Jay Family Missionaries: February 2011

Elder Jay quer pizza

Monday, February 28, 2011 by Sora Jay

Querida familia,

In the photo album that you sent me there is a picture of Brigham reaching for a pizza. They don´t have good pizza here, but now I want to eat good pizza. Maybe you could send a pizza in a package, it only takes two or three months to arrive.

This transfer started a little rough. The first day, in the morning before we started our studies, the first counsilor in the branch called, and he was really mad at Elder Siqueira for no reason. We went and talked to him that night and smoothed things out, but we still have to walk on glass when we are around him. The next day all of our investigators disappeared, and then two of our recent converts told us that they didn´t want to come to church anymore, but we will bring them back. On sunday only 88 people came to church, and there are lots of members that are having problems right now with their families and everythings. The Devil really doesn´t want the chapel to be dedicated.

The way I see it, if everything goes bad right now in the beginnig everything will go really well in the end. We just need to keep working, teaching, and helping, and the Lord will do his part. I feel like everything is going to start falling in place and things will get a lot better.

I have been getting a lot better at soccer because I play with Elder Siqueira every morning for our excercise. When I go back home I will be able to smoke everyone.

Rayssa´s aunt said the she only heard voices in her own house, but since we talked with her the first time she is doing a lot better. She didn´t come to church on Sunday though.

I don´t have much to write this week, so see ya.

Elder Jay Brazil

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Romania 28 Feb 2011

by Sora Jay

Hello again everybody,

Things are going pretty well here. We got three lessons this week (I would like to see Tom's and Ed's reactions to that), but not for lack of trying. We haven't gotten more than five for the past few weeks here, so for next week we are setting a goal to get ten lessons. We got a few good investigators from street-boarding the week before last. I went to the Primaria (the city building) and requested permission for us to put up a table and some posters on the street and contact people there and the guy at the front told me that missionaries had tried before but hadn't succeeded, but I was able to do it. We had to go back and forth between a few offices in the Primaria and get the right request forms and fill them out and pay like 6 dollars and show them my ministerial certificate and my visa and get everything stamped by the right people, but in the end it worked out. When we did street-boarding it was freezing cold outside and it was snowing on the first day so we didn't set up a table, we just hung up some posters that we found in the church about the Book of Mormon and the Restoration and some basic doctrines of the church. Not many people stopped on their own, but we stopped lots of people. I noticed that if we had one person stopped and talking to a missionary, all of the other missionaries could get somebody to stop and talk to them, because people just follow the crowd. We gave out a lot of pliants and some BoMs and we got a few people's numbers, and a few people have actually called us. It's a lot better that way. I guess this would be the equivalent of Mom's street-preaching in Brazil, but this is the most that we can do without getting arrested, or maybe stoned.

Anyway, one of the member girls here got her mission call and I recorded her opening it on my camera then downloaded it onto her computer for her. She is going to England. Her call letter was in English which surprised me. I guess she speaks English well though. She said she put it on facebook, so you guys can become friends with her and see if you can see the film. Her brother recorded it so the camera swings past me sitting with a bunch of members at the relief society activity where she opened it. Her name is Andreea Stoica (or maybe Andreea Stoica I've seen it both ways here). So that was cool. We visited them at their house and taught them a little bit out of PMG and while we were there her mom called her Andre-ushca, and I remembered that Jesh had told me that you put the 'ushca' on the end of a name to make it diminutive in Russian, so I asked her if she spoke Russian, and she said that in the town that she was from (Suceava) they actually speak a dialect of Ukrainian because they are really close to Ukraine.

The guy who has been wanting to film us followed me and Sora Puckett out contacting on Tuesday. He told us we were the fastest walking girls he had ever seen. He also seemed to feel bad for us because people said really stupid things to us. There was one guy who said something to us that I didn't understand and I asked him what it was, but he wouldn't tell us. The guy probably swore at us or something. I realized how tough you learn to be as a missionary, and how good your motivation has to be. It was interesting to look at it from an outward perspective like that, and I realized how many things I have had to learn to do, or actually just do without any experience, since I have become a missionary.
I read a letter that I got from our home ward from Annalee Strong and she sent some articles about how they have changed the curriculum in the MTC, and it kind of bashed on missionaries. I thought it was dumb. People seem to forget really quickly how much you actually sacrifice to be a missionary and that you're out here doing hard work (except for maybe in Tom's mission). But all they have to offer is criticism. The people we contact, the members, the other missionaries, etc., and now even the guys up top at the MTC freely bash on us. Tell them to be a little more grateful.
There was one part that I liked in those articles, where Elder Holland spoke to the missionaries and talked about how they expected us overnight to become "master-teachers" and that they were changing the curriculum so that they could help us out more. I liked that better. We already know that we're not the best, but we're the ones that are called.

