Roasted

Oh man where to begin??!

First off, I already love it here. I am serving in the Capitol Bucharest and it is amazing. Bucharest is a massive city and is always busy with people walking and something is always going on. We take the Metro system to get around and it's pretty much exactly like the subway system in New York. Except for the metro stations here smell like fresh baked bakery stuff since there is like a bakery every 5 feet haha.

Bucharest is kinda this weird mix between a western european cute city and like a russian communist city. It's a whack mix, but kinda cool.

My companion Sora Bauco is so cool, and I serisously couldn't be happier with having her as my companion. It's nice, she really likes running, so we go running practically every morning and night.

We are pretty busy here, and most days I feel like we don't have enough hours in the day to do everything we need to do.

We still do a lot of FB finding and let me tell you, people can be soo rude haha and so weird. If only you knew some of the whack messages i've gotten. 

I still don't understand squat when people are speaking in romanian, sooooo that's kinda stressful, but I have faith that I'll be able to get it eventually, but until then... I kind of just ask people to repeat what they say like 10 times until they eventually just speak to me in english haha. It's hard because most people speak english here and just want to practice their english with us, and I want to practice my romanian with them lol

We had church yesterday, and It was the first time i've been to church since March!! It was so nice, and besides the fact that I had to give the opening prayer, I quite enjoyed it. 

Anyways, I hope everyone has a great week:))))

I just want everyone to know that Jesus Christ wants us to come unto Him!! His arms are open and extended to us! :)))

Sora Caroline 

Sunt in ROMANIA

 Well, this week was an eventful one let me tell you... so sorry if this long lol

Friday, we finally got out of quarantine (thank goodness) and we were able to GO OUTSIDE. After living in Budapest for almost 3 weeks, I actually got to see where i've been living, kinda crazy. President and Sister Rucker took us all to this really cool restaurant for lunch and it was probs some of the best food i've ever had (or maybe my standards were just very low, because the quarantine food we were eating was not all that great haha). After that, we all went to the mission home/office and found out about the "mission impossible" expedition that had been concocted to get us to Romania on Monday (burner phones, official documents, and important instructions included lol). I also found out that once I got to Romania, I'll be serving Bucharest, the capital, with Sister Bauco! 

very excited about that.

Saturday, was our p-day and we got to see the city some more and ate sushi for dinner (so that was great). We also went on a run Saturday morning and saw the SWEETEST THING: 

At like 6:45 in the morning, we saw this teenage boy walking along the river by himself, placing burgers by the all homeless people that were sleeping there. It made my heart very happy.

Monday, we woke up at 5:00 am to get to the train station, and catch our 18-hr train ride at 7:10am. The border crossings on both the Hungary and Romanian side were smoother than we all expected which was nice. 

About 7 hrs in to what was supposed to be a direct train ride to Bucharest, the train conductor guy came around to tell us that the line was actually ending in like 10 mins and that to get to Bucharest, we needed to hop off, catch a bus, ride it for 30 mins to another train station, and then catch a new train to Bucharest... between his broken english and our pretty nonexistant romanian we were all very confused and stressed. Luckily, this really nice guy who spoke English (who we ended up giving a book of mormon to) and the train conductor guy, helped us out and helped us carry all our luggage off the train and direct us to the bus that we barely caught haha. After the bus ride in the middle of nowhere, we finally got to the second train station and with the help of a couple really sweet romanian grandpas and the English speaking guy, we got onto our second train lol. 

While we were passing this really pretty lake, the old man sitting next to me started going off about how on the other side of the lake was Serbia, and how the lake was formed by one of Romania's communist dictators, and how life was during communism haha ngl my vocabulary about communist history is pretty minimal so....at least I think that is what he was talking about.

We finally pulled into the Bucharest train station at 2:00 am in the morning and met some of the missionaries serving here! It was a long day, but there were so many miracles along the way, and I know the only reason we got here is with the Lord's help:)

Vă iubim!!!!!

Sora Tobler

(pic 3 is of an old man on the train explaining to me Romanian History hahaha)

A Real Page Turner

 Buna ziua toata lumea!

