Iohannas!

November 17, 2014

This week has been so amazing! And guess what I found out today! Iohannis won the election! He's so cool! He was the mayor of Sibiu and he's from Germany. I hear he was a great mayor, so that's good news for Romania. 

I'll start with our trip to Buc! I was so great. We had a mission conference and Elder Kearen of the Seventy came and talked to all of us. The Spirit that was with him was so strong. I learned so much and am just ready to work harder. The missionaries here are really raising up to the challenge to work harder and are understanding even more their calling and responsibility as missionaries. It's so great to be able to see not only the changes in myself, but the changes in all of the missionaries. 

A lot of the conference was about getting up on time with energy. Luckily for me, I've never had a hard time getting up. I just get up and I'm fine. Today, actually we were going to go running, which we started doing until Sora Bastidas asked me if I had the keys. Our apartment door can be locked without the key, and I've been really good at not forgeting the keys before I lock it. usually one of us gets the keys and the other gets the phone. i thought Sora Bastidas had the keys, but she didn't...haha so instead of going running we had to go all the way over to where the Elders live to get the spare key, which is like a 30 trip. Yep...but we still got up with energy! haha

anyways, but there were a lot of good things that I learned at the conference. Probably one of the biggest being the fact that we need to be happy where we are, but not satisfied. We always need to be striving to be better, to work harder with more attention. That's really something that hit me most, considering I'm going home soon and it would be super easy for me to say, "oh, I've done enough. I can rest and just drift on into the finish." But what's the point in that?! I definitely would not be satisfied looking back if I did that, and I'm not satisfied now with where I am! So I still got a ways to go, and it's wonderful. 

Something I learned most from the conference wasn't from anything that Elder Kearen said, but what he did. In our MLC he invited us all to have a kneeling prayer together. He invited 3 of us to pray, one after the other. He told us that we needed to 'call down power from heaven,' and that's exactly what we did. It was so amazing the Spirit that was there. The things we discussed addressed exactly what we really needed to focus on as a mission. It widened our vision of what is possible here, and the possibilities are limitless! So much can happen here. There is so much potential! 

Anyways, it was an absolutely amazing conference. And I got to see all my kids! Sora Black, Sora Huffaker, and of course Elder Manning. I got a picture of them that I will hopefully have time to send home. I loved talking to Sora Huffaker since I really haven't gotten to talk to her for a while. I haven't seen her for a long time either. It was just so good to see her. Sora Black's doing good too. I still miss her a lot and so it was wonderful to get to sit by her again at conference. I saw Sora Anderson, too! But I didn't have a whole lot of time to talk to her...I was running all over the place afterwards. 

We got to fly back to Oradea which is so much better than the 14 hour train ride. We almost weren't going to be able to, though because everyone but me forgot their passports, but luckily they had their visas and were still able to get on. It was seriously the fastest plane ride I have ever been on. It was so nice to get back in Oradea. 

This last week we spent a lot more time with our less actives. We've been meeting with Sora Isopescu who is doing so well. We went and read with her from the Book of Mormon. She got her scriputres out which she said she hadn't done in three years. The second time we visited her we asked her what she thought she needed to do to come closer to Christ and she was like, "I know I need to pray, and read...and come to church." And we're like, yeah! Exactly! She's started to read by herself again! Oh man, I'm so excited for her. I love her so much. 

We went and saw Sora Tutor in the hospital and brought her flowers. She absolutely loved them. Her husband came and it was only the second time I've seen him. We got to sing to her and her roommate and all of them just absolutely loved it. It brought back a lot of memories of singing to people in the hospital at home. 

This week I was a little discouraged. Sometimes negative thoughts just get to you. I was just thinking about how I've really not seen as much success in my mission as I hoped for in the beginning of my mission, even though I've worked super hard. And I just kept thinking about that and how little time I have left and how little I feel I can still do. I told Sora Bastidas about this and she was struggling a little too, and so we talked about it a lot. Then we prayed together, one after the other, like we did in zone conference. After that we had so much more faith. We are not giving up! We had an amazing weekly planning session and we are going to have an amazing week! 

And the fruits are already starting to be seen! Today we had a lesson with a girl named Adina that we met in the park the other day. She had so many questions about the Book of Mormon and we answered them and taught the Restoration. At the end we invited her to be baptized on the 5th, and she accepted! That was just absolutely amazing. We had to end because the lesson had already been an hour, but she just wanted to stay longer. She had so many questions! It was so cool. I am so excited for her. We invited her to church and at first she was like, "well, I have church from 9-12...but I think I'll come here this Sunday!" Wooh! I am so happy! I'm not done yet! Heavenly Father is still using me...somehow...haha. 

So, that's about it for this week. Thank you for all of your continuing support and prayers. This is the time I need them most!

Love you all!

Sora Merrill