WEEK 11

Conference Weekend

MARTI 27 SEPTEMBRIE
On Tuesday we went to another government building and did some more stuff I have to do to get my visa. It's so complicated and weird here. Then we went to lunch with Andreea again (pretty much every Tuesday we have lunch with Andreea). We went to Viking's, a little fast food place across the street from our block (a block is what they call apartment buildings here). Their Romanian food is good but their American food is nastyyyy. I had a chicken taco thing but instead of a tortilla, it's pita bread, and it has chicken strips on it. SUPER GOOD. After that, we went to visit a member, Dan, at work. He's a security guard at one of the grocery stores. He's a little less active right now because his new at this job and they won't give him Sundays off. He was the second member to be baptized in Bacau and he's really nice. Tuesday nights, we teach English. I really hate teaching English because I want to explain all the fun grammar but they only want to know how to have a conversation--not why "of" is a preposition. So I have to restrain myself a little. After we got home, Sister Kitchen and I decided to make macaroni and cheese. It failed miserably. Things were going great until the cheese in our sauce decided to ABSOLUTELY FREAK OUT and glob together. It was so sad. We skipped dinner that night because the mac was just inedible.

MIERCURI 28 SEPTEMBRIE
So first, we went to the visa office to finish applying for my visa. We walked around for TWO HOURS and couldn't find the place. We finally called a taxi and he took us straight there. And I finally applied for my visa and it will be ready for me to pick up in thirty days! Yay! For lunch, we had top ramen and then we sat down to do language study. There must have been roofies in the ramen though, because we both fell asleep.... for THREE HOURS. It was awful. We completely wasted the afternoon. BUT! We had a lesson that night with a guy we'd never met. He called us randomly and was like, "I want to meet with you" and we were like, "Okay!". But then he was awkward and asked if we were married, so we were a bit skeptical. But we met with him. His name is Lucian and it was a SUPER good lesson. We're meeting with him again soon. He was so nice and not weird at all. It was great. 

JOI 29 SEPTEMBRIE
In the morning, we got to watch the women's session of General Conference and it was SO GOOD. President Uchtdorf's talk was basically a repeat of what he said when he was with us in Romania. (I'm just gonna rub it in a little more here: I MET DIETER F UCHTDORF AND HE SAID I HAD A BEAUTIFUL SMILE. Anyway, so he talked about how the missionaries found his wife at the last door in an apartment building they were in. So right after conference, Sora Kitchen and I went block knocking! The first door we knocked at, an old baba answered and started yelling at us that it was a sin for us to be so beautiful but carry so many lies. I was like, awwwww she thinks I'm pretty! But then she watched us until we left her block and locked the door after us. Soooooooo, we went to another block! And knocked on every door. One lady talked to us for a while but then told us we were at a priest's home. Another lady let us in but kicked us out when she realized we weren't Orthodox. We knocked on around eighty doors in two hours. No one wanted to hear our message. I had been leaving Book of Mormon pass along cards on some of the doors though, and later that evening we got a call from a man named Pitro who wanted a Book of Mormon! We haven't had the chance to meet up with him yet, but we're really excited about it. 

VINERI 30 SEPTEMBRIE
We cleaned our apartment this morning because it was not looking great. Then we had lunch with Andreea again, and she came with us to our lesson with Bianca. Bianca is so great. We started talking about birthdays, and SHE HAS THE SAME BIRTHDAY AS ME! And y'all should know how obsessed I am with my birthday. She was telling us about her Book of Mormon reading and said she wasn't very far into the book, but then we find out she's actually halfway through Alma. SO GREAT! She's really busy with school but we're going to help her with her English homework and then talk about the gospel when it's done. After our meeting with Bianca, we met up with Irina and her two daughters.

Irina and Daughters

Irina has been a member for about three years. It was a lot of fun to see her. Our mission president's wife asked us to talk to our members and write down their conversion stories, so we did that with Irina. Her little girls are 4 and 7 and they just wanted to play on the swings and take selfies. It was so much fun to be around children again! I love kids.
We also had a lesson with Dragos. He's making progress but I'm starting to feel like he sees us as two cool American friends instead of missionaries. 

Dragos

On Friday we also made dinner. Real dinner. With meat and potatoes and vegetables. It was glorious. I love food.

SAMBATA 1 OCTOMBRIE
I made omelettes because I don't know how to make conference breakfast and that's as close as I could get to it. They had tomatoes and cheese and spinach and onions and were superrrrr good.  

We basically taught English and then watched conference all day. Dragos came and watched with us. He enjoyed it. 

DUMINICA 2 OCTOMBRIE
Church! No one came because it's conference and they can just watch at home. So we watched in English. Dragos came again. It was also good. I didn't write in my journal Saturday or Sunday so really I have no idea what happened, sorry :)

LUNI 3 OCTOMBRIE 
Today we went shopping and had lunch with Andreea. 

Then we visited Dan at work again and went grocery shopping, we eat a lot of bread and cheese. Today we bought a squash. Pretty normal.

I was excited to find seafood

and then came to email. I inherited a sweater from Sora Kitchen that I love. It's been a good day. 


Sora Lucy Gleason
România/Moldova Mission
July 2016-January 2018