Cold Turkey!

Buna!

Is everyone a couple pounds heavier? I hope so. I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving, ate lots of turkey and played lots of football. The other day I was getting ready and I was like whoa the NFL started again and the NBA. I had completely forgotten about professional sports! Other than football (soccer). So now I just have to say GO CHARGERS! Ellis told me last night the warriors are undefeated so that's cool.

ANYWAY back to Moldova. Life here is good. Thanks giving was super..... COLD and wet. I will explain. But first a disclamer we decided to do our thanksgiving dinner on Sunday night with all the missionaries in Moldova and the Ivorys. So I did get me some mashed potatoes so it is all good. But on thursday I had the best thanksgiving of my life. We got invited to a recent convert's home for placinte which is like a rolled pie type thing. She lives in la tara so we had to take a maxi taxi out to her home which is in this little moldovan villiage. We get there and it starts POURING RAIN. So we are chilling, eating trying to talk to her mom who speaks this crazy mix of russian and romanian, and then we shared a message about being grateful with them and explained Thanksgiving and we talked about what we are grateful for. We are in the middle of reading Psalms 100 and Natalia's mom says your maxi leaves right now. So we are like dang! We run into the pouring rain to wait for our maxi taxi...... 45 minutes later it comes. We literally sat in the middle of this tiny town in the middle of nowhere huddled under an umbrella for 45 minutes waiting to catch a maxi taxi home. It was so much FUN! Natalia came out and waited with us and we just laughed through chattering teeth while she tried to convince us to just spend the night with her. We finally got home and 1.5 later and my feet were FROZEN! I layed down with my feet on the heater and it took another 30 minutes before I could feel them again. I LOVE moments like that. Where you get to just talk and laugh because your only other option is to be grumpy. I think my mission has been 100 times better because I have always been with a companion that chooses to laugh. I am so grateful for ALL of the incredible companions I have had while being out here, they have all become such dear friends to me. 

Okay enough with the cheesiness, next story. We bloc knocked into a FAMILY last Sunday and have been there 3 times since. It is a mom, dad and three girls. They are the cutest! We were asking for Moldovan recipes and they let us right in and fed us on the first meeting! The last time I was there I went with Sevghi and awesome YSA from our branch, she was baptized when she was 14 and has the coolest testimony. We shared a simple message with them about prayer and committed them to praying every night as a family. We taught the principle of prayer. The mom did not seem super interested and did not have a lot to say but then Sevghi prayed. She blessed their family, she thanked God for them, it was beautiful. After the prayer the mom was much more open. She told us how she liked our message, how it was a positive one and how she wants to hear more. So we are STOKED about that. It was so cool to see how Sevghi's sweet prayer softened the mom's heart. 

We also had District Conference which is like Stake Conference. It was the best one Moldova has every seen according to President Ivory. He and Sora Ivory both gave super cool talks about our journies in life. Sora Ivory talked about how we cannot get stuck in a 24 hour life cycle. We need to do things everyday that push us to improve and become. Then President Ivory gave us three specific things that we can do to become fully converted to this gospel. The first was study the Book of Mormon, the second was keep the Sabbath day holy, but also to USE the sabbath day as a day to serve God. It is HIS day not ours. The church has really been pushing this lately and I have been really thinking about how I want to use Sundays so much better when I get home. Then the last one was to pay a full tithe. They are three very simple things but all things we needed to hear as members here in Moldova. 

My family and friends. This gospel is simple and I LOVE it. This week I challenge you to search for God's hands in your life. He is there with you and is taking care of you. It is our choice wether or not we see his presence.

Va las si va iubesc!

Sora Armstrong

Baptisms, Apostles & My People

WOW!

I cannot express to you the emotions I have had this past week.First of all my biggest take away from this week- God loves the Romanian and Moldovan people so much and He is working miracles here. He has a plan for these two small but strong countries.I am grateful that I am on His team because we are going to win. My new favorite President Ivory quote is we will never go undefeated but we will always be champions. This week has had lots of victories and some heavy losses but we gotta focus on the victories.

We did not email Monday because we were getting ready for Elder Ballard. We had this sign made with some of his quotes and set it up in Centru and just did our best to let all of Chisinau know that an apostle of Lord was coming to speak to us. It was CRAZY windy so one of us had to stand behind the poster to hold it while the others talked to people. Sora Black almost got blown away a couple of times and by the end of it I could not feel my hands. 

