Time Is Flying!!!!!

I think it is because we are having fun but also because we have so much to do.....but time is going super fast!!! We had some solid lessons about baptism with our friends Dina and Doina. They are both praying to find their answers and we have made plans to meet with Dina's family later on this week. They have both been to church and just love the Gospel. Everytime I have the opportunity to watch someone find and learn about this gospel, I am so humbled by the vastness of it. I am reminded that it is not me at all that is doing the converting, it is the Holy Ghost that is instilling into their hearts the joy of the knowledge of this Gospel. Both Dina and Doina have expressed to us their love for the Book of Mormon and the good feelings they get when they read. I LOVE these girls so much. They are just good people who are sincerely looking to better their relationship with Heavenly Father. Our first lesson we asked Dina if she would like a stronger relationship with her Father in Heaven and she said I already have one but there is always room for improvement and I want to improve it. It was so COOL!
We also got to go over to Sora Cociu's house and do some service. Her husbnad is gone working in another country so we try to help her out. We played with her two adorable little boys and just did house work. House work Romanian style is DIFFERENT. We took their rug outside and beat it with a stick....it was actually very theraputic. Then we hung up laundry and cracked nuts. I LOVED it! It was just so fun to do chores Moldovan style ( I still forget I am not in Romanian anymore). It was cool too because her brother was there and we started talking to him about this book that my good friend Sora Trebas has summarized for me multiple times written by Dale Carnegie. We ended up inviting him to our personal development courses so that was cool. MEMBERS are the key. If you are a member reading this right now you have the power to CHANGE missionary work in your area, no matter your age, or job or whatever. You have the POWER so USE it!
This week we are going hard with our members. We want to visit every single one of them. We are going to talk with them about the power of the promise we made at baptism and how we need to go to church to renew that promise and receive those blessings. Something cool President said on the missionary leadership call last night was that we all received the Holy Ghost after we got baptized but this gift can only be with us when we are living worthily and we can only live worthily when we are partaking of the sacrament. When we do have the Holy Ghost with us, our lives will be guided and we will receive strength in times of need ....basically life will be a whole lot easier if we will sacrifice three hours on Sunday to go to church and receive the blessings that our Father in Heaven has promised us. I love these people! They get this Gospel and now we have got to get them excited about slujba. Here it is so different because if you show up at church you know you are going to end up saying a prayer, or getting assigned a talk for next week. Because there are less members here more is expected of them but that is why they are all so strong, we always love more dearly the things we have to work for. We are also going to focus on making slujba an enjoyable experience, Putting some flowers in the lobby having musical numbers, stuff like that. We really want these 3 hours to be spiritually enriching for our people.  They do so much constantly the deserve it!
Alright my good friends that is all from Moldova this week!
Love ya lots go hard for Halloween!
Sora Armstrong

Go Cougs!!!!!

Hey Hey Everyone,

Ok, I seriously love the clothes here!!!!  I would buy my entire wardrobe here if I could and Mom, I guarantee that you and Gma would be totally okay with it. The look here is so classy but relaxed especially the fall and winter clothes I just look at the women here and I am like...dang! How can I put together and outfit like that.

Sora Black is from Pale Alto, California. She is an amazing missionary though and finishes her mission at Christmas so I am hoping we stay together for 2 transfers. We love giving President Ivory a hard time about BYU. He tells us how the U's football team is doing and told us to wear red to zone conference. We made a deal with him that if we get 100  people to church, he has to wear a byu shirt to the next zone conference. He hasn't said anything about it, so I am not sure if that deal is on or not.

We had 86 people at church this last week our goal is 90 by the end of the month.... so we are getting there BUT we still need miracles. We need the members to really step it up and start sacrificing. The members do not need us as much as they did in Constanta so I am having a hard time really forming relationships with them just because we don't see them as much. I miss feeling needed but the members here are incredible. The other night we were on our way to go see Sora Cociu. She is a recent convert and has two adorable little boys. Her husband is a member also, but is working in another country right now. On the way over there I was just really missing Constanta and kind of feeling down. I have gotten used to being the companion with the relationships, the one knows how to do everything after 4 transfers of training.....I was very used to being the boss I guess. Sometimes I feel like I am not filling my part of the companionship. Anyway, I was just praying and just letting Heavenly Father know how I was feeling. So we get to her house and she is making food. She was not super friendly and just really quiet. We start the lessons talking about Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail and she just walks out to go do something else when she comes back in she looks at me says "will you bear your testimony." I was super caught off guard so I said if I do it you gotta do it too she was like okay. I talked about how we are all called here for a reason, how Heavenly Father enables us to do hard things through the atonement and that he has plan for all of us. Then this amazing woman bore one of the most powerful testimonies I have ever heard in my entire life. She bore testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith of how his sacrifice changed her life, of how much happier she and her family is because of the teachings of this gospel. She bore testimony of the fact that she knows that this is the only true church and that we have to share it because it makes us so happy. It was INCREDIBLE!!!! It was a direct answer to my prayer. I felt the spirit so strong in that little kitchen. Heavenly Father was just like calm down you got this.... just love them and you will form your relationships. It was one of the most direct quick responses to prayer I have ever gotten. 

