Polatis Missionaries: Conference Time!!

Draga Familia!

How is everyone doing? Did you all enjoy conference? so good!! I haven't been able to watch the Sunday afternoon session yet.. but all of the others ones were great!

Mom and Dad I am 9 hours ahead of you.. so when you guys were watching the morning sessions I was watching them at 7:00 at night! They were so good! I am so excited to be able to study them in more depth! General Conference talks are the best! We have used the last General Conference issue so much in all of our lessons that I cant wait to use all the new information we were blessed to receive this last weekend! President Monson! Elder Perry! President Uchtdorf! O I could not even choose a favorite they were all so good! I am excited also to watch the Sunday afternoon session soon! I am downloading all of the talks unto my jumpdrive as I type!!

So this week has been interesting ha I think I will be able to say that about every week I am in Romania! So last week I had mentioned that I was really sad that Marianna (newstand lady) didn't show up to church. Well we went to visit her on Tuesday and she was VERY sick.. She explained to us that she has a fever.. chills.. headache.. cold.. and she wanted to come to church but her daughter told her that she needed to stay in bed. She was very sad that she wasn't able to attend. We invited her to General Conference and then we were going to assign her a chapter to read in the Book of Mormon.. Well she must not have understood what we were trying to say (sadly that is kind of normal.. haha) but she brought out her Book of Mormon and showed us where she was reading at.. ALMA 7! We both just looked at each other and starting laughing... I was like.. in romanian.. "You have read all the way to Alma 7 after about 1.5 weeks of having the Book?" She was like "ya I really really like this book it is a lot like the Bible!" We were so happy! Then after this we meet with a girl who I had contacted in the grocery store a couple weeks ago.. she kept bailing on us but this time she showed up!! We gave her our message and gave her a Book of Mormon. She is so cool. She wants to make a difference in Romania! She is a personal trainer and is all about making the world and more particularly Romania a better place! We set up to meet with her on Friday and she said she would meet with us again! (Sadly on Friday she didn't show up but its ok.. we will try again this week! )

We had service at that childrens center which I love! There is this little girl there that loves me! I teach her English and she helps me with my Romanian.. It is so funny though because she loves to make fun of me when I try to pronounce words.. She starts laughing really hard... I swear I am saying it right!! ha

Then we had our English class and it was so cool because a girl that we contacted one random night came and brought 2 friends!! We had 6 people which is really good and they were asking us all of these questions about missionary work.. and if we are "normal people" It was so cool because they just kept going off about how they couldn't believe how positive we were about life and everything.. one girl looked at me and was like "does anything ever bother you?" I started laughing out loud.. I was like o yes I am a picky eater.. she just starting laughing. I thought it was cool because these girls realized that there was something different about us. They could sense it as we were teaching them English! I am excited to see if we can continue to meet with them!

After English our Branch President drove us to our apartment and we loaded all of the clothes that we cleaned out of our apartment into his car. It was pretty fun because for some reason he thought that Sora Kelly and I had already been in the country for one year.. he might not have understood us correctly.. anyways... so we are in the car and he asks us questions.. he talks really fast and doesn't have a lot of patience.. when we didnt understand a question he turns to his wife and was like "they don't understand anything.. I will just talk to you.." Sora Kelly and I would not have that so we just started talking about something different and we explained to him that we had only been in Romania for 3 months.. His wife was super nice and then we ended up talking the rest of the way home in Romanian.. this was random but it was super cool because we did understand a lot of what him and his wife were saying.. Heavenly Father really is looking out for us and helping us. Sometimes Sora Kelly and I just look at each other and laugh when we make it through the day because we know how blessed we are. But the Branch President was really thankful for all of the clothes and they were given to all who needed them in the branch!