Then tuesday, Presient Ivory flew into Chisinau and we had interviews with him, I may have made a joke concerning the Utah Utes and the pride cycle from the Book of Mormon in my interview. Then that night there was a BAPTISM! It was this incredible couple Cristian and Inesa. They have been learing about the church since the summer and are literally the most together couple I know, I love them so much! Cris is a lawyer, he came straight to the baptism from a case where he had beat the best lawyer in all of Chisinau (can you say blessings) Inesa is a translator, she speaks russian, romanian, english and manderin chinese nbd. They are so so sweet and just love this gospel. We have had the opportunity to visit with Inesa and talk to her about her testimony of the gospel and why she  has chosen to make this decision to be baptized. She told us about the positive impact that this church has made in their lives and how she just knows the principals are true. Funny story one time we were out with Inesa talking about scripture study and I said before my mission I had a hard time reading the scriptures everyday adn I look at Sora Black and I was how were you? And Sora Black goes I read them everyday since I was 12 and I was just like wow thanks for showing me up, so then I told Ines to be like Sora Black not like me. Ines thought that was pretty funny. Their baptism was BEAUTIFUL no it wasn't in the black sea but there was a POWERFUL spirit! There were so many people there from both branches and there was investigators there too. President Ivory spoke about the first time he met Cris and Inesa in a park with the missionaries. Then Cris and Inesa both bore the most powerful testimonies about the truth of the gospel and how much happier they are and how they are ready to help build Moldova. I am just so grateful that I can call this amazing couple my friends, they are going to have a huge impact on the growth of the church here in Moldova.

      Wednesday we showed up at the church at 10 and Cris is sweeping the floor to get ready for Elder Ballard one of the best lawyers in all of Chisinau is at the church cleaning up! He is just so humble and so cool, he also got to drive Elder Ballard around which is way cool. We ended up cleaning all that morning, we were told that the bathrooms needed to be as clean as Marriot Hotel bathroom.
        Then HE CAME!!!! We were outside the church directing people inside and up pulls Cris and the Ivory's and the Kearons (the area president and his wife) and Elder Ballard. As soon as he got out of the car he walked right up to Sora Black and me and shakes our hand and asks us where we are from. He is seriously the cutest, fiestiest little guy. The meeting was incredible we fit over 100 people into our little vila (house converted to a church building) President Ivory and President Kearon and their wives spoke and they were all so BOLD they talked about how through baptism we can have the feelings that we were feeling all the time. The set up the spirit for Elder Ballard. Then Elder Ballard stands up and teaches the Plan of Salvation and the restoration intertwined into one talk. it was BEAUTIFUL. During the first part I was so so sad I had a super hard time feeling the spirit becuase NONE of our people were there. We had invited so many people and had contacted for hours and no one that we had talked to was there. I was sitting on the floor becuase there were no chairs left and I stood up for a little bit and I feel someone grab my hand and it is DINA! She had come in a little late. I went from almost crying out of sadness to almost crying out of joy. Then when Elder Ballard spoke I was so relieved, I could feel the spirit so strong. Elder Ballard had all the missionaries stand up after he taught about Joseph Smith and he said these yooung kids are servants of the Lord jesus Christ if you want to find out if what I am saying is true talk to them. He said then tonight go home and pray and ask God if what I am saying is true and when you get your answer be baptized and receive all of the blessings that are waiting for you. It was so so so POWERFUL AND BOLD and as I was standing there it just hit me, like WOW I am a servant of Jesus Christ this is HIS message. Elder Ballard was so bold about baptism, he would say stuff like "why did the missionaries come? because this gospel is true!" "The message that God calls prophets is not crazy he has been doing it since adam" Then after the meeting we all went out and took a picture with him and he shook hands with Sevghi who is preparing to go on a mission and I said Elder Ballard she is going to be the best missionary Moldova has ever seen and he said " No you're all the best missionaries ever now go baptize!" It was hilarious, he was just so blunt.

    Then we caught a flight to Bucuresti and made it to the last 30 minutes of his talk there. The best part about that was ythe fact that ALL MY PEOPLE WERE THERE. Okay not all of them BUT I got to see Familia Fotea and Musat I got to see Razvan who got baptized while I was in Ploiesti I got to see Alesea and Fratele Ciurdrea familia constantinescu and his mom. Radu simon, Anca Ghiman. It was AMAZING. OH AND LACRA too. Did I take any pictures no becuase I am an Idiot I was just SO EXCITED. I did not know I could ever feel this way about so many people, I was hugging people like crazy and almost crying out of joy again and the sprit was just so strong. Elder Ballard shook Lacra's hand and just told her to keep progressing in the gospel and that her life will be so blessed because of it. Then he told Alin Constantinescu's mom to just get baotized already and to have Alin do it. I told her I would be there if she did it. If you don't remember her we gave our heart and sould to her in Constanta and now she is progressing! Back to how much I love these people. I cannot put it into words but I would do anything for these people. It was so good to just refeel those connections especially people like the foteas and musats who I could barely communicate with. When I first got to Romania all I wanted was my home temecula ward I beeged Heavenly Father to change my heart to help me love these people and wow did he help me change my heart. I hope when I get home He will halp me love you guys agauin becuase I cannot imagine loving anymore people the way I love these people. haha jk I still love you guys. 

This is the longest email I have ever sent but my heart is just so full. Elder Ballard gave us a lot of instruction on what we need to do to help these people move towards baptism.

