Blizzards, floods and dogs with pretzels

This is a sunset over the Black Sea.

Dear family and everyone else that is just simply amazing back at home, how are you? I'm doing great.

Transfers went relatively smoothly...sorry, no crazy stories to tell about insane taxi drivers or men that I need to chase down, it was actually rather calm...except for the fact that we had a 48 hr. blizzard here in Constanta, and so the bus drive took forever! We were supposed to leave at 8 in the morning, so we got to the station at 7:45...the bus didn't get there until 8:30 and then we didn't leave until 10.Then, instead of the normal 3 hours to get to Bucuresti, it took 4 1/2 hours. Wonderful. And it was so hot because they had the heater blasting, with no open windows and about 60 bodies that made the bus full to overflowing with almost not enough seats.

We get to Bucuresti and all was well. We saw some people that I hadn't seen in forever and they're doing good, which was really fun, and then I had to turn around and get back on the bus again to go home. - Again, it took forever and we didn't get into Constanta until 8 pm. Yuck. But now the three of us are settled in and working together.

The AP's never gave us a solution for her sleeping arrangements, so Sora Gibbons is just sleeping on the couch, but she says that she's quite comfortable and doesn't mind, so we'll probably keep it that way I guess. And as for making decisions, we just kinda go. One of us makes the decision and we make sure we're all in accord with that, and then we go. It works out pretty well I guess. So now we are dealing with the aftermath of the blizzard = snow and ice everywhere, and it is very difficult to walk without falling. However, I have succeeded pretty well considering that this past Friday is the first time I have fallen in a very long time. I'm fine, just had to ice my wrist that night and now it's all good. But man is this ice killing me! But not as much as the cold. It is currently -24C which is around -11F and that is without the wind that comes fresh off the Black Sea. Yeah, we're freezing, but alive and still doing good. The best part is that it's supposed to get colder and we're getting yet another cold front (supposedly) this week which probably means more snow in -14C weather. Joy.

But to be honest, it is a joy being here regardless how many layers and scarfs I need to wear in order to have motor ability outside of any heated building. I love being here and love being able to share with the Romanian people the things that mean the most to me, and helping them come to a knowledge of these precious truths for themselves.

Vatuta should have a date this week for her baptism. Satan is just trying so hard to keep her preoccupied so that she can't think about it, and we are fighting just as hard, so I know that we will eventually win. She however is doing great, and is loving the Book of Mormon more and more.

And Ion ...we are just trying to have the Spirit with us as much as we possibly can so that we can know how to help him get over his fears. Good news is that he finally admited to some of them, so now we at least have something sure to go with. This is good. But other than that, I don't know what we can do. His fears are understandable; I just don't know how to fight them. He knows that what we teach him is good, but he sees the suffering and opposition that he will face if he continues on this path and he's afraid that a celestial glory doesn't exist after this life, which is what makes everything we go through in this life worth it. And without that hope, how can you act on your faith? All I know is that God loves each of us so much that he has already prepared a place for us with him so that we can have this hope, and that we can have the strength to get through anything that life brings our way. He will never give us anything more than we can bear - even if sometimes it feels like we just can't go on anymore - Jesus Christ, through His sacrifice for us, understands exactly what we are going through, and He would not have done that if this is all there was. There exists a better world that we can receive after our faithfulness. After the trial we will receive the joy.

It also helps if you can laugh at the situation (not always a possibility, but nice when it's available) like this past week, we had a flood in our apartment. We live on the 3rd floor, but there is a balcony that at one point was covered with snow from the blizzard. It started to melt because of the heat of our house, and it did this in the dead of night and seeped through our tiling between the door to the balcony. This caused a small flood that we didn't notice until we woke up because "luckily" Sora Owen’s matress was there to act as a sponge/conduit for the water to spread to our carpet and to be held all in that one place. It was really fun cleaning that up in the morning, especially since we have one of the worst mops I've ever seen in my life. And our landlord was out of town, and so we just put towels up against the door (which are now frozen to the ground) and we'll just worry about it later. We definitely had a lot of laughs about that one, though.

