CRAZINESS!!!

Literally, so much happened this week.

Monday, I lost my companion for about an hour, don't worry I eventually found her again :) She got off at the wrong bus stop and I didn't notice and she had the phone...oops. Also,  I forgot to mention this, but Sunday Sora Gleason cut my hair for me :) She was utterly terrified, but she did a great job.  

Talking pictures at Erika's

Tuesday, Sora Gleason and I went and visited Erika for the last time together :( It was super fun. We took lots of pictures together and Erika even made us biscuits! They were so yummy. It was her first time ever eating/making biscuits. 

Wednesday, we went on exchanges with the other sisters in Cluj, and it was super fun. I went with Sora Simmons (who is my new companion by the way!). Wednesday night, all four of us got on a sleeper train to go to zone conference at 1 am. MY FIRST SLEEPER TRAIN. It was like straight out of a movie or something, it was great! Six little beds in one little room, three on each side of the wall. Luckily there was only one other person in the room with us and it was another college aged girl. We all kinda got settled on our beds when the train worker came in, looks at us, and says "Don't you guys need sheets?". We were all like -  oh yeah those would be nice. It was quite the experience. 

Thursday, was Zone Conference in Timisoara; which is one of the most beautiful cities and a lot of sisters never get to go there because they only have Elders there right now. Also, it was my 10 months in the country mark! Zone Conference was awesome as usual and we even had some time afterwards before our train left to look around the city (and luckily grab some food). We took another sleeper train back and got home at 2 in the morning. Needless to say we were tired the next day.

Another picture of Timisoara

Selfie in Timisoara 

Friday, was a very long day as well, because that night after games night we (the Elders, Robert, and I) ended up taking Sora Gleason to a public hospital ER. No there were no broken bones this time (shout out to Sora Jerez), and she is doing okay now.  She had fallen asleep on the couch in the church while the rest of us were playing games. After she woke up, she comes and tells me she can't breathe. She was having a really hard time breathing because she has been sick. After a little bit of time, she was doing a lot better but we just wanted to make sure she would be okay. I mostly just spent my time in the waiting room with Elder Broberg and their investigator/my friend, Robert talking, because they wouldn't let me go back with her. They decided that she had just pulled a muscle in her chest from all the coughing she has been doing. She is doing better now though :)

Saying goodbye at the train station 

Saying goodbye at the train station 

Sunday, we forgot about daylights saving time, and get a text from the other sisters asking where the heck we were, and ended up being late to church...oops. The Elders were late too, so it's fine :P Sunday night, I said a tearful said goodbye to Sora Gleason as I put her on a sleeper train; that they almost got kicked off of because the Office Elders bought the wrong tickets (it's a long story), but they did make it okay in the end. A ton of people were at the gara to say goodbye to Sora Gleason and Sora Falkenberg, which was super nice. 

That's my crazy week in a nutshell. This next week is going to be so awesome with Sora Simmons :) I love you all! Have a great week! 
Love,

 Sora Vann

The Week of Pies!!

One of our Pies

So we made apple pie twice this week :) Once on pie day (tuesday), and once for our district meeting/games night. They both turned out really good :) We were really proud of ourselves. 

Maria and Sora Gleason - Silly Faces

 Besides that, we went to visit our friend Suzie this week, but she wasn't there. So we went and found this Asian food store the elders told us about. This really sweet girl works there who LOVES to talk. We got dumpling and gave her our card and told her we should meet up sometime :) Also that day, we went to a member missionary activity, but the other missionaries were all in another city for exchanges and forgot to tell the members we were still coming. We ended up being 15 minutes late to a half hour long activity...oops. 

Me, Maria, and Sora Gleason

We had a good lesson this week with Teo about prophets and talked to her about General Conference. She said she would come watch it :) She is also now in Jacob in the Book of Mormon. Woohoo! Go Teo! :)

We went to go find a less active this week but her address didn't have the apartment number. Usually blocks will have a list on the outside with all the apartment numbers and the names of the people who live there, but hers did not. We called up to 27 different apartments before finding her. It turns out she wasn't even home. Oh well next time :) 

At game night this week, we ended up playing hacky sacky at the end. Elder Broberg was so happy about it until Sora Simmons accidently hit his hacky sack into a bowl of glaze....poor kid I have never seen him look so sad!  His       hacky sack 

has recovered though, not to worry. 