The branch president, President Pitulan, told us during a correlation meeting last week that we should stop asking people to get baptized because it scared them, and we showed him in PMG where it says to ask them even after the first lesson if appropriate. He told us that was crazy. But, on Sunday he came and apologized to me for having told us that, and told us we should follow the counsel in PMG and follow the spirit when teaching. He said he had received revelation and that he understood why it had to be that way, and told us that it wasn't his place to tell us how to do missionary work. We asked how we could help him and he told us that we helped him best by helping the branch members and by helping the branch to grow. He's cool.

We called up a 20 year old guy from the potentials section in our Area Book and were able to set up and meet with him. We were expecting to visit his family, but when we got to his address he was the only one there, and his family lives in another city. It was a really awkward lesson because we were in his apartment sitting on the bed (which is pretty normal) talking to him. He seems genuinely interested though, so he probably won't mind being passed off to the elders. He is the first person I've met here who is a member of the 'old-style' orthodox church, which I think means Russian Orthodox. They celebrate Christmas on the 7th of January or something like that instead of in December. He said his grandparents are from Russia and I asked him where and he said they live in Saint Petersburg. I wonder if they have ever seen the missionaries there, they could have even come into contact with Pete or Jesh when they were on their missions (if either of them actually served in the city of St. Petersburg). It was cool to think of.

Well, I'll talk to you again next week.

Love,
Sora Jay

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I EXPECT YOUR URGENT COMMUNICATION...

Friday, February 25, 2011 by Sora Jay

FROM THE DESK OF MR.ABEL TAMBOURA,
THE SENIOR AUDITOR INCHARGE
FORIEGN REMITTANCE UNIT,
BANK OF AFRICA (BOA).
OUAGADOUGOU BURKINA FASO.

DEAR FRIEND,

HOPEFULLY YOU'RE IN GOOD HEALTH,

I PRESUMED THAT ALL IS WELL WITH YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.PLEASE LET THIS
NOT BE A SURPRISED MESSAGE TO YOU BECAUSE I GOT YOUR CONTACT
INFORMATION FROM THE INTERNATIONAL DIRECTORY FEW WEEKS AGO BEFORE I
DECIDED TO CONTACT YOU ON THIS MAGNITUDE AND LUCRATIVE TRANSACTION FOR
OUR PRESENT AND FUTURE SURVIVAL IN LIFE. MOREOVER,I HAVE LAID ALL THE
SOLEMN TRUST IN YOU BEFORE I DECIDED TO DISCLOSE THIS SUCCSSFUL AND
CONFIDENTIAL TRANSACTION TO YOU.

I AM THE SENIOR AUDITOR INCHARGE OF FORIEGN REMITTANCE UNIT OF OUR
BANK AND I DECIDED TO CONTACT YOU FOR THIS FINANCIAL TRANSACTION WORTH
FOURTEEN MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS (14.2M) FOR OUR
PRESENT AND FUTURE SUCCESS. THIS IS AN ABANDONED FUND THAT BELONGS TO
ONE OF OUR BANK FORIEGN CUSTOMERS WHO DIED ALONG WITH HIS ENTIRE
FAMILY THROUGH PLANE CRASH FEW YEARS AGO.

MEANWHILE,I WAS VERY FORTUNATE TO COME ACCROSS THE DECEASED FILE WHEN
I WAS ARRANGING THE OLD AND ABANDONED CUSTOMERS FILE IN OTHER TO SIGN
AND SUBMIT TO THE ENTIRE BANK MANAGEMENT FOR AN OFFICIAL RE
DOCUMENTATION AND AUDIT OF THE YEAR AGAINST 2009.

INFORMED CLEARLY THAT IT WAS STATED IN OUR FORIEGN BANKING RULES AND
REGULATIONS WHICH WAS SIGNED LAWFULLY THAT IF SUCH FUND REMAINS
UNCLAIMED TILL THE PERIOD OF TEN YEARS STARTED FROM THE DATE THE
BENEFICIARY DIED, THE MONEY WILL BE TRANSFERRED INTO THE TREASURY AS
UNCLAIMED FUND HOWEVER, IT IS NOT AUTHORIZES BY THE RULES GUIDING OUR
BANK FOR A CITIZEN OF BURKINA FASO TO MAKE THE CLAIM OF THE FUND
UNLESS YOU ARE A FORIEGNER NO MATTER THE COUNTRY.