Romanian phrase time! "The grass is greener on the other side" is actually supposed to be told in this way: "Alearga cainii cu covrigii incoada" or to translate the gibberish for all of you English speakers, “The dogs run back with the pretzels”. So, if you see dogs running with pretzels, then you know where the green grass is. Ha, ha! Anyways, I don't have much else to write, but I love you all so so very much, and I'll ttyl!

Love always, --Sora karina

Holy Cow!

Hello everyone! How are you? I’m doing great. This week held a lot of surprises for us, and I know that I'm not going to be able to fully express it all through the black and white type, but I hope you can at least get the feeling of it.

This week was good - a little slow, but it was still good. We did a lot of searching for things that didn't really work. For example, we were street boarding last week (where you stand on a corner of the street and talk to people about the Book of Mormon) and some cops came by and told us that we needed to get permission to be there. So myself and Sora Owen went to the Primarie, or the government building, to go and try to get permission.

Well they sent us to a smaller building who then sent us to a business foundation who then sent us back to the first building we went to with a specific office to ask for the permission, but then that office didn't really know what to do with us since we're a non-profit organization, and they decided that they don't need to give us permission, and sent us to a Priest for the Orthodox church to ask him......uh, yeah. We decided that if the government didn't need to give us permission, we were not going to go to a Priest in his church to ask him if we can stand on the street and talk to people about the Book of Mormon. I don't think that would have gone very well...so we just left it at that. But it was fun walking around the whole city, kinda, but it was a pretty day so that helped.

Also, we're re starting the English program in the middle of February, so we have started advertising which is just fun. It will be an interesting program of 9 weeks of teaching and then 3 weeks of advertising, and we have a spiritual thought plan which is going to be taken directly from Preach My Gospel. It looks like fun; we should be getting the program this week.

As for the missionary work, Daniel's mom ended up getting scared about his baptism and took him la tara on Wednesday and he isn't getting back until the day that he was scheduled to be baptized, so he's not getting baptized on the 23rd, but he still wants to be baptized, and I think that her heart will soften up to it in order for us to be able to set another date with him. Also, because of certain situations, we decided that the Elders will be the ones to continue to teach him and help him to reach the waters of baptism.

This situation really took me aback because he loves the things we teach him so much. So we were excited to go and teach him a lesson with Alin, our branch president here in Constanta who was a missionary in England, and is just an amazing help to us when he can come. So we go in and get ourselves settled, talk for a little bit, and then we said that we would start with a prayer. Daniel offered to say it (awesome) and he started praying. All of a sudden he said something which I thought that I had to have misheard, but Alin just busted up laughing in the prayer, apologized and told Daniel to keep going, which he did, and quickly finished the prayer. Alin just looked between me, Sora Owen and Daniel and couldn't even completely stutter out the question if we understood what he had said. Sora Owen didn't understand anything, and I was in denial that he had seriously just prayed to Heavenly Father that he would be able to marry me. I told Alin to tell Sora Owen what he said, because I couldn't repeat that, and Alin turned to Daniel and asked him bluntly what his motives were. Daniel said that he wanted to marry me and turned to me and said, "Can I?" Ummm, no. So then it turned into a discussion about how eventually I'm going to leave Romania – “Well, you could come back.” “No, I need to go home and finish school”. – “Well, you can do school here, and you can just talk to your parents through email and it will be ok, just stay here with me”. “No, I have to go home. That's life” . Sora Owen whispered to me to tell him that I have a boyfriend back home. I told him that I'll go home and probably marry someone over there – “But he's over there, and I'm right here, and I'm asking for your hand in marriage.” That is exactly what he said, and I'm not only horrified but also embarrassed that this is even happening, and I just had to look at him and tell him, "Daniel, I will not marry you." Thankfully, right then, Alin jumped in and saved me and started talking to him about how he knows that I will go home to America and eventually forget about him and that it should not be pressed.

