Bees and Pioneers

This week was great!! I am seeing more and more the little ways that the church is growing here and I think if I was somewhere else that was moving faster I would miss these little miracles. 

First thing I have to get out of the way because I know especially that my dad is dieing to know how the bee farm was, and holy cow it was so cool!! We show up to this guys farm and he was the coolest Romanian I have met to date.  he was not a member, but he is in our English classes and loves the missionaries so invited our district over for a barbecue in the middle of his honey farm.  We get there and the air is filled with bees. FILLED! And I just think to myself, well Dad's bees never stung me, so I will be fine.

We got to a little clearing surrounded by beehives were there was a little fire pit over which we cooked mici. Mici (Mee-che) n. : a really good/ not good meat sausage thing.  I am not really sure what it is, but I do know it is actually illegal to sell in the USA because it is a little dangerous as far as food poisoning goes. As we are cooking this he takes us over a little bit at a time to check out his hives, as the first group was coming I was taking pictures of them, and I got a bee stuck in my hair right by my ear. Can you guess what happened next? Well I ran over to the romanian woman who was at the barbeque as well and she was trying to help me get it out of my hair, but it stung my right on my ear lobe! Ouch! and  it was in my freakin' ear, the poor thing, dying, biting me, flapping its little wings so loudly.  So we got that out, then got the stinger out of my ear.  But for the rest of the time the bees kept swarming over Sora R's and my hair.  We think it was our shampoo we used that attracted them to us.  But hey, I got stung by a bee on a bee farm in Romania, cool story right? 

So then it was our turn to go check out the hives and get pictures, so I p[ut on the hat thing and walked through the cloud of bees without a worry. I am a missionary and am protected from death by bees. As he showed me the frames I picked out one of the drones, (like I said DAD you would have been proud).

We ate sooo much food! Holy cow.  Mici, bread, watermelon, I ate like 3/8ths of the biggest watermelon ever after I was full to the throwing up point. Then there was a huge bowl of plums (The best plums ever!) And then a huge bowl of popcorn, and all of us kept eating. And my whole district kept saying to me, "You are so spoiled! This is the best dinner appointment ever, you are so spoiled." Seriously so fun:) And the bee farmer and his friend recited Romanian Poetry, it was so pretty! wish I would have recorded some of it.  They really love their poets here, and I love that about them. Then as we were talking and eating the church just came up naturally and we were able to share our simple testimonies with them and answer their questions about the gospel. So cool! 

 

 

Me goin' to the bee farm!

Here are some of the hives.  This was right before I got stung.

Yea, that is me under that hat thing.

 

Mici! And I think there was a wasp that got stuck in my hair too, it is getting fried with the mici as that is were it fell after Elder D saved my life and smacked it out.

 

More bee hives, both sides have hives on them.

 

 

This is the Elders on the way to go contact in the park, I though it looked cool. 



 

This is our younger English class in Costelo, they are so cute!!!

We also went on a split with two of the coolest sisters I have ever met.  I was with Andrea and Sora R went with Elena.  Andrea is waiting for her missin call it should get here this week, so excited for that.  And Sora E reminds me of Kenzie.  She actually has a Mormon message about her here at this website, I think if you watch it you will see the similarities of her and my dear sister:) 

Romanian Mormon Messages

(Also as a side note Alin is the branch president here, and his mormon message was just published yesterday so you can watch that one too:) I have been to his apartment, but have not signed the fridge yet.  The fridge is signed by all the missionaries who have served here.) 

Anyways so I went on splits.  Sora R went to go teach a lesson and I got to teach the English class.  It was the biggest turn out of English students ever, usually we get 2 people, maybe in our class but for some reason we had 8 people in my class! It went really well, and Andrea helped me so much with my Romanian.  I know without a doubt she will be a fantastic missionary. 

This week we also had a huge turn out to our activity for the 24th.  We had a pioneer day of our own where we taught the members about the history of the church in Romanian and helped them realize that they are the pioneers of Romania.  The church is so new here! We have only had this mission opened for about 20 years, and when you compare our success of a 20 year mission to other missions like Italy when it was about 20 years old the church here is growing so fast! Which hopefully means that in about 50 years we will get a temple here in Romania:) haha:) I know, I am a dork. 

