July 28, 2014

Buna from the classy internet cafe in Buc-

I don't really know even where to begin... It's been a good week and a crazy week!

On Thursday we got a call from the office elders letting us know that Sora Honey's visa had been approved and that she needed to go back to Moldova to pick it up. We were gearing up to go, and we get a call from President Ivory. We talked about how the work was going in Brasov, and then he suggested that rather than staying in Bucharest, I bring Sora Hebden to Brasov with me so that we could "avoid losing momentum ".

So, On Saturday, after  English class we jumped on the 3 hour train to Buc. Our train arrived in Buc at 6:40 and Sora Hebden and I had a train back at 6:45... So we booked it all through the train station, met up with the sisters, and jumped on the train back. I still can't believe we made it!

Serving in Brasov with Sora Hebden was so much fun. I am so glad President suggested that she come up there because we got SO much done.

It was a really cool experience to serve that short time with Sora Hebden. During our first lesson we taught together I just kept thinking back to the MTC, when Sora Hebden and I struggled so much just to speak the language and didn't understand 1/4th of what our teachers/ "investigators" were saying to us. But 1 year, and 3 months later, there we were again... teaching for real, and actually understanding. I loved it!

The Bairs were also so good to us while we were there in Brasov together. They made it their personal responsibility to make sure Sora Hebden got to see all the good stuff there is to see in Brasov.  They even made us dinner :)

We were planning on being back in Brasov by now, but last night we got a phone call as Sora Hebden and I were on the train to Bucharest. It was Sora Honey and Sora Sayre letting us know that Sora Honey found out she has more visa work to do here in Bucharest on Wednesday. We were surprised

So now, the plan is... I'm taking Sora Stewart back with me tonight to Brasov, while Sora Honey does her visa work here with Sora Bastitas. It's been  insane! But I am so glad We have flexible missionaries and a President who's willing to let this happen :) Brasov is kind of on a roll lately, and we've got lots to do!

We got a couple new investigators this week by the way! One of them is Carla. We met her on the bus. She is very open and told us "I think you have just the right message". We had our first lesson with her in the city square over oreo milkshakes.  It went really well. She agreed to come to church, but something came up. We'll be meeting with her later this week.

Transfer board is coming out on Saturday! I can hardly believe I've been in Brasov for 5. We'll see what happens on Saturday!

Sorry this email is so short! We've got a few things we need to do before we head back to Brasov this evening.

I love you all so much! So so much

xoxoxoxoxoxox

Sora Ralls

July 21, 2014

Buna!

I can't believe it's only been a week since I last wrote home!

So Sora Hebden and I spent a couple more days together in Buc which was amazing. It was so cool just to have that time together to talk about all we’ve learned since we were in the MTC together. On my last night there  we ended up staying up a little later than we should just pillow talking. That morning  I prayed and I asked for help staying awake for the zone conference that day.  Well, let me tell you. I wasn’t tired for a second... this is why- The assistants came over at  about 5:45 that morning to pick us up, then  take us to President Ivory’s then to Brasov. We’d been in the car for a while and just talking about nothing, and then assistants looked back and said „” Oh, Sora Ralls, by the way, you’ve won yourself a presentation at zone conference.” I laughed.. Because in all honesty, I thought it was a joke. But then they explained that  the night before President wanted to change things up a little and switch the presenters a bit.  Okay so that woke me up.

When we got the the mission home, we met the Ivorys for the first time! They are hilarious. They are your typical American family. All of their children were there, but only one Ellis, who’s 11 will be staying with them.

The first thing President Ivory said to me was „”Did the assistants tell you about your presentation today?” I said ”yes.” He said ”Good, I”m going to have them record it so I can show it to other missionaries”.  I couldn't help thinking "...who the heck doesn President Ivory think I am?" And then we got into his range rover and drove back to Brasov with President Ivory, Sister Ivory, and their oldest daughter Abby.

With not much prep time, I really had to rely on the spirit. I asked Sora Honey to go back into one of the classrooms with me when we arrived in Brasov to say a quick prayer.  The spirit took care of it all. The presentation went better than I could’ve done on my own, even with loads of prep time.

And I want you all to know PRESIDENT IVORY IS AMAZING. He is on fire. He is a champion. AND he speaks Romanian.  He seriously makes  us feel like we can take on the world.

My interview with him was awesome. He is really intense, and when we sat down in the interview room, he looked me right in the eyes and asked,  ”What do you have to say to me?” The intensity of it made me want to confess things I’ve never done. But seriously, he is so cool. He told me that that I remind him so much of himself when he was a missionary.. which made me really happy to hear .

So bottom like, President Ivory is super cool.

 We’re changing things up in the mission a little too. So before most of our time was spent looking for new investigators and teaching them, but now it’s divided into 3 equal parts. 2- Finding and teaching. 2-Working with less actives and 3- Strengthening members  and preparing them for the next ordinance.  It all makes so much sense! Some of the sisters and Sora Honey and I were all talking about it, and we feel like what we did with President Hill is build a strong foundation. Many of us found many investigators and introduced the gospel to many. Now that we’ve got that foundation, we’re going to go out and focus on teaching. Solid.

