Fried Chicken and Spiritual promptings

So many things to write about this week! First off, the most important thing is Teo set a date for baptism! May 18th :) (also Teo found my blog so- Hi Teo! :) (Yes, I'm talking about you again! haha) We are so excited for her! And she caught up to me in the Book of Mormon! The Thai food was super yummy :) 

We barely had any money left this month, #lowbudgetsquad

On Wednesday, Sora Gleason and I decided to make fried chicken and gravy to go with our biscuits we had made :) It wasn't the best I've had, but it still tasted pretty good and more important, like home! As we were finishing eating, Sora Gleason just randomly says, " I think we should take our leftovers to Sora Smurducan." (a less active member). It was a little strange, but we decided to anyway and we were so glad we did! Sora Smurducan really appreciated it, and it helped her feel loved :) She is a very sweet lady who feels like she has been abandoned by the church. so we are now planning on doing plan "love Sora Smurducan"!  :) 

Trying to take a selfie in front of the church sign, didn't really work

I got controlled this week and found out in a very sad way that my bus pass was expired :(   I got kicked off the bus, (luckily my companion was able to get off as well) and had to pay a fine. It was bound to happen at least once on my mission. I'm going to try very hard to not let it happen again :P 

Sora's coconut she ate for breakfast

Sunday we went blocking knocking, and it was a great  experience! We started off by going back to someone who had said they were busy, but we could come back. He watched our video about Christ, and said he would be open to learning more. So yay! He also wants to come to English :) After that, we block knocked into a lady who wanted to have a bible debate with us. She would ask us a question like - "Who is greater God or Christ" or "Why did God send Christ to earth," we would answer and then she would tell us why we were wrong.....it was a great and interesting experience. ha ha. We also block knocked into this cute couple! At first they weren't interested in our video, but were interested in English class, so they invited us in! They fed us creepes/clatite and we talked with them for a while and found out that the husband had met with missionaries before and had a Book of Mormon! Super awesome, and they invited us back! 

Look what we found at the mall! A little piece of home :)

On our way home from block knocking, while waiting for our bus, there was a group of college students standing near us. One of them randomly said the word "YES" really loudly. I joked that I should go up and be like,  "I heard you speaking English!" Sora Gleason then dared me to do it, and I did! They did know English, and we ended up having a great conversation with them :) 

Group picture with the other sisters :)

I think that's pretty much everything! I hope you guys have a great week! I love you all! 

Love,

 Sora Vann

New Mailing Instructions for Kate

 We have reviewed our recommendations regarding the most efficient way for family and friends to send mail and parcels to Missionaries. Our suggestions are as follows :



LETTERS:
·  Use the following address:

Romania/Moldova Mission
Bulevardul Primaverii nr. 19-21
Etaj. 1 , #13 , Sector 1
Bucuresti   011972
Romania
Attn. Sora Kate Vann


PARCELS:
·  Use the following address :

Elder Kent DeSpain
Romania/Moldova Mission
Bulevardul Primaverii nr. 19-21
Etaj. 1 , #13 , Sector 1
Bucuresti   011972
Romania

·  Send the parcel PRIORITY POST

· Make sure your Missionaries last name is in the return address

· IMPORTANT:  Keep the declared value of the package under 45 USD



MAIL ORDERS:

 When having parcels shipped by an online company , such as Amazon , make sure that your Missionaries last name is somewhere in the destination address shown in the parcels section

 

Yours truly

Elder & Sister DeSpain

Valentine's and Giant Jellyfish

Beautiful Sunset from our apartment

I'm sorry, this weekly is going to be kinda lame because I don't really have many pictures or a lot to write about. So, sorry! 

Last Monday, we spent  2 1/2 hours cleaning the apartment that the Elders moved out of and the sisters moved into. It was pretty bad! They didn't have a vacuum and their broom was broken in half, so we tried our best. ha ha!

