Heart Sora Long: Zilele Aradului August 21, 2015

This week has been so cool:) There is really nothing new here really cause I just e-mailed you all on Wednesday. But this week is Zilele Aradului, the days of Arad:) There is a huge Turg here, or in other words an awesome street.

This one dude is selling Mammoth Ivory pendants and man they are SOOOOO cool!!!! Wish that was legal to bring into the states, oh well!

We were able to have a lesson with Cati and Rafael this last week and we were going to extend a baptismal date, but she said she would never be baptized that she knew that the LDS church was the true church of Christ but that she could not be baptized more than twice as she was orthodox, then she was Pentecostal. We explained more clearly the necessity of authority and the importance of the gift of choice we explained that we were there to help her come to her answer of what church has that authority. Then Rafael said, "So what you are saying is that our baptisms are not vaild."

"Yes," I replied, "That is why you need to find out for yourselves if this true really is the truth you have felt it to be true, read this book and pray and you will come to know it is true." It was really powerful. We are going to be working with them really closely and taking Maria the member over more often to really get them to learn the gospel. They are not reading the Book of Mormon but we discussed the importance of that.

Now this week:

So we had one of the most crazy days this past week!!! I mean it was nuts. First off we headed out to a less actives home. She was not able to come to church much due to her health but she loves our visits and this summer her granddaughter was there at the house from Bcau and she also wanted to hear about the gospel. We have worked to teach this little 12 year old girl to pray and to understand her purpose on this earth and it was the last lesson we were able to have with her because she left for her little hom town where missionaries would not be allowed to visit her because of her mother. It was really sad to say goodbye to Miriem but we know we helped prepare her for those important adolecent years and we are hoping that next summer she will make another visit up to Arad and continue the lessons.

Sora Gherhdart and Miriem

After saying our goodbyes we headed to a members home, Sora Lidia who is leaving to America this week. It was our goodbye to her as well!! She made us Ciorba (Some soup) and some crepes and we started to teach her the lesson we had prepared when her sister and mother who are not members made a surprise visit. There was a point when we were left in the living room with the old Romanian Baba (grandma). She leaned over to me and asked, "Are you from the church?" "Yes," I replied. "I do not understand it."

Later that night we went to teach a lesson to an old student of ours Vera. She had invited us over to her home to thank us for the classes and we were excited to teach her a lesson. When we had asked her about her family before she said she had three children. When we were waiting to meet her she showed up in a car. There was one moment when we were waiting for Vera in the car. We asked the other woman Marcela how she knew Vera and she replied, "I don't I met her two days ago." She was just doing a quick favor for Vera by giving us a ride! We showed up to Vera's home and were shuffled into a back room 10x10 cement. We sat there and got to know Marecela and in comes two old women. One with the deepest crinkles on her face, she would smile and only show 3 teeth. The other was an angry looking old woman who sat in the corner. Marcela had to leave but she really wants to meet with us this week as well as with her family so that was exciting. But the adventure continues. Vera asked us a question, "Why do you not worship the Sabbath on Saturday?" And she would not listen to any of our explanations let alone accept any of them. A blind man came into the room who introduced himself as Mihai. We taught the restoration and Mihai was completely captivated listening to every word. Vera came in and gave us some scarey Ciorba! I mean, for real it was pretty scketchy. I walked out of the room later to notice in the back that it was a little wood stove in the yard surrounded by hords of trash and things. I am sure that Vera collects these things so that she can give them away to the needy as she is the most Christ like person I know. She also gave us figs to eat, and they were the number one weirdest thing I have ever eaten

Here is a picture of Vera and her family from the right: Vera with a yoghurt pail of ciorba, Juliana who was found homeless on the street and Vera took her home. Mihai, a blind man who was taken into the Mama Vera clan and finally Viorica who was living in a hospital for 4 weeks, none of her family (two sons) cames to visit her and Vera came into the Hospital to play some accordian music and little Viorica with her recently obtain handicaps went to her sobing and begged her to take her from the hospital. And Mama Vera did just that. These are Vera's three children.

The most depressing part of our week however was when we discovered that our investigator Rafael has Leukemia. We know he was sick, but we didn't know it was that bad. That kinda got me down during 3rd hour of church yesterday, but then I realized we just really need to bring that family the comfort that they need. We were so guided to them so we are striving to do what the Lord has placed us there to do for them.

As you will see we had waaaay to much fun at Arad days for P-Day last week. We gave away almost 1000 english cards at that thng!

We are reading the Book of Mormon together, I hope you all got the e-mail from president Ivory and are reading it with me!! The sign we made says, To Read together"