New Week, New City!

 

So I may have forgotten to mention something last week. I got transferred. Surprise! I'm now in the beautiful city of Cluj-Napoca. I can honestly say I didn't expect that to happen. I was pretty sure I was going to be in Sibiu for another transfer. Nevertheless, I'm happy to go where the Lord needs me. Plus my new companion, Sora Modzelewska, is great. She's hard working and has a strong testimony. She's from Poland so she asks me to help her with her English. Last night, she read a talk out loud so I could help her with pronunciation and help her with new words and things. It's probably strange how much fun I had with that...

 

Transfers were the biggest event aside from one other thing. Sora Modzelewska had some lessons already set up for us on Saturday. She was really excited to tell me about this woman, Delia, who they've been meeting with. We met with her that afternoon at the Boyd's home (oh yeah! I'm serving with a senior couple again! Have I ever mentioned how much I love the senior couples? They are just the most amazing, loving people. Just being in their presence makes you feel loved! So, yeah, senior couples are the best!). We had lunch together and then we had a lesson about the Plan of Salvation. Beautiful testimonies were shared, and we could all feel the spirit. We invited Delia to be baptized and she said yes! She truly is a wonderful woman. I only just met her, but she's very kind hearted, and I'm excited for her.

 

The branch here is great as well. Yesterday was my first Sunday with them, and I could just feel of their strength.

 

I'd say we're having a pretty good start to the transfer. There's not a whole lot more to report as of now, but fear not. More will be coming. I would like to part with some (hopefully) words of wisdom. Very often in life there are times where it is much to easy for us to be hard on ourselves. We may compare ourselves with others, or maybe we just compare ourselves with the image of who we want to be and realize that we're not there yet. Sometimes we may wonder if we are doing all that Heavenly Father wants of us. We become discouraged. This discouragement makes it nearly impossible to move forward or to set goals to move you in the direction you want to go. My suggestion in such cases is to first, turn to your Heavenly Father. If you are really concerned that you aren't doing all you should or whether or not He's aware of you, ask. I can guarantee that He will answer. Also, look for things to be grateful for. Write them down if you have to. I'm a big fan of lists! I'm also a big fan of coming up with three things you're thankful for at the end of each day.

 

We met with this woman the other day who told us she had absolutely nothing to be grateful for. We mentioned that she had a daughter, and that is something she can be grateful for. Her response was, "What if I didn't have her?" Still she was focused on how "she didn't have anything to be grateful for." Even when times are hard, I know that you CAN find something to be grateful for. Let that be your focus. Finally, find opportunities to serve. It's amazing how when you turn outward instead of focusing so much on yourself how much better you will feel. If you need to make changes, do it (and we all have things we can work on), but know that you don't have to do it alone. Heavenly Father is with you every step of the way. He is our father. Things will be hard at times, but He will never leave us to wander the path alone.

 

I hope you are all doing well! You are all so amazing. I appreciate all of your support.

 

Cu drag,

Sora Adams

God is in the details.

This week I just have such a testimony that God is in the details. He knows each one of us personally. He knows where we are in life, what we need, how to direct and comfort us--He truly is our loving Heavenly Father.

Mostly, I want to focus on the events of Thursday. Here's what happened:

There's an inactive member of the branch that we've been trying to get a hold of since the beginning of the transfer, but we haven't had any success in that regard. We met with another member on Tuesday who told us that she'd learned where this inactive member works. We thought we'd stop on by and see if we could find her and say hello. On Thursday morning, we headed to her place of work. When we arrived, she was taking her break outside. She recognized us (more specifically she recognized Sora Lund as this was the first time I'd met her), and she seemed happy to see us. We talked for a little bit, and then she had to get back to work. Hopefully, things will continue to work with her.

We started on our way, and as we were passing by a church, a woman stopped us. She asked us if we were from the church on Strada Dealului. We told her that we were. She tried to explain something to us, but we weren't quite getting it. She told us she would take us to someone who knew English, so we followed her through the church cemetery and into a room where a body was laid for viewing. We were then approached by two women who spoke English and are the daughters of the deceased. They explained that their mother was the owner of the villa that we use for church and that she had passed away a few days earlier. We offered our condolences. They said we could come to the funeral service later, but that it wasn't really necessary as we were there that at the moment and had spoken with them.

Again we headed on our way. We went to our favorite park where we were going to do some contacting, but we didn't realize how much time had passed. We needed to head back to the church where we were having district meeting. As we exited the park, we saw someone who we've run into a couple of times. She came to English classes in the past, but hasn't this transfer. We stopped and talked with her a moment and she said that it was crazy that she had run into us. This is why. She had just passed by our church and thought to herself, "I should probably get in contact with them again." She said that she told God that if she saw us she would stop and talk to us. And then, there we were! She didn't have our number anymore because of something with her phone, so we gave her our number again. After talking with her, we set out again for the church.