SO THE REQUEST OF YOU AS A FORIEGNER IS NECESSARY TO APPLY FOR THE
CLAIM AND TRANSFER OF THE FUND SMOOTHLY INTO YOUR RELIABLE BANK
ACCOUNT AS THE NEXT OF KIN TO THE DECEASED.WHEN THE FUND IS
TRANSFERRED INTO YOUR ACCOUNT 35% WILL BE FOR YOU IN RESPECT OF ALL
YOUR ASSISTANCE FOR THE TRANSFER OF THE FUND INTO YOUR ACCOUNT AND
PROVISION OF THE BANK ACCOUNT WHERE THE BANK WILL REMIT THE FUND, 60%
WILL BE FOR ME BEING THE PIONEER OF THE BUSINESS WHILE THE REST 5%
WILL BE SHARED TO RESPECTABLE ORGANISATIONS SUCH AS CHARITY AND THE
DESTITUDES HOMES ARROUND US IN THE WORLD.

IF YOU ARE REALLY SURE OF YOUR TRUSTWORTHINESS,ACCOUNTABILITY AND
CONFIDENTIALITY ON THIS TRANSACTION, CONTACT ME AND ACCEPT NOT TO
CHANGE YOUR MIND TO CHEAT OR DISAPPOINT ME WHEN THE FUND IS
TRANSFERRED INTO YOUR ACCOUNT.SO REPLY FOR THE ASSURANCE WITH YOUR
TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS TO FACILITATE EASY COMMUNICATION. AS SOON AS
YOU REPLY, YOU NOTIFY ME SO THAT I WILL LET YOU KNOW THE NEXT STEP AND
PROCEDURE TO FOLLOW IN ORDER TO FINALIZE THIS TRANSACTION
SUCCESSFULLY.

I EXPECT YOUR URGENT COMMUNICATION.

YOURS SINCERELY,
MR.ABEL TAMBOURA,

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PACKAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, February 23, 2011 by Sora Jay

Querida familia,

I finally got my package on Sunday. Thankyou guys for the candybars and the pictures. The photo album is really cool, I already showed it lots of people, but unfortunately I had to share my candybars as well:( Now onto the rest of the week.

This week we had transfers, but no one was transferred. Everyone always thinks that I am going to be transferred, but I think I will stay here for nine months. When everyone thinks that I will stay I will leave. We had a little party in the church the night of the transfer so we could say goodbye to the members if we left. Rayssa (our golden recent-convert) made a cake, and someone brought salgados e soda. Elder Siqueira got the call at about 8:30, but no one knew except for me. We set an alarm on the phone and when the alarm went off Elder Siqueira answered and pretended that it was the Zone Leaders telling him the transfer. He told everyone that there would be another compionship of sisters and everyone got real happy, but then he said that they were taking out the elders and everyone got real sad, then we told them it was a joke and they got real mad. I felt a little bad though, because Rayssa started to cry, but it was still funny.

On sunday I gave a talk in church, a member baptized his daughter, we baptized a 20 year-old named Junior, and we held a fireside. In my talk I spoke for 15 minutes all in Portuguese with just a couple of notes. I talked about our vision, that we need to look for the good in everything, including ourselves and especially other people, I also talked about enduring to the end. The baptism of the little girl was really cool, the dad started to cry, then the little started to cry, and then everyone else started to cry. I almost cried. Later that night we baptized Junior, he took out his earrings and hasn't put them back, and the next day he cut his hair. It is cool when the people start to make little changes by themselves. Then we had a firesiede that was all about waking up. We found all the scriptures that talk about waking up or sleeping and made a slideshow. We also made some movies where Elder Siqueira and I woke each other up. In one Elder Siqueira was fell asleep while praying and I stuck a tack in his rearend, another one I flipped his mattress over while he was sleeping and a couple more. There is a creepy guy that keeps on looking at my computer screen. I'm glad I am writing in English. We also showed the video where the dad has to sacrifice his son to save all the people on the train and we showed the video "Church Growth" where they put a red dot for every stake that is made. We are trying to get the members excited to work more.

