Christ is Risen!

Hristos a inviat! Christ is risen! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. I know I did. We got together with the entire district and the two senior couples here and had an Easter dinner. I ate enough food to last me the entire week. Worth it. If you haven't seen the Easter videos put together by the church yet, you should definitely check them out atlds.org.

This week we spent some time getting a residency permit for Sora Sayre so she can stay in Moldova longer. You can only stay for two transfers without one. Looks like she could be staying her for awhile. I won't be getting one as I only have two transfers after this one. I'll be heading back to Romania for my last transfer. Anyway, we met with a lawyer and had Sora Sayre's blood tested (to find out what type it is), took a trip to the American embassy, and met with a member who helps us with bills and things. We got all that taken care of just in time to have it completely processed and good to go before her time in the country runs out. 

We were able to meet with some members this week, one of them being the branch president's family. They have two little kids who are adorable. We went into their apartment and took a seat on the couch and immediately their kids start going back and forth grabbing all of their toys to show us what they have. They were so funny. As we began our spiritual thought though, the feeling in the apartment changed. A peace filled the room as we talked about our Savior and all that He did for us. It was really cool.

The other two members we visited are less actives. The first of the two has a physical disability that makes it hard for her to come to church. I enjoyed getting to know her, and despite the hardship, she has a desire to come to church again. She is a such a sweet woman. She's interested in learning how to do her family history, so hopefully we'll be able to help her with that. We'll be meeting with her again this week.

The second member we visited teaches people English for a living. She's also an artist. She does sketches of people and water colors of flowers and things. She's interesting to talk to and will tell you exactly what she thinks. She's pretty awesome. She also has a cat named Richard. What makes Richard so special? He loves hard boiled eggs. We brought one over for him. It was so funny to watch him perk up just at the sight of the egg. When the egg was actually cracked open, Richard started to beg a little, rubbing against this member's leg and making cute little noises. His flattery paid off and he finally received his egg. I think he approved of our visit. 

Oh I forgot. We had another visit as well with an adorable little family! The wife is a member but the husband isn't. They have two little girls. It was great to visit them and to see a picture of the temple and of Christ hanging up. The husband only speaks Russian and we only speak Romanian, but it all worked out. He can understand Romanian okay, but can't speak it. In the end he was very willing for us to return and visit.

To conclude, I like to bring things back to our Savior. I went on an exchange with Sora Kelly this week and one of the things that we talked about was the atonement and applying it into our lives. She told me how she's recently been realizing how the atonement not only just for the forgiveness of sins. Being on missions, sometimes it's a lot easier for us to realize just how many weaknesses we have. It can be very easy to be overly hard on ourselves. But the thing is, Christ knows about those too. He knows our weaknesses. He knows how we feel when after something happens we look back and think, "Why did I do that? Why didn't I do it this way?" We're not perfect beings yet and both He and our Heavenly Father know that. But because of the Atonement we can eventually become perfect. Christ will help us down the road to perfection. He will strengthen us in our weakness. He can because He understands them perfectly. He's proud of the efforts we make even if we fall up short. He will pick us up and help us to do better the next time. I'm so grateful for a Savior who understands me completely, and because He does He knows how to heal me, strengthen me, and bring me back to the Father. Jesus Christ lives. He really did pay the price for our sins. He really did die for us and He rose again. Because of that, we too will rise again from the grave. We will become resurrected beings. This life is not the end. Because of Christ, life has purpose and meaning and hope!

I love you all! I hope you had a great Easter.

Love,

Sora Adams