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!