I bought a cool cowboy hat too. It is like Ed´s but is dark brown

We taught Rayssa´s aunt who turned crazy a couple of months ago. She hears voices and thinks that everyone wants to kill her. We talked with her for a while read some scriptures took her back to her own house with her kids (she was staying in her mom´s house)said a prayer with her, and took her to church on Sunday. We promised her that if she came to church the voices would stop and she wouldn´t be afraid anymore. It worked, she is back in her own house and she is doing fine. Now we just need to baptize her, her husband and her kids.

Tchau,

Elder Jay

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Romania Feb 21, 2010

Monday, February 21, 2011 by Sora Jay

Hey everybody,

How's it going? For Valentine's Day we went to an FHE activity at the church and we had called all sorts of less-actives to come to it and the ones that said they would actually did, and they brought their friends. It was cool. The missionaries were used to judge a dance competition at the end of the activity, since we aren't allowed to dance. We didn't actually choose anybody in the end, though, because we had to leave to get home on time.

We have had some cool experiences this week. We were knocking in one bloc and a security guard came and told us that we weren't allowed to be knocking in there. We were really nice to him and told him that we didn't know that. He asked us why we were there and what we were doing and we told him. He actually seemed interested. I asked him if he would be allowed to take something and he accepted a pass-along card, even though he was on-duty at work and they're not supposed to take anything. I told him that they should put some sort of sign on the building so that we won't ever try knocking it again, and he pointed us in the direction of some blocs that he knew we would be okay knocking. Once we got into that bloc an awesome middle-aged couple let us in and we taught them. We went back to them again on Friday and they are still really cool. The husband is really outgoing, and he would be perfect to have as a member in this branch because everyone is really intraverted and shy and awkward.

Two of the members in this branch, a brother and a sister, are getting ready to go on their missions. Radu has already gotten his call to go to Scotland in April, and Andreea turned in her papers about five weeks ago and is waiting for them to come back. Maybe I will be able to be here for Radu's farewell.
There is already one other missionary out from this branch, Petru, who is on a mission in Spain. It's crazy that they will have so many missionaries when the branch is so small. There are only about 15 active members because the influence of the orthodox church is so strong in this city. Some member's families have put them into mental hospitals for joining the church, and one investigator disappears every once in a while when her parents send her in for counseling. It's crazy.

We had Zone Conference this week in a little city called Bacau. The Zone Conference focused mostly on us obeying small rules like getting up on time, doing morning exercises and having good personal and companionship studies. Our companionship doesn't have any problems with any of those things, because Sora Puckett was in the Army and I was in orchestra and college. So we both learned to discipline ourselves before coming out on our missions, I guess.
We did role-plays where we taught each other, just like we usually do, and President walked around and listened to us. I taught one of the senior couples in English and I taught one of the other sister companionships in Romanian, and in President's email he told me that he was impressed by my teaching skills. One of the sisters from my group told me that I speak Romanian really well. It was just happy all around.

I was able to speak in church on Sunday about keeping the Sabbath day holy. The branch president told me to prepare for ten minutes, but when I got there I realized that there were only two speakers and the other speaker's talk didn't last very long, so I was left with a lot of time and not a lot of material, so I just had to ramble for a while, and then we ended the meeting early. After the meeting a lot of the members told me that I speak really well, and some of them invited us to go over to their houses or told us that they had referrals from us. That's why it's good to speak in church as a missionary sometimes, because it can give the ward members confidence in you.

Recently I have witnesses a cool miracle. Even before my mission I had my shoulder that is permanently damaged from carrying a heavy backpack around all day every day (it's more like my upper spine I guess) and when I had my physical the doctor didn't think anything of it, but it always has hurt because I have to carry around contacting materials and stuff all day every day. So, a couple of weeks ago I asked for it to not hurt anymore so that I wouldn't be effected in my teaching and in my motivation to keep contacting, and it stopped hurting. It hasn't bothered me at all since then. I still carry around all sorts of heavy stuff still too. I even had to carry a heavy backpack to and from Zone Conference and I was still perfectly fine. It's cool.

This week a guy from Iasi has been asking to make a documentary about us missionaries here in Iasi. He interviewed some of us and he wants to go to P-day activities to see what we do. He wants to go film some of the missionaries in Craiova contacting there. It could be good publicity. He came to church yesterday to see what it was like, and he even participated in Sunday School, so I think he is a good guy and wont bash on us, so we will probably try to help him make a good documentary about us.

I don't have a ton of time to write today because I had to type up an essay and send it to President (that I was actually supposed to give to him my second transfer but that I thought was busywork so I procrastinated it). So that's it for now.

