Buna Ziua Familia Mea!
Well, what a week! We had transfers! I'm now with Sora Harward. She was Sora Benett's (my MTC companion) trainer. She is wonderful! This is her last transfer and then she will be headed back to the States. She is also the youngest in her family and has 31 nephew and 2 nieces. She is from Ohio - Cincinnati. She goes to BYU and is studying child development. She is going home one transfer early in order to be home in time for school. I love her SOO much already. We get along so well. So, I'm excited with this transfer.
To start, we had an awesome activity for our Branch here in Cluj this last Saturday. It was awesome! We discussed the importance of scripture study and how to make it more effective. We had a couple ladies prepare a short (like 7 minutes) discussion on topics in Preach my Gospel from chapter two. Well, that's what we thought...One sister forgot her glasses at home so she said she couldn't read her notes, so we asked her to bear her testimony. Then the other sister talked for 30 minutes! A fost fuerte comic (it was very funny). It worked out great, but sometimes I wonder if they were even listening to us. HA HA, I LOVE ROMANIANS. Every day and especially every week at church my heart grows to love the people here more and more. The Branch here is so wonderful and the members are very welcoming. I'm getting better at being able to converse with them more and more.
For the activity we made a cake!!!!! It looked AMAZING if I do say so myself...trust me the ovens here are hard to get used to. So trying to make something and have it come out like I think it would in American...doesn't happen very often. But we did it! We decorated the cake and compared it to scripture study and how the foundation or the actual cake is the scriptures and the Liahona or the basic principles. Then the decorations are the extras it makes everything so nice and beautiful but it would be NOTHING with out the foundation. The members were VERY impressed by our cooking skills...So were the Elders. We were to actually.
Well, an update on Marian who was a guy who called about the English classes, my first transfer and then we started teaching him. He is doing okay. He switched jobs not to long ago and that has prevented him from coming to church, but he should be free to come this week. Also, he has had some serious health problems and was told by a doctor that his heart is wearing out and that he only has a few years to live. I was shocked when he told us. We are still trying to grasp his words, but I know that our message can change his life. I know that he will find comfort in Our Heavenly Father's plan for us. The elders started teaching him... But Elder Toronto our District Leader asked us this last week to start teaching him!! Which I'm Super excited about. It is a lot more convenient for us to teach him because we live so close to him. I have faith that he will be baptised this transfer.
Also, something I'm working on is reading through the Book of Mormon. I have read it once already on my mission. I'm doing the 60 day challenge so right now I'm in 2 Nephi chapter 26. I'm about a day behind but I'll catch up. I love reading the Book of Mormon over and over you catch so much every time and there is always something to apply to our investigators. I'm in the Isaiah chapters its interesting to read through them and try to pick them apart to understand...not much understating happens, but I'm trying.
Oh, a couple other things I just remembered. I bought a sweet super awesome Gypsy skirt...see pic. I got a wicked deal...they are usually about 300 hundred lei but I got it for half... so about 30 bucks. Also, Sora Harward ran into a pole on the way to the activity on Saturday, so we got some good pictures. Elder Toronto our DL was Dr. DL for the day! I attached some pics.
I hope you all have a wonderful week. I love you all. Thank you for all of your love a support.
Sora Hickman
