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.