Romania 27 June 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011 by Sora Jay
Hey everybody,
Sounds like things are going well. And I hear that Julia is going to get baptized soon.
This week has been kind of slow, we had only a few lessons, but we have been having some good success. We had a Relief Society activity on Saturday before English and we invited all the older women in our English class to come to it because then they could just stay for English and it would be convenient. About five or six of them came and the activity was really good. (Each person brought an object that brought them good memories and told about it.) The missionaries here have been really frustrated that so many old people come to the English classes and they were trying to figure out some way of getting them to stop coming by making an age limit on the class or something. I saw them all when they came to signups and they are all in our class, beginners, and they have been in that class for like six years is what the other missionaries say. I figure the best way to make them stop coming is to bug them a lot about coming to church and meeting with us, then either they will stop coming because they get annoyed by our persistence or they will get converted and the missionaries will like it when they come to English class. It was cool that we got so many of them to come to the Relief Society activity, now we just need to get them to come to church.
We did invite our English class to come to church during class on Saturday, and to make sure that they would come we made invitations for them really quickly before class started, we handed out the invitations and told them all to come. I was really bold with our class during both of the spiritual thoughts we had this week. I told them all that they need to pray, read the scriptures, and go to church. I asked if any of them did those things and the room was silent. One of the older ladies said, "nobody does." Then I told them they would only be happy if they started doing those things and then we taught them how to pray and told them to start today. The next time after English during the spiritual thought I asked if any of them had prayed and a few of them said they had (they had mostly just said The Lord's Prayer though) so that's a step. It turned out that three of our students came to church the next day. They were all older people, but that works. There are some really young kids that come, that are like 12 and 10 years old and they said they are interested in the church. We probably should talk to their parents before trying to teach them though.
Last Sunday I was talking to the Relief Society Presidend, Sora Miron, on the phone about the activity and she sounded super stressed out so I asked her if there was anything we could do to help her. She said that the elders were planning on going over to her house during the week to help her fix it up because it was leaky and had all sorts of problems, and I said that we would come too. She called again during the week to change her mind, but then we talked to one of her daughters and came to her house anyway. She was really happy to see us. It turns out the back part of her house had collapsed because of the recent rain, luckily there wasn't really anything in there that got crushed or destroyed because it was the leaky part. So we showed up and helped her put all the broken boards in a pile and gathered up all the shattered roof tiles and used shovels and rakes to clean up all the garbage and put it in a pile. It was a good workout and we stayed there for a few hours and got really dirty. That is one of the few opportunities that I've had to do some real good service out here and it was really refreshing. The day we went out was also her birthday so we made some brownies that morning and brought them out with us. We took a short break to eat brownies while we were there and then we kept on working. We were all at least a little sore the next day from shoveling and carrying things for so long.
We had one day this week where we had seven lessons set up, and only two of them went through, and they were lessons with Recent Converts. Our one progressing investigator, ifrim, is still working on deciding whether or not to get married so that he can be baptized. He is fitting in well with the ward now though, so hopefully he will continue working towards baptism.
We found a former investigator in the area book and went out to visit her (and got lost and it took forever but we eventually found her house) and we met with her and her mom. Her mom seemed more into it so we got her info and set up to meet with her at her house. When we went out to meet her, her youngest son came and picked us up from the bus stop and we talked with them at their house, and then the dad came in and started talking to us to. They are a super religious family and you could feel the spirit really strong in their house as we were speaking. The only question they had was whether or not we thought that Joseph Smith was comparable with Jesus Christ. And they believed everything else we had to say. They had read the Book of Mormon back when the daughter had been an investigator like ten years ago. They seemed really prepared. The son was really flirty though, he is 21 and was really impressed to meet some girls that have high standards like him. He remembered the missionaries from back when they taught his sister and expected us to be older women like they were to him when he was little, and so he was nervous and uncomfortable when he realized that we were so young. We told him that there are some boy missionaries in this city and he asked, "are they you're boyfriends?" all shocked and worried. We'll introduce him to some nice member girls.
We also went to the immigration office and the police station this week to find out what we have to do to declare ourselves in this city. The lady we talked to at the immigration office told us that we only have to declare ourselves at the police station. We asked her our questions and then had to wait a while for the person she needed to ask to be available, and I talked to her a little bit, but when I spoke to her I was informal and I think she was surprised. At the police station they asked us if we speak Romanian and we said "da" but then a few minutes later a cop came out talking in English to help us. We spoke in English for a while and then we switched to Romanian for some reason and he said he was really embarassed that we made him speak to us in English when we spoke Romanian so well. We had told the police officers that we knew how to speak though. I realized that I only speak to people informally in English because when I switched back to Romanian I was speaking informally and it seemed to throw off the police officer a little just like the immigration lady. I'm just not used to speaking up to anyone, and I only use the informal for speaking to old people and people that you want to keep a distant relationship with.
This week we didn't go to the zoo, but we went up into the mountains and ate some bear meat at a restaurant up there. Next week we are planning on going out to Dracula's Castle.