Then he started asking Daniel what his opinion was about the church. This is where it became ok. He believes the Book of Mormon is true, he believes the church is true, he wants to get baptized because of that (not because of me, don't worry). . Alin said that it would be fine for him to be baptized if his mom would be in accord. She's not yet, but it will happen. And he'll get there, it will just take patience. Always with the patience. This is the same with Ion and Vatuta - Vatuta is still praying for her husband to be in accord with her decision to be baptized, and Ion is still not admitting that he knows these things are true. But he is still progressing and is reading more from the Book of Mormon, and is understanding more the need for baptism. I really do think that he will be baptized this transfer, and I am so grateful that I will be here to see that.

This is where I tell you the new transfer situation, which is also really crazy. I'm staying here in Constanta (the first time that I'm staying in an area for more than 2 transfers) and I'm staying with Sora Owen, but we're also having an addition which is that Sora Gibbons is also going to be in our companionship. This is going to be really interesting, but I also think it will be fun.

Sora Gibbons is Sora Owens trainer, and one of my mission sisters. I will now have served with all 3 of my sisters (missionaries who were trained by the same trainer as me) which is super cool. The problem is that we only have 2 beds, and I don't know how we're really going to accommodate a 3rd sister in our apartment, but we'll figure it out somehow. Wow.

But I am so excited that I received the tender mercy from the Lord to be able to continue working with Ion, Vatuta, and all the other amazing people that are here that are so close to being able to come unto Christ in the way that He has shown is necessary. And this gospel is amazing, it truly changes people's lives. Example: the Elders met this guy names Stan. When they met Stan, he was an atheist and didn't believe anything about God. But they got to talking and he agreed to meet with them to see what their opinion was. So they've been meeting for about 2 weeks. He said it was weird praying to see if there was a God - imagine praying to something you don't believe exists, and yes, that would be weird, but he kept trying even though he felt like he was talking to himself, and he decided to experiment on the things that the Elders told him. A few days ago, he called the Elders and told them that he had conducted an experiment, and he knows that everything that they're saying is true, and that there really is a God, and he would explain it all when he came to church.

Apparently he has a problem with his short term memory - it's kinda like a weird amnesia thing where sometimes all of a sudden he'll just forget. Like he'll be on his way to school, and then he'll get off the bus and suddenly doesn't remember how to get to the school. It just leaves his mind. So his experiment was that when things like this happen he prays "God help me" and tries to continue doing whatever it is that he needs to do, and every time he has done this, he has been guided by the Spirit to find different ways to the school or wherever than he normally goes. So he knows that it's not him just remembering, and he recognizes that same feeling when he reads the Book of Mormon or comes to church. So cool. Stan is no longer an atheist. He wants to get baptized, but is now tackling the stop smoking program in order to get baptized. But don't worry, he'll be baptized this transfer.

The Lord loves us so much, and God does help us and answers our prayers. There are too many proofs of that to disbelieve, and I don't even want to disbelieve because aren't you just so much happier when you have faith in something? This joy is not just a fake comfort of something that doesn't exist, it is the joy that comes from learning and understanding truth. It is the joy that our Father in Heaven desires us all to have in this life and in the life to come, and He invites us to come unto Him through prayer, faith, and baptism from someone who holds the authority of God so that we can truly come into His arms again someday. It will be wonderful.

As for other random news, I bought a caciula! I was so excited. A caciula is one of those Russian furry hats, and they use them all the time here in the winter, and I have been wanting one, but I couldn't find one that was less than 300 RON until this past week, I found one for 30 RON which with 3 RON to the dollar (on avg.) it was a great deal. I was excited. And I'm getting in my good use of it while it's freezing again. It's funny because you feel slightly ridiculous wearing it, but at the same time you don't care because everyone around you is wearing them and you're warm. So it works.




Me in my caciula during a blizzard.

And the phrase to learn today is how to say "tattle-tale" which is "cineva cara baga limba in urechea" which laterally translates to "someone who places the tongue in the ear" isn't that a lovely visual? But I thought it was hilarious.

