June 30,2014

Salut!

So big news first! We're going to have a baptism on JULY 12th! Carmen is getting baptized! 

On our second lesson with her, we committed her to the date. She said she needed to pray about it and everything to get confirmation for herself (perfect). We called her the next day to see how it went and to set up another appointment. When we asked if felt like she'd received an answer she said "we'll talk about it when you come". We were nervous a little bit.

We came over the next day, and we brought the new senior couple (the Bairs) with us. Carmen then told us "I prayed, and I counseled. I'm prepared". Ahhh we were so happy. SO happy. Carmen is amazing.One of the most amazing parts of all this is that her father is a member, and he is going to baptize her! He is so excited. Everyone is excited. It's just a good time!

We also had a lesson with the Filip boys this week that was really wonderful. We brought the Bairs with us this time, and they were so well behaved... We talked about the Holy Ghost and how he speaks to us. We did an activity at the end where we set up a course and we blind folded one of them, and then we had another boy whisper to the ear of the blind folded one and guide him though the course. It went surprisingly well.... until the end. Then they just started running each other into the walls.

The new couple, the Bairs are amazing. They spoil us rotten over here. They made us all a wonderful Sunday dinner last night, with homemade bread and everything. We did our language study yesterday at the Bairs home. They just joined in while Sora Honey and I reviewed past and future indicators and conjugation. Oh man, they are actually pretty good with the language. And I have to say, Sora Honey has been doing amazing this week with the language. She even gave a talk in Sacrament meeting yesterday!  She's amazing.

We have a new mission president now! We are now under the leadership of President Ivory. We're excited. Man we're going to miss the Hills, but we're excited. We'll be meeting him soon too, it looks like. Within the next few weeks probably. The Bairs told us the Ivory's are almost fluent in Romanian already... crazy right? They already speak Italian, and they've been meeting with a private tutor very often. We keep hearing "President Ivory is a fireball" from everyone who met him already. It sure sounds like it!

Tomorrow we're going to Peles Castle! That's also part of the reason we're emailing so late. We had to split our p day in 2 halfs in order to make it work. We are going with the Ploisti district which means I get to see Sora Barrerra and her trainee (my "granddaughter"!)

Well, here's to another busy, wonderful week!

I love you all! Thank you for being amazing :)  You're always in my prayers!

xxoxoxoxoxxoxoxo

Sora Ralls

June 23, 2014

Buna Buna!

Sorry to be writing so late, but we just got back from spending the day with the Elder and Sister Bair! They just arrived in Brasov today, and they are taking over Elder and Sora Powell's spot. They are awesome. They're from Boise Idaho. We walked to their apartment, talked with them there for a while, and then we showed them where the grocery store is. After that, they took our district out to pizza! They really are amazing, and Elder Bair cracks jokes just about every 5 seconds. We love them already!

It's been yet another great week in Brasov. This week we gained two new AMAZING investigators The first one is Carmen. Her father is a member here in the Brasov branch, and she came to church with him. She just arrived back to Romania after working in Italy for 6 years as a nanny. Carmen is in her late 20's, and has a little girl, Teodora, and a baby, Ema. We went over to their home (which is stunning by the way) and she fed us cake, cherries, strawberries and fresh fruit juice. My gosh, it was heaven. We're not really used to that kind of treatment :)

We had the first lesson, and she agreed to a soft baptismal commitment. We're having a lesson with her again tomorrow, and we're hoping to set a solid one. Seriously, Carmen already feels like a member. It feels just like teaching Adriana! We feel so blessed.

Our second new investigator lives in a town, about an hour train ride away, called Sfântu Gheorghe. She was a referrel from her daughter who found the church while living in England. We had a great first lesson with her too. In fact, during the lesson she started describing a dream she had to us. She talked about coming to a beautiful glowing tree. When she got to the tree, she picked off the sweetest, most radiant fruit... sound familiar anyone? :) So we got to talk about Lehi's dream a bit with her. She liked that a lot :) We're going to be meeting with her later this week too. It's just a little hard because if we go out there, we have to spend the whole day. The trains aren't very regular. We're trying to work it out to do skype lessons right now. BUT!  Sfântu Gheorghe is a fun town to be stuck in. It's completely Hungarian. There are farrrrrr more Hungarians there than Romanians. All the billboards and street signs are in Hungarian as well.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention transfer board. It came out on Saturday, and just like we expected, Sora Honey and I are staying here together :) 5 transfers strong! I am so happy about it too :)

Oh. I had a funny dream the other day. So, I have the alram set for 6:28, so I can be sure to roll out of bed by 6:30. But one day this week, I stopped the alarm, and was just going to wait for the 6:30 alram to go off... so I started to fall asleep a little bit. When I did, I started to dream that I was asleep in bed, in the Quorum of the twelve's office while they were having a meeting. In my dream though, David O. McKay was the prophet. During the meeting, one of the aposltes got up and said to me, "hey. why don't you show President McKay how you wake up and pray on time in the moring?". SO. I did. It almost beats the time I woke up at 12:18 in the morning, thinking it was 6:30and said whole prayer before I realized it was still dark outside.... Good times. :)

Well, here's to another beautiful transfer in Brasov!

I hope you all are doing well! I love you all so much!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Sora Ralls

June 16,2014

This week... this week .... This week!

I know I'm always saying that the past week went by really fast... but seriously. This one probably has been the fasted. We don't happened!

Let's start with the good stuff

We had another BAPTISM yesterday!

It was quite the day. 

I spoke that morning in Sacrament, and then Sora Honey and I taught Primary. President Mesco was there with us for most of it, and let me tell you... It was the most insane primary class I've ever seen.

