WEEK 28

This is Going to Be Short

Tuesday
Nothing interesting. Wait, yeah. We got filmed at English class by the documentary people. It was fun. We played charades with occupations because we were teaching about jobs. It was actually really cool, then we were gonna go see fireworks because it was a holiday, but we were tired and hungry so we just had dinner instead. 

Wednesday
We met with Sora Iepure and her two sons. They're the branch president's family. They're great, then that night we watched a broadcast for all missionaries everywhere at the church with the elders and then Elder Cochran made dinner for us all. It was yum. The broadcast was cool but most of the changes that happened are things we've already been doing, at least about the schedule. However, since the broadcast stream was horrible, we didn't get home until laaaate. Whoops.

Thursday
We had lunch with Carla who's a member from the states. I love her. She's so great. Later we met with Maria and Cristi. Their family has been investigating the church for ten years. 

Friday
District meeting--which was basically just two of our elders yelling that we all needed to get along while the rest of us were like, wait I thought things were finally good.  Why are you yelling at us? Basically it was just really stupid. Then games night. I'm bad at card games but we had some cool friends there. 

Saturday
English! We had one student.  We met with Teo and she helped me translate my talk into Romanian. 

Sunday
Church! My talk went OK. Maybe next week I'll remember to bring it to emails and send a copy home. Then we went park contacting! 

We wrote in Romanian what brings you happiness? on the sidewalk and then had people write their answers. 

It was super cool and we got to talk to a lot of people. We were there for two hours. It was actually pretty warm on Sunday though, so we didn't freeze.

Monday
We went PAINT-BALLING with the elders and our friend Cristi! 

 It was so much fun. I only got shot three times and they were all in the head--the helmet actually, but I got some paint in my hair and it's grossssss. 

Then Sora Vann and I went out for burgers. Normally burgers here aren't great, but we found this place called burger house and they were SO GOOD and cheap. And good music. Then we went to the mall to buy hairspray and then here to email. Good day. 

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

WEEK 27

Up. Sandwich. Down.

MARTI 17 IANUARIE (Tuesday)
Okay so first thing Tuesday morning we had interviews with President Ivory via the internet! My interview went really well. Lots of good takeaways and he also said to prep myself to have younger companions... yikes. That sounds terrifying. But after interviews we were visiting a member who lives way out in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully there was a Mcdonalds on the way to the middle of nowhere so we stopped and grabbed lunch. When we got to the middle of nowhere (we took a bus) we found a bunch of pigs digging through the dumpster and they were so cute, but also kinda smelly! 

Then our lesson with a member named Sora Kiss. She's Romanian, but her name isn't. In Romanian it would be spelled Chiș and it's pronounced keesh. But she is super great. Then we had to rush to the church to prepare for English class. Then we taught English. Then Sora Vann and I were both feeling kinda mehhh so we laid on the floor in the church for a good ten minutes. Then we went home and I laid on the floor there and took a nap before dinner. Sora Vann took a picture of me.

MIERCURI 18 IANUARIE (Wednesday)
We did language study at a cute bookstore and then had lunch at KFC (I ate so much fast food this week it's ridiculous. Nu mai pot. (which means:  I can't anymore.) Then we went to go see the book binding man! He leather-binds any book you want, so most missionaries get books bound by him. I put in my copy of Jesus the Christ and my Romanian triple (Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price), so in a few weeks I'll send pictures. They're gonna be GORGEOUS. 

This is Sora Vann's

We also block knocked on Wednesday. A lady was coming out of her apartment building as we were trying to get in and she was asking us "Who are you here to see what number what's their name blah blah blah" and like... we were just there to knock on doors, so we kinda pretended we didn't speak Romanian and didn't understand her questions. She just walked away rolling her eyes and let us in haha. Then we went home and packed because we were flying to Bucuresti for exchanges! We took the bus to the airport around 5:30. Our plane left at 7. 

It's only a 45 minute flight AND YOU GET A FREE SANDWICH. Basically it's just take off, get your sandwich, and then land. Such a short flight.

 Then we caught a cab to the STL's apartment in Buc. They're so great :) Sora Falkenberg and Sora Stanley. 