Got to see Sora DJB at Oradea!!!

Saturday, we had a district Relief Society activity in Oradea. We got to go because Maria wanted to go. She really enjoyed it and so did we! It was about love, and it was a great meeting; all the sisters in this district. Also, it was a 2 1/2 hour drive by maxi taxi through tons of little villages in the western country side of Romania. So it was really pretty! 

I think that's about it for this week! I love you guys all so much! Thanks for all the love and support! 

Love Sora Vann

Note to Blog Readers -  Sorry it took me so long this week to get to posting this.  - Kate's mom

The Joy of the Gospel!!

All the Cluj Missionaries and Teo inside the Salt Mine

This week is a little hard for me to write because I found out today that one of my closest friends has decided to push the gospel and God completely out of his life (and me with it). I had already planned on titling my weekly "The Joy of the Gospel" before I read his email, because of a guy we met this week block knocking. He told us what we were trying to share with people is all fairy tales and lies. That there is no God and we are wasting our time. As we walked away from his door, I just felt so sad for this man. I have felt so much peace and joy in my life from knowing that I am a beloved daughter of God. That He loves me more than I can imagine and watches over me. He knows me personally, and He is concerned for my happiness. Even in my darkest moments, I have been able to hold on to this knowledge and make it through whatever I'm going through. I am sad to be losing a friend and I'm also very sad that he is choosing to push this great source of joy out of his life.

Hanging out in the Salt Mine

Other things that happened this week: 

A member feed us chicken hearts - I was mid-chew when she told us what it was....My companion and I both felt a little sick afterwards, wasn't a fan.

Our Gang at the Salt Mine

Maria, one of my favorite people in Cluj :) (she has been investigating the church since she was 7 with her family and now she is almost 18) has decided to pray about baptism :) We talked with her about it and went over the interview questions with her and she can pass with flying colors, but she doesn't feel ready yet. So we invited her to pray about it and she said yes :) 

Looking down the Salt Mine - so cool!

Sora Gleason got sick on Saturday so we missed the Sora Simmon's mini birthday party but that's okay (she's feeling better now). 

We went to the Salt mines today with all the missionaries in Cluj and Teo, and it was super fun!

I think that's it. I hope you guys have a great week! I love you lots! 

Love,

 Sora Vann

Miracles and Ciorba

Companion selfie 

So we had a lot of awesome things happen this week :) 

We made a plan with Teo for preparing for her baptism, and it was good :) She told us that she prayed about baptism and she feels good about it. She is continuing to read the Book of Mormon and she writes on sticky notes any questions she has so she can ask us next time we see her, and its great :) She is so awesome! 

We also had an awesome game night this week! Last week no one ended up coming but this week we had about 7 people come and it was great! We played the game -Signs, ate lots of snacks, and had a small spiritual thought at the end :)

The targ in centru for Martisor (a fun Romanian holiday) :)

On Saturday, we went and talked to our friend Suzie (a cute little older lady we met who has a street booth). We gave her a Book of Mormon and she was super happy about it! We also found out the Suzie's daughter ran into the other Sister missionaries and apparently told them, she was interested in learning more about our church! Hopefully, they take that as a sign :) We also made Ciorba on Saturday night and we were really proud of ourselves because it turned out really good! Ciorba is a sour Romanian soup that is super yummy! 

Some flowers the we bought for each other on Martisor

A cute dog that lives near our block :)

Sunday night, we went blocking knocking and had the coolest thing happen to us! We decided to knock a block we had tried to knock a previous time, but weren't able to get in. This time we did get in. The fourth door we knocked on, a guy answers, looks at us, and then starts to close his door again. But then he saw the Book of Mormon in my hand and says, Can you give me that book???" Turns out, he had met the missionaries in Italy and learned a little bit about the church there, but then moved back to Romanian and lost contact with the missionaries. He has been looking for a Romanian Book of Mormon ever since, because he thinks it has something in it that Christ needs him to know. Sora and I just could not believe it! He said he was going to start studying it that night! What an amazing miracle :) 

It's been a good week.  I love you all and hope your week will be a good one.

Love,

Sora Vann

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