Romania 7 March 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011 by Sora Jay
La multi ani!
Hey everyone.
I thought it was really funny that Ed said he has been getting Romania numbers for the past few weeks, especially because he got 13 lessons total in the past three weeks, because that is exactly what I have gotten in these past three weeks. Don't worry about it though, Ed, because even in Romania I have managed to get 30 lessons in a week.
And Tom, I thought that playing soccer was forbidden worldwide to all missionaries, because that's where all of their injuries come from. At least that's the way it is in Romania and all of Europe. Otherwise, I would practice so that I could beat the crap out of you. But, I'll just have really ripped legs from walking everywhere and from climbing thousands of stairs every day in people's blocs.
In Romania every school has a religion class where they teach them about orthodoxism, and other religions sometimes. That's where they learn about their church (since the actual church services are usually a priest singing from what Romanians tell me). So, we talked to a few people and when we asked them for referrals they said that we should try talking to professors for religion classes and maybe they would let us present something about our religion. Enough people said it to us that we though it might be worth a try. So the first thing we did was call President and ask him if it was an okay thing for us to do, and he said it would be wonderful if we succeeded. So then we asked around and tried to find the religion department of the main University in this city, we went back and forth between a few places asking for directions and looking at our map but we ended up not finding it. So then we looked in the phone book and I found the number for the theology department and called it. A secretary answered the phone and I told her who we were and that I was aware that they taught about other religions in some of their classes and asked if we could speak to somebody about what we believe in our religion. She was nice to us, but then she handed the phone to some guy who freaked out. He got really mad and was yelling at us on the phone and then hung up on us. I was pretty surprised, because I worked in an office (in the library) at BYU and I figured that the professors and staff would at least be polite or politically correct, but I guess not.
Some of the things he yelled made me think that he must have thought that I was a lawyer for the church, because he said something about going through the government and laws to accomplish whatever it was that we wanted. That fact that he got really defensive makes me wonder if there are any things that they are doing that would be considered unlawful, regarding our religion. They definitely say bad things about us.
One of our new investigators (that we found from putting up posters on the street and handing out materials) said that she asked her religion teacher (most of them are priests) about the book that we gave her, the BoM, and he asked her if she had taken a copy of it. She said yes, and he told her that she had already sinned and should get rid of it. But, I think it ultimately just made her want to meet with us even more.
We met a nice priest yesterday though. We found his number in the potentials section in the Area book and asked him if we could talk. He works at the church right next to our apartment, I think. So we told him to come to the church to meet with us (it was a struggle for him to find it because it's in a really terrible location) and he came. He didn't want to come inside the church so we chatted a little outside the gate and then he gave us his business card and left. He was really nice the whole time. He said that he had received a copy of the Book of Mormon from the missionaries that had contacted him (by knocking on his door, I think) but that he had given it to his co-worker priests. He left before we could talk too much because his car was blocking the little road, but he said we would talk again. He was wearing his priest robes and everything when he came to meet us. He was a really nice guy. So, not all priests are bad. At least a couple have been converted that I know of, even though they lost everything when they did.
When we are knocking in the blocs it's normal for people to tell us that they won't listen to us because "their parents are orthodox, their grandparents are orthodox, and their ancestors are all orthodox," so they will stay orthodox. But yesterday this one guy said to us "Why are you going around with that religion, you were born and baptized orthodox and your families and relatives are all orthodox, and all your ancestors were orthodox, so stop going around with these books." And I said, "I never was orthodox, and neither was anyone in my family. I'm from America." The statement seemed to cause him to stop and think. Then he said "Well, 97% of the people here are orthodox so you won't have any success." And we were like, "we already have had success," and knocked the rest of the doors in his bloc.
I'm pretty sure it's not quite 97%. That's way too unanimous for any political statistic, from what I remember (80% concerning people is pretty much the equivalent of 100%). People always ask us if the majority of people in America (the US) are Catholics and I always just say "not really," because I don't actually know. Plus, I think I've only met one or two catholic people in my entire life. I'd like to know what percentage of people in the US are orthodox, and what percent are Mormon.
Well, that's it for this week.
