Week of Craziness

Oradea from clock tower

So I don't have a lot of energy to write this week because my sister took a turn for the worse this week after surgery and is still in the ICU. That has taken a lot out of me, but please continue to pray for her. 

Mariana is doing great! We have her baptism all planned out and she can not wait! She told us last night that she just could not put down the Book of Mormon. She is so cute! 

Llamas at the zoo (a family joke about llamas)

Monday we went to the zoo with some friends we have here and it was super fun.

We had flash mob practice everyday this week so that was kinda annoying, but the flash mob went well! 

Celebrating one year in Romania with a giant Milka bar!!

Tuesday, was my one year in country mark! I got a giant Milka bar to celebrate. I can't believe I have been in Romania for a year. It doesn't feel that long at all. 

Having Sora Nicol again as a companion for a day

Thursday, we had exchanges with the sisters from Sibiu and I got to be Sora Nicols as a companion again for a day! We had a lot of fun together and had a great day!  (She was one of my companions in the MTC) She got to meet Mariana and we had an awesome lesson with a girl we are helping with English. We taught her about the Book of Mormon. When I shared with her Moroni 10:3-5 and told her she can read and pray about this book; she looked at me with wild eyes of amazement and asked I really can? This touched my heart so deeply! I promised her that God would respond to her prayer if she read and asked. Hopefully she will take me up on this promise :) 

Cluj

Friday, was Zone Conference in CLUJ! When we got there I felt like I was home! I got to see Teo :) Zone Conference was great as usual. Sora Gubar and I had to give a presentation but it went well! This was President and Sora Ivory's last one, they will be greatly missed. 

Seeing Teo again in Cluj  :)

Saturday, was Branch Council and I found out about my sister that night. I got to talk to my mom on the phone which was really good. President Ivory gave me a blessing of comfort which I am so grateful for. I am so grateful for the power of the priesthood and the blessing and the miracles that come through it. 

I think that's everything for this week. Please keep my sister in your prayers. I love you all. 

Love Sora Vann 

Street food festival 

This week in Oradea, there was a street food festival and it was a ton of fun! The food was definitely not cheap but it was good and the environment was so much fun. They had beanbags chairs on the grass everywhere and a stage set up with a band playing and lights and it was just super chill. We went there for lunch one day and got a crepe there another day :) 

Mariana and us at the street food festival

We had some awesome lessons with Mariana this week! She is so prepared to be baptized! Her faith and courage is amazing. She completely stopped drinking coffee! yay! We taught her about the law of chastity, tithing, and fasting this week and she was just like - yeah that sounds good. She is so excited to learn everything she can. Everything we give her, she can't wait to read. It's amazing! It makes me happy because it reminds me of Daniela. Daniela was exactly the same way before she was baptized. It is so amazing to see the change this church and this gospel can have in someone's life. 

Exploring Oradea with Sora Anderson

We also had exchanges this week with Arad and I was with Sora Anderson. We had a fun time. Our lesson cancelled on us so we decided to go explore the city and contact while we did that. We ended up talking to a really cool girl who was just so excited to meet us :)  

I found a kitty to love :) 

This week, we also did a ton of contacting but we tried a bunch of different ideas this week and a lot of them were super successful! For one of them we wrote the question, "What is it like to be a young person in Romania?" on a white board and just asked everyone that walked by and we had some great conversations! Another one we tried, that we weren't so sure how well it would work but it ended up working really well. We asked people what they know about their ancestors and then told them about familysearch.org. It also led to some really good conversations :) 

Other random things: 

We got pulled into doing a flash mob this week in the center of town. 

We had two back to back pasta appointments yesterday. We were so stuffed! 

We started game night here and it went really well this Friday! 

I think thats about it! I love you guys so much! Have a great week! 

Love Sora Vann 

P.S. my sister is having surgery today so if you guys could keep her in your prayers that would be awesome. 

We are wet chickens!

Oradea

I want to start by saying that I just loving having Sora Gubar as my companion! It's always an adventure! Also, I love Oradea :) 

So this week was kinda crazy and I just have a lot of random things I wanted to say about it, so here we go... 

Centru in Oradea

We went blocking knocking and blocked knocked into a cop and almost got arrested. So that was fun. We aren't really supposed to live another place other than the address on our visa and if we moved we are suppose to get a new one. Obviously we don't do that. Luckily we talked our way out of it but we would have had to just pay a fine. So no worrying! 

ha-ha 

View from block we knocked

We also met a guy block knocking who doesn't believe in planets and thinks the earth is flat not round....