At the activity we had as many investigator come as there were members, the food was great, and everyone worked so hard to pull it off. I really am blessed to be in this part of Romania.  The members here have the strongest testimonies I have ever seen, they really are pioneers and they are so willing to help us with the missionary work we need to do here.

As a new missionary I am going trough a training program called 12-week.  Where we study how to give lessons and watch The District to get some new insights. (If you don't know what that is, it is a documentary series of missionaries in California that kinda walk us through how to plan and contact and watch a perfect missionary in the perfect everyday life). Sora R and I keep joking that they need to make a "District" movie Romanian version to represent the missions that are foreign. Because it is sooooo different! The principles of the gospel are the same, but how to find people in a foreign country would have been a fantastic addition to the district. I mean you just don't see an entire family of gypsies living, literally living in the bushes behind your local bus stop in San Diego.  

In case you do not know, the church is true.  I know it with all my heart.  And so is the Book of Mormon.  I read it everyday and I love the words, the stories and the principles of goodness it teaches.

I love you all and I hope you have a wonderful week!! 

-Sora Long

​  

 

Eu am Boboaca Foaca!

Buna Ziua!! 

What even happened this week I don't remember!!?

Seriously though, the weeks are starting to blur together so this letter might be... significantly shorter. 

Anyways, last p-day we went to the Islamic Mosque in Ol' Centru and hiked to the top of the tower.  It was so pretty!! And then I looked down... and I was a little 

terrified.  Apparently I have a fear of heights that has never bothered me before. So I sucked it up and we took pictures and had fun.  Then the speaker next to us started to play the prayer... SOOOO LOUD!!! But super cool!! We were seriously up there at the perfect time! 

We were in Bucharest again this week for an appointment and ended up getting lost with the office Elders for an hour and a half.  So we stayed in Bucharest that night since we missed our last bus and I ended up meeting Sora Rauls and Sora Hebdon!! Who are super cool and leaving the mission soon so I probably won't meet them again.  

The Sister Training leaders came to Constanta for exchanges.  As this was my first exchange I didn't know what to expect.   I was split with Sora Bastidas and Sora Ruiz was with Sora Stewart.  The day was so fun!! But a couple of things that you should know if you are going on a mission and would like to know a little more about exchanges:

1.  Know where the crap you are going so you don't get lost in a foreign city:) 

2.  The STLs will check your planners, so for a moment I felt like I was in 7th grade when the teacher has random planner checks and I failed every time.  Except that this time I did write some stuff in my planner. Like what time I was having breakfast and stuff... 

3.  You are going to have a fun day and you will learn a ton!! 

We went to the park and talked with 7 different people about the gospel and got to know them really well and I made a ton of people laugh at my comedy how of  "Sora Long Tries to Speak Romanian" it was great:) The missionaries have a phrase here "Boboaca Foaca" That they made up.  If you translate it, it won't mean anything.... But the new missionaries here are called "Boboaca" meaning small duck.  and Boboaca Foaca they claim (Mostly Elder Degraw claims) through some grammatical means, this phrase can be interpreted as  "Duck Fire."  It is when someone feels so bad for your terrible Romanian that they will listen to whatever you have to say and accept lessons, and give you their phone number.  And it is true!! 

We had an activity after the STL left with contacting with the branch.  Two of the best people here showed up and we stood by the Cazino and talked to random pe​ople and I used the Boboaca Foaca to my advantage.   We got 4 phone numbers arranged one lesson and one lady told me her life story with how she is really sick and believes in God with all her heart.  I ended up throwing my arms around her because she started crying.  And for those of you who know me, hugging is not a thing of mine.  She was just adorable! And I just felt so strongly that I was doing a good thing in bringing the gospel to her.  I couldn't understand everything she said, but I understood what I needed to to testify of the Book of Mormon and she agreed to read it. :) Happy day for everyone!

 

 

 

The area below our apartment, a jelly fish, and a lightning bolt over the black sea. 