JOI 19 IANUARIE (Thursday)
I did my exchange with Sora Stanley. So we got on the tram to go visit someone and Sora Stanley wasn't paying attention soooo we missed our stop and rode the whole route back to the station we started at. But she thought maybe we just took the wrong tram so we took a different one... nope. First tram was right. So after forever we finally got to the member's house over an hour late. But it was a ton of fun. Sora Stanley is great. Also, it's FREEZING in Buc right now. The snow is knee deep. I thought I was going to die. After the member visit, we went to a restaurant in Centru called Car' Cu Bere. It's traditional Romanian food and it's so good! You can get a traditional 4 course meal for only 23 lei (that's like 5 dollars). Super good. We language-studied in a bookstore and then our other lesson cancelled on us so we went block knocking! I really love block knocking. Even though we had zero success that day, it's always a good time. THEN WE ALMOST MISSED OUR FLIGHT HOME. It took us almost 40 minutes to get a cab. Normally it should take about 5. We got to our gate and 30 seconds later, it started boarding. Then it was just up, sandwich, down, and we took a bus home.

VINERI 20 IANUARIE (Friday)
We had soooo much stuff set up for Frida,y but everyone fell through. So in the morning we had district meeting. Elder Wagner asked us to bring three medium oranges and our blender. So we did and he made us smoothies. Props to Elder Wagner. But it was the most chaotic district meeting ever.  We ended up having to have a talking stick that we passed around so the elders wouldn't yell at each other. Elder Wagner compared it to the conch shell in Lord of the Flies, but they all killed each other in Lord of the Flies.... and we were pretty close to that too. So the ZLs are getting followed around this week by a journalism student. She's making a documentary about Mormon missionaries and she's coming to district meeting on Friday, so this coming week we're literally going to have a meeting on how to have a good meeting before we get filmed. Ha. Should be great. The District: Europe is coming at y'all... be prepared. Anyway, so after that disaster we did some stuff I don't really remember what but then we had GAMES NIGHT! We ended up playing spoons and Elder Cochran CHEATED AND IT WAS AWFUL.  No, but I should have won but he saw my cards and then grabbed MY SPOON AND THEN WE FOUGHT OVER IT AND MY FINGER BLED INTERNALLY.  Then we visited a member who is just super great. She was lecturing us on how important it is to always have a temple recommend even if you can't afford to go to the temple and that's awesome, especially in Romania. then we went home.

SAMBATA 21 IANUARIE (Saturday)
We taught English and after English the ZLs had a lesson with Rares--the guy we found at the mall. He's AWESOME. He is going to go far. Elder Cochran and I dueted on the piano and Sora Vann learned how to play chess. Then we had a lesson with Teo! It went really well. She's not reading the Book of Mormon right now and she said she's frustrated because she's not getting an answer when she prays about the church... and we were just like well Teo you have to read the book! It was just a good lesson. 

DUMINICA 22 IANUARIE (Sunday)
Church was good. I played the piano in relief society again. scaryyy. I almost had to play in sacrament meeting because our pianist wasn't there and Elder Wagner was late...but thankfully he showed up! Then after church we weekly planned and took an afternoon off because Sora Vann is sick right now and when she gets sick it triggers her asthma so she needed to take it easy. 

LUNI 23 IANUARIE (Monday)
WE GOT OUR NAILS DONE! The manicurist made both of our cuticles bleed. She was awful. But the color is pretty! Then grocery shopping, and now emailing. It's been a good day. We only had to run to catch a bus twice. 


Also this week I learned PROSTI! It is basically a Romanian mood/tense that's most commonly used for swearing.... however it's just a different arrangement of the grammar so you can turn any sentence into prosti. I promise I'm not swearing, but now I understand when people swear at me. It's great fun. I found frozen pate last week and it made me think of my mom. Pate is a big thing here. I've never eaten it though.

I started the Book of Mormon on January first and right now I'm on page 350. It was a new copy of just the soft bound English ones and I've been marking every time it talks about people being highly favored or blessed or strengthened by the Lord etc. and it's super cool. I'm reading about the sons of Helaman right now.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

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

WEEK 26

ONE MORE YEAR

It's been warmer this week. Friday it was 0 (celsius. so 32) so that was good.

MARTI 10 IANUARIE
So we went to go visit a member named Erika. She has a two year old daughter who's absolutely adorable! And she speaks Hungarian and Romanian. That's pretty common in Cluj since it's so close to the Hungarian border. I actually saw a street sign the other day that said Budapest was only 400 km away. Crazy. Anyway, so after that we went to KFC for lunch and heard this old lady speaking English with an American accent. So we asked her where she was from. She got kind of annoyed and then found out we were  Mormons and got even more annoyed. The guy she was eating lunch with was actually her English student and then he found out we taught free English classes and exchanged numbers. The old American lady was really unhappy. We stole her English student. Whoops. Then we had English class. It was a lot better here than in Bacau. I don't hate teaching English anymore! Then we stayed after for a little while Felicia (recent convert) cut the branch president's hair. It was interesting.