Love,
Sora Jay
Hey everyone.
I thought it was really funny that Ed said he has been getting Romania numbers for the past few weeks, especially because he got 13 lessons total in the past three weeks, because that is exactly what I have gotten in these past three weeks. Don't worry about it though, Ed, because even in Romania I have managed to get 30 lessons in a week.
And Tom, I thought that playing soccer was forbidden worldwide to all missionaries, because that's where all of their injuries come from. At least that's the way it is in Romania and all of Europe. Otherwise, I would practice so that I could beat the crap out of you. But, I'll just have really ripped legs from walking everywhere and from climbing thousands of stairs every day in people's blocs.
In Romania every school has a religion class where they teach them about orthodoxism, and other religions sometimes. That's where they learn about their church (since the actual church services are usually a priest singing from what Romanians tell me). So, we talked to a few people and when we asked them for referrals they said that we should try talking to professors for religion classes and maybe they would let us present something about our religion. Enough people said it to us that we though it might be worth a try. So the first thing we did was call President and ask him if it was an okay thing for us to do, and he said it would be wonderful if we succeeded. So then we asked around and tried to find the religion department of the main University in this city, we went back and forth between a few places asking for directions and looking at our map but we ended up not finding it. So then we looked in the phone book and I found the number for the theology department and called it. A secretary answered the phone and I told her who we were and that I was aware that they taught about other religions in some of their classes and asked if we could speak to somebody about what we believe in our religion. She was nice to us, but then she handed the phone to some guy who freaked out. He got really mad and was yelling at us on the phone and then hung up on us. I was pretty surprised, because I worked in an office (in the library) at BYU and I figured that the professors and staff would at least be polite or politically correct, but I guess not.
Some of the things he yelled made me think that he must have thought that I was a lawyer for the church, because he said something about going through the government and laws to accomplish whatever it was that we wanted. That fact that he got really defensive makes me wonder if there are any things that they are doing that would be considered unlawful, regarding our religion. They definitely say bad things about us.
One of our new investigators (that we found from putting up posters on the street and handing out materials) said that she asked her religion teacher (most of them are priests) about the book that we gave her, the BoM, and he asked her if she had taken a copy of it. She said yes, and he told her that she had already sinned and should get rid of it. But, I think it ultimately just made her want to meet with us even more.
We met a nice priest yesterday though. We found his number in the potentials section in the Area book and asked him if we could talk. He works at the church right next to our apartment, I think. So we told him to come to the church to meet with us (it was a struggle for him to find it because it's in a really terrible location) and he came. He didn't want to come inside the church so we chatted a little outside the gate and then he gave us his business card and left. He was really nice the whole time. He said that he had received a copy of the Book of Mormon from the missionaries that had contacted him (by knocking on his door, I think) but that he had given it to his co-worker priests. He left before we could talk too much because his car was blocking the little road, but he said we would talk again. He was wearing his priest robes and everything when he came to meet us. He was a really nice guy. So, not all priests are bad. At least a couple have been converted that I know of, even though they lost everything when they did.
When we are knocking in the blocs it's normal for people to tell us that they won't listen to us because "their parents are orthodox, their grandparents are orthodox, and their ancestors are all orthodox," so they will stay orthodox. But yesterday this one guy said to us "Why are you going around with that religion, you were born and baptized orthodox and your families and relatives are all orthodox, and all your ancestors were orthodox, so stop going around with these books." And I said, "I never was orthodox, and neither was anyone in my family. I'm from America." The statement seemed to cause him to stop and think. Then he said "Well, 97% of the people here are orthodox so you won't have any success." And we were like, "we already have had success," and knocked the rest of the doors in his bloc.
I'm pretty sure it's not quite 97%. That's way too unanimous for any political statistic, from what I remember (80% concerning people is pretty much the equivalent of 100%). People always ask us if the majority of people in America (the US) are Catholics and I always just say "not really," because I don't actually know. Plus, I think I've only met one or two catholic people in my entire life. I'd like to know what percentage of people in the US are orthodox, and what percent are Mormon.
Well, that's it for this week.
Love,
Sora Jay
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