I really don't know what else to say right now, but I am glad to hear that all is going well at home. Jenna, I am so happy that some of your friends came! So cool - keep it up, and Shaley, just keep having fun. Tamara, I'm glad that you're enjoying the piano again, tell Brother Larsen that I say hi, but don't forget to keep doing good with the violin, too. It's good to keep an equal balance of both.

I'm so happy that the Stotts came to church again! That is so awesome, and that in general all is well. How is Brother Kemp's health doing, and how was Brother Brown's birthday? I love all of you so very much, and I hope that you have an amazing week! I do not doubt that we all will - with the love of the Lord in our lives, it's hard to not have joy and goodness in all that we do.

Love you! Always, --Sora Karina

La Tara

Hello family and everyone that I love!

How are you? I'm doing just wonderful. This week was really good, full of hard work, but the Lord truly showered us with blessings this week. It was amazing. I'll just start at the top.

So for one of the many miracles this week, we have a baptismal date. We were teaching Daniel about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how each part is important for our salvation. When we got to baptism, we explained that it is necessary for baptism to be our choice, and that the reason baptism is a choice is because we make a promise with God about how we will live our life, and then it is sealed by the authority of God on earth (by the power of the Priesthood) so that we can again enter into His presence after this life is completed.

Then we asked him if he would follow Christ’s example and be baptized, and he said "Yes. When?" "January 23?" "Ok, who will do it for me? What will it be like? Where will it be?...." and so on. He's so excited to be baptized, and when his mom came in from the other room to give us drinks, he said "Mom, I'm going to be baptized on the 23 of January!" with the biggest smile on his face. She told him not to rush himself and how can you be baptized for the second time, and the priest would never approve, and so on. But he held his ground and told her all the things we had just told him about baptism and how he needs to follow what the messengers of God tell him to do so that he can arrive in heaven safely. It was a great night. I think she's not too happy about it, but she loves us, is curious about what we have to say, and I think it will be fine.

The funny thing about the both of them (Daniel and his mom Ioana) is that they both think Sora Owen and I are sooooooo beautiful. Really it's just the spirit and light of the gospel that they see, but they can't stop talking about it, and it is so funny. Every time we walk into their house, Ioana says, "Oh, here are those beautiful girls again. How are you beautiful girls?" And then if they have company over (which is often), they introduce us and then say to the guests, "Aren't these girls just beautiful?" The other day was the funniest when someone called them on the phone at the beginning of our lesson. This is the side of the conversation that we heard: "Hello? Yes, how are you? Well, I'm here right now with two beautiful girls. We're talking about God. Yes, about God. They’re from the Church of Jesus Christ. No, the church of Jesus Christ. No, the Mormons are the Church of Jesus Christ, and I'm with two of their American girls, the beautiful ones." By this time, I'm telling them to just leave it alone (las-o!) and to stop talking (taci din gura) because we're really not THAT pretty, we just have the truth. They just smile and keep going. Sora Owen was doubled over with laughter. It was funny.

On to other people, Vatuta wants to be baptized, but her husband doesn't like it, and she can't get baptized until her husband is in accord. It's so hard. But she had a cool experience. She was praying to know if the Book of Mormon is true and if she needed to get baptized, and she had a vision. (This actually happens a lot with Romanians. I swear that as a people they just have a gift for visions. They have the faith for it because people here have visions all the time) So, she had a vision that her mother in law came to her.

Vatuta said that her mother in law died somewhat recently, and that before she died, she didn't like girls. She liked Vatuta, but had a hard time showing her that she loved her or approved of her. However, they’d had a decently good relationship. Also, since she's passed on, Vatuta has had a few visions or dreams of her, and she was never happy in any of them. But in this vision during her prayer, she came to her smiling and gave her a huge hug. That had never before happened in life, or since her death, and Vatuta was quite amazed by it. I told her that that could happen during their reunion after this life. Vatuta looked at me with hope and said "So that's when she'll hug me? " and I said "In this church we have the blessing of doing the work of salvation for those that have passed on, and after you are baptized in this church, you can be sealed to her and to the rest of your family for eternity. Why wouldn't she be happy that you found this, and why wouldn't she hug you?" Vatuta really liked that thought and said she would get baptized as soon as she can. She knows that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but is now trying to get an answer to know if Thomas Monson is the living prophet today. She's reading the Liahona General Conference edition and is loving it so far. She's awesome.

