December 22, 2014 - Viața e nebunie, dar nebunia e minunat.

What a crazy week. Two weeks? Three weeks? What's happening? Oh my gosh, life is such madness right now. So I'm only going to do highlights today. But here they areeeeeeeeee:

-I met Antonia, one of the biggest musicians from Romania. Her father is actually the first counselor in the Mihai Bravu branch and she came to church with him! It was so random and everyone freaked out. We met her and she was actually really cool and even agreed to sing in our Christmas concert the following Saturday! (Photo attached)

-We performed a Christmas concert at the American Embassy. I think I mentioned this, but I was put in charge of this a few weeks ago and it was just an incredible opportunity. I got to direct the choirs and see all these numbers really come alive. Man, it was so fantastic. The concert went perfect....the missionaries performed the best they ever had and it was just brilliant. Seriously one of the coolest things I've ever done. Then afterwards I got Dr. Pepper shipped here straight from America. The cherry on top of a killer experience.

-Transfers happened.... and I got transferred.....TO THE OTHER BRANCH IN BUCHAREST. Panduri. What the heck! I got whitewashed into a STL threesome.... Hahaha. Yeah, try to comprehend how crazy that is. Sora Honey is my new (Austrailian) companion and we whitewashed into a companionship that had little to nothing going on. Then after one week, a missionary went home for the end of her mission and we got put into a threesome with one of the other sister missionares in our district while the other went to a different city to take the missionary's spot who went home. Whoo. Confused yet? So Sora Tanner, who was my trainer, is now in our companionship too! Sora Tanner and I are STL's and we're now in a threesome and it just makes zero sense. Haha. I just have to laugh because this really is the craziest situation I've ever been in on my mission. They put three of the craziest personalities together in one companionship and we may or may not come out of this transfer alive. We've only been together in a trio for three days and we've already had such a riot. But with that being said, the Lord had to have a reason for the chaos.

-I've been thinking up these two really rad projects for a while and they are actually happening! One is this Book of Mormon project that has a guide for the "Questions of the Soul." We've started giving them to members and asking them to give them to their friends for Christmas gifts. Just a little experience....on Sunday I asked one of the members we're working with to do just this. One of our investigators came to church with her mother that day, who is actually a former investigator, and this member just so happened to sit next to her at the Christmas dinner we had as a branch after church. The member called me over and then proceeded to give the Book of Mormon to this woman and explain that the questions she's had in her life have been answered by this book. She bore her simple but strong testimony to this woman and it was incredible to watch. We now have an appointment to teach our investigator WITH her mother this coming week. Such a lovely experience. The second is a project to promote positivity in Romania and Moldova called "Suntem lumina" or "We are the light." So I get to go around Bucuresti taking photos of happy people with a really nice camera and still be doing missionary work. Wahoo! What happens is I take their photograph and give them the link to the website where I'll be putting up my photography. Then on the website there will be our message about positive living and how this gospel can change our view and make us happier. We got the website up and running this past week and now we just need to get it approved. I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT IT. So when this project starts, I can give you all the link and you can check out the missionary work I'm doing on a much more personal level! We're really excited for this project because it gives a much simpler way to start a conversation with people. It's an easy way to get people on the website and get a little more information on our purpose here as missionaries, information on our church, așa mai departe. The whole project plays off of the concept of light....that Christ is the light in darkness and that we can have light in our lives as we follow Him. I just want to share the scripture that we're putting on the pass-along cards. It's in 3 Nephi 12:16-- "Therefore let your light so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

Ahhhh! I love this gospel. It is the light in my life and it's given me great happiness to share it with the people here in Romania AND Moldova. Things are hard...but they are so worth it. THE CHURCH IS TRUE. 

PROFITE DE ZILE.

Sora Schwab

 

These first three are from last transfer. In this photograph, Antonia is the one to the right of me and the rest are missionaries. She is so cool!

This when we put some of the elders' nametags in our district in jello..... Hahaha.

The third is a cockroach we squished in our apartment.....