I know that God sent him to us at this time because He knows how much these people are sacrificing, he knows that these countries are ready to commit to this gospel and I am so humbled by the opportunity I had to witness that spirit, to see an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ interact with my favorite people. I am so grateful to be here. I know that the Lord Jesus Christ lives, that He is so vary aware of each one of us, that as we invite souls to come onto him and as sould come unto him it makes his atonement worth it. Elder Ballard said that. As we choose to utilize that incredible gift our Savior gave us, it makes all the pain he felt worth it. My friends and family Christ has called his apostles in the latter-days, no times are not easy, thay are having to make some very serious decisions that we may not always agree with BUT they are Christ's chosen servants the calls they make, the instructions they give are those that Chirst would have us receive. I testify to you that they are never wrong. I do not say this becuase Elder Ballard told me he is an apostle, I testify of this because I felt it, because I prayed to know if he is chosen of God and I found out that he is a living apostle of Jesus Christ. If you question their guidance, if you do not agree with how they choose to deal with the oppostion that is mounting I invite you, I beg you to ask God if they are his chosen servants and have a desire to receive an answer. 

I love you all to the moon and back, 

Sora Armstrong

The Latest Pictures from Moldova & Romania

Baptism in Moldova

P Day Planning Meeting

Brittany & Sora Black with Elder Ballard!!!

Stoked on the Plan

Hey fam bam,
Today has been a crazy pday! So this will be quick.
This week has been awesome! We had two activities the first one was on the book of mormon. I thought it would be a brilliant idea to make mexican food for about 60 people. The idea sounded great and then we realized that you cannot buy tortillas in Moldova so about 100 tortillas later I am writing you now to let you know that it was not a good idea. We did it though with the help of the other soras and sora cooley. We made a lot of tortillas a lot of salsa and a lot of meat. I also graded a ton of cheese and made the white sauce for the burritos. The members loved it! Watching the moldovans try and figure out how to eat the burritos was hilarious they did not want to do it with their hands so they all just kind of picked out the parts they liked but everyone was asking for more so I think it was all worth it. The activity went well. We had a speaker come from Bucharest one of the coolest things he said was that the Book of Mormon translated into romanian has mistakes because it was translated by men but the Book of Mormon in english because it was translated bu God through a man. SO COOL!! Every morning as I read from the Book of Mormon I just get more and more STOKED on the gospel. The other day we said our prayer for companionship study and Sora Black looks at me and goes what did you study and I looked at her and said I AM STOKED ON THE PLAN OF SALVATION!! She laughed for about 5 minutes. The gospel is incredible my friends, study it, use it, LOVE it!
Other fun things that happened this week. I translated yesterday in Sacrament meeting for fast and testimony meeting. I am always nervous translating for stuff like this because you never know what is going to be said. Sora Black and I were switching off. So the first guy that I start translating for, starts with "brother and sister" in english so I am like okay cool english I can chill then starts speaking in romanian about a ping pong tournament that happened at the church 10 years ago so I start translating again then he switches into russian and I was just like okay I have no idea what he is saying. So then it is Sora Black's turn she does an incredible job translating she gives the mic back to me the another stands up and starts going off in RUSSIAN and I was like okay we have an all russian branch people it starts at 11 not 9! Anyway that was fun.
Some awesome stuff has been happening here and we are working with the coolest people!
Yesterday we went and made soup with Dina and her mom. We met her dad and her younger brother also.Her family is great and her parents seem to like us. We also had an awesome lesson about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Dina is preparing to be baptized she feels like right now it is still far away but we were able to promise her that if she continues to come to church to study the book of mormon and to pray sincerely she will be ready. Getting to know her family was great because now we understand her situation a lot better and can really help her in all aspects of her life. She also informed me that I peel potatoes wrong. When I get home I am going to have a whole different style of cooking all these moldovans are always correcting me on my kitchen skills.
Okay then we had another miracle happen with Natalia Botnar. We have been working with her a lot and just have not been able to get her to church. We decided to really be bold with her and commit her to fasting with us. We fasted for her to be able to resolve the problems she is currently having with her son and husband. We called her and started our fast together and then she came to church on Sunday!!! She loved it and you could see how happy it made her. She was loving the lessons and when we called her to break the fast she was audibly doing so much better. She came to church and was rejuvenated by the spirit. And we could see it! So cool. AMAZING things are happening.

It really is incredible how the Lord is preparing these people for amazing things. I am so grateful that I have the chance to just get to know and interact with such amazing humans. Elder Ballard will be visiting us this month and he has challenged us missionaries to have 10 meaningful gospel conversations a day. So guess what my people? That is my challenge for you! The conversation does not have to include Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon but as you talk with your friends and neighbors with the people you interact with each day, try to make your conversations MEANINGFUL. As baptized members of this church we have the Holy Ghost with us we will be guided and can become tools in God's hands if we are praying and searching for opportunities, take the time to ask how people are, let them know you care, my favorite quote from president Ivory this week is "love people, celebrate people, lift people." There is my challenge for you all. If I can have 10 of these conversations in romanian, you can all do it in english for sure!
Cu drag,
Sora Armstrong

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)