September 23, 2013

Buna Buna!

Thank you for all the birthday wishes!! I think I actually do have the best family and friends in the world. My birthday here was seriously, awesome. The entire morning was just filled with phone calls from missionaries I've served around, and others who sang "La Mults Ani" to Sora Stewart and me. That song's been stuck in our head since. Then we did some chalk contacting with some of our district.  I love chalk contacting so much. It's the best because people are so curious as to what we're drawing so they come to US.  Later that evening we got permission from President Hill to go out to dinner with our district. The Assistants also came because they were on an exchange with the Zone leaders. It was a party! The elders also gave me "The Birthday Tie". It was honor because I'm the only sister to ever receive it. I even got to add my name to the back of it and everything. I'll add the picture:)  I'm going to have to figure out a creative way to wear it I guess....

This week we also got to move into our NEW APARTMENT! no more falling ceiling, no more roaches, no more sparky outlets... score. We're loving it. It's a super nice apartment too. Everything is brand new! We're loving it.

Hey, I remembered to bring my notes from Elder Powell's talk at district conference on the Book of Mormon! So basically his talk was on the truthfulness of of the Book of Mormon. He talked about some studies that had been done to prove it was a fares, but how each one of these studies ended up proving it was more true than false. He shared some interesting things that I'd never realized or even knew before, and now I'll share them with you!

-Okay- So he pulled out some specific verses like 1 Nephi 2:4.  "And it came to pass that he departed into the wilderness. And he left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his precious things, and took nothing with him, save it were his family, and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness" the word "and" is used more than 10 times in this verse. Which was a common in Hebrew.

-In 1 Nephi 2:6, The verse mentions a "river of water"  Why river of water? Because they had dry, waterless rivers in Israel. They called those types of rivers.... Wadus or something like that. Joseph Smith... he probably had no idea.

-Alma 2:34 

"And thus he cleared the ground, or rather the bank, which was on the west of the river Sidon, throwing the bodies of the Lamanites who had been slain into the waters of Sidon, that thereby his people might have room to cross and contend with the Lamanites and the Amlicites on the west side of the river Sidon."- Elder Powell pointed out that the words "or rather" were used here to correct a mistake in writing by Alma. You can't really erase what you've written on plates so you correct your self with terms like "or  rather" If it was Joseph Smith writing this book, he could have just erased this mistake, and started over more easily.

Okay so those were just a few of the many many many awesome neat things he shared with us:)

I'm running out of time and I still have to email, President Hill so I better run! I love you all so much! Thank you so much for everything you do! LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxo

Sora Ralls

September 16, 2013

Buna Buna!

Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes!! That was so great to see:) 

This week has been seriously awesome. We've done a lot of traveling this week and it's been so neat. First, on Tuesday we went back to Timisoara for Zone training. That was pretty fun. But we had to leave a little early because we had a lesson back in Arad. 

Then just yesterday we got to go up to Oradea for the Romanian district conference! Oradea was SO beautiful. That place is more Hungarian than it is Romanian. Everything was so gorgeous. And clean. And classy.  The conference was seriously amazing. It covered Cluj, Oradea, Arad,and  Timisora . We went down for the Saturday session on Saturday night, and stayed through Sunday Afternoon. 

During the Saturday afternoon session Elder Powell (one of the Senior missionaries here) gave like the neatest talk about the Book of Mormon. I meant to bring the notes I took so I could share them with you in this email, but I forgot them:( I'll bring 'em next time though. He shared some really neat things about the Book of Mormon that never even occurred to  me before. (this is your teaser for next weeks letter) :) But seriously, the conference was amazing and Oradea was beautiful. I also got to see Sora DeRuvo and Sora Hebden again! I loved it.

So this week we finally FINALLY got a hold of one of our potential investigators, Tamara. When we called she told us she was in the hospital. So, we asked if we could visit here there. She said yes, so we went to the hospital. We couldn't find her, so we called her again, but unfortunately neither Sora Stewart or I could understand what she was saying ... Romanian is hard enough to understand in person. So we just hung up and told her we'd call her back. Then we just panicked for a minute. Okay, so then immediately this guy turns the corner of the hospital. And he spoke English! He agreed to talk to her for us and then he explained where she was. Turns out she was in a tiny sub woman's hospital on the other side of town. So finally, we get there. She's in a room with 5 other patients and her friend. Tamara was so happy to see us! And so were the other women in the hospital! We were actually able to teach all of them. It was amazing. All of them wanted a Book of Mormon at the end. We only brought two, so we had to go back the next day with more. We're going back to the hospital tomorrow. Being a missionary is awesome.

Other than that and a couple lessons with Anca,and the Costros we've just done a lot of contacting. Contacting, contacting, contacting. We've actually had a lot of success with our English contacting this week. A lot of people told us they'd be there. We're hoping for a much bigger english class this   transfer! Things are lookin gooooood!

I love you all so so so so much! Have a wonderful week!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Sora Ralls

September 9, 2013

Buna Buna!

Alrrriiighht so I'm officially no longer a greeny! I'm a full fledged missionary now. 

On Tuesday we took a night train to Bucharest. My gosh those things are so crazy. There were no more first class rooms left so we had to share with the Elders again. That's a fun time. We just ate bananas and Milka bars and played Taboo. 

We got to Buch at 5:30 Wednesday morning. My gosh that was Such a looooonggg day.  But it's always so much fun to be there and see all the other missionaries who've come down for transfers. I met my new lovely companion, Sora Stewart. She's from Las Vegas and she's super funny. She actually kind of reminds me of Kiley a little bit. She laughs just like her too! Saying good bye to Sora DeRuvo was super hard. My gosh, I love her so much. I was blessed with seriously, the perfect trainer. Our train that night left at 12:00 midnight. 

So, Thursday afternoon we met with 2 of the members of the branch. Sora Florita fed us lunch, and for the first time her husband was home and willing to talk with us. He's not a member. He really actually probably said like 5 words to us total. But he said he would come to church this Sunday! 

Then we met with Cristina. Cristina is the one we have mission prep classes with. She leaves for her mission to France in about month and a half.

Friday and Saturday were pretty much all contacting. We actually ran into a lady we contacted a few weeks earlier when I was on an exchange with one of the Coordinating sisters.. She welcomed us so warmly to sit with her. We talked with her for about 20 minutes before she had to leave. She invited us to come talk to her again this Thursday.

Hey, hopefully next week we'll be able to move into our new apartment! it's almost finished actually! It's so great. Sora DeRuvo and I actually got to pick out the colors of the walls. We're super excited to move in! We need to move in soon too. The ceiling in our bathroom is starting to fall down on us. haha:)

Sora Stewart and I are super excited for this next week. We've been able to get a hold of some of our potential investigators we haven't been able to talk to in a long time. We have pretty much our entire week already planned filled with appointments!  

If anyone of you hasn't read the talk "Unleashing the Dormant Spirit" . (A BYU devotional) I highl, highly suggest you read it this week! I've read it a few times already this week. I can't get over how great it is.  

I love  you all so much! Thank you so much for all your prayers and support!

Love love love,

Sora Ralls