Love,
Sora Jay

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Mr.Fedric Aloysius

Saturday, February 19, 2011 by Sora Jay

Dear Friend.

I am the account officer to late Mr Henri potter of France a well known Philanthropist after his death the bank gave me the permition to make a random draw of emails and your e-mail address was picked as the beneficiary to his Will of $14.5Million USD, send to me your full details as follow's and also call N°0022678719685 for full detail of this very will.

1. Your Name in Full:.....................................
2. Your Occupation:.......................................
3.Your Nationality:.........................................
4. Your Mobile number:..................................
5. Your Age And Gender:...............................

However, feel free to ask me any question and I promise to clarify you on any doubts If any.

Mr.Fedric Aloysius
Foreign Remittance Exchange Manager
Société Générale Du Banque Au Burkina
Ouagadougou Burkina Faso.

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looking forward for your urgent response

Tuesday, February 15, 2011 by Sora Jay

Dear Friend,

I am the manager of the bill and exchange department of BANK OF AFRICA (here in Ouagadougou the capital city of Burkina Faso. In my department i discovered an abandoned sum of US$14.5M(FOURTEEN MILLION FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS) in a dormant account belonging to Late MR. PAUL LOUIS from Paris, France who died along with His entire family in July 2003 in a plane crash

Please visit this site that is one of the Incident

http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/oxfordshire/4537663.stm

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because the bank cannot release it unless some body applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as it was indicated in our banking guideline and laws but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crashed leaving nobody behind for the claim.

It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this business proposal to you so that you can stand as the beneficiary to the deceased customer and to enable the bank to release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased customer for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill because the banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after Twelve years that is almost near, the money will be transferred into the bank treasury as unclaimed fund.

The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner, and I agree that 45% of this money will be for you as a respect to the provision of a foreign account, 5% will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 50% would be for me, thereafter, I will visit Your country for disbursement according to the percentage indicated.

Therefore, to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your designated bank account, you must apply first to the bank as a relation or next of kin of the deceased with a text of application that I will send to you, so I will like you to send to me your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication between each other and also about the location where the money will be remitted.

Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of the application that you will use in claiming the money as the beneficiary to the deceased customer. I will not fail to bring to your notice this transaction is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer.

Thanks.

Trusting to hear from you immediately
looking forward for your urgent response.
Best regards,
dr.miles davies

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Another one!

Monday, February 14, 2011 by Sora Jay

Querida familia,

There´s another baby on the way already? I have only been gone for 9 months and 3 have been with two more on they way. It´s going to be hard to remember all of their names when I return home. This week a met a lady that has 15 brothers and sisters. She is the first person I have met in Brazil with a family bigger than mine.

This week at church the President of the Relieif Society spoke. She used to be a member of the Assembly of God and she acts like she is still there. She was up there in the front yelling in the microphone, waving her arms, rebuking the members, it was pretty bad. She also teaches in the relief Society two times per month and we can always hear her in Elder´s Quorom.

The members here started playing soccer every Friday night a couple of weeks ago and President Hall lets Elder Siqueira and I play with them if we bring an investigator. He said it has to be and investigator for real and not someone we found on the street that wanted to play soccer. It is a good activity and there are a lot of less-active members that are going. Last week I made a goal, but this week I wasn´t as lucky.

Elder Siqueira and I are planning a fireside for this Sunday to help the members get more excited. Right now we have about ten or twelve young people in the branch that are helping a lot, they visit people, bring them to church, sit with our investigators, but we need to get more members to work. We have a class every Sunday night where we have been working with this group and it is because of them that the number of people coming to church has increased alot. Imagine what will happen when every members is working.

Last night Rayssa, our golden recent-convert made dinner for us. It was actually really good. She made lasagna, a thing of vegetables and pinapple juice. The only problem is that I have lost my appetite the last two weeks. I probably have bunch of parasites, but the good news is that every 6 months all of the missionaries here recieve medicine to kill all of the parasites. In a month and a half I will reach the six month mark in Brazil and they will give me the medicine.

Crazy people always like to talk to me, but we always just invite them to church and leave. There is one really weird guy that I have seen a lot and this week he actually came to chuch, but I don´t know what to do with him. I really don´t want to teach him because he creeps me out, but if he keeps coming to church I guess we should.

