Hello Family and Friends!

I am so glad I had the opportunity to talk to Mom, Dad and Ann yesterday! It was great to see you all. I just LOVE skype thank goodness for technology. Mom, happy Mother's Day... your the Best Mom ever!

Well, Mom, to answer your question there is about 400,000 - 500,000 people that live here. Many people live on the outside of town as well in smaller villages, but I think that is the population of Cluj. So, we serve with a set of elders; they live on the opposite side of town and we have split up the city. They have half the city to proselyte and we have the other half. Then if they have any young girls or women interested in the church we teach them, just as they would teach the young men that we find. It takes about 30 minutes to walk to the church. We walk every where; to get to Centru (center of town) it takes about 45 minutes to an hour. We take a taxi every so often; but we always plan on walking time and pass out English flyers and pass along cards on the way. We are always busy. We have a mall about 15 minutes pe jos (by feet is how they say walking here) and a store about 15 minutes away too.

The weather here has been up and down and not the spring type weather I was hoping for. I'm very glad I had my big winter coat this week. Some days are beautiful and in the 80s; then we have a few days that are super cold and we have to get all bundled up. The nice thing about moisture is it makes everything beautiful and green.

I wanted to tell a little about the food. First, most Romanians do not like any thing that is hot, like spicy hot...so most food is very bland but salty ha ha talk about high cholesterol. Anyway, I have had Sarmale which is cooked cabbage wrapes with meat, seasonings, onions and veggies. Then I've had suarmas which is like a burrito type wrap with meat, usually pork, french fries, onions, pickles, cucumbers, tomatoes, and chili sauce or a sweet type of sour cream sauce and and cabbage. Cabbage is used in a lot of the cooking here. I will tell you more about the food as I experience it.

A couple of interesting things in the stores are; they have isles of just chocolate! Oh, man So good but I try to stay away from it, but the kinds that I have eaten are super super good! The other thing is the amount of bread and pastry stores. It astonishes me at the amount of desserts people eat for a regular meal. Oh, did I mention that the young girls here are incredibly skinny and gorgeous! Ha ha, so when Sora Humphries and I see these tinny girls walking down the street with a pastry in hand and suc ( juice) in the other, we just look at each other and shake our heads! ce sa fac! ( what can you do!)

Well, now lets talk about the more important thing MISSIONARY WORK! Okay, we have quite a few people that we are working with. But, I want to talk about one specifically, Marian. He is amazing, he is younger (22), so, the elders will eventually take over the lessons. Anyway, he called inquiring about the English classes we teach. We teach English for free here 2 times a week Tuesday and Saturday. Many missionary opportunities come from our English classes. We met with him last Wednesday at the mall, talked to him and answered his questions. He had many questions. So, we talked for about an hour and then set up another time to meet with him. We gave him a Book of Mormon. Oh, one other thing is, he speaks English really well. We talk in both Romanian and English but it makes it nice for me to help answer question when I can respond faster in English. Anyway, he started reading the Book of Mormon and then he read a lot of things online. We met on Thursday night to go over things. He told us that he went shopping that day; he usually buys beer but he couldn't do it this time. He also said that he smokes usually a pack a day and he had only smoked 4 cigarettes that day! Amazing huh.... just wait it gets better... So we met with him Friday night and Saturday night and continued with the lessons and answered his questions. We told him to pray with faith and read Moroni 10:3-5. We told him that prayers have to be sincere and with real intent. We then invited him to church, but he said that he had to work and wasn't sure if he could come. So we left him with the book, Our Search For Happiness.

Sunday we sent him a text telling him we hoped to see him at church, but if not to have a good day in Arad ( another city in Romania). We got a call yesterday while we were over at a members house using Skype to talk with our family's. He said he felt very bad that he did not come to church. We then talked to him a bit more after we got home. He said that he prayed Saturday night and then didn't sleep ALL night because he had many questions and felt very different. Today he has been sending us texts with amazing questions... I can feel a baptism coming! Oh, I love teaching the Gospel it is SO great to see the wonderful changes it makes in people!

Well, as always thank you all for your love, support and prayers! You all are so great!

Va Iubesc.

Sora Hickman