MIERCURI 11 IANUARIE
We went block knocking! We have these tablet things that hold three videos so we use them when we block knock and show videos to people. Well, mine died and Sora Vann didn't have her and we didn't have anything else except a Book of Mormon. So we were like, well, we could just offer people a free book. So we did, and this one lady let us teach her the whole restoration on her doorstep and she accepted a Book of Mormon. She wouldn't give us her number though. When we got home, my video flyer was at 100% battery. So obviously that lady really needed the Book of Mormon. Then we visited Sora Sumurducan. She's awesome and I really like her. 

JOI 12 IANUARIE
We went to the mall to do language study and ended up talking to a guy named Jonathan who went to Mormon church while he was in the US Military to get out of cleaning duties on Sundays. He approached us and said we were the first Mormons he'd seen in Romania. He's atheist but he also said if he had to pick a church, it would be the Mormons because we're the most interesting. So that was a cool conversation. Then he said he had an Irish friend who'd be interested in talking to the Mormons but then he started laughing and said "there's no way that guy would ever stop drinking. I mean, he's Irish!" and he just lost it laughing. He also told me that God won't let me die on my mission because duh, I'm a servant of God. So it was cool that an Atheist guy said that. Even though it was sarcastic. Then we got bunged three times in a row. But we met a cool guy named Rares! He approached us and tried to get us to sign up for a credit card but we ended up talking about English classes instead. He came to English on Saturday and then asked if our church was open to all people. We said of course! and invited him to come. AND HE CAME! He loved it and the elders are meeting with him this week and we're all really excited about him. He's going to be something special. Good day.

VINERI 13 IANUARIE
FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH! Another weird district meeting. Then games night with some investigators. We played some weird game of Elder Wagner's called Munchkin or something.  I don't remember much else from Friday.

SAMBATA 14 IANUARIE
English class! We got there early and ordered a pizza. It was great. Then English... and Rares came! but I already talked about that. After English, the branch president's son was getting baptized so we helped Sora Iepure (the branch president's wife) make sandwiches. She's pregnant and was really frazzled about the baptism, but it was so great. Then we came home and our landlord delivered a new dresser because the other one is super broken. So we had to rearrange furniture. Then we realized our panini grill was broken. Sad day.

DUMINICA 15 IANUARIE
Holy crap this was such a crazy day. So church was fine. But then after church we were supposed to go to a member's house for lunch with all the elders. But this member is a guy so we're not allowed to go over there alone. But the elders had to help the branch president with tithing after church. But our ride all the way out to  nowhere where the member lived was leaving after church. So we got there an hour early and then had to wander around in the cold IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE while we waited for the elders. But they took FOREVER. we were supposed to be there at 1:30 but didn't get there until 4 and I felt so bad. The elders picked us up at Profi and then drove us to his house with Sora Vann riding in the trunk. Except we got really lost. But the food was good and the member was really happy to have us there. He's just lonely. Also we played darts and Elder Paterson missed the dartboard but hit the wall. He's interesting. Then on the way home we were out of gas and it's a 45 minute drive. Literally the gas thing was beeping and the arrow was under the empty line. Elder Paterson has slight road rage. It was an interesting day. That lunch appointment took OUR ENTIRE DAY. 

LUNI 16 IANUARIE
So today is Sora Vann's halfway mark! And I officially have ONE YEAR LEFT on my mission! So we were going to celebrate by getting our nails done. But..... apparently we needed an appointment. We're gonna do it next week instead. Then lunch with a member named Alex and the elders. The elders talked Alex into going paint-balling with us in two weeks (if we hang out with the elders we need to have a member there so they really wanted her to come so we could come too) and then she also said she'd pay so in two weeks i'm going paint-balling. I'm gonna die. 

That was really the whole week! Love y'all!!

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

WEEK 25

"Don't be mad, but I'm communist..."

 I lost my camera charger in packing and just found it today so no pics this weeek!  I'll include some of my goodbye photos from Bacau.   Also I get to fly down to buc for exchanges next week! It's going to be SO MUCH FUN!