Things have gotten a little more difficult here recently. It seems like the Devil is working harder because there is a new chapel here. A lot of the members are having problems and none of our investigators are progressing, but we just have to punch the Devil in the face and keep on working and everything will be just fine.

Tchau,

Elder Jay Brazil

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Romania 14 February 2011

by Sora Jay

Hi everybody,

Happy Valentines Day. Here they call it "the day of the people that fall in love" which makes it an even more awkward holiday for missionaries. I think we are going to go shoot each other with airsoft guns today.

This city seems much more well-off than any of the other cities that I've been too, and people seem more educated, but nobody here knows about us. In Bucharest if I asked anybody on the street if they had heard about 'mormons' they would have. But here there are tons of people that have never heard of us at all. We talked to the husband of one member and he told us that during communism there was a little film that he remembered watching that showed a 'mormon' with a big beard and a tall hat with bushy hair with all of his wives and tons of children. But apparently even that film died because none of the young people here know anything about us. We were knocking a bloc last night and some lady answered the door and started going crazy, "There's only one God!" she said and we said "That's right." But she kept going crazy and saying "You're so young, remember what I say to you: there's only one God, leave this nonsense. You're so young, remember what I'm saying to you." And she held up two fingers and said, "It's not like this, there's only one God." And she muttered something about Jehovah's witnesses and Pharises, and told us to remember what she said to us and closed the door (and the whole time her husband was telling her to close the door because the cold was getting inside). I probably will remember what she said, but only because she was crazy and didn't know what she was talking about. It was really funny.

As we were contacting on the street we stopped a college-age girl and started telling her about the restoration, and she asked "Are you guys happy because of this message or is that just how you naturally are?" She told us she was studying psychology, and she seemed astonished by how happy we were. The only thing that she would accept was a pamphlet, but before she left she seemed to change her mind and said she wanted to help us with anything that she could and gave us her phone number. Usually anybody who has studied psychology is somewhat atheist, I guess because of the way that they teach it here, and they say that if you want a response from a prayer badly enough your mind will create one. We talked to a high school girl who said she was atheist (but they always still say they believe in God) and eventually she said "What is the purpose of this discussion, what are you trying to accomplish?" She asked it in a nice way though, and I told her that she was valuable to God and that he wanted to hear from her, and that's why we were still talking to her even though she said she was atheist. She seemed pleased. Then all of her friends showed up and we gave them pliants and pass-along cards so that they would know about 'mormons' the next time somebody contacted them.

I guess I've gotten used to the accent here, I don't notice it anymore unless somebody has a really extreme one. And I'll be talking in church next week so all of them members can get used to my accent. People on the streets understand me just fine.
I've noticed in the past few months that most missionaries are terrible at the language. What you do during your language study time is really important.

We went to some military housing, because some lady that we contacted said that she lives there and told us to come over some evening (she gave us her husband's phone number too but it's always off), so we went over there and walked into the building and stood there awkwardly because we knew that somebody had to let us in so that we could be in there. Some lady eventually came over to us and asked us what we were doing Sora Puckett started to explain and she said "You guys are foreigners aren't you, I can tell from your accent. You're not allowed to be in this building." And we said "we know we're just looking for this family" but she told us we had to get out. We made her go check to see if the family was at home though, and she said they weren't. I think it's dumb that they wouldn't let us even be inside of the building just because we were foreigners. If we actually wanted to cause any damage or chaos we wouldn't actually have to enter, so to me it seems like a silly rule. We tried another time to see if they were there, and the people told us again that we couldn't go inside, and we said "we know, that's why we're not inside" but they told us several more times anyway. I guess they are proud of the fact that foreigners can't enter their bloc. In a different bloc some guy asked to see my I.D. so I pulled out my visa and showed it to him he said "well, this could be fake" and he asked if I had a 'buletin' which is the standard I.D. for Romanians. And I said "I'm American, obviously I don't have a 'buletin'," and he shrugged and told us to be careful.

It's funny how the regular people try to mess with us, because when we went to the city building to get permission to set up a table/display on the street and do contacting the city people were all really professional and nice to us and didn't ask to see our visas or anything. One of the guards actually walked us all the way to the office we needed to go to to get our permission slip. It happened to be closed right then but he told us that's where we would have to go.

Anyway, right now Sora Puckett and I are going to be doing a lot of contacting because we don't really have any solid investigators. I found out that Alin got baptized though. That's really cool, because I taught him. All of the other people I have baptized were taught by other missionaries before me and I re-found them and re-taught them, but Alin I taught from scratch. I hope he turns out to be an awesome member.

