Hello!
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
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