Ion is doing a lot better. He is still being stubborn and difficult, but he has something in his head, and I hope I'm right in what it is. Two lessons ago, we didn't bring up baptism (for once in like 3 weeks), so he brought it up. It was in a slightly negative context, but he was the one that thought of it. So then this past lesson we taught him about John the Baptist, because of the holiday that just passed. (In the Orthodox church it's called "Bo Boteaza" which is supposed to be the holiday when Jesus Christ was baptized, and a priest goes around to all the houses and asks if you want your house to be blessed. He goes through and blesses your house and then gives you the "holy water" that is supposed to help you have luck throughout the year). Well, this made Ion think "Why is John the Baptist so important?"

So we taught him about his life, ministry, how he prepared the way for the Savior, and how he came to earth again as a resurrected being to restore the Priesthood authority to Joseph Smith. This got us on the topic of the Priesthood and why it's necessary, and Ion put two and two together: “So, John's priesthood allows us to get baptized the way that God wants, and Jesus' priesthood gives us the Holy Ghost, and they complete each other.” “Yes, yes they do”. It was fun to watch him make connections.

I noticed that he's starting to use a highlighter as he reads the Book of Mormon and the Liahona, and he's starting to like it more and isn't arguing as much as he is wanting to know more. This just goes to show that as you repent of your sins and open your heart to the desire to be close to your heavenly Father, you will feel His Spirit in your life more, and your heart will change. Hearts do change. We're going to ask Ion AGAIN this week if he'll get baptized. We'll see if this change of heart has gone deep enough, but it's exciting regardless.

Funny story about him, though. We were talking about the 10 commandments a little bit ago, and one of the commandments is to not commit adultery. The way it is said in Romanian is: "preacurvesti". This comes from the word "curve" which is the word for harlot or prostitute, and then they just made it into a verb with the prefix of "prea" (which when standing alone means "too".) It's usually put like this "prea mult" which means too much. So now that you understand some of this, we were talking with Ion about the commandment and related it back to the law of chastity, or the importance of being faithful to our spouse and not having inappropriate relationships outside of marriage, and Ion said "I don't think that's right, it says not to preacurvesti, which means you can curvesti just not prea mult "(you can commit adultery, just not too much). I just looked at him and said, "ION!" and he started laughing. He was only making fun, and he loves playing on words, which is really fun when we don't understand anything. I honestly leave every lesson with a page full of new vocabulary. But it was funny when I realized that he was just joking.

Andrei is someone who doesn't joke, and still has ridiculous ideas. We're not meeting with him much anymore, but I have to tell you this story. He is a vegetarian, and the only Romanian I've met who doesn't eat meat. Romanians love their meat. So one time he was talking about repentance, and how it's a sin to eat meat because you take the life of a living being that was created by God. Because of this, we need to be made clean after each time that we eat meat. We do this by washing our dishes. (I didn't know that basic cleanliness was also a way to repent, but ok.) He went on to explain that because the dish is dirty, (not only dirty physically, but dirty spiritually because it allowed us to eat a creation of God on it) that as we wash the plate, we clean our sin (and the plate's sin) physically, Then as it dries over night, it becomes whole again through the grace of God. So the spiritual side of us (and the plate) is healed. Sora Owen and I were trying so hard in that lesson to not just burst out laughing. It was pretty ridiculous!

Ok, I know that this letter is already ridiculously long, but I wanted to tell you a bit more about Romania.

Romania has this thing called "la tara" said lah tsahrah which means "the country side". That's really not a good definition. You have the big cities with blocs and paved roads and stuff, and then you have la tara, which is a more rural area with a bunch of little houses, dirt roads, wild turkeys, and the"old fashioned" way of living. It's where a lot of people from the city go for a weekend out of town. And a lot of people still live there. Usually you have family households that grew up la tara and the parents still live there when the children move away. Then that's where the family gathers to be together.

