well. The little kitten was so stinkin cute! It was asleep on my lap for like an hour, just purring the whole time! I was pretty much in paradise! 

After that not so great lesson, we had an amazing lesson that next day! A couple from our English class randomly asked us if they could learn more about our church. We were like, of course! So we met with them Saturday and had just planned on sharing our purpose as missionaries with them and inviting them to take the lesson. They had so many amazing questions though, and so we basically ended up teaching them the whole restoration. We showed them the "Because of Him" video and the wife cried. The spirit was so strong, pretty much during the whole lesson. They agreed to take the lessons and we gave them a Book of Mormon; which the wife is so excited to read! We are so excited to start teaching them :) 

Crazy story of the week: Sora Jerez had her doctor appointment this week. The mission doctor in Germany told us to ask for a walking boot, but they said they didnt have any and so they just ended up putting more plaster on her cast. Sora Ivory was not happy about that so she told us to go buy a walking boot from the medical stores they have here and either take the cast off ourselves or we could go back to the doctors. Being the responsble adults that we are ,we decided to try taking it off ourselves...in the parking lot of the church...with two kitchen knives and a pair of scissors.Looking back on that, it probably wasn't the best idea but Sora Jerez did not want to go back to the doctors. It did end of coming off though. I told Sora Jerez she should probably go to the doctors soon just to make sure we didnt' move anything out of place. But she has a walking boot now! Its very exciting :) 

I love you guys all so much!

Love Sora Vann

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Pictures:

 Sora jerez and I with Cristina (our only young woman)

                                    Brasov

                                                                        This is a picture a parent took that is in Romania picking up their son.  They were in Kate's ward on Sunday and sent posted this on Facebook

New Pictures of Brasov

I  (Joann) am part of a Facebook group of parents and family with missionaries  serving in Romania/Moldova.  These pictures are from a set of parents who are picking up their son in Romania.  They are beautiful and thought you devoted readers would enjoy them.

This is one of only 4 real chapels in Romania.

I'm a bad luck boboaca and my companion is a gypsy

This week has been a little crazy. On Tuesday, Sora Jerez was playing around with one of our young women and fell and fractured her foot. The elders had to carry her from the chapel to the taxi and then from the taxi into the hospital (which was a little sketchy to be honest). Once we got to the hospital, they told us that only one of us could go back with her, which created a problem because I don't know the language and she was pretty out of it. So Elder Robinson went back with her instead; which left me and his companion Elder Dixon waiting for them outside. Gasp! I was alone with an Elder! It was quite an interesting experience. 

It's been super interesting trying to do stuff with Sora Jerez on crutches. But we had some cool experiences this week and some funny ones too. We had a really good lesson with a less active, Larisa, who told us she has a hard timing believing the Book of Mormon is true. We were able to explain to her using psych comparisons (her major) that she needed to experiment with it. She needed to read it and pray about it and that we knew if she did that she would come to know that it was true and her proof would be how she felt when she prayed. I know I have done that and that's how I know that the Book of Mormon is true.  

This week, President had wanted us all to try really hard to get a new investigator. So we made a goal to do that. Well, with all the craziness this week when it came to planning for Saturday, we realized we hadn't been able to do that yet. We really only could meet with one other person on Saturday because we already had other things going on. We decided to pray and ask Heavenly Father who we could teach on Saturday so that we could get a new investigator. Afterwards, Sora Jerez felt like we should go talk to a guy that she had met on the bus, named Andrew. As she told me about him, I felt the spirit let me know that that was the right thing to do. We were able to meet with him Saturday and talk to him about our purpose in life and asked him if he would be interesting in learning about the church and taking the lessons and he said yes! It was such an awesome experience for me to know that Heavenly Father is aware of every single one of us and he will always answer our prayers! 

Funny story time: So there are a lot of gypsies here. They general are pretty poor and ask for money all the time. They also have darker skinner. Sora Jerez's father is from Columbia so she has darker skin. Sometimes gypsies will have crutches or  wrapped up legs or arms or something when they are asking for money. (apparently some gypsie parents will actually break their kids legs to help get money, but moving on). So people seriously think Sora Jerez is a gypsie! She's had a couple people shake their finger at her when she tried to talk to them because they think she is going to ask them for money (annoying) and always there are some gypsies that we pass on our way to our bus stop. This morning they started talking to her (which never happens). We joked that they have accepted her now she is offically a gypsie. 

Also last thing: here in the mission they call new missionaries boboaca or boboac which means like a duckling. The morning that Sora Jerez broke her foot we were talking to the Sister Training Leaders and they were like something awesome is going to happen today. Boboacas are good luck! So I joked with Sora Jerez afterwards that I'm a bad luck boboaca. 

Sorry for the long email!

 I love you all! Va iubesc! 

Love,   Sora Vann

Town of Brasov

                                      

Pictures of our hike last week

Sora Vann and Sora Jerez (my trainer and companion)

 Yeah!  We made it!