MARTI 3 IANUARIE

First we went to the post office so Sora Vann could send a package home. We had lunch with a potential investigator named Ligia who's our age and SUPER cute, but not really interested.  Then we went over to the branch president's house and met with his wife. She's pregnant and having a hard time and said our visit was exactly what she needed. Then we met with Sora Handebuti. She's about sixty, but is the sweetest old lady! Sora Vann and I stayed up kinda late just talking and even though it was killer in the morning, it was cool to get to know each other better. We have a lot in common and already I feel like she's one of my best friends.

MIERCURI 4 IANUARIE

We went BLOCK KNOCKING! An old lady invited us in, showed us her bible collection, and then kicked us out. We visited an investigator family. They've been investigating the church for ten years. We visited a member, but she was sick so we didn't stay long. Also it snows here every single day and it's SO COLD.

JOI 5 IANUARIE

We went to brunch with Carla, an inactive member who is from America. She's interesting. Then we went to a targ and saw a friend there. She agreed to take our lessons and read the Book of Mormon! She's SUPER cute. We language studied at a bookstore with weird but cool music. Then BLOCK KNOCKING! again. An old lady let us in. She fed us cooked orange peels and chocolate. It was fine. But the scariest thing we can be offered here in Romania is actually...... tap water. So we awkwardly just didn't drink it. Sora Vann really had to go to the bathroom after that so we went bathroom block knocking... and a family actually let her use their bathroom hahahah. 

VINERI 6 IANUARIE

We had district meeting! It was weird. Everyone has been telling me that our district (at least our elders) is the weirdest district in the mission. And they're right. SO WEIRD. But after district meeting we met with our neighbor Diana. She's not really interested in the church but she's really sweet. We had dinner with a member from Chisinau named Zu (he's Vietnamese) and his girlfriend Teo who's living in Cluj and is one of our investigators! And two of the elders were there too. 

SAMBATA 7 IANUARIE

We went through the area book and then cleaned the church, met with a less active member named Sora Sumurducan. She was so sweet. Then more block knocking. An old man answered the door and said (in Romanian) "Don't be mad. I'm communist. And atheist," and shut the door. It was SOOO FUNNY, and then after that we got into three houses and got three numbers. 

Dragos came to church & passed the sacrament before I left!

DUMINICA 8 IANUARIE

The new branch is HUGE compared to Bacau. There are like 30 people at church each week. I played piano for relief society. Only messed up once so shout out to my mom for those piano lessons ages ago. Then we went block knocking again and we got three numbers again. Okay let me tell you. BLOCK KNOCKING ALMOST NEVER IS SUCCESSFUL, but this week we were just on fire with it. 

LUNI 9 IANUARIE

So today we met with a former investigator named Andreea. She's interesting. She went to NYU law school but then decided after 18 years of practicing law that she wanted to be a hypnotherapist instead. Then we went to try this Mexican place in the mall. Disappointing. Then shopping! I got mittens and two fat warm scarves and a new dress so thank you to mom and dad and grandma and grandma and grandpa for the Christmas money--and anyone else who sent me Christmas money that my mom didn't tell me about. Then grocery shopping. Then emailing. 

HAPPY JANUARY.

Sora Lucy Gleason

România/Moldova Mission

July 2016-January 2018

WEEK 24

NEW YEAR NEW CITY NEW COMPANION NEW EVERYTHING

So I don't have hardly any time to write today. Sorry bout that. But I'm no longer in Bacau! I went from one of the smallest cities in the mission to the 2nd largest city in Romania. CLUJ! I'm with Sora Vann and I actually have elders in my district now! 
Big change. 
Last night (Sunday) around 3 pm I got on a train to Bucuresti and then when I got to Bucuresti. I got on an overnight train to Cluj with a sister going to Oradea and two elders headed to Cluj. We got here around 8 am. I slept basically none. It was really weird because we were in a sleeper compartment with two sisters and two elders and we just stayed up until 4am playing Dungeons and Dragons because no one could sleep and it was the weirdest experience of my life. 
The office basically arranged a sleepover with the elders and it was just weird. 
Weird weird weird. 
Other notable things of this week....... I don't really know to be honest nothing interesting has happened except that I'm in Cluj now. Fun fact, Cluj is the coldest city in Romania  and it's so foggy and snow is EVERYWHERE.
Happy New Year fam ✌✌✌✌😎

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