This week we’ve begun trying to organize our plans in that way. It’s been fun to talk to some of the members about the temple and the importance of the temple covenants .. It really makes me excited to go back to the temple when I get home... how we miss it!

So some other exciting news, a giant  fish jumped out of its tank and right at us at the super market. We had to jump to get out of the way and we got fish water on us. I love this place.

Thank you so much for all your support, and prayers! Remember remember you're always in mine!

xoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxo

Sora Ralls

July 14, 2014

Buna Buna!

Sorry I'm sending a late letter again! We just got out of a lesson with Carmen. Oh my gosh, let me tell you everyone, she is amazing.

We brought Cristina Mesco with us (also amazing) and Cristina just stayed there after we left because they're THAT good of friends already. Between Carmen, Adriana and Cristina, Brasov is gearing up for a VERY powerful relief society. All of them have very young families too.

So things are going well! 

Yesterday we had a really amazing lesson too. We drove out to Rotbov with the Bairs to meet with the Pavel family. They have a couple babies in the family  who were getting baptized in the Orthodox church the next day, so they had a lot of visitors staying with them. One of the visitors actually came in during the lesson and stayed for the whole thing. This visitor's name is Elena (of course). Well, Elena has muscular dystrophy and is one of the sweetest people you could ever meet.  She wanted to know more, so we just had a restoration lesson right then and there. She soaked it all up, accepted a Book of Mormon and promised to read and pray about it.

The only problem with all this is- She lives in Sighisoara which is about 100 and some kilometers away from us. The Bairs said they would love to take us out there any time to teach her, so hopefully we'll get permission to do that soon. She gave us her phone number, address and everything. We just need to talk to President about it all before we head out. Speaking of the Presient, we've heard President Ivory is just awesome. We haven't met him personally yet , but everyone keeps talking about all the energy and drive he has. He also is making some pretty dramatic changes in how the mission is run. We'll be meeting him next week for Zone Training in Sibiu next Tuesday. Oh, and get this. He wants to go on a hike with our district on Wednesday. Cool huh? :)

So Sora Honey's criminal record came in this week! So we're off to Moldova for a few days.  We're leaving right after zone training. We've heard some pretty crazy stories about the Moldova over night trains... we're excited to experience it for ourselves. Aparently controllers come in at like 3 or 4 in the morning, wake you up and check your passports and information and sometimes will go though all your bags. Coooooool. :) Hopefully all goes well with her visa over there. The office elders made it sound like it will be pretty easy, so that's good. 

We've been talking with the Bairs about serve projects we can start doing over here, and specifically in Feldiora. Sora Bair is suggesting some kind of basic health classes we can teach at the chapel over there.  So hopefully we'll get rolling with that soon!

It's been yet another great week! And they keep getting greater.

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

xoxoxoxoxxo

Sora Ralls

July 7, 2014

Buna Buna!

Sorry I'm sending a late letter again! We just got out of a lesson with Carmen. Oh my gosh, let me tell you everyone, she is amazing.

We brought Cristina Mesco with us (also amazing) and Cristina just stayed there after we left because they're THAT good of friends already. Between Carmen, Adriana and Cristina, Brasov is gearing up for a VERY powerful relief society. All of them have very young families too.

So things are going well! 

Yesterday we had a really amazing lesson too. We drove out to Rotbov with the Bairs to meet with the Pavel family. They have a couple babies in the family  who were getting baptized in the Orthodox church the next day, so they had a lot of visitors staying with them. One of the visitors actually came in during the lesson and stayed for the whole thing. This visitor's name is Elena (of course). Well, Elena has muscular dystrophy and is one of the sweetest people you could ever meet.  She wanted to know more, so we just had a restoration lesson right then and there. She soaked it all up, accepted a Book of Mormon and promised to read and pray about it.

The only problem with all this is- She lives in Sighisoara which is about 100 and some kilometers away from us. The Bairs said they would love to take us out there any time to teach her, so hopefully we'll get permission to do that soon. She gave us her phone number, address and everything. We just need to talk to President about it all before we head out. Speaking of the Presient, we've heard President Ivory is just awesome. We haven't met him personally yet , but everyone keeps talking about all the energy and drive he has. He also is making some pretty dramatic changes in how the mission is run. We'll be meeting him next week for Zone Training in Sibiu next Tuesday. Oh, and get this. He wants to go on a hike with our district on Wednesday. Cool huh? :)

So Sora Honey's criminal record came in this week! So we're off to Moldova for a few days.  We're leaving right after zone training. We've heard some pretty crazy stories about the Moldova over night trains... we're excited to experience it for ourselves. Aparently controllers come in at like 3 or 4 in the morning, wake you up and check your passports and information and sometimes will go though all your bags. Coooooool. :) Hopefully all goes well with her visa over there. The office elders made it sound like it will be pretty easy, so that's good. 

We've been talking with the Bairs about serve projects we can start doing over here, and specifically in Feldiora. Sora Bair is suggesting some kind of basic health classes we can teach at the chapel over there.  So hopefully we'll get rolling with that soon!

It's been yet another great week! And they keep getting greater.

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

xoxoxoxoxxo

Sora Ralls

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