On Tuesday/ Valentines day I got to see my valentine! Daniela, of course! We had lunch with her before she flew back to Bucuresti. It was so good to spend some time with her again and she how she is doing :)

Blocks in Romania  (Their idea of apartments)

My funny story this week from blocking knocking, is about this guy who came out shirtless after we had left his door. He comes out and asks if we are the ones who knocked on his door. I said yes, and that we are volunteers and we have a video about Christ (in Romanian). He looks at me and says in broken English " I don't speak English..." I look at Sora Gleason confused, at which point she says to the guy, "That wasn't English, that was Romanian..." He didn't seem to believe us, oh well. haha

Teo's adorable dog, Cesaer

Teo took us to this super cool tea place this week! The room she picked was a little trippy, because it was a black light room with giant stuffed jellyfish with black lights in them hanging from the ceiling (not real dont worry). But! Teo committed to be better about reading the Book of Mormon! We told her that when she catches up to me (I'm in 2 Nephi 28 in Romanian,, as well) we will go to this Thai food place she really wants to take us! We got a text from her this morning saying she was going to spend all day reading, so we can go get Thai food tomorrow :) Also, the tea was like the best tea I've ever had. Extra side bonus ;)  (Herbal tea of course.)

I think that's it for this week! Sorry, I don't have more! I love you all! Have a great week! 

Love,

 Sora Vann

Staying in Cluj!

Not a ton to write about this week, but that's okay! First off transfers were this week, but I am going to be staying in Cluj with Sora Gleason for another transfer! Yay! Anyways...

Seeing Daniela at the Airport -  So good to see her again!!

In the beginning of this week, I was talking to Daniela and seeing how she is doing and everything. While we are talking she just randomly says - oh yeah, my mom is going to be landing in Cluj in a hour and you guys should go see her at the airport if you have time! Of course we went, and it was great getting to see and talk to her! I haven't seen her since she got baptized :) She is doing great though ! So that was fun. 

Ghetto Romanian Garage

We had a super cool experience block knocking this week! We had gotten a lot of rejection that night, but someone finally said "yes" to watching our video about Christ Afterwards they invited us in to talk more! We ended up teaching them about the restoration of our church and giving them a Book of Mormon. One of my favorite things I get to do as a missionary is bare testimony that I know that book is true and that it has helped me so much in my life. We hope to continue teaching that family. :) 

Teo and Me!!

Saturday we went over to Teo's with the Elders to make/eat spring rolls with her. It was quite interesting. She just made all the ingredients that went in them, and then we just put them together ourselves as we ate. It was funny because Elder Oak (who is half Korean) the only one who is any kind of Asian, really struggled with making his. We laughed at him a lot. haha. It was a ton of fun and now that Teo is done with exams, she promised that she would get back to reading the Book of Mormon! I told her we should have a competition to see who can finish it first in Romanian! So that will be fun :) 

Our District!

We also had Branch Conference this Sunday, and it was awesome because we had so many investigators at church! We had two and the Elders had five! Teo came and loved it! :) A recent convert, Fratele Balough, got called to our branch presidency, so now President Lepure has a counselor !  Yay! We are all so happy for him because he has been doing everything by myself for a while now. This will be great for our branch :) 

I think that's about everything! I hope you guys have a great week! I love you all! 

Love,

 Sora Vann

Oh yeah! I also got to see Daniela at the airport here in Cluj before she went home!  

A week of protests and British accents

Silly Faces - Sora Gleason and Me!

So people all over Romania have been protesting all week  about the government letting past leaders, who they don't like and think are corrupt, out of prison. They are really peaceful protest though; so nothing to worry about and they mostly just get in the way of traffic and buses. We had to walk home one night after meeting with someone because all the buses we backed up. 

When you are building a block but than ran out of money....there were people living in this block 

We did a lot of block knocking this week and meet a cool new family! The husband (least we think they are married) is from Turkey and is Muslim. The wife is from Romania and is Christian. They weren't interested in our video about Christ but they were interested in our free English class, and they invited us in for tea. We stayed and talked for about a half an hour and they asked us so many questions about our church. It was super cool! We talked a little bit about Joseph Smith, and he seemed really interested that we believe in current prophets. 

A license plate we found on the ground the night we walked home 

Other things from this week: 

We got JWed (Jehovah Witnesses). There are a lot of Jehovah Witnesses here who like to show us mormon missionaries that we are wrong. We ran into this nice lady and started talking to her and we find out she is a Jehovah's Witness. She tries to give us a pamphlet and than pulls out her Bible and starts reading us verses. We politely told her we had to go. She also flat out told us the Book of Mormon is not scripture. To each their own...

The Elders decided to pretty much only talk in British accents for the past week. It made district meeting quite entertaining.

The Steak - Yum!!

Sora Gleason and I decided we really missed steak and went and got steak this week from a restaurant and it was so good! 

Everyone in college is busy this week with exams :( so that kinda stinks right now.

Anyway,


I think that's about it! I love you all! Hope you guys have a great week! 

Love,

 Sora Vann