Later that day, we were helping the members clean the church. We ended up staying there longer than we planned which cut into time we'd planned on for contacting. When it came down to it, we decided we could squeeze in even just 30 minutes of contacting around the church. I felt really good about this especially because I hadn't felt good about not doing it. We went down a few streets and met a lovely woman. She told us that she had read about the Mormons. We braced ourselves, assuming that we knew what was coming next. What she said surprised us. She'd liked what she read! We talked with her a little more, she took a Book of Mormon, and she let us take down her number. We tried to talk to a few other people, but they weren't interested. As we made our way back to the church I felt really good. I just felt happy. It didn't matter that we'd only talked with one person. Just like every effort counts, every person counts. I'm grateful that we made the decision to fit in that contacting. It would have been really easy to come up with something else to do.

Basically, what it comes down to is that it would be really easy to play that all up as coincidence. I don't believe that for one second. Heavenly Father is in the details. They were simple things maybe, but they were miracles to me. I hope that you can look around you and see the miracles in your life, no matter how small. We are blessed and so loved.

Have a great week!

With love,

Sora Adams

PS:  I am transferring to  Cluj this week. My companion will be Sora Modselewska who is from Poland. This will be her last transfer so everyone keeps saying I'm killing her. Weird....

(Mom found these pictures of Cluj on the internet)

Follow the Plan

Goodness. I never know how to start! There you go. I've started.

All in all, I'm pleased with how this week has gone. First of all, my companion is awesome and is helping me reach my goals of being more confident and talking more. So I've started saying more things in lessons, and I've started to approach people more. I feel like I still want to improve, but I'm just happy to recognize that I've already started to improve. Also, I just am so grateful to know that Heavenly Father is also aware of my goals and helps me everyday. I'm pretty confident that He helps me more than I even realize.

I had grapes thrown at me this week, but that was by a five year old  who was having trouble focusing during our English lesson. Man, did they have a lot of energy this week! I did mention that we're teaching English, right? They are the two daughters of  a woman who we are helping to quit smoking. They're a lot of fun, and they've really enjoyed the activities we've had for them so far (head, shoulders, knees, and toes for example).

We had exchanges this week. I was with Sora Gerhartz, and we contacted some people in a park, which then turned into probably the most hostile contact I've had so far. We were talking to this older man and woman, who I'm pretty sure were Orthodox. As we were talking to them, the woman asked, "If I were to come with you, what would I have to do?" Like what would we require of them. The man started talking with Sora Gerhartz, which distracted me for a moment because I wasn't sure if he was talking to both of us. The woman got mad and said to me, "Why didn't you answer my question? He can talk to her, and you can talk to me." I tried my best to answer her question despite the fact that I was intimidated by the entire situation. I told her that if she came to church with us, she would sing with us and learn about Christ and the scriptures. She asked if that was it. I explained that if she wanted to learn more after that, she could have lessons with us. I found myself testifying, which I didn't even realize until after the fact. I told her that we are here because we know this church and the Book of Mormon are true and of God. We want to share that, and we encourage everyone to find out for themselves. She said she understood. I asked if she had anymore questions and she said no. Soon after that, someone joined the group. I believe it was someone they'd been waiting for since the woman had been talking on the phone asking someone where they were. Anyway, he came right up to us and looked at the Book of Mormon. Sora Gerhartz asked him if he'd heard of the book. He said he knew all about it and that it was the pathway to Hell, that the only true church is the Orthodox church. He was very intense, and thankfully he got a phone call which then made it easier for us to wish them well and head on our way. At first, I felt really bad. I soothed myself with the help of the spirit. I knew that we hadn't done anything wrong, and that not everyone will want to hear our message. It was only then that I realized I had testified to that woman. As I thought about it, I felt like there had been power behind my words. I really meant it, and I still do. I continued to think about it that night. Anyone could easily say that was an unsuccessful contact, but I don't really think it was. I felt that we did everything that was expected of us, that we testified just as we are here to do. They weren't ready for the message. That doesn't mean we were bad missionaries in that moment.

We had some other interesting contacting experiences this week as well. We talked to this guy around our age for at least 40 minutes about how the Book of Mormon and the Bible go hand in hand. He clearly knew the Bible very well, and he was a little skeptical, but he accepted a Book of Mormon anyway. We went chalk contacting a couple of times this week as well. We drew the plan of salvation and met some really nice people. There was a woman who stopped and talked with us for a moment. She was from Hong Kong and she recognized the Book of Mormon. She told us that she knew it was the word of God, and she was just so happy to meet "Christians like herself." I'm coming to realize that there are many times where it would be easy to say we aren't successful. Maybe you go out to contact and only one person will even talk to you, but that doesn't mean you fail. Every effort counts. Every person you talk to matters. We are all children of a loving Heavenly Father.

I hope you are all doing well! Keep the faith!

Love,

Sora Adams

Life is a Zoo! =)

How to describe this week? Awesome? Yeah. We'll go with that. Here's what happened:

On Monday, we went to the zoo. I was very pleased to see tigers. I think they are one of the most beautiful creatures. Sora Lund touched a camel, which probably isn't allowed. Instead of saying it was probably not allowed, I may have said, "Do it!" while whipping out my camera to take a picture. 

