Week 34- "Yee haw"

We have had the best week ever! First of all we set the baptismal date with Madalina! She is one of those people who has just been prepared by God. The transition was not as smooth as we were hoping with her moving home and she ended up not being able to meet with the Elders at all, but she came back to Cluj this last week and we met up. She said she has prayed and knows that this is the one true church and that she wants to be baptized! She has talked to her family and they support her. The lesson was beautiful and what made it even more amazing was our sweet members Aurelia and Salvatore. They testified and talked about their experiences and most of all they just loved her so much. We could not have done it without them! She then came to church on Sunday and was enthusiastically nodding at during all of the talks and singing all of the hymns. She tells us that she feels so blessed to already have a part in the true church of God. We are praying for her and trying to work with her as much as we can in the next few weeks before she goes home. This is a miracle! I can't even express how grateful I am to have met her and to be able to see God working in her life. Other than that we have been continuing to work with Bogdana and some other new investigators. We have been implementing members in our lessons and in all stages of our work and it has been making such a difference! We have seen God working through the members and strengthening them as the help us. We also had our exchanges this week with Arad. Basically our trip to Arad consisted of crazy Babas, awesome miracles, lots of story telling, and peach cobbler. This week has been full and wonderful. With every day I feel my love and desire to serve these people grow. I know that God is working and that He has miracles in store for all these people. I pray for more opportunities to serve and to teach and He gives them. We have a great work to do here! And the joy that comes from doing this work is deeper than any other. I am so incredibly grateful that I have been called here to work in the gathering of Israel in this beautiful country. I am grateful that despite my weaknesses and mistakes God still chooses to work through me. I hope you have a wonderful week! I love you guys so much!

Love, Sora James

picture 1: boganas little girls gave us lots of drawings (also romanian pants for the win)

picture 2: going to arad

 

week 33

This week was so amazing! We have had many blessings and so many miracles. We have been working so hard this week in all aspects. Every day we have been contacting and finding new people like crazy! I know that Heavenly Father has been guiding us. One of the most amazing miracles happened last night. We like contacting every Sunday night at the Central Park because there are lots of young families and they are all usually pretty open to talk. So we started heading to the park but before we even got there it started raining. We were disappointed but decided we would find someone block knocking instead. We ended up meeting the coolest person ever! Her name is Zam and she is so prepared for the gospel. She is in her 20s and looking for a church. She lives in a block close to Center and literally lives on the fourth floor, last door. It was so amazing to find her especially when it hadn't been in our plan. I have learned again and again in my mission that the Lord will do His work. He leads us to where we need to be. We also have been continuing to work hard with our members. Every Sunday we try to talk to as many as we can about their families and friends and people that we can share the gospel with. Every person that they mention we treat as a sacred assignment and always follow up. I know that it is making a difference in our relationships with them and that they see that we take the work seriously. Another blessing that we had this week was with our investigator Bogdana. She is amazing!! We went over this week and it happened to be a day that she was home alone. We were able to really hear her feelings and answer some questions. The amazing thing was that she said that she wants to know if the church is true and she told us that she would find out by going and praying. She said that she knew that it would change everything if it is true. She then told us that she knows that she has to believe that it is true first and then she would get her answer to know. It was amazing that she was able to arrive at the answers for herself. The Spirit definitely spoke to her.  All in all we have worked hard and have seen so many blessings from God. We come home every day tired but so happy. I am so grateful to be a part of this work.

Week 32- Best week ever!

This week has been truly an amazing week! We have been blessed with many opportunities to testify and find others and share the gospel. The highlight of the week for me was Zone Conference. I felt very inspired by what we talked about and I have felt the spirit of this work in ways that I have never felt before. We talked about moving the work forward by working with our members. We came home from Zone Conference and called every active member and asked them if they would be willing to help us. We told them we had investigators that needed their testimonies. The reactions were amazing! We had people that we have always looked over saying that they would love nothing more than to be a part of our work. We asked people to let us know their schedules and we now have a spread sheet so that we can be sure that we don't have a lesson without a member present. The next day at church I was blessed to give a talk on missionary work and the members were excited! We had several people come up to us and ask us when they could help us! I know that the Lord is hastening His work in Cluj-Napoca and that the hearts of the people are being prepared. We have also seen blessings and miracles with our investigators. We had the opportunity to meet with Teodora this week and it was amazing! She is an old investigator of the sisters here and we decided to contact her again. She is an amazing girl and has strong faith in Jesus Christ. We are excited to meet with her and we feel strong that she will be ready! All around we have been very blessed and I know without a doubt that God is taking care of us and has a plan for us here in Cluj. My gospel study has been helping me a lot. I have seen myself in the scriptures a lot recently and I love to see that I am not alone in the things that I am doing. It helps me to have courage and faith always! I am so grateful to be a missionary and especially to be here at this time.

Love you all! Domnul sa va binecuvanteze!

Picture 1: Training it through the Romanian countryside

Picture 2: We made some friends along the way

Picture 3: Studying the good word 

Picture 4: walking to a less actives house in the prettiest city ever

Week 31- Ziua Americii!! La multi ani!!

Happy 4th of July everyone!! This week was super awesome! My new companion is amazing and has a ton of faith! We have been working hard and teaching everyone we see! I know that God is blessing us and is here with us! This week were able to go to Bogdana's house again and teach the Plan of Salvation. She was really touched when we spoke about how we all have a mission here on earth and that we need to be ready so that we can find it and fulfill it. Her daughters were so cute and kept asking us if they could pray with us agian. Bogdana told us that she fills something different when we are there and asked us to keep coming. We were also able to work with our members a lot this week, including our sweet Ramona. She is such a light and an example. It is such a testimony to me of the truth of the Gift of the Holy Ghost. She is a changed person! I am so grateful to be a part of this work in spreading the truth to all of God's children here! I know that He truly does have a plan for each of us and that if we have faith, He will allow miracles to work in our lives. Don't ever forget that God loves you and that He is there for you! Have a great week!

Picture 1 Ramona and us 

Picture 2 Me and Florina and Raluca (and Bogdana and Sara in the background)

Picture 3 Just cheesing

Picture 4 Happy 4th

Picture 5 Cluj

Week 30- Dar cine este Mormon?

My new comp is the CUTEST ever! We have just been working hard and having so much fun already. This week we were able to meet with that family that we had found a month or so ago and it was so cool! Bogdana had just had a baby and there was a really sweet spirit in the home. We gathered the family and taught them all how to pray. All of the little girls were so excited to learn. We also had some amazing lessons with Ana and Madalina. We taught Ana the Gospel of Christ and she really loved it. She told us that she wanted to be baptized but wanted to know for sure if the church was true first. We talked about how we can gain faith through action and she agreed and told us that she was going to start being more dedicated in reading the Book of Mormon. With Madalina we taught the Law of Chastity and it was also a wonderful lesson. She told us that she would live the law of chastity and even testified of why she knows that it is important! We are so happy for her! We are sad to see her go to Oradea for the summer but the missionaries there will continue the lessons with her. Other than that we had a few lessons with new investigators and have been continuing to work hard to find people! We have set a ton of goals and have an amazing vision for the people here in Cluj! The Lord is blessing us and guiding us!

I love you all have a beautiful week!

Picture 1: just studying away

Picture 2: lol 

Picture 3: mission conference from a while ago ​​