Friday, March 27, 2015

Learning, Growing, Running

Family, friends, past companions, and other homies,
 
Let me tell you about my week:
 
Sunday, we went and visited Sora Natica. She is a member of the branch that is dying. Yes. That sounds very morbid but literally she is very very sick and she is dying. This is the closest I have been to death in my life and I do not like it. She fell and hit her head a couple weeks ago and since then she just has not been able to get better. She isn't very coherent but her son who takes care of her and also has autism told us he was expecting us today at church. So we went over and just began to read the Book of Mormon starting at first nephi chapter 1. As I was finishing the last verse of Nephi, Sora Natica sits up in bed and I can see her out of the corner of my eye and I am thinking "Wow we just worked a miracle with the Book of Mormon". She sits up and "blahhhhhhh" projectile vomits LL OVER US! She then continued to throw up for about 5 minutes. It was the most heart breaking thing. We had no way to help and then her son was like should we keep reading? We were so traumatized. I am still traumatized from it and we have to go back there on Tuesday and CLEAN. I don't know if we can do it. Okay so that was Sunday.
Tuesday we got a call from a very angry Romanian lady official that told us she was going to charge us 100 lei for each of the 100 English posters we had put up. So that morning we ran around Constanta with exacto knives ripping down posters. It was intense. It was like we were in SWAT. We all called each other and said We are heading north you go south you hit the park. haha I could totally join the CIA after this. We also had 60 people at English WOOT WOOT! 
Wednesday we had a lesson with a member. We invited her to do service for another sister in the branch and she said "Why we would I do that? They can do it themselves." So yeah that lesson was not effective. I also had like 100 and something degree fever that night.
Thursday was just hard. We English block stuffed in the morning, meaning we walked from block to block putting English cards in mailboxes. Then we went and visited a member that lives kind of far from Constanta. It was actually a really cool visit, she told us about how when she was in Italy, she had been in the Hospital and the whole relief society had gone to see her in the Hospital. She got teary eyed when she told us the story. It was just a testimony to me of how important the organization of the Church is.
Then Friday my fever was still going strong, we had district meeting. It was super super cool. We all brought our favorite spiritual songs. I showed a version of "Abide with Me" that is the coolest dog. I love how it is basically us just begging Christ to stay with us. Okay also we got TRAPPED ON A BUS. So Sora Sayre and I hopped on a bus to go get some work done, we forgot to stamp our tickets right when we got on the bus. So then I looked at Sora Sayre and I said "oh shoot we need to stamp our tickets." We had literally been on the bus for about 2 minutes. So we walked over and STAMPED our tickets, I repeat we STAMPED our tickets. Then a couple minutes later this lady walks over to us and pulls out this controller badge. Her job is to go around the bus making sure everyone pays for their tickets. So we show her our STAMPED tickets meaning that we paid, and she rips them out of her hands and demands 100 lei from each us. We were both pretty shocked because we had PAID. So then she explains to us that we had waited too long to stamp our tickets and that if we want to get off the bus we have to give her 100 lei each. By this point in my week I. was. so. done. This whole exchange is in Romanian by the way. I just looked at this lady, who at this point had us corralled into the back of the bus and was physically holding us back there. I just said we don't have any money, then she said okay 50 each and I said we still do not have any money so then she says fine we are going to the police. I said fine let's got to the police. She then tried to get us to give her our passports and that was not happening, so we just kind of stood back there and laughed because that was all we could do at that point.After about 20 minutes of riding the bus and yelling at each other in Romanian and a couple of escape attempts, this other Romanian lady got on the bus looks at us and distracts the controller she then mouths "fugiti" which means run! I grabbed Sora Sayre and we just booked it off the bus! It was insane. We got off ran around to the backside of a bloc and half laughed half cried for a couple minutes. It was one of those it is hard to be a missionary moments. If I did not have the name of Jesus Christ on my chest I would have ran that lady over SO FAST, but as a missionary that is not an option.
Saturday we had 'gris' night! Gris is this Nigerian food that is super spicy and super yummy. We planned this activity for all the Nigerians to come to the church and see who we are. We were planning on about 45 people and 6 came. That was kind of the perfect end to this week.
Sunday I gave a talk, I did not talk for 30 minutes this time I kept it short. I told the story about me and Austin breaking Roman's motorcycle helmet and tied into obedience. 

This church is still true, this week was nuts, but I have grown closer to my savior this week and I am so grateful for that. I am grateful for these insane experiences and I know that through the power of prayer ALL things are possible!

I love you all so much, have a great week!
 
Sora Armstrong

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