Romania 13 Sept 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010 by Sora Jay
Hey Everybody,
That's cool that you had a big Utah conference on Sunday. It's weird to think about how different the church is in Utah compared to the rest of the world. Even my companion from Australia said that the church is different in Utah from the way it is in Australia. Everything just functions the way that it is supposed to all by itself. It probably comes from the pioneer heritage that the area in Utah has. I actually planned a lesson for this evening about William Geddes to share with some recent converts, so that they can learn to have faith like his. Not that they don't already, because they are the pioneers in this country.
That's interesting how they talked about our time being harder than it was for the pioneers (especially because you guys are in Utah). But I have been thinking about that recently too. The song "I'll go where you want me to go" used to be one of my favorites, but now I don't really like all of the lyrics, especially where it says "it may not be at the battle's front, the Lord will have need of me," because there is nobody in this world who is a member of this church that is not at the front of the battle. And the missionaries are straight-out in enemy territory.
Anyway, this past week we had a 'sister's training' because we don't have the opportunity of going on exchanges with the missionary leaders to learn what they learned from the training. It was kind of things that we already do, just a little more emphasis on a couple of things that we weren't really good at (that we realized that we weren't good at once we started working on them) like introducing teaching using the techniques in Preach My Gospel, and waiting to be inspired before speaking. It's hard to do with romanians because if you pause they usually just keep talking, so we pretty much have to be inspired on the spot. It's cool how it works out. There have been a few times in my mission where people were really impressed by the things that I was able to say to them and told us that we were really well trained/studied or really clever; they have no idea that we're just a couple of girls thrown in a foreign country and struggling to learn the language just so that we can communicate the lessons to them, and it is only through the Holy Ghost that we could ever know how to say something to them that would effect them like that. Last night we were talking to a guy on a bench in the park and nothing that we were saying was getting into his head. He was rambling on about saints, and then the question just suddenly came out of my mouth, "Why don't you become a saint?" He actually went silent and then tried to explain that not everybody can be a saint. "Why?" I asked him. He didn't have an answer. "Maybe they don't know how," I said. He agreed and said that he also didn't know how to become a saint. I held the Book of Mormon out to him and said "Read."
It's cool how our church believes in every member being a 'saint.' It's also cool that the name of the church is The Church of Jesus Christ of the Saints in the Last Days, in Romanian, because there are a lot of times when we talk to people and they agree that we are living in the last days (everyone's favorite book in the bible here is Apocalipsa=Revelations) and then we show them the name that is written on our badges and it uses the exact same words that they just used to tell us that we are in the Last Days.
Last week we ate dinner at one of our investigators houses and she gave us some yummy cake so I asked her what it was made out of, she told us how she made the mousse and used the word cappucino. I had already finished my cake and Sora Wilson was about halfway through hers. We decided that we need to bring up the Word of Wisdom really soon. We committed her to be baptized at the end of our last lesson, so she'll get it.
My companions done now, so I'll talk to you guys later.
Love,
Sora Jay
Say congratulations to Katie Breckenridge for me.
That's cool that you had a big Utah conference on Sunday. It's weird to think about how different the church is in Utah compared to the rest of the world. Even my companion from Australia said that the church is different in Utah from the way it is in Australia. Everything just functions the way that it is supposed to all by itself. It probably comes from the pioneer heritage that the area in Utah has. I actually planned a lesson for this evening about William Geddes to share with some recent converts, so that they can learn to have faith like his. Not that they don't already, because they are the pioneers in this country.
That's interesting how they talked about our time being harder than it was for the pioneers (especially because you guys are in Utah). But I have been thinking about that recently too. The song "I'll go where you want me to go" used to be one of my favorites, but now I don't really like all of the lyrics, especially where it says "it may not be at the battle's front, the Lord will have need of me," because there is nobody in this world who is a member of this church that is not at the front of the battle. And the missionaries are straight-out in enemy territory.
Anyway, this past week we had a 'sister's training' because we don't have the opportunity of going on exchanges with the missionary leaders to learn what they learned from the training. It was kind of things that we already do, just a little more emphasis on a couple of things that we weren't really good at (that we realized that we weren't good at once we started working on them) like introducing teaching using the techniques in Preach My Gospel, and waiting to be inspired before speaking. It's hard to do with romanians because if you pause they usually just keep talking, so we pretty much have to be inspired on the spot. It's cool how it works out. There have been a few times in my mission where people were really impressed by the things that I was able to say to them and told us that we were really well trained/studied or really clever; they have no idea that we're just a couple of girls thrown in a foreign country and struggling to learn the language just so that we can communicate the lessons to them, and it is only through the Holy Ghost that we could ever know how to say something to them that would effect them like that. Last night we were talking to a guy on a bench in the park and nothing that we were saying was getting into his head. He was rambling on about saints, and then the question just suddenly came out of my mouth, "Why don't you become a saint?" He actually went silent and then tried to explain that not everybody can be a saint. "Why?" I asked him. He didn't have an answer. "Maybe they don't know how," I said. He agreed and said that he also didn't know how to become a saint. I held the Book of Mormon out to him and said "Read."
It's cool how our church believes in every member being a 'saint.' It's also cool that the name of the church is The Church of Jesus Christ of the Saints in the Last Days, in Romanian, because there are a lot of times when we talk to people and they agree that we are living in the last days (everyone's favorite book in the bible here is Apocalipsa=Revelations) and then we show them the name that is written on our badges and it uses the exact same words that they just used to tell us that we are in the Last Days.
Last week we ate dinner at one of our investigators houses and she gave us some yummy cake so I asked her what it was made out of, she told us how she made the mousse and used the word cappucino. I had already finished my cake and Sora Wilson was about halfway through hers. We decided that we need to bring up the Word of Wisdom really soon. We committed her to be baptized at the end of our last lesson, so she'll get it.
My companions done now, so I'll talk to you guys later.
Love,
Sora Jay
Say congratulations to Katie Breckenridge for me.
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.
Posts
