Romania 22 November 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010 by Sora Jay
How's it going all you guys?
I think that we will have Thanksgiving this week at a senior couple's house.
We reached our goal of having 30 lessons this week, we broke the record for the mission. And actually, two other elders in a different city hit 30 lessons this week as well. Nobody put us up to it or anything, but we just happened to raise the standard at the same time. It was actually really easy... I guess things just kind of fell into our hands.
Having sister exchanges didn't help us get our goal, we kind of had to make up for it. I have hardly ever had a bad day on my mission, but the first day of sister exchanges was horrible. The sister that I with was out of control, it just went really terribly. We had set up to meet with this couple, and we didn't know beforehand, but it turned out that they were Jehova's Witnesses. She just fought and argued with them the whole time, which obviously accomplished nothing, and took up two hours of our day. I kept saying that we had to leave and I kept just trying to end the discussion with a testimony and get out, but then my companion would go back to the point that they had been arguing about. And then the rest of the day just went badly as well. I hope that she is never my companion. She only has one transfer left, so hopefully I won't have to ever be with her.
Yesterday was the first time that I taught with a Romanian. I always thought that if I had a Romanian companion I would have a hard time getting a word in because they can respond so immediately, but I actually got a lot in. We were 'sing-contacting' in the park because my companion loves to call all of the elders and tell them to meet us in the park for sing-contacting (which usually ends up wasting a lot of time finding each other and organizing things, I don't think the elders really like sing-contacting either because they have to sing). Anyway, one member came with us because it was right after church, she is 18 and she really wants to be a missionary so she liked the idea of coming contacting with us. She was a little nervous about it because it was her first time so I went with her to talk to people that were near enough to the singing that I would be within sight and sound of my companion. It was cool to contact together with her. Usually, because I have had mostly junior companions now, I have to assume that my companion doesn't understand everything that they are saying to us, so it was cool to be with a Romanian who I knew understood everything exactly. We got rejected the first couple of times but then we got some peoples' numbers and talked to them for a little while. I hope that I was a good example for her. I taught her to ask questions more than talk. She did a really good job, she will be a really good missionary. Even if she doesn't serve a full-time mission I bet that she will be a mini-missionara next summer or sometime before she turns 21, and just fill in for a transfer. I had never heard of mini-missionaries before coming here, but it happens all the time, here.
We were talking about the ten commandments at lunch after district meeting, and noticed that usually in Utah we find different applications for them like the 'don't have other Gods before me' we usually talk about not loving money or whatever more than God. But in Romania every commandment just needs to be taken literally first. Not only the stuff like lying, stealing, murdering, and commiting adultery, but the stuff like worshipping graven images and praying to other Gods. Sora Fraser and I have been coming up with a question to ask people every day, as our back-up question. One of the ones that we used is "Do you believe in God? then, Do you keep his commandments?" and it usually works pretty good to get them to think a little harder. We tried another one that so far hasn't worked very well, all orthodox people were baptized as babies so we ask them "Did you choose to be baptized?" they usually say yes, and we're like "but you were only two months old." One guy freaked out when Sora Fraser told him that she wasn't baptized until she was eight years old. He started yelling "Unbaptized!? Unbaptized!?" and the pitch of his voice went up higher and higher every time he said it. We laughed really hard after he left.
None of our investigators were able to come to church this Sunday, because they are lame. There is also an inactive family who didn't come to church even though they said they would. I asked them if they would come next week and they said that if their situation improved they would come. It made me kind of mad, because we went there to teach them a lesson and they said "we already know all of this stuff," but they don't do any of it. But instead of committing them to come to church we committed them really solidly to read their scriptures and pray every night, because then they will have the spirit with them to tell them to stop being stupid and go to church and that can persuade them better than we ever could.
There was one lady who came to church though. She was dressed all nicely and came to ask us questions about English class. At first I thought that she was dressed up nicely because she had been to a different church that morning, but as we talked more we found out that she had gotten up and gotten ready to come to our church. She is a really cool lady and we gave her a Book of Mormon and set up to meet with her on Tuesday. Getting people to come to church is usually the hardest thing to do, so when somebody comes of their own initiative it's really easy for them to progress and get baptized. Her name is Silvia.
Anyway, that's how it goes. It's been a good week.
Love,
Sora Jay
P.S. If I could request anything in a Christmas package one of those things would be Hydrogen Peroxide, and the other would be Junior Mints.