Some were wrestling, some were slamming on the piano, some were scattering primary story cut outs around the room... one of them even left and we couldn't find him for 15 minutes. When he came back, he came back with a sandwich he bought at the gas station around the corner. President Mesco was so funny though. He kept us sane as he just laughed about all the chaos going around us. He's awesome.

Then we had the baptismal service, right after church. The boys were SO GOOD during their baptism. 

Each one of them laughed as they went down under the water. It was funny and cute :)

The best part of the whole thing though, was to watch each one of the 4 boys go up to the podium and bear their testimonies.  All of us were so impressed with the things these little boys said. Ionuti, the oldest one talked about how different he felt the first time he came to a sacrament meeting here. He said that he felt every person he met that first day had something special about them, and that he thinks it was the holy ghost that made them that way.

My gosh I love these little boys!!! We are so happy for them!!!

Now two of them are preparing to receive the Aaronic priesthood pretty soon!

We can't wait to go visit them again tomorrow and talk about everything.

We also had Zone Conference this last week in Bucharest. It was very bittersweet as it was the last one we'll have with the Hill's. I am going to miss them so much. They were so uplifting and inspiring. They talked of how difficult it is to be missionaries and members in a place were the church is still so new. They left us with such an upbeat and optimistic message of hope and endurance.

President Ivory will be here sooner than we know it! We're all excited. A lot of missionaries are worried he'll ban Coke... haha we'll see :)

So, on a not so awesome note, Maria left again. Boo. Lame.

We told her we'd come over that Saturday. When we called that morning to confirm, she didn't answer. Elena's phone was off so we couldn't talk to her either. We just decided to head over, and when we got there, we just found Elena peeling carrots in the yard. She was really upset. Then she told us that Maria's husband came that morning, and Maria left with him again. So.... that's that. We're confused by her a little bit, but we still lover her. She really loves this gospel. She studies  it so much, and loves everything about it. She was always asking such good questions and telling us the things she learned as she did the reading assignments we'd leave. Dang it. But we think she'll get everything together eventually.  For now we'll just continue to pray for her.

Other than that things are perfect over here. We're loving Brasov as much as ever. I'm hoping to stay another transfer. We'll find out on Saturday if that's the case! This place is seriously feels like home to me.

Oh, and the Filip family have some really cute little rabbits right now :)

​

I love you all so so so so so much. You are all amazing examples for me, and you're always in my prayers!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Sora Ralls

June 2, 2014

Bunnnnaaa!

We've had yet another awesome week. This one went by particular fast.

We've had a hefty load of lessons this week and we've loved it.

On Thursday we had an exchange with the sister training leaders in Bucharest. Guess who I went with... Sora Stewart! My companion from  Arad. It was really cool.  When we served together, we were rather "young" missionaries together. I was only in my 3rd transfer and she was in her 5th.  Now I'm in my 9th and she is in her 11th. It was cool to see how we've both grown so much. Teaching lessons together went so much smoother. And we were both so much more confident in our contacting approaches.

We had a couple recent convert lessons in Feldiora. It was fun to take Sora Stewart out there and show her what it's like. 

These last few days have been pretty rainy, but the day of the exchange it was especially wet.

Sora Stewart and I stepped off the bus and walked as quickly as we could to Elena's house. Her house isn't too close to the bus stop, and after just a few minutes, it looked like we'd just came up out the pond. We were laughing the entire time. When we got the the twin girls tried to help us by shaking out our  skirts and drying our hair with a rag. :) 

We've had a couple good lessons with the Filip boys this week. It's been hard to meet with them because Sora Filip has a difficult work schedule. We've had to set their baptismal date back until the 15th so they can be fully prepared for their baptism. They are looking forward to it :)  

We had the elders with us for one of the lessons. They were going to teach the boys on prophets a bit more, and what it means to "follow the prophet" and then we were going to take over and teach the word of wisdom. While the elders were doing their part, sora Filip leaned over to us and whispered a question. Sora Honey and I talked with her for few minutes, and then when we looked up, the boys had all left.  The elders were just sitting there looking a little confused.  They said "I'm not sure if we did too well.... after the lesson they asked if Joseph Smith is God." 

We all just laughed. We cleared things up on Saturday :) 

This week has definitely had the theme of prayer attached to it. We've done spiritual thoughts, and lessons on prayer this week. I also presented on personal prayer in district meeting. I've loved it. I have learned so much.

It becomes more apparent to me everyday  of my mission that really Heavenly Father doesn't really ever need to me to talk at Him but rather with Him. 

As I've been studying this  and working on this, I talked to Sora Stewart about it on our exchange. She showed me a prayer journal she had, and I loved it! She helped me start my own. I have loved using it too.  You just write in the journal the things your grateful for in that day, your desires, and your questions, and then leave a place to write your answers  after your prayers.

 It looks like this for example

i.e.)

Gratitude:

Chocolate milk, Perfect weather, Good companion, MoTab

Desires:

To be a better missionary, to know how to help so and so, etc

Answers:

And then you just write whatever feelings, thoughts and ideas you have here while you pray and after you pray.

Guys, it's cool.

Yesterday we had a really good fast and testimony meeting. All four of the Filip boys came, and Andriana and Beatris came again.

In Sunday school they asked Adriana to say the opening prayer, and then Sora Filip to say the closing prayer.

They both did  it beautifully.  I thought about how these two lovely ladies and how it's just been fairly recently that they've learned to pray in that manner. Talking to Heavenly Father directly, using their own words, and closing in the name of Jesus Christ.   I love being a missionary. That's all.

I love you all so much!!! You're always in my prayers!

xoxoxoxoxooxoxoxox

Sora Ralls