Enjoy your giant, pink, heart-shaped cookies. Maybe I can find some sort of replacement for one of them here.

Love,
Sora Jay

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URGENT REPLY NEEDED.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011 by Sora Jay

Dear Friend,

How are you and your family? My name is, Dr Malam Mohamed, from Burkina Faso. I am a professional banker, working with one of the well-known international banks in Africa. I recovered an intestate account file of US$12,5, owned by one of our foreign customers. My further investigations into the account proved that the account holder involved in a jet crash that killed him, his family and close relatives, leaving no one behind to file claim on the account. In fact all the efforts I made to locate any of his relative or foreign business partners since last year were futile.

Therefore, I have decided to position you before my bank as the Foreign Business Partner/Consultant of the deceased in order to get the funds transferred in your account since no one will come for the claim thereafter. I am ready to reward you with 37% of the total sum for your corporate assistance. Invariably, I cannot handle this deal successfully without your help because I am a civil servant, besides, I cannot stand as the claimant to a foreigner. The secret is bound between me and you. If you are capable, get back to me promptly with your full detailed information, so that I will send you the application for this claim. Do not entertain any fear for there is no risk. I am waiting for your urgent response,

Sincerely,

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Hello

Monday, February 7, 2011 by Sora Jay

Dear Family,

I haven´t heard from Ed for two weeks, and I didn´t get an email from Ariel this week. But, assuming everything is alright with them it sounds things are going well. In some of the photos of Abigail, that Stewart sent, she looks white and in others she looks brown. I´m not being racist, but in my short time here in Brazil I have learned to call fat people fat, skinny people skinny, white people white, and brown people brown. Abigail was born Friday at 2:34 in the morning? I think the difference in time is four hour, so it was 6:34 here which means I was either praying or using the bathroom. I always have to use the bathroom in the morning.

This Sunday President Hall (The Mission President), his councelors, Sister Hall, and the District presidency visited the branch and we had 132 people at church. The new chapel will be finished soon and if the people keep coming they will be able to use it. It was good to see so many people at church because 4 months there were only 70 people that were coming.

My package arrived, but it has been sitting in the Zone leaders apartment for 2 weeks now. They will only come when to do a baptismal interview and for some reason the last two weeks things haven´t been going right. Probably because I want someone to baptized so I can get my package and not to help the person. Not really, candybars are good, but helping people is better. We have some really good people right now that will probably be baptized this Sunday.

I got a little sick this week and threw up in the house of one of the members, but I am getting better now. And was able to make it to the toilet so the sister didn´t get mad.

I am sad to hear about grandmas brother- in-law, but this scripture came to mind. In Alma 27

While many thousands of others truly ^amourn for the loss of their kindred, yet they rejoice and exult in the hope, and even know, according to the ^bpromises of the Lord, that they are raised to dwell at the right hand of God, in a state of never-ending ^chappiness.

Love you all

Elder Jay Brazil

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Romania 7 Feb 2011

by Sora Jay

Hello again everybody,

Congratulations to Jill and Stewart on their little baby. It's cool to see the pictures of her there in the hospital. She'll be the first little niece that will probably have curly black hair and dark brown eyes.

Things are going well here. I told you last email that I've been transferred to Iasi (yash) and it is a good place. All of the Romanians warned me before coming here that people in this area of the country aren't very friendly, but everyone was wrong. Maybe just because I was in big-city Bucharest for so long it seems really friendly. We have been doing a lot of contacting and have been having a lot of success. If I would give any generalization to this area it would be that people are a little more intraverted, but once you start talking to them it goes really well because they seem to be educated and well-off as well. The branch is a little small right now because there are very few people here that are not orthodox (whereas in other cities like Bucharest and Arad there are all sorts of religions so that it's not so abnormal for somebody to belong to one of them).

