la bomba and a soapbox

Hey! How are you all doing? I'm doing amazing. This week was just great. where to start?


The 1st of December was a Romanian holiday where we celebrated Romania being united as a country, and we had a branch activity that was sooooo much fun. The branch president read some of the dedicatory prayer that was given when the mission was opened, to show what the Lord thinks about the greatness of Romania. It was neat. Then we ate a bunch of traditional food that was delicious, and then we had a dance party, Romanian style. You know on the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" how they all hold hands and dance in circles? Well, they actually do that here, and it's really fun. I know it doesn't look like fun, but when you join in, it is a lot of fun. And they have different types of dance steps depending on the type of song, and yeah...it was great. It included the "Numa numa" song which is in Romanian. Amazingly, I can understand all the words now, which is interesting. It's a love song (go figure) and it is a really fun song to dance to.


Another side note, apparantly the Romanians love the "la bamba" song and know all the words when all that I know is "la la la la la la bamba" and it's funny.


Funny story: Sora Kiriyama and I were knocking vilas and this girl about 10 or 11 years old came up to us and asked me if Sora Kiriyama was my daughter....uh, no? First of all, she's a year older than me, and she doesn't look that young. Second, she's Japanese, and yeah. But in discussing how she could think that, we decided that it's in the eyes...plus, they put last names first in this country, and we both have the word "Sora" on our tags like a family name, and both of our names are spelled with a K which letter doesn't really exist in their alphabet unless it's a borrowed word. We were laughing really hard. The thing is though, is that this is the second time in my mission that I've been asked if my companion was my child...the other time was when I was with Sora Jones in Brasov. I don't think I look that old, but whatever. We laughed.


Cool culture thing, yesterday (Sunday) was ziua mosului nicolai, or the day of father nicholas who is a saint in the Orthodox church. It's the day where they shine their shoes the night before and leave them out by the door, and then St. Nick comes and puts candy and goodies in their shoes. He's not the same as Santa, but is like a prequil to him.


Ok, now for the cool stories about missionary work. We found some investigators! I was really excited, and it was cool how, too. We decided we (Elder Harley and I) wanted to go soapboxing. So we went as a district to centru (downtown) with a stool and a box of Books of Mormon. But we really didn't know how to start it up, so we tried street boarding style for a little bit,(where you just stop people walking by to talk to them) but that wasn't really doing anything. So I finally decided that you just had to get up and do it, so I did. I got up on the stool and just started testifying to the people who were walking past and trying to not listen to me, but you know that I have a loud voice, so they couldn't help it. There was even a guy that was riding on his bike that passed, came back, and started taking pictures of me on the stool projecting my voice for all to hear about a book. It was really fun, and there were some people that stopped to talk to the missionaries who weren't up on the stool bearing their heart out.


One of the girls that stopped set up with us, and we had a lesson with her. She is a really cool girl, and in our lesson mentioned that her brother might be interested in our message, too. So the next lesson she brought him along, and we taught them the plan of salvation, and they took it really well considering they both believe completely in reincarnation. They will be la tara for Christmas, but they live near the vila during school and said that they will be coming to church in January when they return, and I am really excited to continue working with them. But soap boxing was a really fun experience to just use the Book of Mormon as a tangible tool to proclaim to the world that we have a mesage of truth. I loved it.


Other than that, this week was just filled with work, and everything is going well. Ion is doing ok...he's thinking about baptism, but he has some concerns that will only be resolved through his faith, so we are praying that his faith will continue to grow, and that he will have the courage to do what is right and what he knows to be true.


And today we got the transfer board...and I'm staying here in Constanta and I'm getting Sora Owen as a companion. She was trained by Sora Gibbons who is one of my sisters in the mission, and she's going into her 3rd transfer...and I'm going into my 7th! Crazy stuff. But it's good...I'm excited for this transfer. It should be fun! Well, I can't really think of what else to write to you, but I love you all so so very much, and I hope that you're having fun getting ready for Christmas...It's so close! We're listening to Christmas songs and the city is putting up lights and decorations...and they really don't know how to decorate a Christmas tree here...they try, but at the mall it just looks like a mess. But they try, and it's Christmas, so ok.


But have a great time, smile lots, and I love you! --Always, Sora Karinaps. I can't believe that Christmas is in just 2 weeks-ish! nuts. Also can't believe that Elder Pardus gets home next week. That is crazy. But I love you so so very much, and I hope that you have a great week!