Romania 1 May 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011 by Sora Jay
Hello Everybody,
Okay guys, don't freak out or anything. If you didn't hear, we had a tiny earthquake here in Romania on Sunday morning at 5:30. I was laying there in my bed, and I was awake for some reason when my bed started shaking, I thought it was weird. There are tramvais that come by our house in the mornings sometimes that make the apartment shake but it was too early and it kept going for a while. When it finished I realized it must have been an earthquake. My companion slept through it, but the next morning at church I asked people if there had been an earthquake and they said there had. It was little though, 4.9 I think, and I haven't heard of any damage anywhere. I don't really know where the center of the earthquake was or anything.
Sounds like things are getting pretty crazy with not having heard from Ed, and Tom being in a super sketch area. I'm not sick anymore now, and we had transfers last week so I have a new companion: Sora Mullen. She stayed at my apartment in Bucharest when I was there back in October on her first night in the country. I took her knocking in the blocs and we had a lesson with a guy on a bench, so I was there for her first missionary experiences in Romania. She is really outgoing and social so I hope it doesn't kill her to be with me. She gets really excited and motivated, but I am just calm. I think that's where our conflicts are going to come up. I was already pushing myself to the limit last transfer with Sora Puckett and Sora Mullen wants to run even faster.
For transfers we had to take a seven-hour train down to Bucharest at 6 in the morning and then wait there for a while and take another seven-hour train back to iasi. We got home a little past midnight. Those are the worst travel plans I have had to use so far. Usually we can take a night train so that we can at least try to sleep. It was okay though.
When I was at the gara (train station) in Bucharest one of the elders gave me an ocarina, a legit one made of clay and everything, although I'm sure it's not the best quality. I will take some pictures of it to show it to you. I've been trying to figure out how to play it.
Mothers Day is on the 8th right? I figure you guys can just call me like you did last time whenever you guys want so that it will fit in for you to call Tom and Ed too. If you guys can call me in the morning (Romania time) like you did at Christmas time that would be the best. You can call as early as six, I just have to be ready to go by 9 to get to church on time. I think that my companion will be talking to her family at about 4 (Romania time) and we will be having lunch right before then so you guys can decide when it would be best to call each of us missionaries. Here is my phone number in iasi: 075-305-8813. You'll have to look up the country code again. You succeeded the first time so I have confidence in you.
We did street-boarding again this week but in a different location where we thought we could get more young people next to the university. We did get more young people but there were a lot of them out of the city for Easter break as well. They get like two weeks off for Easter. I talked to this one kid for a while, Eduard. He wouldn't tell me what religion he was but it definitely wasn't one of the main big ones like Pentecostal or Adventist or JW. He tried to teach me some things from the Bible and I already knew all of them so he stopped really thoughtfully and said to himself, "Why did I stop? (to talk to you)." And I told him that either he had something valuable to share with me or I had something valuable to share with him since we were both trying to follow God, but, that I already had the Bible and everything that he wanted to share with me I pretty much already knew, whereas I had some things that he didn't: the Book of Mormon and a living prophet. He was a really religious person and he showed me a list he had with a bunch of people that he prays for and I told him to write on there to pray about Thomas Monson to see if he is a real prophet. He wouldn't give us his contact info or anything but we gave him a pliant with ours. Then later in the day we saw him riding by on his bike and he saw us and said, "This is a sign!" And he called us later that day and said that he had read the pliant and that it said something about meeting with the missionaries more to find out about revealed doctrines so he wanted to meet again. On the phone he said it would be "just you, me, and the Bible... and that other book you have." I told him my companion will always be with me. He should meet with the elders anyway because he's a young guy.
We also met a professor when we were out knocking vilas. I finally found a connection to the university that I tried to call a while back. He said he was a professor of philosophy there and that he was very interested in reading the Book of Mormon, and said that we should come visit him at his office on campus. He said maybe he would share it with his students as well. We'll see how it goes this week when school starts up again.
I talk to some of you on Sunday I guess!
