Natalee Letter May 28, 2012

HELLO Family and Friends,

Okay, well I will have to make this letter a little shorter or write a lot faster this week because I have already written mom and dad a long email about our travel plans and question with all that.  So I apologize ahead of time for it being shorter.

Well, what a week!  We started English and were hoping for about 20 students at the least.  Oh, don't worry we had a total of 5!  So that was a little sad but it really is because of the RAIN!  It has been so rainy these last 2 weeks and I am ready for SUNSHINE!!!!   Instead of coming home all sweaty and hot we come home wet and cold...I am not sure which one I like better.  ha ha

We did see a lot of miracles this last week.  We were leaving the church after our young single adult activity on Wednesday and we hadn't been able to have any lessons that day! :(   As we were walking down the street we stopped a lady and talked to her.  She recognized us right away and she said "I know who you are".  She continued, "when I was younger I went the the theater here in town and there was a family of missionaries just like you from America. I will never forget them".  We then asked her what she thought the purpose of life was.  She said come with me and I will show you my purpose... I was thinking that was an unusual response.  Well, she lived just around the corner and she took us to her back yard and there is the big handmade wooded caged were over 40 cats!  Talk about a cat lady, I have never seen anything like that in my whole life.  Her name is Andrea and what she does is she takes a few of the stray cats that are sick and have physical disabilities and nurtures them back to health!  Amazing right?  We didn't have much time because it was late, but we asked if we could come back on Saturday.  When we went back she said that she had read a lot of information about us on the internet.  My initial reaction was, "oh great, what crap did she find on the internet about us MORMONS?"  Actually she used lds.org and found a lot of information and she said she was very impressed with the type of people we are.  She read about Joseph Smith, the word of wisdom and how we try to live what we preach in our day to day lives.  She asked us if she could come to church!  Now that does not happen very often and of course we invited her and she seemed very happy and excited to come.  She didn't show up, but you know that's okay.  I know that we will continue to teach her and that Heavenly Father will provide a way for her. 

 Overall, it was just amazing because Heavenly Father really does guide each of our steps.  We hadn't planned on going down that street at all!  God really does have his hand in the work.  As Sora Atkins and I continue to pray often and fast weekly, we are seeing the results from our sacrifices.  We are doing our best to call down the powers from heaven so we can find those who are ready.

I just want to give a shout out to Nic thanks for the update girl!  I really hope you can find a job soon. Cars congrats on your new calling and position at work.  I am sure it will be a lot of work but you are amazing so you can do it!  Also, Aunt Georgia wrote me this last week as always.  You are so busy but I love that you took some time to write me.  I am so grateful for all of you really EVERY SINGLE one of you!  For all your support prayers, thoughts, packages, and emails/letters!  THANKS!

Love Sora Hickman

Well Hello again!

I feel like sometimes I was just here writing you all yesterday.  The time goes by so fast.

This week Sora Atkins and I focused a lot on English contacting.  Trying to talk to as many English students as possible, so that we can have a large English classes this transfer.  The larger the classes the better odds we have of finding more people to teach the gospel too.

Well, I found out on Saturday that the country of Romania is going to the temple in Germany on September 2nd to the 9th.  Three DAYS!!!!!!!!! Before I am released!  When the members from Romania go they stay for a whole week!  They do temple work for hours every day!  I would love for Tibi to have this opportunity instead of just a day or two with us, ya know?  Of course, I want to be there for his first time!  I need to talk to him more.  I thought one thing we might do is to go to the temple when you first get here in Romania.  Meaning you get in Monday and then Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning we fly to Germany and meet him in Germany.  Then we could drive back to Romania  and travel around that way, but in my head I am not sure if that makes much sense.  I won't be there for HIS endowment like I wanted to, but I am not too sure what to do now.  I also don't know how long he can take time off from work.  I am not sure  what our schedule is either or where we want to go, how long we are staying, and all the detail like that.  I know you bought your tickets to Bucharest! YAY!!!!  You are coming in on the 10th right?  Then when are we flying out?  How long are we planning on staying?

Also, what happened with Lhanis Birliba?   Mom were you able to make contact with him and find him a place to stay in Salt Lake?

Okay, sorry to bore everyone else with all that business.  Sora Atkins and I did had a good week.  Like I said we did a lot of English contacting, which consists of us walking every where and talking to as many people as possible.  We have little flyer's that we pass out.  We gave out about  500 flyer's.  We met some really wonderful people and we hope that a lot of people will come!! 

