Up!

Bună ziuă dragi frați si surori! Greetings from the great land of Piteşti.

I'm going to be straight and just say that this week was kind of HARD. I thought it would be unfair to you all and even be a slight disservice if I pretended that my mission was an always happy super amazing 18-month experience, and left out the harder details. Don't get me wrong, I love being a missionary and love serving the people here in Romania, but I would be lying if I said that everyday I jumped out of bed.

Pitesti has been a hard area and Sora Berrett and I have seen very little progress come from our past 6 weeks here, and this week we started another transfer together here. While the past couple of days have been a little more challenging, that's not to say that they have been without their miracles!!

⭐ we were in Buchurest for some visa work and it was raining BUCKETS. We were sorely unprepared for the bad weather and didnt have anywhere to go in between our appointments, but we went to the closest McDonalds to take shelter and it was so crowded inside with no empty tables and I thought it was a lost cause, but after doing a couple rounds we found a tiny empty unoccupied table in the corner!

⭐ on our train ride back from Bucuresti a man noticed that we were studying Romanian. Without even talking to him first, he struck up a conversation with us and was WAY interested. We gave him a Book of Mormon and exchanged numbers before he got off at his stop

⭐we were eating lunch at a park one day, and this lady with her daughter just walked up to us after noticing our name tags. She asked us if we had any books about our religion that we could give her. I pulled out a Book of Mormon (that I had last second slipped into my bag before we headed to lunch)!

⭐my showers had warm water this week 

I have seen myself stretched so much in these past couple of weeks. I have really had to place my trust in the Lord and in the fact that this is His work, and I am simply just an instrument in forwarding it. I know that after times of tribulation come times of great blessings. 

We have to have humbling and hard times to be able to learn and grow, and despite being in a time of tribulation or trial, we can still see miracles, big or small, in everyday life. 

Love you all

Sora Tobler

Dracula's Castle

A couple quick things from this week:)

1. We totally (accidentally) made someone crash their bike in a massive puddle, but dont worry he was really nice about it concerning the situation and we felt really bad 

2. President Rucker and the APs came and visited! After 2 weeks of quarantine by himself here in romania, president Rucker is able to tour the country and cities. He and the APs stopped by on Saturday. we had interviews, all went to lunch, talked with some members, and it was an all-around good time.

3. Took a little field trip to Bucuresti to get sister berrett's retainer fixed. I miss bucharest a bit. 

4. I am growing to love pitesti more and more everyday. Not gonna lie, it was not a first love type of situation, when I first got here, but I'd say I grow to love it more here everyday (thank you heavenly father for helping me out in that department) 

5. Still trying to find some people to teach, but we are not getting discouraged! Just keeping going with faith.

6. Member highlight- Robert. Seriously one of the funniest guys I have ever met, he has super long curly hair and he is an actor. His most recent gig is in Rapunzel. He is a recent convert, has one of the strongest testimonies, and is just the life of the party over here in pitesti. 

7. Hope you all remember my invitation last week and are still working on a spiritual gift! I've been working on how to hear the holy Ghost a bit better in my life. Let me know how it is going. 

8. I wish you could tell you more about our p day adventure today (Dracula's Castle), but sadly I don't have time to write about it, but stay tuned for next week. 

Love you all:)

FIRE

buna ziua tuturor!!

Comin' at you with another week from the great land of Romania:)) some things that happened this week...

1.Summerhasofficiallyarrived and I couldn't be happier. As an AZ girl you'd be surprised at how happy the sun makes me. 

2.We are still on the finding grind over here round these parts and have had some decent success in the last week. An old returned missionary reached out to us and gave us a golden referral the other day. We contacted them and they were way happy that we reached out, and we are going to meet with them sometime this week. 

3.There is a park right across the street from the church and we usually always go and sit on a little bench and do our studies out there. It is fun to people watch a bit and see all the cute little Romanian grandpas and grandmas with their dogs walking around the park.

4.Mission conference! We had mission conference this week and mission conferences are  always a good time . I'ts crazy to see how this mission has grown so much in the last couple of months and we are always changing and adjusting what we are doing and how we are doing it, trying to find what works best.

5.We went on a HIKE today and it was AMAZING. Been awhile since I have been outside of a city, and it was way nice to be out in nature for a bit. 

6.We may have almost burned the apartment down this week

Spiritual gifts here are SO COOL. I have been studying them this week and could go one for hours talking about them. We are promised way cool spiritual gifts for God, all we need to do is recognize them, pray for them, and develop them. Try figuring out a spiritual gift you have this week, or try and start developing a new one! 

Love

sora Tobler 

who let the dogs out

 Hope everyone is doing well and had a good week:)))

american pride

After getting out of quarantine this week, Sora Berrett decided that we were going to go out and try to find some of our members. We headed out towards Sora Maria's house, a member who before even meeting us was so excited that we were here in pitesti, that she called us everyday since we arrived! She lives about and hour outside of pitesti so we needed to take a MAXI TAXI out to her little house in the middle of a cute lil village. She was so cute and so so happy to see us. Her house was only about 6×6 feet and only one room, but she was so welcoming and had a little lunch for us. A missionary a couple years ago gave her american flag and she has been obsessed with america ever since. (See attached pics)

who let the dogs out

There are 3 little stray dogs that live right next to our house and follow us around everywere we go. I think it is because we gave them some hot dogs as we were walking home one day and now they are just our best friends.

neighbors

We have seen our neighbors a couple times, but really haven't had a good opportunity to speak with them. We were leaving to go on a run one night, and ran into them as they were going on a walk! They were so sweet and invited us over to dinner and were super interested and curious on why we were here. Little blessings!

paste fericit

Since most romanians are orthodox and follow a different yearly calendar than the one that we have in this United states, easter for everyone here in romania was this past week! Not complaining that I was able to celebrate easter twice and just so grateful for the reason behind easter, whether it is celebrated in april or may. As Paul says in Corinthians 15:22, "22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." I know that christ lives and because He lives we too will be able to live again. I love the doctrine of resurrection and have loved studying it more in depth these past few weeks. Isus a înviat! Adevărat a înviat! 

Hope everyone has a great week:)

sora T