Love,
Sora Jay
Okay guys, don't freak out or anything. If you didn't hear, we had a tiny earthquake here in Romania on Sunday morning at 5:30. I was laying there in my bed, and I was awake for some reason when my bed started shaking, I thought it was weird. There are tramvais that come by our house in the mornings sometimes that make the apartment shake but it was too early and it kept going for a while. When it finished I realized it must have been an earthquake. My companion slept through it, but the next morning at church I asked people if there had been an earthquake and they said there had. It was little though, 4.9 I think, and I haven't heard of any damage anywhere. I don't really know where the center of the earthquake was or anything.
Sounds like things are getting pretty crazy with not having heard from Ed, and Tom being in a super sketch area. I'm not sick anymore now, and we had transfers last week so I have a new companion: Sora Mullen. She stayed at my apartment in Bucharest when I was there back in October on her first night in the country. I took her knocking in the blocs and we had a lesson with a guy on a bench, so I was there for her first missionary experiences in Romania. She is really outgoing and social so I hope it doesn't kill her to be with me. She gets really excited and motivated, but I am just calm. I think that's where our conflicts are going to come up. I was already pushing myself to the limit last transfer with Sora Puckett and Sora Mullen wants to run even faster.
For transfers we had to take a seven-hour train down to Bucharest at 6 in the morning and then wait there for a while and take another seven-hour train back to iasi. We got home a little past midnight. Those are the worst travel plans I have had to use so far. Usually we can take a night train so that we can at least try to sleep. It was okay though.
When I was at the gara (train station) in Bucharest one of the elders gave me an ocarina, a legit one made of clay and everything, although I'm sure it's not the best quality. I will take some pictures of it to show it to you. I've been trying to figure out how to play it.
Mothers Day is on the 8th right? I figure you guys can just call me like you did last time whenever you guys want so that it will fit in for you to call Tom and Ed too. If you guys can call me in the morning (Romania time) like you did at Christmas time that would be the best. You can call as early as six, I just have to be ready to go by 9 to get to church on time. I think that my companion will be talking to her family at about 4 (Romania time) and we will be having lunch right before then so you guys can decide when it would be best to call each of us missionaries. Here is my phone number in iasi: 075-305-8813. You'll have to look up the country code again. You succeeded the first time so I have confidence in you.
We did street-boarding again this week but in a different location where we thought we could get more young people next to the university. We did get more young people but there were a lot of them out of the city for Easter break as well. They get like two weeks off for Easter. I talked to this one kid for a while, Eduard. He wouldn't tell me what religion he was but it definitely wasn't one of the main big ones like Pentecostal or Adventist or JW. He tried to teach me some things from the Bible and I already knew all of them so he stopped really thoughtfully and said to himself, "Why did I stop? (to talk to you)." And I told him that either he had something valuable to share with me or I had something valuable to share with him since we were both trying to follow God, but, that I already had the Bible and everything that he wanted to share with me I pretty much already knew, whereas I had some things that he didn't: the Book of Mormon and a living prophet. He was a really religious person and he showed me a list he had with a bunch of people that he prays for and I told him to write on there to pray about Thomas Monson to see if he is a real prophet. He wouldn't give us his contact info or anything but we gave him a pliant with ours. Then later in the day we saw him riding by on his bike and he saw us and said, "This is a sign!" And he called us later that day and said that he had read the pliant and that it said something about meeting with the missionaries more to find out about revealed doctrines so he wanted to meet again. On the phone he said it would be "just you, me, and the Bible... and that other book you have." I told him my companion will always be with me. He should meet with the elders anyway because he's a young guy.
We also met a professor when we were out knocking vilas. I finally found a connection to the university that I tried to call a while back. He said he was a professor of philosophy there and that he was very interested in reading the Book of Mormon, and said that we should come visit him at his office on campus. He said maybe he would share it with his students as well. We'll see how it goes this week when school starts up again.
I talk to some of you on Sunday I guess!
Love,
Sora Jay
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