Some other cool things about Moldova the food is more Russianish everyone here mixes Russian and Romanian into this language called "Moldovaneasca." Missionary work is LEGIT here. The movie 'Meet the Mormons' showed last night on NATIONAL TELEVISION and there are billboards all over the city advertising for it. It will show next Sunday too. We have this center that just opened up for personal development. Sora Black and I teach English there and we help teach this business class. BTW no other country has shown Meet the Mormons on tv so we are the first. The people here are just super cute and super put together. It is very different from Romania. It is more obvious that Moldova is a third world country but the people here are a lot more hard working. It is very interesting. There are protests going on in Centru right now because this guy stole half of the Moldovan economy .... literally look it up online it is nuts and now he is the mayor of a smaller city in Moldova. All that it means though is that people sleep in tents outside the government building it is not violent at all. Also, Randy the American Army guy from Constanta gave me a knife before I left so do not worry Mom.... Sora Black and I are very safe. Funny story about Sora Black, she is super chill and we love giving each other a hard time. The other night, we were at Sora Cocius ,she pulled out this juice mix with a bunch of different berries and Sora Black leans over to me and in English says I hope it is a little bit fermented, meaning I hope there is  a little bit of alcohol....joking of course... She is super great to work with because we go hard so hard but we have so much fun too! Sora Ivory asked us at zone conference if we were eating and sleeping because she knows how much both of us like to work.

I miss you all.....thank you for all your letters!!!!

Sora Armstrong

Prevet?

Hey hey my peoples..... what is up from MOLDOVA?

Wow so I always kind of put Romania and Moldova into the same category because they are both in the mission but let me tell you my friends they are VERY different. From the people to the language to the food to missionary work I basically got a whole new mission call BUT I am so PUMPED to be here. Everyone here speaks RUSSIAN, Sora Black is so AMAZING she is my first comp from California so we have been bonding over that and she is just a downright INCREDIBLE hardworking driven human being, Okay so back to RUSSIAN, we were putting up posters for our English class and the first three people we talked to on the street only knew RUSSIAN. They would start talking to us and at first I was like "Oh my gosh I have completely lost the gift of tongues I no longer know Romanian" but then I was wait that is not Romanian there is no way that is the language I have been speaking for a year, It wasn't Romanian it was Russian. Then we had a lesson with our super cute friend Ananaga, it was a member present with a super cute girl in the YSA here Sevghy halfway through the lesson, Ananga asked a question in Russian then Sevghy answered it in Russian and I was like whoa whoa we gotta know what she said so Sevghy told us in English because, go figure, she speaks perfect English too. My mind was pretty much shot after that. Sora Black is being so patient with me showing me around and making sure I know how in the branches only speaks Russian. Which leads me to explain a little bit more about Chisinau. It is pretty much AMAZING. We have two branches one that does service in Russian and one that does it in Romanian. President Ivory's wants some Sora influence in the Russian branch so Sora Black and I will be attending that branch. MY PEOPLE It is going to be HARD because I CANNOT COMMUNICATE WITH THESE AMAZING PEOPLE, literally I didn't think it would bother me this much but it does. I just want to talk to them and get to know them but I have NO CLUE what they are saying. So I will just have to drag a Russian elder around for me to translate. Also I am bent on learning how to at least pray, bear my testimony and say hello in Russian so get ready Grandpa! 

That brings to me another really cool thing, about a year ago president Ivory split these two branches from one to two. He promised them that because of the split we would see 100 people at church before the end of the year. This is what we call the MOLDOVA MIRACLE. We as in all the missionaries here are working hard to make it happen. It is quite the goal because right now we have about 75 between the two branches. But we have an awesome group of missionaries here and we have an awesome solid base of members who LOVE doing missionary work. The pressure is on to make this happen but I am comforted knowing that through prayer, diligence and obedience we can do it! It is going to take A LOT of prayer though. I love having this goal, it has got me so pumped but has been an important reminder to me of the importance of church attendance and all the blessings that it can bring. Sora Black are ready to just invite everyone to church because why not? We have a recent convert here named Ecaterina who loves church. She is always going off about the "atmosfera" She is so right the atmosphere of our services is different and is powerful! So my friends I challenge you to really take advantage of church do not just make it a habit make it a time during the week when you can grow and learn!

I loved General Conference!! I pulled the most strength from the testimonies of Elder Stevenson and Renlund. Right as that session started I had been feeling pretty inadequate. Chisinau is a big city with so much potential and a lot of missionaries. It has been a change of pace for sure. There are miracles happening here, I am so excited to be apart of it but it is a big change from my little Constanta branch where I had a solid handle on everything, I knew everything I was aware and involved in everything that was going on and here the dynamic is very different. I was just feeling kind of lost amongst everything that was going on BUT then those two amazing men stood up, and bore their testimonies of the help that our Lord will give us. It was confirmed to me that I was called to serve HERE in this incredible city around these incredible missionaries. I need to allow the Lord to mold me into who He needs, so I just need to be my best. Just as the apostles said we have not been called because of what we have done but because of what the Lord will allow us to do. They provided me so much comfort, and I know miracles are coming despite my weaknesses.

Well that is it for the this week, I love you all and wish you all health,

Sora Armstrong

                                                         Brittany heading to Moldova

                                             Brittany with her new companion, Sora Black

                                        Brittany Sora Mitts & Sora Armstrong (the younger)