I think that we will have Thanksgiving this week at a senior couple's house.
We reached our goal of having 30 lessons this week, we broke the record for the mission. And actually, two other elders in a different city hit 30 lessons this week as well. Nobody put us up to it or anything, but we just happened to raise the standard at the same time. It was actually really easy... I guess things just kind of fell into our hands.
Having sister exchanges didn't help us get our goal, we kind of had to make up for it. I have hardly ever had a bad day on my mission, but the first day of sister exchanges was horrible. The sister that I with was out of control, it just went really terribly. We had set up to meet with this couple, and we didn't know beforehand, but it turned out that they were Jehova's Witnesses. She just fought and argued with them the whole time, which obviously accomplished nothing, and took up two hours of our day. I kept saying that we had to leave and I kept just trying to end the discussion with a testimony and get out, but then my companion would go back to the point that they had been arguing about. And then the rest of the day just went badly as well. I hope that she is never my companion. She only has one transfer left, so hopefully I won't have to ever be with her.
Yesterday was the first time that I taught with a Romanian. I always thought that if I had a Romanian companion I would have a hard time getting a word in because they can respond so immediately, but I actually got a lot in. We were 'sing-contacting' in the park because my companion loves to call all of the elders and tell them to meet us in the park for sing-contacting (which usually ends up wasting a lot of time finding each other and organizing things, I don't think the elders really like sing-contacting either because they have to sing). Anyway, one member came with us because it was right after church, she is 18 and she really wants to be a missionary so she liked the idea of coming contacting with us. She was a little nervous about it because it was her first time so I went with her to talk to people that were near enough to the singing that I would be within sight and sound of my companion. It was cool to contact together with her. Usually, because I have had mostly junior companions now, I have to assume that my companion doesn't understand everything that they are saying to us, so it was cool to be with a Romanian who I knew understood everything exactly. We got rejected the first couple of times but then we got some peoples' numbers and talked to them for a little while. I hope that I was a good example for her. I taught her to ask questions more than talk. She did a really good job, she will be a really good missionary. Even if she doesn't serve a full-time mission I bet that she will be a mini-missionara next summer or sometime before she turns 21, and just fill in for a transfer. I had never heard of mini-missionaries before coming here, but it happens all the time, here.
We were talking about the ten commandments at lunch after district meeting, and noticed that usually in Utah we find different applications for them like the 'don't have other Gods before me' we usually talk about not loving money or whatever more than God. But in Romania every commandment just needs to be taken literally first. Not only the stuff like lying, stealing, murdering, and commiting adultery, but the stuff like worshipping graven images and praying to other Gods. Sora Fraser and I have been coming up with a question to ask people every day, as our back-up question. One of the ones that we used is "Do you believe in God? then, Do you keep his commandments?" and it usually works pretty good to get them to think a little harder. We tried another one that so far hasn't worked very well, all orthodox people were baptized as babies so we ask them "Did you choose to be baptized?" they usually say yes, and we're like "but you were only two months old." One guy freaked out when Sora Fraser told him that she wasn't baptized until she was eight years old. He started yelling "Unbaptized!? Unbaptized!?" and the pitch of his voice went up higher and higher every time he said it. We laughed really hard after he left.
None of our investigators were able to come to church this Sunday, because they are lame. There is also an inactive family who didn't come to church even though they said they would. I asked them if they would come next week and they said that if their situation improved they would come. It made me kind of mad, because we went there to teach them a lesson and they said "we already know all of this stuff," but they don't do any of it. But instead of committing them to come to church we committed them really solidly to read their scriptures and pray every night, because then they will have the spirit with them to tell them to stop being stupid and go to church and that can persuade them better than we ever could.
There was one lady who came to church though. She was dressed all nicely and came to ask us questions about English class. At first I thought that she was dressed up nicely because she had been to a different church that morning, but as we talked more we found out that she had gotten up and gotten ready to come to our church. She is a really cool lady and we gave her a Book of Mormon and set up to meet with her on Tuesday. Getting people to come to church is usually the hardest thing to do, so when somebody comes of their own initiative it's really easy for them to progress and get baptized. Her name is Silvia.
Anyway, that's how it goes. It's been a good week.
Love,
Sora Jay
P.S. If I could request anything in a Christmas package one of those things would be Hydrogen Peroxide, and the other would be Junior Mints.
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
Posts