The funny thing is, I got transferred right after this happened. Ha!

This is (from left to right) Sora Tanner, Sora Weaver (the missionary who was Sora Tanner's companion but has now left us to replace the missionary who went home), me and Sora Honey.

The second photograph is the river that runs by my new apartment. It was super foggy and looked beautiful!

The first photograph is Sora Honey and I eating traditional Romanian food at the Christmas dinner for our branch. IT WAS SO GOOD.

 

This photograph was taken after twenty-four hours in a threesome. We were in the metrou and Sora Tanner whipped out her camera. I think it pretty much explains how everyone is feeling. Hahahah.

December 15, 2014 - încă în viață.

Hi everyone! I'm still alive. Barely. Talk to you next week! Profite de zile!!

Cu drag,

Sora Schwab

December 1, 2014 - Ziua Independenței.

Buna din nou! Do you guys feel like I just wrote like four days ago? Yeah, me too.... So I actually don't have a ton to report on from these last 96 hours...EXPECT THAT WE'RE HARVESTING THE CRAP OUT OF ROMANIA. Mari is progressing wonderfully and working through some things that are preventing her from coming closer to Christ. We're giving her a baptismal date to work towards this week! The best part about these last few days was a little (HUGE) blessing named Maya. We received a call from an unknown number at the beginning of the week. I answered and this girl proceeded to tell me that she wanted to come to church. This has literally never happened to me on my mission. We contact people every single day....but no one has ever called us....we always get their numbers and we call them. So Sora Black and I were pretty excited about it! We set up with her and met with her a few days later. Maya is easily the happiest Romanian I've ever met. Her father is from Syria and is Muslim and her mother is from Romania and is Christian....and she is SO COOL. She's had interactions with the missionaries before, so our whole first lesson was just kind of getting to know her and finding out where she was spiritually and such. She had been contacted by the sisters a few transfers back and had come to church until she lost contact with the sisters because one of them went home. She said that her life has changed since she's come to our church. We talked to her about baptism and she's so excited about it....we're giving her a date this week! I've never met someone so prepared on my mission. God is blessing us with some pretty incredible people. :) So real quick, just because I'm weird and need some kind of theme to these ridiculous emails.....today was Independence Day in Romania! Ziua Independenței. It was fun that it just happened to land on our P-day because all the missionaries went to a parade this morning together before we had a farewell party for our district leader, Elder Whitehead, who goes home next week! Anyway, Sora Black and I talked a little bit about freedom in our companionship study and how sometimes it seems like commandments take away our freedom.....but how they really GIVE us freedom. With a twenty and a twenty-one year old investigator, we have to ask them to give up some things that are very socially accepted here in Romania....maybe even encouraged. At some point in this process towards coming closer to Christ, it might seem that the commandments only restrict us. They keep us inside the boundaries the Lord has set, therefore giving us more freedom and blessings that anyone who is not. Whooo for freedom! (How was that cheesy comparison for the week?) Anyway...that's about all I've got for this week, folks. The gospel is the greatest thing ever and I'm so glad I get to share it with these lovely people in Romania. Things get hard and that makes us stronger....and if we endure well....the blessings always come.  :)

PROFITE DE ZILE.

Sora Schwab

 

 

 

First things first..... I told you all last week that I dyed my hair.....well here it is!

This is last week's missionary turkey bowl that we had for Thanksgiving. The theme was "Ugly Sweater" and it was a blast! I took photos the whole time and got some great action shots! This is the photo of everyone who played at the end!

Just a cool statue we found in București this past week.

Casa Poporului this morning. It was the first snowfall and it looked so beautiful with the giant Romanian flag they hung up for Independence Day!

Me, Sora Black, Sora Tanner and Sora Bird at the Independence Day parade this morning.

This is just a protestor at the parade waving a Romanian flag. 

This photograph is of the American troops that were in the Independence Day parade this morning! We were all so surprised to see them....but we all screamed like the obnoxious Americans that we are! :)

Sora Black and I after the cake fight that erupted at Elder Whitehead's going away party today.