It has been super rainy this last week and when it is bad weather it is hard to get many people out of their houses.  Sora and I got caught out in the rain twice, once on Tuesday and on Thursday.  We came home SOAKED!!!!!  I forgot my umbrella, which I know is my mistake, but when I leave in the morning and it is pretty nice outside, then we don't usually come home through out the day;  then when it is late afternoon and the rain comes, I am out of luck.  It was fun, but cold at the same time.

We also had another baptism this week, her name is Violeta Opera.  She will be another great addition to this branch.

Sora and I have been fasting every week with  the purpose of finding more investigators. Yesterday when we ended our fast it had been raining all afternoon, but the sun finally came out for just a bit and we thought "Lets go talk to people!"  We were only out for a short while and we met this super sweet lady, Elena, she has seen the boy missionaries (Elders) around all over town, then she saw us girls (sister missionaries) this time and she thought, Oh, I can talk to them.  She speaks English pretty well and went to Chicago for a trip last summer and LOVED it.  She was really interested in our English classes.  She had so many wonderful question for us.  I know our Savior is aware of us and wants to bless us.  We just have to be patient, diligent, faithful and he will bless us!

Mom and Dad I love you both SO much.  I get more excited every day thinking about you coming!  Thanks for the pictures of China's graduation.

Attached are a few pictures from this past week.  We bought a broom off of a gypsy on the street  Monday for Zone Conference because it was Harry Potter oriented, so we wanted a broom to paint silver and green for the Slytherin Team.  Also, some random pictures of Sora Atkins and I and a portion of our district.


I love you all! 
Sora Hickman

FAMILY AND FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!

 

Well, I still can't believe that I just got to call you about 6 hours ago!  I loved skyping you and seeing all of you and all my super cute nieces and nephews.  I love you all so much.  I really can't believe that I only have about 4 months left! CRAZY!  I know it will fly by, but I also have LOTS AND LOTS of work to do here in Romania.  So, I will stay busy to the day that I leave.  I can't wait to come home and do member missionary work to keep this going.

 

Well, something I forgot to ask you mom and Dad is,  I want to know your engagement story, well not just the engagement, but your whole dating story.  I ask a lot of people out here because I feel like those are some of the happiest days of their lives.  The other day Sora Atkins asked me and I really had no clue.  I do know that you were both at Utah State, but that's about all I know.  Also, I want you to tell me your "Conversion story."  I know you were both born in the gospel, but when or how did you know that the church was true?  If you could include that in next weeks email I would greatly appreciate it!  Also, if any of the Siblings want to do it to I would love it!

 

Also, I finally heard from Katy Broughton...(9 months later) she wrote me when I was up in Cluj and that was forever ago!!!  I just wanted to give her a shout out.  Kates I love you! I miss you like crazy and when I get back if you need a TA I am all over it for you, plus we are going to be doing some trading for massages.  You and my family will have to be my practice bodies, so I can get back into tip top massage therapist shape.  Also, tell Melissa Humphries (my first companion/ trainer/ mama) I say hello or buna!

 

Okay, well a few fun things from this last week. Saturday here in Romania was a national cleaning day called "Let's Do It Romania."  We went to a huge park and cleaned for a few hours.  It mostly consisted of picking us trash especially a lot of cigarette butts.  There were about 20 of us from the branch.  It was fun and beautiful weather.  We also, played soccer on Saturday night! I LOVE LOVE LOVE playing soccer and I love playing here because girls and soccer is NOT a thing you see here in Romania, so everyone thinks I'm really good, but in all honesty I'm not, I can just play....HA HA.

 

Thursday was an AMAZING DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   We made a goal of talking to 100 people on Thursday.  We had other lessons planned, so we knew that every where we went we had to talk to every one we could.  We started the day out good with an awesome district meeting...THANK you District leader Cross (He is our DL right now).  We talked to many people as we were heading home for lunch.  We left extra time in between lessons so we could talk to more people.  We walked EVERY WHERE so we could talk to more people.  After a few lessons it was about 6:30 pm and we were at about 40 people.  We suddenly went into panic mode.  We just got out of a lesson and had a bit more planned for the night so we just went nuts.  EVERY person in our path, whether it was about the gospel or about our English classes.  Some of the conversations were really short, just a few minutes, enough time to bear our testimonies and to give them a pass along pamphlet or card.  Some others were really long and gave us time to explain more in depth about the Book of Mormon or about a gospel principle.  Well 8 p.m. hits we were at about 70 people at this point  We only had an hour left!!!!! When we FINALLY hit the 100th person, Sister Atkins and I looked at each other with smiles of victory and conquer!!!!  WE DID IT!  Did I mention it was exceptionally hot that day and we were fasting?  This is why  I love being a missionary!  I love love love LOVE talking to people about this church, about our beliefs.  Even when we get denied, it doesn't matter.  The chosen and ready will be out in our path.  We were exceptionally exhausted that night when we got home.  I did sleep really well though.