This week was American week at a store called Lidel. We were so excited to go home with arms full of ranch, cheesecake mix, peanut butter, rice krispies, marshmallows, and a few other things. It seemed so fitting as we were totally in "We love America" mode all week. We may have listened to devotionals about America and a bunch of patriotic music (thank you Sora Lund's family). We also may have convinced our branch president to let us have a branch activity on the 4th. Yep. That really happened.

The day started like any other accept for the first thing I heard when I woke up was "Happy 4th of July!" I'm pretty sure we then were like "Oh my gosh. America is so great!" Our first method of celebration was eating cold pizza for breakfast. In the evening, we went to the church and made pancakes for the branch. We made syrup as well. Other foods we or the elders brought: rice krispy treats, apple pie, cheese cake, peach cobbler, I think that's it. Our branch president brought some sarmale and salami de biscuits. It was very delicious, and very fattening. This reminds me, we were also told recently that pancakes aren't food. They're dessert.  We said that they were in fact a breakfast food. I'm not sure if they believed us... They were also talking to a person who's eaten pie for breakfast, so maybe I'm not the best judge. I think it was good for the branch to celebrate with us. Our branch president mentioned how the missionaries usually did their own thing on the 4th and didn't usually invite the branch to do something. He seemed very excited to celebrate with us. Our opening hymn was "The Star Spangled Banner," and we were thinking of just singing the first verse, but he insisted we sing all three. So we did. 

We visited a less active member this week. She and her family are actually on their way back into activity. Since I've been in the area, they've been at church every Sunday and come to a couple of branch activities. While we were visiting with her, she told me that I need to talk more because that's the only way I'll progress, and I need to progress because for all I know Sora Lund will be gone next transfer and I'll have to train someone. So she pretty much told Sora Lund to talk less and me to talk more. She had a good point, so we took that into consideration when we taught this week. 

We had a couple of lessons with her. The first time was not planned. The second time, we planned it out so I would be teaching more of the lesson. The lesson went well, and I'm just so thankful for everyone's patience! I still have a long way to go as far as language is concerned, but even if all I can do is say simple phrases, that's okay. For one thing, I have a capable companion who can fill in holes. Also, the language of the spirit is much more important. Also, they all seem to understand what I'm trying to say, so I'm probably at least a little bit better than I think I am. I hope so. Anyway, we taught her about the Plan of Salvation, and I felt the spirit in our lesson. That's what I try to look for. I figure that's a good sign of a successful lesson.

A few other thoughts before I close:

-Goals are great things that help us move towards not only things we want to do but people we want to become. We should take our goals to Heavenly Father and allow Him to help us achieve them even if they aren't something we might think as spiritual. If it's important to you, it's important to Him.

-I thought I had another thought, but I'm not sure what that was ha ha

-Here's a thought taken from a movie that has been encouraging me to be a little braver...as in actually talking to people or sharing my testimony at church yesterday. "You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it." For any of you who don't know, that's from the movie "We Bought a Zoo."

Keep the faith! You are all amazing!

Cu drag!

Sora Adams

First Forth in Foreign Lands

We got to pick some cherries this week. =)

                   

First and foremost, Independence Day is this week! Happy Independence Day America! I think one of the most awesome things about the 4th this year is my companion convinced our branch president to have a branch activity to celebrate. She actually didn't have to try very hard. He's very excited at the prospect.

This week was very stormy--Buckets of rain and a good amount of thunder and lightning. Our umbrella's were pretty ineffectual.  We just made the most of it.  I'm sure most people were wondering what happened to summer. I was grateful for cooler weather. We got caught in a the rain a few times, but no worries. Because of the weather, only one person showed up to our first English class on Tuesday. We'd lost power in the church, which was off for two days, so we just had her fill out a get to know you sheet and let her go. 

On Wednesday, we went to the home of the woman we are helping to stop smoking to teach her two young girls English. We taught them body parts by writing the words on sticky notes and then sticking them in the right places on Sora Lund and myself. We reviewed it a few times and then taught them head shoulders knees and toes. They had a blast. We'll be meeting with them again tomorrow. 

I found this and thought it was funny:

We had zone conference this week, which is always great. We traveled to Arad for the conference. I love being with other missionaries and with President and Sora Hill and feeling of their strength and learning from each other. Plus, I got to see most of my MTC district. I'm always so glad to see them and hear that they are doing well. One of my favorite things that was shared happened in our sister's meeting. It was about the prodigal son. According to customs at the time, when the prodigal returned, the household should have gathered around and mocked him for his past transgressions. Instead, when the father saw him on the horizon, he ran to his son, taking the shame upon himself as he welcomed his son and because it was public humiliation to run in public. Later in the meeting, Sora Case mentioned how she was touched to learn that the word "succor" means run to, so when the Lord succors His people, He runs to them. It solidified the parable even more for me. The Lord truly rejoices when we return to Him. He loves and and wants to help us. His also given us agency, the ability to choose for ourselves, a great and wonderful gift. We will make mistakes, but as we make our way towards Him, he will run out to greet us and heal us of our wounds.

I'm so grateful to my Heavenly Father and I'm so grateful to be here in Romania.

-Sora Adams 

PS: We went to see Romeo and Juliet after getting permission from President. We thought it was going to be the play. Turns out it was the ballet. Ha ha ha still very cool.