Hmm let's see... still quarantined in an apartment in Hungary! It's ok though, because we are able to go outside of friday!! I miss the sun very much haha and I can't wait to actually feel it again at the end of this week:))) I am so so excited to get back to doing actual missionary work after this weird 2 week little vacation.

We watched one of the branches hold their testimony over zoom yesterday and it was actually the sweetest thing. I was able to understand most of it (kinda) and it was really neat to see how pure the peoples testimonies are here. It just reminded me of how simple the Gospel of Jesus Christ really is.

We have been helping to teach lessons with other companionships in Romania over zoom once a day. One of the days, we taught a 15 yr old girl named Patricia. There was tons of noise and distractions  for a majority of the lesson, but right when we got all started bearing our testimonies of Joseph Smith, everything was silent and the spirit was so so strong. Just a little miracle from God right there, if I do say so myself.

Sister Rucker and her family dropped us off Burgers and Fries for dinner Saturday night! It was a nice little treat!

We had a mission wide fast on Sunday for the Romanian borders to open up and that us 9 missionaries here in Hungary will get to go to Romania soon, so that was really cool.

I was reading in 1 Nephi this week and came across this verse in chapter 21: 

"But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not."

It has been hard for me sometimes not to feel like the Lord has forgotten about me, as I have been stuck in this tiny apartment in Budapest, trying to learn Romanian. And although it is sometimes hard for me to see, I know that God has actually never left me and has been by my side the whole time:)) I invite you all to look a little harder for the hand of God in your lives this week!!!

Sora Tobler 

BUNAAA - Budapest, Hungary

 Buna:)

Hope everyone is doing well!

I finally made it to Hungary, after 2 days of traveling earlier this week. I am now quarantining in an apartment in Budapest for about 2 weeks and then probably staying in Hungary for a while, since Romanias borders are still closed

Some other things

1 milka chocolate bars slap

2 traveling internationally during corona time is NOT the move

3 my new comp is sora mcafee from my mtc district <33

4 i don't like apartments with no AC

5 president and sister rucker are seriously the coolest

6 be very careful when lighting gas ovens with a match!!!

7 felt the spirit SOO strong in one of our lessons this week:)

Plz email me! i would love to hear from you all

Ciao ciao

Sora Tobler 

First Group of Romania Missionaries - Budapest, Hungary

Dear Parents of our newly arrived Missionaries serving in the Hungary / Romania Mission:

President and Sister Rucker asked that I write to let you know that your missionary arrived safely in Budapest!  What a wonderful group of young people and such an addition to our missionaries serving here!  We are so excited that everything worked out allowing them to join us in the mission!  The missionaries are being quarantined in two separate apartments in Pest for the next two weeks.  We stocked the cupboards with food, menus and recipes.  President and Sister Rucker have warmly greeted them at the airport and have spent time with them in Zoom Calls during the past few days.  All missionaries are in great spirits!!  The Assistants have organized a very proactive training experiences on Zoom for the next two weeks.  They will be busy during their quarantine experience!   They are located about 10 minutes from the Mission Home and will have contact through technology for a good portion of their day!  We are so grateful for each of them coming to the Hungary Romania Mission and we look forward to getting to know them!  Thank you for your help in preparing them to come.

Some Important Information: 

If you have a preferred email address for correspondences from the Mission Office please let me know. 

All letters and packages are sent to the Mission Home/Office and then are dispersed to missionaries according to the circumstances.  When you send letters and packages please address them as below:


Name of Your Missionary

Elder Reed Mortensen

Hajnóczy József u. 14

1122 Budapest

Hungary


NOTE:  Keep the listed cost of items in a package under $100.00 USD value.  If it is over this amount the package generally goes through customs which adds expensive costs to your missionary.  At present we are not able to transport any packages to Romania.  All packages arriving in the mission office for missionaries serving in Romania to missionaries there will be kept, possibly for many months, until they can be delivered.  For that reason please do not send any perishable items.   Also, for help in transporting packages , whenever possible, please use mailing envelopes instead of boxes.  (We list Elder Mortensen's name on packages and letters so that we can legally receive them in the Mission Office.)


Please enjoy the attached photos of your missionary!!  If there is anything that I can do for you from here please let me know. 


Most sincerely,

Sister Diana Mortensen

Hungary/România Mission Office

Mission Secretary