So we have some members of this branch that lives la tara, and sometimes we as missionaries go out there to help them and do some service. It's only about 30 minutes outside of Constanta. We just take a maxi taxi ( like a van service type thing) out there. So we go and the Elders chop wood, I collect the wood and stack it up wherever Fratele Vitel (Brother Vitel)tells me to, and my companion grinds corn into cornmeal. Fratele Vitel and Sora Vitel compliment us (the sisters) for the good job we're doing, while they tell the Elders that they're weak and aren't doing good. It's funny because Fr. Vitel is so buff and can chop wood like you wouldn't believe when he's in his late 70's. He out chops both of the Elders combined. The Elders do pretty good, though.

When we have finished our work, Fr. Vitel has us go inside so that he can chop off the head of a chicken and feed it to us......"ce sa fac, asa e viata la tara" (What to do, this is how life is la tara) Fr. Vitel says that to us ALL the time. It's funny.





So here is Sora Kiriyama and Sora Vitel grinding corn into corn meal with a haystack in the back, it had rained the night previous, so it was really muddy.

This is me standing in front of "la tara". Yes, it's only one street, and the street is only 10 houses deep or something. But the next section of la tara is about a 20-30 min drive away. That's how it goes.

I won with how dirty we got!

This is me carrying the wood.

This is how much wood we chopped and carried in the 2 1/2 hours that we were there. It was fun though.

So, I guess I'll end this with another saying: “Dumnezeau iti da, dar nu iti da in traista" which means, “God will give to you, but He won't put it in your purse”. So true.

I know that God loves us and wants us to be happy. He is just waiting to bless us, and to forgive us and help us, but He will never take away our choice to allow these things happen. Also, He will never take away the opposition that helps us to learn to become more like Him. These things will be for our good, especially if we apply the principles of the Gospel during those times. He will bless us and help us rise to the occasion. He has called us to shine, and shine we will. I know that this is true and that nothing is impossible with the Lord on our side.

I love you all so so very much, and I'll have much more to tell you next week! Keep smiling and doing well in the work of the Lord in your daily journey.

Love always, --Sora Karina

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER BROWN! I wish I could do more than that for you, but I'm kinda far away. However, next year I'll be able to say it in person. I hope that you have a great day remembering the blessings of the Lord and the great times that have come, gone, and will surely keep coming! I miss you and hope that you are well. Have a great one!

La Multi Ani (Happy New Year)!

Hello everyone, and la multi ani! (or happy new year! Their way of saying happy birthday is the same as happy new year, but it works!) Ii am doing great.


This past week was really fun and we got a lot of work done. We still don't have any baptism dates, and it's starting to frustrate me, if i don't lie about it. But we have 2 investigators that are praying about baptism (Vatuta and Daniel). So hopefully that will be set in stone this week. I just wish that people would understand how much easier and happier it would be if they would accept sooner rather than later.


Vatuta is amazing and wants to get baptized, she just doesn't think that she is prepared, even though she is so ready, and she will be baptized. She's praying for the 16th. And Daniel is amazing. We met him on the bus a few days ago, and he was really excited to come and see how church was. We had a lesson with him on Saturday and he told us a story about how he got hit by a car when he was 15 years old, and was in a coma for 3 or 4 months. While in his coma he had a vision that he was on the road to heaven. On his way an angel of the lord came and told him it wasn't his time yet, but that one day he would arrive there in safety as long as he kept the commandments of God and listened to the council of His servants on the earth. It was cool. So after he woke up, he quit smoking, and he has read the Bible 3 times, and tries to read any religious book he can get his hands on. He was excited to get the Book of Mormon, and he said he'll get baptized when he finds out it's true. Actually, he said yes, then asked where the baptism will be, and who can baptise him. It was a fun lesson.


