FBI and a husky

 Hi! 

I'm chillin in Bucuresti for a couple more weeks. yay. We had mini-transfers this week, because we got new missionaries, but I am staying put in bucuresti until at least the beginning of December. Can we talk about how crazy it is that it is already almost December?!

We had a member dinner this week! My first member dinner in Romania. It was actually with an American family that is in our ward here in Romania. The dad works for the FBI in Romania and they just moved here a couple months ago and will be here for the next 5 years I think. They are seriously the coolest and it was so fun to go to their house this week and eat some good home cooked american food haha. It is kinda fun having them in our ward too, because we get to do romanian-to-english translations for them every Sunday in church. Translating is still really hard for me, but I think I'm gonna give it a shot in Sacrament meeting next week.

Had a fun lesson with our friend Marilena and her Husky. I started talking to Marilena on facebook like 3 weeks ago and have met with her 2 times. Yesterday we met with her at a park and had a restoration lesson with her. Although the park was super noisy and kinda distracting and her dog was being crazy as we were walking around, the spirit still was so strong and we were able to ask her to be baptized:)

I recorded a song! An elder in my zone has a bunch of recording equipment and we recorded something for a Christmas project we have coming up.

So grateful and happy to be here and share with people something that has blessed my life so so much.

Luv ya :)

Sora Tobler 

1 one of our favorite food places in the metro. Looks sketch, but it's good I promise

2 the Larson family!!

3 the larson family gave me some canned pumpkin (non existent here in romania) that they brought all the way from America, so I could make some pumpkin cookies.

I was very happy

4-5 fall

witchcraft and graveyards

 It was a spooky week.

We went to the immigration office this week to finally get my Visa work done. We were late to our appointment at 10.30 in the morning, and were told that we would have to wait in a mega-long line that was outside the building to try to get in before they closed. Let me tell you it was a MIRACLE that we got in. We were the last people that they let in before they closed for the day. Thank goodness I'm not getting deported!

We met with a witch lady and let me tell you it was pretty freaky. A friend that we used to teach reached out to us last week and said that she had a "friend" that was interested to learn more about the book of mormon soo we set up a meeting with her. We met outside her apartment and I was like way freaked out. She kept trying to get us to go into her apartment basement and started saying really creepy stuff to us. Let's just say we didn't get to teach her about the book of mormon, and we got out of there real quick.

On another spooky note, we went to a graveyard and cleaned the graves of one of our members' ancestors. It was actually pretty fun and it was a good time to serve one of our members.

We teach an advanced english class every week which is pretty fun. Since the people we teach are already like fluent in english we usually just do some fun games and then share a spiritual thought at the end (I like it because it's an excuse for me to talk in English for 1 and a half hours) anyways, this past week we played 2 truths and a lie, and it kinda totally back fired when everyone started talking about how being a good liar was a good quality and how lying is actually good in some cases and we were like ummm no. Our spiritual thought ended up being about how we shouldn't lie. 

Here is one of my favorite quotes from president Hinkley that I read this week:

"Don't be gloomy. Don't dwell on unkind things. Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy fully the sunlight. Even if you are not happy, put a smile on your face and accentuate the positive. Look a little deeper for the good. Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, with great and strong purpose in your heart. Love life." 

I have really started to look for the good in everything and am actually really starting to enjoy my time as a missionary. Look for the good in wherever and whatever you are doing in life right now! ️

Love you all so much! 

Sora Tobler 

sign seeking, some ducks, sports night

 Hello️ hope everyone isn't missing me that much yet.

This week was sickkkk (both figuratively and literally). Some missionaries are gettin Corona-like symptoms and everyone is getting pretty on edge again, but you know, I feel fine! 

We have a pretty good teaching pool built up now, so we haven't really had to do much finding this week. 

Diana- she was still thinking about her baptismal date earlier this week, but then she went to the young adults activity we had on saturday night and she was actually able to meet members her age and I think it really helped.

Nicolae- I think he knows the doctrine of the church better than me, which is kinda embarrassing, and comes to church every week, butttt he is not baptized yet.... and he is waiting for a massive sign from God to be baptized. I sent him a verse from the Book of Mormon about how sign seeking is bad yesterday, and I think we are gonna meet with him tomorrow to talk about that, so hopefully he understands a bit better and has a change of heart haha

3 people who we had stopped teaching like 2 weeks ago randomly showed up to church yesterday which was kind of a fun surprise! Maybe we'll get to start teaching them again.

We had a relief society activity this Saturday with some of the ladies in our ward and it was fun and kind of funny haha. The whole activity was them just talking about how they are going to prepare for winter and everyone brought this weird kinda not-super-great romanian food that they made (see attached picture) and we got to taste test everyone's ! Yay! Lucky me! 

Sports night which we have every week was a hit yet again. Lots of people showed up which was good. Gina talked to me about her 10 bunnies, 4 ducks, and 7 cats for about an hour of sports night. It was really interesting. One of our friends told Sora Bauco that he has a crush on me. I almost won a game of musical chairs. Someone made some bomb cake to share with everyone. Overall it was a good night.