People here speak with a different accent, I can almost always understand what they are saying just fine (I had to pick up a few new vocabulary words really fast, like a different word for 'cat' and other little things) but they have a hard time understanding me. It's pretty frustrating because people treat me like I can't speak or tell me that I have an accent like somebody from The Republic of Moldova when for real they are the ones that have Moldovan accents, and I have a Bucharest accent (they actually pronounce the name of their city Iasi (yesh) which sounds like the word "get out". I've heard people talking on the radio and stuff in the buses though, and they all speak with the Bucharest accent, so I don't know why people say they can't understand me. I've spoken to thousands of people in other cities and they never had any trouble understanding what I was saying but here I said the word 'friend' to somebody and she had me repeat it about three times and said that she couldn't understand me. So far I guess it has only been people in the branch though, and they have an opinion about American girls already because there are volunteers from BYU that come here every semester to work in the hospitals and orphanages. So they probably just assume that I can't speak Romanian very well because I'm and American girl like all of the other ones who actually don't know Romanian. There are five of them here right now and they came to church on Sunday. One of them actually does speak Romanian pretty well and she translates for all the rest of them, except she didn't at church, and nobody asked anybody else to, so I guess the girls just didn't understand. Most of them seem really cool, and they hold an outreach activity at the church almost every Thursday. But, anyway, I have started to pick up the accent here and we have been able to communicate with people and find some good potential investigators.

My companion is Sora Puckett. She was in the district right below mine, so I actually know her from the MTC. She isn't the best at the language but she is really hard working. I think I'll get along fine with her. She said she really likes the way that I talk to people. She said that I am really comfortable and just act like a normal person with them. That's the effect of nearly a year's worth of experience contacting. Last week was pretty eventful. Right after leaving the internet cafe on Monday we saw a guy collapse on the sidewalk at the bus stop. Nobody had any idea what to do to help him so Sora Ausen and I walked over there really quickly as they were awkwardly turning him to be on his back instead of his face. They put a bag of apples under his head so that he could be comfortable and I got down to see if he was breathing and immediately took the bag of apples out from under his head so that he wouldn't die. His face had already started turning purple but once I took the apples away he seemed to be breathing again. I couldn't tell very well because he was wearing a fluffy coat, but he did seem to be breathing and the people had called an ambulance so we went on our way. I would have checked his pulse and stuff but I knew that the ambulance would be there soon, and there was no way that I was going to do mouth-to-mouth on him, plus I figured that the paramedics wouldn't necessarily take over when they got there because I've heard that they want money before they will do anything. So we just went on our way after I opened his airway.

The next day we said goodbye to some investigators, and at least one of them told me that he would get baptized (besides Alin who already has a baptismal date), and then I packed up all of my stuff and we took a train to Bucharest, where I met up with Sora Puckett and got on another train (this one for about seven hours) and came up here to Iasi. I've been going through the member list and trying to figure out what we can do to help the branch, and we looked through all of the former investigators to see if we could recontact any. The English class here is pretty good about staying for the spiritual thoughts after class and this time we watched the restoration video in English with Romanian subtitles. It's not actually an official copy because the church hasn't made one yet, but some members did a really good job of making this illegal, but very useful, copy. I think some of the class members got teary-eyed during it. I really wish that the church had an official copy so that we could use show it to a lot more people.

This branch has one missionary out on a mission, and has two children from another family, a brother and a sister: Radu and Andrea, getting ready to go on missions as well. Radu has already gotten his call to go to Scotland. I told him my ancestors are from that area, and told him he should go convert my distant relatives.

I chopped wood for a really poor investigator that we have here, Maria. It was actually easier than people always make it out to be, even though the wood was frozen solid. She has a baptismal date, but we don't know if it will go through because her neighbors don't want her to leave orthodoxy, and she is very influenced by them. She told me she likes Sora Puckett and misses the other sister that used to come with her. She still insists on saying the Lord's Prayer every time we invite her to pray even though we explain how to pray again every time we invite her. All of the little kids in the area like me though because I took pictures of them with my camera after one of our visits. They all come and sit in on the lessons. We told them how to pray and I asked one of the little girls, Sandra, if she wanted to try it and she started to say a memorized prayer called "Angel, My Angel" and I said "Not like that!" We explained again and helped her to get started and she prayed really well and I told her she did a really good job because I think I was a little harsh when I stopped her. The feeling in the room after she prayed was completely different, and we taught them very simply about the Word of Wisdom. When we went back Sandra told us that she had been thinking last night and had thought up a prayer to say, and so we had her say it. It was cool that she had been thinking about it. She also said that her mom wouldn't let her come to church alone because it is too far away for a little girl to go alone, so she said she might be able to come only if Maria comes. We'll get her to let us come over and teach her family though.

So, now I have an entirely different area and different people to work with. This is the second time that I have been one-and-outed in a city. You never feel like you have been able to do everything that you can when that happens. I had just figured out the branch and everything in Ploiesti, and now I am trying to start over and figure out this branch and the people here as quickly as I can so that we can accomplish things.

Love,
Sora Jay

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