This week was absolutely insane!!
First off I dyed my blonde, like... Romanian Fake Blonde. It is almost orange:) I really fit in with the culture now:) It is great.
Apologies for not writing yesterday as I was in Bucharest for an eye doctors appointment. All is well, the things in my eyes are called floaters. I have had these little dots popping up in my vision since I came to Romania and I wasn't too worried about it but it needed to be checked out. This morning while reading my scriptures three of them kept dancing around on the page. Sora Ivory the mission presidents wife invited us to dinner with the missionaries in Bucaresti for Thai food and it was so good!! I loved talking with Sora Ivory she is a pretty cool person!
I went on an exchange with the Sister Training Leaders Sora Write and Sora Gee in the city of Galati. The Elders were with us because they had a exchange as well. Super fun!! The train ride there is about 5 hours long and we get off at this small little town called Maresesti literally in the middle of nowhere to switch trains. Our tickets say there is a 6 minute window before our next train leaves which is a good thing because it was the coldest day of the year at -4 degrees farenheight outside. So we jump off our train and run into the station which is literally the same temperature as outside. Long story short there was a misprint on where the train was supposed to be and a worker told us the wrong thing so we missed out train. "A venit si a plecat!!!" Said the angry worker. Translated, "It came and now it is gone." There was also an I told you so moment as there was literally one train at the station at the time ours was suppose to be there and I asked, "is that our train?" "No" "It is the only other train here, that has to be our train." "No." So I was totally right:) haha It was great. Missing this train wasn't that big of a deal because the worker promised that we could swap our tickets for the later train to Galati, the only problem being that... It was going to come to the station in 3 1/2 hours and as I mentioned at the beginning of the e-mail, it was freezin' cold outside. So we sat in this tiny little Gara in the middle of nowhere for 3 1/2 hours. I really do not think I have ever been so cold in my life!!
There was an Elder in my group who had not bought a winter coat yet and was wearing just a wind breaker!!! Crazy!! The train finally comes after the 3 1/2 hour wait in freezing cold temperatures. The lady points it out and assures us it will get us to Galati. It is literally the size of a bus, and it is a bench train. Bench trains are the sketchiest types of trains, they are really cheap and people bribe their way on board for cheaper so the people on the train, they are scary. We look in one cabin and see it is filled with Gypsies, so we take the second cabin. When we get in it is literally colder than the Gara was. But it is ok, I and my companion dressed warm. Thank heavens I accidently put on 2 scarves!!! We are waiting for our train to leave and the hooligans from the other cabin see us in there all alone and decide to come bother us. They were really drunk and started speaking to us in Romanian, but Sora Merkley and I pretended not to know Romanian but really we understood everything they were saying. It was kind of really scary and I was really glad that we were traveling with the Elders at that moment. They told the Elders they were going to a town called Tecuci. I was also sad I had just dyed my hair because the gypsies really liked my blond hair. Like ... a lot! Anyways. They tormented us for a good 20 minutes and Sora Merkley came up with a brilliant idea to ditch them. Hehehe. So right before the train was suppose to leave, we jump off and get onto the other cart away from our tormenters. They were not to happy we left, but the conductors wouldn't let them come into the other cabin with us. Thank heavens for the conductors right!!
So finally we are on this train it starts to move and even though we are surrounded by gypsies the drunk ones are stuck on the other half of the train. The heaters in this part of the train were not working so it was even colder. The conductor comes up to us and asks for our tickets. He then tells us we are on a 20 minute train ride that will not take us to Galati..... BLEH. It takes us to a little town called Tecuci where we will have to switch tickets again and wait for another 1 1/2 hours for the next train to Galati. Literally I don't think you understand how cold it was. There was a literal pile of snow in the middle of this train car. It didn't even think about melting.
So we get to this Gara and we hang out there in the cold for 1 1/2 hours and finally our train comes and it is one of the new trains. Really, pretty, nice seats and I could cry from happiness:) Seriously one of the nicest and fanciest trains I have seen in Romania. We sit down and it is still cold. We look up and there is this huge hole in the window that the tried to fill with cocking for around a kitchen sink. So that was a three hour train ride. My companion took a picture of me on this train and I am shacked up in my coat trying to get warm. I did get warm:) But I was also in a skirt, so my legs were cold as flamingos. It got down to -10 that night and the high for that day was -2.
The next day was our exchange which went really well. It was the coldest day of the year with the high at -9 and the low at -55 and I was still scared from the cold from the day before. I went with Sora Gee and we went down this snowy hill by the Danube river on our butts because the stairs were frozen solid. It was like a giant slide!! SUPER FUN!
Sunday was the best part of my week though:) 23 people came to church, that was record breaking. Every seat was filled!! And we ran out of sacrament cups. 4 people were investigators and it was pretty dang cool:) I am getting better at the whole pianist thing. But in this ward there are a couple people who will always sing louder than the piano and they mess me up, super hard core. Because those little sweet spirits add there own Romanian progressions to the songs instead of singing what is on the page. In other words they sing super off key. And it messes me up every time!!! I even messed up on Praise to the Man and that is my Jam!! I could play that with my eyes closed!!! HAHAHAH Lovin' it. Lovin' life. Love you guys!!!
I GOT ALL MY MAIL FROM YOU BECAUSE I WAS IN BUCAREST!!! Thank you so much!! You are all the best from writing me all of those letters!! I love you so much the church is true, no matter how out of tune the branch is!!!
Love,
Sora Long
Pictures:
| More Bears!! And other cool masks. The guy on a left is dressed as a gypsy woman. |
| Romanian Primary. We have so much fun!!!! |
| My blonde Hair. Yep it is a little Orange :) |
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