 

Also, Sora Atkins and I only speak Romanian to each other, so this morning it was a nice relief to speak English to you all!  I love you all, I miss you all like crazy, but it won't be too long and I will see you!  Mom and Dad thank you for making sacrifices for me to be here.  To all my baller siblings, thanks for being the great example and wonderful support to me that you are in every way.  Again I love you!

 

I will keep in touch with Tibi and let you know more about what he says next week in our email.

 

Cu drag, 

Sora Hickman 

 

Hello Family and friends!!

 Can you believe that another transfer is over and that another week is down!  I can't, it feels like the less amount of time that I have here in Romania it is like the time goes by faster and faster.  Well, since Sora Atkins and have only been together a couple of weeks.  We will be staying together for another transfer!!!!!!!  I am very excited about this as I'm sure you can tell by the mass amounts or exclamation marks I've used!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It does mean though that we will not be going to Buc for transfers which is a bummer because I love it when I get to see all the missionaries, but it will be great to have the day to work hard here in Ploiesti.

Well, Sora Atkins and I are trying hard to find new investigators.  We have been talking to more and more people on the street and trying to find those that are prepared.  As of right now we have not seen a huge change, but I know that as we try to hold fast to the mission rules and as we work harder and more diligent in other words put our trust in our Heavenly Father and the Savior, that we can see miracles here in Ploiesti.  I really want to see a change here.  We have a lot of work ahead of ourselves, but we are going to try to fast more together.  We are trying a "language fast" meaning, we only speak Romanian all day outside and inside.  I hope that through our effort we can see some changes in our success and we can bring more people unto Christ.

We had another baptism on Friday for a sweet girl named Angela.  Elder Friel and Elder Cross have been working with her.  She is wonderful, so humble, so prepared and absolutely awesome!  I am so excited for her.  Her confirmation was yesterday and I was so touched by the spirit.  I LOVE THIS GOSPEL!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, for a NOT so fun and spiritual day...THURSDAY!  We had District a meeting at 10.  We left the house and were just going to grab the bus, so we could get to the church early.  We got on and they controlled us!  I thought, NO worries, we have our abonaments; the guy looked at them and then asked us to get off the bus.  Sora and I were so confused that our abonaments had expired the day before, so you know what that meant, yep we had to pay a fine of 60 LEI!!!! (lei is the currency here in Romania) So, we were ticked (well kinda... we walked off laughing) We were now LATE for district meeting, but they did give us a little ticket that we could use for the whole day.  That was the most expensive ticket I have ever paid for here in Romania.  HA HA.  Well, we went to the district meeting, which was great!  Later that day we had a lesson with a less active member who complained to us that the church use to be so much better when she was active and that things are not the same any more.  Oh, we did take the bus to her house because she lives way down South, but Sora Atkins had forgotten her ticket at the church after district meeting, so she had to buy another ticket!  Then on the way back Sora forgot to buy a ticket by accident and we were going to jump off the next stop and buy a ticket and we got CONTROLLED AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I could not find my ticket!  Ugh, it was so frustrating so we had to pay 30 lei again!  Then later that day I got pooped on by a bird!  I love being a sister missionary!  Our lives are so interesting at times.  It just reminds me of what Sora Cottam wrote in her letter last week about Elder Wirthlins talk "Come what may and LOVE it!"  I do love it here!  I love being a sister missionary.

Mom, I will talk to Tibi this week and make sure he knows all he needs to do. I'm sure he does because I talked with the missionaries in Cluj and they have already talked with him.  For a package I would have to say Peanut Butter and cereal.  I will think of more things and tell you on SUNDAY because I get to talk to you!  I can't wait.  Expect to get an email from me later this week and we will set up a time to talk.  I'm thinking in the morming before you go to church.  I will let you know.  

Well I love you all.