Anyways, that was my week, I am having so much fun and after this we are headed to a nearby Bee farm for P-day today so don't worry dad I will take lots of pictures, eat some honey, and maybe have the experience of getting stung by a Romanian Beeeeeee:) 

Love you all! Pa!

Heart,

     Sora Long

Puppies are all over the place here!

Alo!

This week was super long, but it was super fun. We had my first lesson this week with a member of the branch who is preparing to go on a mission and we just introduced the basics of what a missionary calling is and bore our testimonies. I loved the member we taught! I love them! I know they are going to be an amazing missionary and I felt so happy I was finally able to share my testimony with someone and pray for what I should teach, and then teach it. I felt the spirit so strongly, and the spirit bore witness to me of how awesome this persons mission was going to be and I just smiled.

I also have kinda been assigned as the Relief Society pianist. And I suck.

I haven't played piano for almost 4 years now!! Isn't that crazy? And I have forgotten everything. So now I just need to practice more.

First Zone conference was this week and holy cow that was fun. We got on a 3 hours bus ride to Bucharest the night before and stayed with the same sisters I stayed with when I first got into Romania. When we got to the apartment building and rode the tiny clanky old elevator to the top the Sora's opened the door and there was Sister G and her companion staying the night at the same place and I was so excited!

Just to clarify a bit, Siste G is amazing. And I was so happy just to see a familiar face. As we got ready for the night she told me how everything was going in Ploiesti, which is well. That night I was so happy! I went to bed and slept well, woke up and we went to Zone conference.

President Ivory is seriously awesome. As he was teaching us during Zone conference I just felt that he really was called to lead us to do a great work.

I am not going to go over all the particulars of Zone conference because that would make my boring letter even more boring. But he told us that he talked to members of the quorum of the 12 during the mission president's weekend at the MTC and all of them had very positive hopes for Romania.

Elder Uchtdorf said that Romania was full of potential and "on the tipping point." So that gives me hope that the people in Romania will start wanting to hear the gospel and we can find those that God has prepared for us. The changes that President Ivory implemented are really exciting, and I am so grateful that Sora I is here as well. She has already helped me so much, and I am grateful for that.

After that we stayed in Buc for one more night and headed home the next day.

This week our English classes started SOOOO fun!! Sora R and I teach the advanced section aka the section that speaks the least amount of Romanian:) haha and one of the members Maria was my freakin' favorite. We spent the first little bit just talking and getting to know one another and she told us the answer to the question I have always been wondering, why are there so many strays in Romania? I mean you stand at the top of the street and you see 5 cats and 3-10 dogs. it is crazy! Apparently during communism everyone had a high fence and a guard dog. The Fences are still a thing, but after communism broke here the people left their homes to move to either different places in Romania or to simply leave for another country and they just left their huge gigantic dogs behind. So now about 20 years later we are surrounded in every city by the offspring of these gigantic guard dogs. Most of them are super super friendly here, but I have seriously not seen dogs this big ever before in my life. So there you go, two ways that communism effected Romania, gigantic dogs that look like the Grimm from Harry Potter and high fences everywhere.

I just have to insert this story for my little brother Dalan. The other day we were walking to the church when I saw the cutest little puppy ever!!! And it was a stray. it was small and black and had big loopy curls over its eyes and it looked at me and when I smiled it started wagging its tail. So I called it over and he just tried to jump up to me but he was so small he couldn't even reach my kneecap and I picked up the flea infested thing and turned to my companion and asked if I could keep him. She said no of course, missionaries cannot have dogs... And I put him down but he kept running around me, and he loved me and he followed us for a bit then we had to scare him away so he wouldn't get lost:) I have not seen him since, but seriously the cutest!!! cutest!! puppy ever!

Saturday we had our next English class and Sora R and I taught the spiritual thought. We decided to teach about praying with your own words since in Romania, they usually used memorized prayers. It went really well and I felt the spirit. And as I was talking the members of the class would yell out words to correct my Romanian, and they only said like 4 things. Which means my Romanian is getting pretty dang good;) Just kidding, I wish it was good.