This week we also helped Sora Gorzo beat her rugs and clean her house! I think I have talked about her before.. She is the one that feeds all the missionaries every Sunday and she is like our grandma out here! Well so this is hilarious. Outside every older block (apartment) they have a pole set up just for beating rugs. We had to take all of her rugs out and beat them with these big fly swatter things and then wash them with some vinegar mixture she created for us. It was really funny! I have pictures to send home! That night we also meet with one of our recent converts.. She is super cool! But It is sad because she can easily be forgotten in the branch because there is not that many youth! It is really important for new converts to have friends! She is 20 something so we had a lesson with her and our trying to keep her optimistic about her membership in the church. She doesn't have any friends as members and no family so we are working on that!

Friday we had a big day.. like I said earlier.. our Diana Girl didn't show up but after that we had dinner at Sora Margaretas house. She was very emotional that day. We could not really understand what the story was so we just matched facial expressions.. overall it went well and she loves us so I guess that is all that matters. We practiced reading out loud to her and she corrects us.. and when I mean corrects us.. it is like every other word.. ha so it is really good practice! Sora Kelly and I were a little discouraged after leaving her house because we couldn't understand much but we felt reassured that if we really needed to understand something.. Heavenly Father will help us.. we are doing our best.. he will not leave us in His missionary work! Then we met with our other less active and then met with another family in the branch. Our game plan for this day was to get some good referrals. We asked and they said they would keep us updated!

Saturday was fun we had our English class and then we got to basically watch conference for the rest of the day!! it was so great I loved conference!! :) Our English class went very well.. this guy that is our age keeps showing up to it.. and I think he is kind of there to just be with us but it is ok because and elder in our district just got done with military boot camp before the mission so he said he would take care of us:)

Sunday we visited with Sora Dragu and then we went to conference. President and Sora Hill came and watched it with us! It was fun.. they had it going in English in the upstairs of the church so it was really fun! I even made rice crispies for everyone.. so it felt like back at home:) Marianna and other Marianna promised that they would come to it! We visited with them on Saturday at the same time and they both said they were coming together but they didnt show up!! We tried texting them.. no response???? so wierd.. we will have to figure out what happened?? I am not discouraged.. I know that it will pick up soon! We are trying our best.. we will just continue to work hard and have faith that we are making a difference here:)

So this STORY IS PRICELESS.. I know that Sora Kelly and I will laugh about this story for years and years to come.. so Sora Kelly has never dyed her hair out of a box and well as you all know.. I am kind of pro when it comes to that.. well on p-day we were both looking at our hair and realized that mine was looking gray and hers was looking kind of dull orangeish.. so we decided that day we were going to dye our hair. (dont worry my hair is not dark!! I will send pictures) so I dye Sora Kellys hair... and we did not know any languages on the box so we just went by the color.. I thought it looked a little red but she thought that it looked good... So we dye her hair.. and.... you guess it.. RED! She was freaking out... So we then used the box that we had bought for my hair to try to cover it up... and it did nothing.. so the next day Sora Kelly went around with reddish orange hair... so we bought another box that day and decided we would try to fix it that night.. so we bought a color and it said chocolate on it... so we were like perfect.. no red... I thought that the picture on the back looked a little red but Sora Kelly insisted that chocolate meant chocolate.. so we did it that night.. HER HAIR WENT FLAMING ORANGE.. ha I was dying.. She cried for like 20 minutes straight.. I didnt know what to do??? well 4th time is a charm we had to buy another box and we just did her roots... really dark! It actually looks really good considering that it is four different colors! Well so that was quite the adventure.. my hair turned out good in case you guys were wondering:) But yes we learned a very valuable lesson that day... ha

Well so that is all for this week! I love you guys so much!!! Keep me updated on everything! . time is going by way too fast!!! I miss you guys but I know that all will be well here as I continue to serve! Keep reading your scriptures and study the talks that we just received! This gospel is true! I am so thankful for it in my life! Romania is great! I am happy to be here and loving life right now!!!
va iubesc!!!! mmmwmwwaahhh:)

Love Sora Abby Polatis