We had a lesson with our friend who is going to be baptized soon (June 10th!) about the Word of Wisdom. It was super cool because even though she drinks coffee and she said it's going to be hard to give it up, she also said that she knows that this is true and right and good :) She is so awesome! Her name is Mariana, she is 18, and super sweet! 

Sora Gubar and Me eating chocolate!

During our lesson with Mariana, it just started pouring rain! It hadn't looked like it was going to rain, so we didn't have our umbrellas. As we were about to run out into the rain to go somewhere else, Sora Gubar says, "We are going to look like wet chickens." I just started laughing, apparently that's an expression they have in Russian. She screams, and then runs out into the rain and I couldn't help but laugh; running after her thinking about how we are going to look like wet chickens :) 

I got to Skype my parents this Sunday for Mother's day and that was awesome :) 

We went biking around Oradea today for p-day and I'm pretty sure I am sunburned now :P haha 

Biking in Oradea

Anyway, that's all I can think of.  I love you guys and miss you lots! 

Have a great week! 

Love,

 

Sora Vann 

Saying Good-bye to Cluj!!

I don't even know where to start for this week, literally a million things happened!  

 Good-bye to Cluj

I guess first off, I am now in Oradea with Sora Gubar who is from the Ukraine. So that's super awesome. Oradea is in the very west of Romania near Hungary, so a lot of people speak Hungarian here. But it's beautiful! 

Saying Good-bye to Teo

We had two really great lessons with Teo this week. We cleared up the restoration for her (which yeah - I know is pretty important). We helped her understand the great apostasy better and why a restoration was needed. We also showed her the Book of Mormon app on her phone, so she can read anywhere she goes. In another lesson, we talked a lot about baptism. She wants to be baptized which is awesome, but she wants to know it's true first. I think she is so close to getting her answer. We told her to change how she is reading the Book of Mormon. I told her that when she reads, to pay close attention to when it talks or testifies about Christ. She really liked that idea :) Also it was really hard leaving her this week. I will miss her so much! But luckily Cluj is not that far from Oradea :)

My new companion - Sora Gubar

Sora Simmons and me at the park in Bucuresti

Sora Simmons and I found out Friday that Sora Gubar was flying in that night from Bucuresti and would be staying with us till Monday; when she and I would leave for Oradea. We were freaking out a little bit! We don't normally find out where we are going/who we will be with till Saturday morning, so we were not expecting that at all. We were in a fun trio for three days! haha. 

Other random things: 

On the plane to Bucuresti for the MLC with Sora Simmons

We went to MLC this week (it's a meeting for leadership in the mission where we get some training) and we flew down to Bucuresti on Tuesday. It was a ton of fun and it was nice to be back in Bucuresti; even if it was just for a day :) 

On Wednesday, we had pasta with our Italian friends :) It was super yummy of course and in return for pasta we made them chocolate chip cookies! 

My last Sunday with Elder Broberg (He is going home)

I said goodbye to Elder Broberg on Sunday, he is going home! I definitely cried haha 

Saying good-bye to Robert and Lidia

When we got to Oradea on Monday, we dropped my stuff off at our apartment and then went straight to the church for a baptism of a member's son. It was crazy because the whole thing, besides the actually baptism prayer, was done in two languages, Romanian and Hungarian. 

Anyway, I think that's everything! (I know it's not, but I can't think of more haha). But I love you guys -
have a great week! 

Love Sora Vann 

The Iepure Family (Branch President)

Saying good-bye to Simi Iepure (love that boy!)

Quick Weekly

Sora Warwick and me in Centru 

I have like no time to write this week, so I will make this fast! So sorry! I went on exchanges again this week with Sora Warwick and we had a fun day! 

At the cross over looking Cluj :) 

Sora Simmons and I celebrated our one year mark together on Thursday even though mine was last week! We hiked up to the cross and took cute pictures there and ate dinner :) 

Sora Simmons and me in Oradea

We went to Oradea this weekend for a district conference, it's like a Stake conference and there was a member of the Seventies there.  (That is one of the leadership groups of the church) Oradea is so pretty! 

With Sora Simmons and Sora DJB  in Oradea 

We did some fun contacting this week in the park because the weather was so pretty.  We met some super cool people :) We also had a really amazing lesson with a girl named Irina who is going to start taking the lessons and already loves the Book of Mormon :) 

I think that's about it for now! Sorry it's so short! I love you guys so much! Have a great week! 

Love

 Sora Vann