We think that Ion believes the things we are teaching him, but he is scared about something. After last weeks reasons, this week he only gave us excuses. I just don't know how to find out what he's scared of so that we can help him. But the lord is in this work, because it's His work, so He will help us. Thank you for your prayers in his behalf...I know that he wants what we have, he's just the most stubborn person on the face of the planet. I know the Holy Ghost has the power to soften hearts and heal souls, so we are praying for him to feel the Spirit so as to have a stronger desire to be baptized.


Other than that, this week was busy and went really well, especially considering the business of new year's and how many people were annoyed that we wanted to talk to them before the holiday. But we still got some good work done, and now have even more possibilities for the new year. I'm excited.


So you heard about the "bear dance?" It's really funny, because they don't really look like bears. Elder Harley calls them the muppets from hell because they are like colored paper mache creatures, (they are costumes people wear that are supposed to resemble bears). They come and they dance around, and yes, it is good luck if you allow one to dance in your house or in your courtyard.


For New Year's eve, we got together with some of the members and danced and waited, and ate lots of food, and then when it was almost midnight we went outside where there were tons of fireworks going off, counted down, and then you go to each person and instead of toasting with your glass of whatever drink, you kiss each other on the cheek and wish them blessings for the new year, like health, luck, success, the lord to be with them, and all good things. ( these are litteral translations for the blessings of sanatate, noroc, succes, Domnul sa fie cu voi, si toate cele bune) It was fun.


We left, but the members stayed, and stayed, and fell asleep. They were there sleeping until 11ish am, and then at 12:30 they were still there, and invited us to eat with them. It was hilarious. Some of the members left earlier than that - like 6 am. Here in Romania the actual day of new years is bigger than the eve of it. So they celebrate as long as they can. And lots of people get drunk, apparently leading up to new year.


Two days before the new year, Sora Owen and I wanted to buy some flowers for someone that we were going to be visiting, and there was a drunk man at the stand who asked if we would buy his flowers, and we said no, and he said, "oh, it's ok, i'm just joking." But then he saw my name tag and he said "oh, you're with the church? here, let me buy your flowers..." and despite us saying he didn't have to, he wouldn't let us refuse and so he bought our flowers for us and just praised us for being with the church. We left as fast as we could to get to the bus stop, where there happened to be another drunk man who came up to us, and asked us if we were Romanian. We said no, and in English he started proclaiming his love to us "I love you, I love you , I love you...Do you understand when I say that I love you?..." and so on. Unfortunately we understood. Well, it started getting rediculous, and a woman near by came up and started talking to us...she works at a little store near by where we buy our bread, and we talked to her for a little about how her Christmas went and so on, until she finally said, " I just thought that you needed someone to save you from that man, and I thought I was perfect for the job." Right she was.... All the while the drunk man was hovering over her back, still wanting to talk to us but not being able to interrupt... Then the bus came and he got on it. (We wanted a different one, thankfully.) He looked back and one last time said "I love you, English!" before the doors closed and he drove away. It was so funny. We had fun.


Oh, and with the fireworks, they were right above the blocs and right outside houses and everything. One of the Elders made the connection that " It was a good thing that everything is made out of cement here, because otherwise they would all be going up in flame..." which is so true. Some people were even lighting the fireworks off of the actual roof of their bloc...so illegal, but it made a great show for us!


Anyways, I wish that i had more time to tell you more stories, but I don't, so I'll just have to tell you more next week. A quick vorba (saying) is this ;" nu e o mare branza" which you say in our terms, "it's not a big deal", but literally it translates into "it's no big cheese". I love using that one! It's hillarious, and it works. People actually don't think it's weird even though it sounds so funny in my brain.


But anyways, I love you all so so very much, and I can't wait until I can rejoice with you when the people we are teaching decide to come unto the lord through baptism by someone who holds the restored priesthood authority of God. There is no greater joy than giving yourself unto the lord in His work. It truly is amazing. (And at church we had 25 Romanians!!! That is close to a record. I'm sure it's 2nd place since I've been here with everywhere that I've served. And 7 of those were investigators between the Elders and us. ) Yes, it is a great blessing to see people choose to change their lives for their Savior. I love it, and I love you!


Have a great week! Love always, --Sora Karina