Yesterday was great! Nothing really new, we are preparing for a Ziua Pionierilor, aka Pioneer day activity where we will talk about the history of the church in Romania so that should be a lot of fun. Sundays are my favorite because I get to talk to the members of the branch and get to know them better. They are hilarious! And so friendly. I even helped one woman with her family history a little bit which made me feel useful:)

Anyways, all in all everything is going great. I learned a lot from zone Conference that I think will really help us find more people here in Constanţa.

Love you!!!! Love you all!!

-Sora Long

This Week 7-7-14

Hello!

So this week was difficult, but in a good way.

I would just like to start off this letter with praises of my companion and how awesome she is!! (Arms out stretched) THIS awesome:) So last week when we were walking back from the library we were English contacting, meaning we tell everyone we have an English class and give them a little business card with the info on it (The class starts this week). We handed a card to someone who already knew English, and I was so surprised because, in English so I understood it, she explained what situation her life was in and pretty much bore her soul to us in the middle of the street and started to cry and we asked her if we could meet up with her again to check up on her and BAM! She gave us her contact info. It was seriously a miracle, I mean 1 week absolutely no one is interested and then this adorable lady walks into us in the middle of the street. Of course she wasn't interested in what we had to teach but we met with her later gave her a tour of the church house and just became really good friends with her.

The next day we had a super awesome member with us helping us contact and he handed English cards to two women who were the sweetest nicest lady's and told us that they would bring their husbands, their children, their grand children and the nephews, and whoever else they named to the English class. And then asked us for a Book of Mormon. We don't usually carry Book of Mormons with us, because it gives us an opportunity to visit them again and get their contact info so we know where we can visit them in the future. So we gave them our contact info they gave us theirs, and we get to visit them this week to give them a copy:) Woot!!

Then this week we went to a town on the outskirts of counstanta to teach a class of childeren English. Seriously so fun! The kids were so cute with their little accents and they speak better English than I spoke Romanian. One of the Elders encouraged the childeren to help me practice my Romanian so all of them turned to me and I just stared back. I can say anything I want aout Joseph Smith, but what am I suppose to say to a kid? So I hurriedly looked up in my handy dandy book of phrases something, anything I could say and there was a phrase, "What do you like to do in your free time?" So I said that and the whole class just bursted up with laughter even the missionaries were dying, then one kid, Maria started to speak, no idea what she said in totality, but I heard to word Dumnevoastra, then the whole class started saying that. Dumnevoastra is the formal Romanian that you speak to an older woman or man out of respect. Not to 8 year olds! That is preposterous!! Oh well:) I was laughing pretty hard to and that broke the ice enough that I put my little book away and just talked with the kids.

On Friday we were walking and we saw a lady with a box of branches walking away to go dump them in the trash bin around the corner. She looked seriously so sad, so I turned to Sora R and said, "Hey lets help her sweep up the rest of those leaves." So we ran over and we were excited because you never get a chance to serve someone here. And we started sweeping the leaves when an Old lady literally appeared at my elbow yelling as loud as she could. all I knew was it was a different lady and she was mad. Blah blah blah! BLAH!! On and on in the fastest Romanian I have ever heard, and with the help of Sora R later and the few words I caught I understood that she was angry that we were sweeping because she was paying the girl to do the work, so we were cutting money from her wages by helping and gipping the old lady out of a good worker, and on and on and on. So we said sorry and I complemented her on her shirt or something and invited her to English class so by the end she yelled for us to go away with a smile on her face and said she understood that we were trying to do something good. And that is a perfect story of why we never get to serve anyone her in Romania.

I also had my "Culture Shock" moment that same day. The first week I was here I just felt dizzy the whole time, but I was ok with the culture. And for some missionaries it is like one or two specific moments that just send them for a dizzy sad trip. Mine was a pastry.

So we were visiting an inactive member and had to meet up with a simpatizant so we decided to drop by and get some pastries for us and for everyone we would visit. The inactive member pretended not to be home so we left and as we were walking to our next appointment the bag of pastries split and one fell onto the dirty walkway of Romania. Let me just take a moment to express how dirty the streets are here. The day I was here I saw someone walking around with bloodied feet. Everyday here there is a diseased stray dog or cat laying on the ground or number oneing or number twoing, or scratching out his fleas. And everywhere you go the ground is littered in garbage. It is safe to say that I have never been anywhere else where to ground is dirtier than the streets of Romania.