We had Daylight Savings this week and we got to sleep in an extra hour.  I cried tears of joy when I found out so that was a highlight.

I have really started to grow to love the people here and have been really working on my charity. Jesus Christ is our perfect example, and I am constantly telling myself to have charity for the people here like Christ would have charity for them!

47)  "But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him". (Moroni 7:47) 

ALOOO

 Hope everyone had a great week.

This week in Bucuresti was way good and we had lots lessons this week.

This week summarized: 

-Meet this girl named Gabi who is the coolest and just moved to Bucuresti for college

-Had a lesson in an H&M, suprisingly went pretty well

-All the new missionaries came to Bucuresti for a conference which was way fun. 

-Sora Gunn (a newbie like me) and I had a lesson just the 2 of us with this Guy named Costi at a coffee shop (our trainers thought it would be a good learning experience for us to do the lesson by ourselves) it actually went really well and now Costi is one of our most interested friends. Probably one of the first times since getting here, I've felt like I've used the Gift of Tongues. Letss go.

-Spent a whole day at the church making a video for our Facebook page... stay tuned it's gonna be way good.

-Ate a yum traditional romanian desert called papanaşi. It's like a doughnut with cream and jam and was very good

good

-Facebook finding is actually going very well here and we found like 4 new people this week who we are now teaching

teaching

-I brought a burrito to the church for my lunch on sunday and put it in the fridge at the church and one of the members just ate it!

-Teaching by the Spirit is REAL. The spirit is what's doing all the real work around here, I just try to get out some understandable phrases. 

-Oscar is committed to Baptism!  

-Today for p day we went to a mountain ski resort place and I am writing this email from a train back to Bucuresti. 

This week was really good and I have been feeling extra grateful this week. Grateful to be here on a mission, for my family, my friends, a healthy body, the atonement, eternal families, the list goes on... There is so much to be grateful for. Life is way to short to take things for granted and to not tell the people you love how you feel! Tell the people you care about how much they mean to you this week

Sora Tobler 

Potato bar😁😎🤩🥔🥔

 Bună tuturor! 

Another week in Bucharest for the books. This week was good, we had exchanges this week which was fun. I was with Sora Perry and she is seriously the sweetest! She leaves to go back home tomorrow, so it was kinda of weird to talk to her about leaving.

We met some very interesting people this week haha. One guy was a little creepy that we meet on facebook, but he was really interested and we agreed to meet him at the church and give him a church tour. We made sure the Elders were there when we gave the tour, and sure enough he was kinda whack.

We invited Diana to baptism! She is 22 and just graduated college and is seriously the cutest! We are hoping for November 21 so hopefully that works out:)

Sunday this week was sooo fun. We have two branches we cover, so we go to 2 meetings every week. The first meeting was really well attended and I bore my testimony!! It was kind of terrifying, but after wards all the members were super nice and said I spoke very good Romanian, even though I know I messed up alot. The second meeting we had (which is the young adults branch) was so well attended that there really wasn't enough room for everyone! On of our friends who was sitting next to me was searching questions like "was Joseph Smith really a prophet?" on Google and I was like hmm ummm, maybe don't search Google for that sort of stuff, haha. It was fast sunday and we had a big "break the fast" potato bar after the meeting. It was fun to talk to everyone and I am getting better at being more social and talking to people lol

We went to a mexican food place today for p day. Yep. A mexican food place in Romania. Hmm it was alright 

I know that the Gospel is the way to TRUE happiness. Although other things might bring temporary joy, it is living the Gospel of Jesus Christ that brings us lasting joy and happiness!! ️️

Sora Tobler  

UNCLE JOE

 How was everyone's week?:)

I hope that everyone had a chance to watch General Conference, because oh my was it a good one. I am seriously so thankful that we have a prophet and apostles called of God today!

For women's session and the Sunday morning session all the sisters in Bucharest went to one of the senior couples apartment to watch and it was a good time because we watched it in English haha and they made us dinner.

This week we did a lot of Facebook finding since most of the people we were teaching before kinda disappeared lol, but we are trying to talk to as many people as we can on Facebook and will hopefully find some people from that this week!:)

Sora Bauco put me in charge of calling people the other day and it was really terrifying. We were calling old contacts and every time I would call someone, I secretly hoped that they wouldn't pick up so I wouldn't have to talk to them in Romanian lol. But I did have one good conversation with a girl who said she would watch conference so that was good.

We went to this burger place called Uncle Joe's that reminded me of the US hahaha and kinda made me sad, but the burgers there were really good lol

Here is one of my favorite quotes from President Nelson this conference: 

“Life without God is a life filled with fear. Life with God is a life filled with peace.” —President Russell M. Nelson. The gospel has brought me so much peace in my life. Even in times when I doubt myself and think there is no possible way for me to accomplish the things I need to, there is peace in knowing that God knows what I am going through and that as I continue to put forth effort and move forward, He will bless me in His own time! 

If you haven't watched conference, you should! 

Go be spiritually fed! 

Love Sora Tobler