Romania 30 May 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011 by Sora Jay
Hello again,
I didn't get any emails from Tom and Ed this week. Hope it's all going good.
This week we had Zone Conference in Chisinau in The Republic of Moldova, so on Monday our whole Zone was here in Iasi and we went to the giant orthodox church to see the saint inside. Sfanta Parascheva (I think that's how it's spelled) in the Metropolia church, you can look it up. Her body was found a couple hundred years ago and it wasn't decayed so she was declared a saint. You can touch her hand but it was covered with cloth. Our district leader talked to one of the priests and the priest showed him what to do, so he crossed himself and smelled the hand. He said it smelled good. While we were there at the church we saw two of our investigators...
Zone Conference isn't usually very encouraging. We usually focus on all of the things that missionaries do wrong and it usually makes me feel bad even when I have already been striving to do all of those things. We had some time to go contacting in Moldova though, I can understand when people say simple things in Russian like "I don't speak Romanian." One of the missionaries said he always starts his contacts in Russian so that if the person says they can't speak Russian he can talk to them in Romanian. I don't know that much though. We got back from Chisinau at about midnight Wednesday night.
There is one girl that has been investigating the church for the past five years that we have been working with again, Alexandra. She has something wrong with one of her ankles so she usually walks with a little cane. She's really cool. She has always come to all of the activities and sometimes to church but she never got baptized. We got her to talk to her mom about it last week but her mom said she shouldn't do it. She told us that she wouldn't get baptized. Then she asked if she could stay with us if she came and visited America next summer and we said she could. Then she told us that if she went to America she would get baptized. We told her that if she went to America she should go to the temple. She agreed. So maybe she will get baptized sometime soon. We have made a lot of progress with her just by being her friends.
We had about four investigators at church on Sunday. It was cool. Getting to church is one of the most important and the most difficult things for investigators to do for some reason, but we got a few to come by focusing on it for the rest of the week after Zone Conference. Andreea who left on her mission last month was the Relief Society president so they just called a new one, Daniela Padure. When the Branch President was announcing it in sacrament meeting he announced that she would be the next branch president and nobody gave her a sustaining vote. But then they all corrected him and she was sustained. She has been a member for about 12 years so she knows how things go. She immediately started helping us with less active members, and she got one that we have been trying for a while to meet with to come to the church and meet with us, and then come to church on Sunday as well. She told us it was gossip in the branch that made her and a few more members go inactive.
The week before last we started a competition for healthiness among the sisters where you get points for exercising and drinking water and eating fruits and vegetables, but minus points for eating desserts and white bread. We turned in our points for the first week and I won. It was actually one of my goals at the beginning of this transfer to exercise a lot so I was already exercising more than I ever did before on my mission. I have been pretty consistent throughout my mission of doing at least the basics, and I have gotten a lot more flexible.
That's probably about it for now.
Love,
Sora Jay
I didn't get any emails from Tom and Ed this week. Hope it's all going good.
This week we had Zone Conference in Chisinau in The Republic of Moldova, so on Monday our whole Zone was here in Iasi and we went to the giant orthodox church to see the saint inside. Sfanta Parascheva (I think that's how it's spelled) in the Metropolia church, you can look it up. Her body was found a couple hundred years ago and it wasn't decayed so she was declared a saint. You can touch her hand but it was covered with cloth. Our district leader talked to one of the priests and the priest showed him what to do, so he crossed himself and smelled the hand. He said it smelled good. While we were there at the church we saw two of our investigators...
Zone Conference isn't usually very encouraging. We usually focus on all of the things that missionaries do wrong and it usually makes me feel bad even when I have already been striving to do all of those things. We had some time to go contacting in Moldova though, I can understand when people say simple things in Russian like "I don't speak Romanian." One of the missionaries said he always starts his contacts in Russian so that if the person says they can't speak Russian he can talk to them in Romanian. I don't know that much though. We got back from Chisinau at about midnight Wednesday night.
There is one girl that has been investigating the church for the past five years that we have been working with again, Alexandra. She has something wrong with one of her ankles so she usually walks with a little cane. She's really cool. She has always come to all of the activities and sometimes to church but she never got baptized. We got her to talk to her mom about it last week but her mom said she shouldn't do it. She told us that she wouldn't get baptized. Then she asked if she could stay with us if she came and visited America next summer and we said she could. Then she told us that if she went to America she would get baptized. We told her that if she went to America she should go to the temple. She agreed. So maybe she will get baptized sometime soon. We have made a lot of progress with her just by being her friends.
We had about four investigators at church on Sunday. It was cool. Getting to church is one of the most important and the most difficult things for investigators to do for some reason, but we got a few to come by focusing on it for the rest of the week after Zone Conference. Andreea who left on her mission last month was the Relief Society president so they just called a new one, Daniela Padure. When the Branch President was announcing it in sacrament meeting he announced that she would be the next branch president and nobody gave her a sustaining vote. But then they all corrected him and she was sustained. She has been a member for about 12 years so she knows how things go. She immediately started helping us with less active members, and she got one that we have been trying for a while to meet with to come to the church and meet with us, and then come to church on Sunday as well. She told us it was gossip in the branch that made her and a few more members go inactive.
The week before last we started a competition for healthiness among the sisters where you get points for exercising and drinking water and eating fruits and vegetables, but minus points for eating desserts and white bread. We turned in our points for the first week and I won. It was actually one of my goals at the beginning of this transfer to exercise a lot so I was already exercising more than I ever did before on my mission. I have been pretty consistent throughout my mission of doing at least the basics, and I have gotten a lot more flexible.
That's probably about it for now.
Love,
Sora Jay
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