October 28, 2013

Ce Faci!

This WEEK!
I don't even know where to start. Before I left on my mission, I have to admit I might have thought mission life could be mundane and maybe repetitive. Wrong. I don't think I've ever had such great adventures since coming out here. This week was no different.
On Friday, we went with two of the Elders to a little (And I mean LITTLE) town called Sintana. It was about 30 minute train ride. We went to visit two children who were living there with their aunt and uncle. These children's parents had been baptized, but are currently living in Portugal for work. They asked that someone from the church just go out there to make sure they were doing okay.
So, we get off the train into this little town, and the uncle meets us at the train station on his bike. We follow him back to his little house which was about a 45 minute walk outside of this little town. We were on the outskirts of the outskirts. It was crazy. It was like Romania from the 1800's. I'll attach a couple pictures so you can see your yourselves!
So finally we get to their tiny home, and we tried talking to the kids for a bit, but B ( the uncle) insisted on giving us some kind of hour long Pentecostal sermon. No matter what we said or did, we couldn't bring the conversation back to how the kids were doing. Finally, he stops and says "Well we better go to the train station. The last train out of here leaves at 7:00." It was 6:15. We were going to head back to the train station we came from. But B told us he there was a closer one. On the way there we got stared down worse than ever before, (and reasonably so) and 3 or 4 dogs came running toward us along the way.And they were not friendly. The elders had to scare them off. So as if this wasn't scary enough, the sun had just set and we arrived at this little empty white shack with 3 walls. It was obviously not a train station. Apparently we were supposed to wait there and then jump on the side of the tracks when a train came and perhaps it would stop for us. The trains came... and left. We waited there for about an hour It took us a while but we finally made our way back to the actual train station. Luckily there was a train that went back to Arad not long after we made it there :) It was a great night!
This week we also had a couple great lessons. We also got bunged a little, but that's alright:)
Sora Adams and I had a wonderful lesson the other day with a lady we met in the park, as well as with a lady we met today while we were searching for a members house.
Oh! and this week also seemed to have the theme of "Tithing" to it. Sora Adams were contacting in the park on Tuesday and this young man stopped us to specifically ask how our church does tithing. We explained, and then he gave us his number to give to the elders. The next day we had a lesson with a less active member. We decided to go over a conference talk with her, and picked "The Widow's of Heaven" by Bednar. She then told us that she needed to hear these things. She said she hadn't been coming to church because she hadn't been payin g her tithing and she was ashamed. We talked with her about it for a bit, and she's going to try to make some changes. She also came back to church last Sunday!
This week we feel like we've been guiding to a lot of the right things at the right times in the right places without even knowing it. It has been filled with miracles and tender mercies.
Sora Adams also pointed out to me yesterday that on Friday I'll be hitting my 6 month mark! I can hardly believe that. Mission life goes by SO fast. Too fast. I feel like I just left the MTC last week!
I love you all and I hope you have a happy Halloween!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Ps- If you haven't read "His Grace is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox, we would highly recommend it:) And if you have, it's a great time to read it again!!