memorial

Hello dear family and friends,

How are you? Suffering from snow as well? Apparently with us being in the middle of another blizzard, this is the most snow Romania has gotten (country wide) since 1938. Lucky us. It is making some of the work a bit more difficult, but no worries, it will continue on.

There really isn't much to report on with Vatuta or Ion yet, they are both still sitting where we've been at for the past little while, and we are praying for a break through where some progression can occur. They are both progressing individually in their own ways through studying the words of God and praying and growing in their desire to act, but there are obstacles that we are still beating our heads against - soon they will hopefully be overcome with much prayer, fasting, and diligence.

Our week was focused mainly on the memorial that we had for Elder Davis and Elder Burrows on Thursday. It was a beautiful service. Elder Lyon called me - he's an Elder who served with Elder Davis in the MTC and he and I have performed many musical numbers together, including the one you have the tape of from the MTC, and we've performed since then in the field - and he asked me if I would accompany him on a song for the memorial. It was beautiful. Well, that could be a bit biased.

He told me that he wanted to sing an arrangement of "Be Still My Soul" that was done by the BYU Men's Chorus who changed the text and is called "I Love the Lord" and it is a beautiful text. But he didn't have the sheet music for it and asked if I could just play it by ear. Ummm....not really my forte, but ok. That ended up not working anyways. He told me the keys that it was in (for those of you who care and understand what I'm saying, the first vs. was one step below the original music in the hymnal, the second vs was a step below that, and then the third vs was in the regular key, so it went from E flat to D flat to F - yeah, none of those keys are related) So then he asked "could you just transpose the music like that and then make it pretty?"

I don't think he realized that what he was asking me was to write a completely new piece. So that's what I did. I had less than 24 hours before we left to go to Bucuresti, and I somehow needed to write this song. I tell you that I did it and it was only possible with the help of all the angels in the heavenly chorus. And they were present. They helped us in the writing, practicing, and performance of it, and it turned out really well. I was so blessed to be able to witness that miracle.

At the memorial we started with the hymn "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go" and wow, I have never thought of that song in such an eternal perspective before. President Lundberg spoke to us about the plan of salvation and the blessing we have as missionaries and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to share this great message with the world, and how we will do that mainly by living it. He also spoke about how the windows of heaven will be opened to us in this mission as never before. In the dedicatory prayer, Romania was blessed to be a beacon to all the nations, and how this event - however tragic - did that like nothing else could. People who didn't know where Romania was now know and those who before would never have listened or opened their doors are now opening them and eager to listen to our message.

Sora Lundberg talked about how the year 1989 would hold great things for Romania, for that is when the communist regime would fall and the revolution would open the doors to the restored gospel to this land. In January 1989 and in December of 1989, Elder Davis and Elder Burrows were born into families where they would be raised with the knowledge of that gospel so that they would one day play a major role in that knowledge being shared with the children of God in Romania.

Elder Kopieshka, our area president of the 70 over Europe came and talked about the love and plan of God, how everything is done for the benefit of His children, including the life, ministry and mission of His firstborn son who came to the world only to die so that we could all live again.

The closing song was a musical number "Consider the Lilies" with Sora Kimball on the piano and Sora Jones on the flute. It was also very beautiful.



Oh, and I forgot to tell you, that in the morning we all got together and for 3 hours before the memorial we went out as an entire mission and flooded the streets of Bucuresti to talk to people about the gospel. It was cool. They organized us into groups and had us go to different areas of the city to proselyte and to work in remembrance and honor of our friends.

Elder Barclay and Elder Worthlin were soap boxing and they were stopped by the police because apparently you need permission from a local priest to be able to proselyte like that - yeah, like we're ever going to get that permission haha. But after it was settled that they wouldn't do that anymore, Elder Worthlin wouldn't let the police officers leave until he testified to them about the plan of salvation and invited them to learn more. Neither of them were interested, but they sure left a lot faster after they got out of Elder Worthlin's grip. It was a great morning.

So now we are back in Constanta, enduring the snow and ridiculous winds.

This is a picture of me and my "mission sisters". We were all trained by the same wonderful trainer

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This is our MTC group, reunited at the memorial service.

Funny story, on our way out this morning to come to internet in order to write to you, we made it nicely out our apartment door, down to the main level entrance, we unlocked that and locked it up nicely, only to find that we were locked inside our courtyard because the gate wouldn't unlock.....so we called our landlord to see what he could do about it, he came, couldn't figure it out, left, and came back with a big hammer to break off the bolt lock that was on the gate a little down the way. It was pretty funny. But he also said that he'll fix the lock when it gets warmer. For one of many reasons, pray that it will get warmer and soon!

Well, I will leave you with a Romanian tongue twister: stii ca stiu si stiu ca stii si mai stiu ca stiuca-i peste. (prounounced: shtee cuh shteew she shteew cuh shtee she maee shteew cuh shteewcuhee peshtay) which means: you know that I know and I know that you know and I still know that pike is fish. Say that 5 times fast in Romanian - I can! haha.

Here I am standing in the middle of a frozen lake!

Well, I love you all so very much, I hope that you are safe and warm, and I am trying to do the same - don't worry, I am succeeding. Keep going forward in the love of the Lord, in the confidence that He is aware of us each individually and He truly is doing all that He can to ensure our joy and well being. May we each work side by side with Him in that same work - for the salvation of all His children- and have joy in the glory of our God. I love you again, and I'll talk to you next week!

Always --Sora Karina