Hello Fam bam!

What a week, SO much to tell. First, I just want to say I have the best family ever!! I'm SO glad that I have such a supportive and loving family! You all are so great and wonderful and I love it when I get to hear from you. Also, I want to give a big shout out to Mom and Dad for celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary WOO WOO!!!!!!! Just think for your 45th you will be traveling to Europe to pick up your baby girl!! As they would say in Romania, multi iniete, meaning like more years to come. So, I hope you got to do something fun together!

Well, we got news last week that our mission name was changed to the Romania Moldova Mission. Also, we will have Zone Conference next week here in Arad which will be super fun! I love it when we get to meet together. I always feel a great pump up afterwards. We will be able to view General Conference. I'm so grateful the McFaddens, the senior couple, are here so we can watch it in English. I am SO SO SO excited for General Conference. I always look forward to hearing the talks and to see what the major themes are. Now since we are ahead on time we will watch one Saturday evening and then the next session Sunday morning and I think we will have to look them up and figure it out, but I CAN'T wait!! I hope we can watch the Relief Society broadcast this week, but we'll see.

So, the work is moving on. I think I mentioned in my last email that we are working a lot with those that are less active and trying to get some of these great members reactivated. I feel like we should try to hold on and find the sheep that we already have and not look for more...granted there is a great balance in all. So, we spend parts of the day doing finding and then the other half working with members and less actives. We have seen some success and the members are catching on and noticing how important a friendly note or phone call can be to help those that haven't been to church in a long time and that it is never too late to come back. Also, as we find these people we start to meet family members and receive referrals on other family members. Which is great! We love referrals!

We have been working with some of the Young Single adult and trying to get them to activities and to church every week. One of our recent converts, Dona, who was baptised back in May is SO awesome. She is about finished with the Book of Mormon! A miraculous story is Her husband had a problem with gambling before she was baptised and from the first time that she went to church he NEVER gambled again! Amazing right...So powerful and what a great blessing for them. Plus her husband has been coming to church with her and says that he wants to be baptised!! She has a little son Kristi who is cute as a bug, so friendly and asks me all the time, "Why do I have to wait till I'm 8 to be baptised!" Ha ha, So I am hoping that Ghita, Dona's husband, will continue to progress and that we can help them work together as a family. It would be great to get to see them go through the temple together.

Also we have Melinda, she is 12, so so cute and very mature. She reminds me a lot of Thea from Cluj...kinda the same situation too, her parents won't let her get baptised yet. BUT, we did meet with her mom this last week and told them that we want to work with them as a family. Angi the mom expressed a great interest and has studied with Jehovas Witnesses in the past. So, it will be great to see where it goes. The parents Angi and Petre need to get married before they can get baptised, but it will be great to see them all progress. Her mom said that she wants to get married. Petre wasn't in there at the time, but then she said, "well its NOT my decision". We will have the elders talk to Petre and see if we can get the family to work together, so we can get them baptised. Their grandma, Aunt and Melinda's cousin are already baptized. We have a great base to work from.

I love the people here SO much. That's one thing I don't think I can explain in words... it is just the love that I have for all of them. Today as we were finishing up the cleaning in our apartment I was watching out of our apartment window and there were tons of kids walking to school and it was so cute to see the old grandparents caring their grand kids back packs. I see that all the time. It makes me excited to have a family.

This morning I was watching a few Mormon messages, first was expression on love!! It was SO good I cried, so I encourage you to watch it. I think it was because of Elder Scott. It was a portion from his last General Conference address when he talked about his wife...which I LOVED!! Also, there was one about I am a child of God. It had all of these families and couple of little kids singing "I Am a Child of God". Carson's sister and niece Hannah were on there!! I rewinded it 4 or 5 times just to make sure! So Cars if you haven't seen it yet go check it out! :) I love being a MORMON!! Or more politically correct, a Latter Day Saint. Yesterday Eni one of the YSA's (young single adults) gave a great talk. In it she stated we are different and we have to be! I loved that because we are different, as Christ said "to be in the world but NOT of the world". I love that.

Well, I hope you all have a great week! I love you all SOSOSOS much. I'm so grateful for all of your love, support and prayers. I need all the help I can get. :) I tried to send pictures but I was having technical difficulties...so more next week.

Oh and when is every one going hunting?

Love you,

Sora Hickman