Love,
Sora Jay
Sounds like things are going well. And I hear that Julia is going to get baptized soon.
This week has been kind of slow, we had only a few lessons, but we have been having some good success. We had a Relief Society activity on Saturday before English and we invited all the older women in our English class to come to it because then they could just stay for English and it would be convenient. About five or six of them came and the activity was really good. (Each person brought an object that brought them good memories and told about it.) The missionaries here have been really frustrated that so many old people come to the English classes and they were trying to figure out some way of getting them to stop coming by making an age limit on the class or something. I saw them all when they came to signups and they are all in our class, beginners, and they have been in that class for like six years is what the other missionaries say. I figure the best way to make them stop coming is to bug them a lot about coming to church and meeting with us, then either they will stop coming because they get annoyed by our persistence or they will get converted and the missionaries will like it when they come to English class. It was cool that we got so many of them to come to the Relief Society activity, now we just need to get them to come to church.
We did invite our English class to come to church during class on Saturday, and to make sure that they would come we made invitations for them really quickly before class started, we handed out the invitations and told them all to come. I was really bold with our class during both of the spiritual thoughts we had this week. I told them all that they need to pray, read the scriptures, and go to church. I asked if any of them did those things and the room was silent. One of the older ladies said, "nobody does." Then I told them they would only be happy if they started doing those things and then we taught them how to pray and told them to start today. The next time after English during the spiritual thought I asked if any of them had prayed and a few of them said they had (they had mostly just said The Lord's Prayer though) so that's a step. It turned out that three of our students came to church the next day. They were all older people, but that works. There are some really young kids that come, that are like 12 and 10 years old and they said they are interested in the church. We probably should talk to their parents before trying to teach them though.
Last Sunday I was talking to the Relief Society Presidend, Sora Miron, on the phone about the activity and she sounded super stressed out so I asked her if there was anything we could do to help her. She said that the elders were planning on going over to her house during the week to help her fix it up because it was leaky and had all sorts of problems, and I said that we would come too. She called again during the week to change her mind, but then we talked to one of her daughters and came to her house anyway. She was really happy to see us. It turns out the back part of her house had collapsed because of the recent rain, luckily there wasn't really anything in there that got crushed or destroyed because it was the leaky part. So we showed up and helped her put all the broken boards in a pile and gathered up all the shattered roof tiles and used shovels and rakes to clean up all the garbage and put it in a pile. It was a good workout and we stayed there for a few hours and got really dirty. That is one of the few opportunities that I've had to do some real good service out here and it was really refreshing. The day we went out was also her birthday so we made some brownies that morning and brought them out with us. We took a short break to eat brownies while we were there and then we kept on working. We were all at least a little sore the next day from shoveling and carrying things for so long.
We had one day this week where we had seven lessons set up, and only two of them went through, and they were lessons with Recent Converts. Our one progressing investigator, ifrim, is still working on deciding whether or not to get married so that he can be baptized. He is fitting in well with the ward now though, so hopefully he will continue working towards baptism.
We found a former investigator in the area book and went out to visit her (and got lost and it took forever but we eventually found her house) and we met with her and her mom. Her mom seemed more into it so we got her info and set up to meet with her at her house. When we went out to meet her, her youngest son came and picked us up from the bus stop and we talked with them at their house, and then the dad came in and started talking to us to. They are a super religious family and you could feel the spirit really strong in their house as we were speaking. The only question they had was whether or not we thought that Joseph Smith was comparable with Jesus Christ. And they believed everything else we had to say. They had read the Book of Mormon back when the daughter had been an investigator like ten years ago. They seemed really prepared. The son was really flirty though, he is 21 and was really impressed to meet some girls that have high standards like him. He remembered the missionaries from back when they taught his sister and expected us to be older women like they were to him when he was little, and so he was nervous and uncomfortable when he realized that we were so young. We told him that there are some boy missionaries in this city and he asked, "are they you're boyfriends?" all shocked and worried. We'll introduce him to some nice member girls.
We also went to the immigration office and the police station this week to find out what we have to do to declare ourselves in this city. The lady we talked to at the immigration office told us that we only have to declare ourselves at the police station. We asked her our questions and then had to wait a while for the person she needed to ask to be available, and I talked to her a little bit, but when I spoke to her I was informal and I think she was surprised. At the police station they asked us if we speak Romanian and we said "da" but then a few minutes later a cop came out talking in English to help us. We spoke in English for a while and then we switched to Romanian for some reason and he said he was really embarassed that we made him speak to us in English when we spoke Romanian so well. We had told the police officers that we knew how to speak though. I realized that I only speak to people informally in English because when I switched back to Romanian I was speaking informally and it seemed to throw off the police officer a little just like the immigration lady. I'm just not used to speaking up to anyone, and I only use the informal for speaking to old people and people that you want to keep a distant relationship with.
This week we didn't go to the zoo, but we went up into the mountains and ate some bear meat at a restaurant up there. Next week we are planning on going out to Dracula's Castle.
Love,
Sora Jay
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