So my companion and I just sat for a second and stared at the pastry both wondering what we should do. Then Sora R. picked it up, brushed it off and said it was okay, she would eat it. I was like, no you will die! The ground here is gross, please don't do it! And she said, ok and threw it away in the trash can next to us. I instantly felt weird. Like that was the wrong thing to do. I looked in the spot where it fell and left a little pastry shaped dent in the dirt, and there were pastry flakes and I felt dizzy. We kept walking and Sora R was telling me she hates to waste food and I should have let her eat it, but I wasn't really listening because literally 20 feet from where we threw the pastry away was a gypsy woman sitting on the sides walk with her feet stretched out. We had to step over her because she was taking up the side walk and I just felt sick to my stomach. Here is someone who is actually starving. This is a really person starving in front of me, and I threw away a pastry with a little bit of dirt on it. I didn't really say much at all that day, which is kinda weird because I automatically talk to much all the time. I was angry that there are people here who I see every day looking through the trash cans for any food that anyone might have thrown away. The only thought that made me feel better was that someone probably checked through that trash can and found an entire pastry inside. But then I thought, even if I had seen that woman and I had dropped the pastry on the ground I wouldn't have given it to her because if I would give her something it wouldn't be junk that I wouldn't eat. I just felt so ungrateful for the blessings that I have.

I just couldn't stop thinking of what kind of a crazy place is this?! It is illegal for us to give the beggars anything. What kind of a place does that? There is obvious people who need help here and I can't do anything to help them! Arg... Frustration.

And it still effected me the next day. I was down, bleh, frustrated you name it. No one wanted my help and I came here to Romania to serve people and the ones that needed help were illegal to help and everyone who I know the gospel would bless just kept telling me, no I am Orthodox. And it came to me. I came on a mission for the wrong reason. I came here to serve people, but you go on a mission to serve God. I have no issue with helping anyone, but here noone will let me help them. But I am in the service of my God. So this week I am going to try and learn exactly how to do that.

Sunday picked me up back to my normal happy self. The people in the branch here are amazing! And I definitely should have practiced piano more.... Our new mission president, President Ivory, came and gave a fireside in which he bore his testimony and his whole family did. I felt the spirit and during the closing hymn the spirit was so strong!! The people in the branch don't know the hymns very well because they are all converts and they are not american, but we sang "How Great Thou Art" Which just seems to be my mission theme song for some reason, and everyone sang it so well it was so beautiful! And afterwards I got to know the members more and I freakin' love them. In Romania when you say goodbye it is a goodbye war. Back and forth, La revedere, pa sanatate, ciao, etc... So that wen on forever:)

Last night we were able to help someone though. As we were walking home from the fireside with President Ivory I saw an old woman who was just standing there and I immediately knew something was wrong and I rushed over to her just as she almost fell over. I caught her by the arm and wrenched her upright, she looked like she was having a stroke and she said, "Parkinson's" and I could see the signs of it immediately. She couldn't walk and had a hard time even griping my arm but we helped her back to her apartment which happened to be the same one we lived at. And we talked to her about who we were and where she was from and she live up 3 flights of stairs, and she let go of my arm and pulled herself up those stairs in the middle of an episode faster than I walk down those same stairs in the morning. We then helped her open her door and we asked her if she was a lone and she said no my son is there, which was a lie she was totally alone so we gave her our pass along card because it has our number on it and she hurriedly shut the door and went inside. she said something about a pill so I am sure that is what she went to go do. But it was a miracle! We lived in the same building so it was no trouble for us at all to help her which is what I think the only reason she even let us help her. Like President Ivory said, President Uctdorf said that there was a lot of potential in Romania, and very soon the country will be turning around. We were able to serve someone, even if it was just a little bit. Each week is an increase of the amount of seeds planted, and they are quickly growing.

Pa! La revedere! Ciao! (Bye! Goodbye! Ciao!)

-Sora Long