Romania 7 Feb 2011
Monday, February 7, 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
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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