Wow! What a weird week. Haha. Hello from Moldova! This week was kind of just all over the place... from moving out of Romania into Moldova to getting a new companion (who is sooooo rad, by the way) to normal craziness of missionary work.....this week was pretty off the walls.
Tuesday included a lot of me packing up my things, getting last minute good-byes in to all my favorite people in Cluj and crying with Sora Tanner because we didn't want to get split up. We wrapped it up by taking a sleeper train to Bucharest.
Wednesday was transfer day! This was my first official transfer day because getting into the country doesn't really count... We did some singing contacting with a bunch of other missionaries, went to Care cu Bere (which literally translates to "which with beer") and had one last meal as a district...also Elder Swenson's parents had just arrived fresh from the States to pick him up and were able to join us! After that we just hung out at the Gara waiting for our trains. I was able to meet a ton more missionaries and it was a really great experience! That evening I boarded my train to Chisinau, where I would meet my new companion, with four other missionaries who were to serve in that city.
After a night of traveling which included policemen coming into our sleeper compartments at four in the morn' yelling at us in Russian to show them our passports, getting our bags searched, being told that Moldova has the highest rate of human trafficking in the entire world, and going through the train switching wheels when we reached the Moldovan border, we finally arrived Thursday morning. I finally met up with Sora Bird, who is my new companion! I had met Sora Bird once before on exchanges because she was a Sister Training Leader my first transfer. Sora Tanner and Sora Bird were in the same MTC group and are the best of friends, so they had gone on an exchange together while I had been with Sora Tobler. I had already gotten a glimpse of how great she was.....and I knew if she and Sora Tanner got along so well, we were bound to get along as well. Well I was right! The whole drive from Chisinau to Orhei we talked and laughed about everything and nothing. The rest of that day was filled with unpacking and getting things in order.
Friday was our first district meeting. My district consists of Sora Bird and I, and a pair of elders. I originally thought this was a Russian companionship...but it turns out it's actually a zebra companionship with one Russian elder and one Romanian elder. But it was soon obvious why I was told otherwise... Elder Files is a Russian speaker and Elder Hollist is assigned to be a Romanian speaker, but it turns out he has been in Moldova for over a year and learned Romanian AND Russian. So as you can tell, the elders in my district are total champs. Not to mention that Sora Bird really is the bomb.com.
Saturday morning we headed back to Chisinau for a young adult activity. I was able to meet all of the missionaries now serving in Moldova, and the AWESOME young adults we have here! We then went out to lunch there at MALLdova. (Wow, good things Moldovans are so punny.) We finished off our day-trip to Chisinau with me being slapped by an old, cat lady. Yep. There was a Romanian woman giving kittens away for free on the street. She asked us where we were from and we told her. I then went to go pet one of these kittens and she slapped me, muttering something under her breath about us occupying the wrong country. I was so shocked that I didn't really know what to do, so I just told her to have a great day and walked away.
Sunday I attended my first half-Romanian, half-Russian sacrament meeting. It was super interesting because people here have the same accent when they speak both languages.....sometimes it took me a minute to realize they had switched languages. I ended up being called up to bear my testimony and I was suprised how well it went. Haha. The branch here is awesome.
Anyway now that you know every single detail of my whole life, let me end with this simple concept that we focused on with the young adult activity in Chisinau this week.... "If you don't have time to pray and read your scriptures, you are busier than God ever intended you to be." Daily scripture study and prayer are so essential!! They help so, so much.Also if we're not doing the basics in our lives, how are we justified in asking our Heavenly Father to give us basic help? Sorry this email was kind of all over the place. But read your scriptures and say your prayers! Love you guys!
PROFITE DE ZILE.
-Sora Schwab
 |
| Our last meal in Bucharest with the district and Elder Swenson's parents. Elder Swenson is going home and I'm so sad about it!!!! |
 |
| A present I recieved in Buch. In a giant pile of about a hundred suitcases some sickly bird targeted my bag. Mine was the ONLY one whose got hit! I was hoping this wasn't a sign of what my transfer with Sora Bird was going to be like.... |
 |
| MALLdova. I get a kick out of it every time I see it.... |
 |
| Pretty self explanitory. Yum! |
 |
| Beautiful Orhei. Suddenly I don't mind being sent to the middle of nowhere.... |
 |
| Sora Bird and I in our new "Ray Bans." Chisinau specializes in knock-offs and we got these bad boys for like 5 bucks, but they look SO real! Haha. We decided to try and look like thugs. Epic fail... |
No comments:
Post a Comment