The greatest cause

Dear family, friends, and all of you whom I love,

Hey! How are you? I'm doing pretty great. I'll start the email off with the sad stuff so that I can end on the better end, but for those of you who haven't heard, two of the greatest missionaries that ever lived or that were a part of this great work passed away this past weekend. Elder Davis and Elder Burrows were serving in Timisoara and had a gas leak in their apartment when they were away for Zone Conference. When they came back they didn't notice the difference because the apartment was already filled with the CO2, and you can read the rest of the report from the news. You can find it on the internet in Deseret News if you're looking, along with Sora Lundberg's blog if you want to read that.

But we are all really feeling the loss of those two amazing Elders. They were good friends to all they served with, and always had their shoulder to the wheel with their whole heart into the work of the Lord. I will miss them both. We don't always understand, but we have faith that this truly is the Lord's work, and somehow all of this works together for our good and the good of the Kingdom of God. I know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is a tangible thing, and that it is personal - He reaches out to each and every one of our hearts when we suffer, and He will not hesitate to succor us now.

The families, from what I hear, are doing well and are living in the faith that they will once again be reunited with their sons at the day of joy. I know that their faith will be rewarded. I want to tell you that the Lord never asks more of us than we are capable of doing, and He never asks us expecting us to do it alone. He is always there eager to help us, push us, comfort us, encourage us, guide us, and rejoice with us when we succeed. He also sorrows with us when we sorrow.

This is the essence of the Atonement of Jesus Christ - that God sent His only Begotten Son to suffer and die in His work knowing that it would be hard, but that it would be worth it for all of us to be able to return to Him in joy and safety. But not only that, also the worth is found in the availability of the love and understanding that readily comes from the One who suffered exactly what we suffer, and He did this so that he could know how to comfort us and heal us in our afflictions. I have felt this cleansing and healing love engulf me many times, and especially in these past few days. Nothing will ever be able to describe the feelings, or the hurt, but neither will words ever be able to describe the hope and joy and relief that comes, and will always come, from the Spirit that conveys to us the ever-presence of our Savior and Redeemer, our Lord and our God.

On their own time-table and according to our individual faith, two things will always come: comfort and compensation. I know that God lives and that through Christ all men who will believe will be made alive, never again to die. How grateful I am for the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ that gives us the ability to understand more fully the perfect plan of our loving Heavenly Father. We will continue to go on in so great a cause. It is the only cause that is worth the suffering, hardships, and work/effort. And I wouldn't want to be doing anything different.

But now I will tell you a little about how the work is going. Ion is doing better - willing to believe, just scared to do so, and we are SO close to getting a date with Vatuta. At church, President Alin (the branch president) came up to her and said "so, I hear that you're getting baptized?" and she said "Yes, but I don't know when yet, because my husband just won't listen." But she's trying really hard, and I know that the Lord will bless her and help her husband understand. Hopefully this next week that news will be available to give.

Lately it's been extremely cold; cold enough that the lake froze over. Yes, the lake, not the Black Sea, although I have seen pictures of that happening about 4 years ago. But now there are ice chunks in the sea. The lake is frozen over, so we went and stood on it, and Sora Owen made a snow angel on it - it was fun.

It is starting to warm up today though - it rained all day yesterday which means the snow is melting and becoming huge ice patches. This is slightly annoying. My back has been bugging me a little because of it, but it is fine.

Funny story time: we were at Ion's house, and he was showing us something on the computer, and after he needed to close out of the screen and went to hit the "escape button" but instead of saying "escape" he said "esc" which made me and my companions laugh. He said "what, what's so funny" and we said "Oh, nothing, you just said esc. We usually say escape, but from now on, I think I will say esc when I need to hit that button." we had a good chuckle over that one.

The other one was that we were block knocking and I went to knock on the door cuz the door bell didn't work, and I tapped on it once and the door started opening cuz it wasn't latched shut very well. So I grabbed the door handle to pull it shut, but it didn't and started opening again, so I pulled it shut again, harder that time, but it still didn't work. By the time I went to pull it shut the third time, there was resistance because the owner of the door was behind it pulling it open to see what was going on. I apologized, saying "sorry, I tried to knock on the door and it opened, but anyways we're here because we know that we have a living prophet on the earth," and he just looked at me funny and slowly closed the door and locked it so it wouldn't open again. My companions gave me a hard time for "breaking in" and said I should have just finished it by entering. Ha! I laughed.

Oh, and one story that I forgot to tell you about transfers. We were on our way back from Bucuresti to Constanta on the bus, and we were just talking and talking like we do for 3 hours until we had the pit stop that they take about 45km. outside of the town. So we got off and relaxed, breathed the freezing air and got back on the bus. The driver came back to count everyone, and then just to check asked, "are we missing anyone? cuz we wouldn't want to leave anyone" and someone responded "meh, it doesn't matter, there should be another bus coming this way in a few hours" and we all laughed (remember this is all in Romanian) and so someone else added "yes, and if you're going to leave anyone, leave the English people" and I laughed and responded to him in Romanian "sure, you can leave us if you want to" Which made him get way taken aback because we understood and spoke Romanian - guess he wasn't counting on that one, and the whole back of the bus just started roaring with laughter as he tried to save himself by saying "oh, well you understand Romanian, so that's ok, most don't. But you're just sitting there going 'takakakakakakakakakakakakak' " and I said "well, we like to talk what can we say" and the man sitting next to the one who wanted to leave us said "ai voie" which means "yes, you're allowed to talk" and we were just cracking up. Good times.

As for everything else, how are you? I hope that all is well back home and that you are having fun in all of your endeavors. Don't worry about me - we are safe and working hard.

Mom, we have a CO2 detector in our apartment and though we'll probably be checking it more frequently, all is well and safe. The Lord has called us to this work, and He will help us accomplish it, regardless the challenges that we face. I love you all so so very much. Have a great week! And please keep the families of Davis, Burrows, and Lundberg in your prayers. Thanks! Always, --Sora Karina