Wow.. What a week

 I feel like this week has just been jammed packed with things. We had zone conference on Monday so all the missionaries from Moldova and Iasi came to Chisinau. We had 4 other sisters stay in our apartment for one night. So on P-day we walked around the city a little and went to piatias. It was also Elder Lasaters last day (my mission dad) so we all went out to eat to celebrate. We usually go out to eat on P-days anyway :)

So the other day we had a problem with our toilet. The button was stuck (cause in europe they have buttons and not handles) and so our toilet kept flushing and wouldn't stop. Me being the daughter of a plumber should know what to do, but everything we tried didn't work! We tried to turn off the water and it didn't turn off. Well I don't really know if it was the water switch but it was a little blue lever thing in the bathroom behind the toilet. It made sense at the time!! It didn't turn it off though. We called the senior couple and asked them what to do because we were out of ideas. We finally just called the apropratar (landloard) and he had a repair man come and fix it for us! We just took that time to do some language study. So that was an adventure we went through on Tuesday. 

I went on my 1st exchange this week. Because our mission is so spread out the sister training leaders come to us and we all stay in the same city. So they came Wednesday night and them left Thursday afternoon. One of the sister training leaders was actually Sora Cases MTC companion and the other one was her host., so that was a fun reunion. My companion for the next few hours was Sora Staplie. Something really cool we were talking about in our companion study was about testimonys, then we went and talked about Ether 12:27, which I love and is my mission scripture if I remember correctly. 

"And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will i make weak things become strong unto them."

She told me a story about on Sister who didn't think she was as progressed as she could have been in the language considering how long she had been there for. She went to this scripture and wondered when the Lord would make her weakness her strength. Her companion was listening to her and told her that when she talks people don't pay much attention to her beacuse hse can speak the lanuage but she told her companion (the one that couldn't speak as well) that when she talks people pay close attention and actually listen beacuse they need to to be able to understand. So in a sense, her weakness was actually a strength. People payed more attention because she couldn't speak as well. I never thought that maybe sometimes our weaknessess are strength. We just have to see how to take them and maybe use them in a differnet way.

Something really cool that happened this week was Elder Fingerly came to talk to the people the Moldova ( he is a member of the 70) He came Saturday and talked about something that Elder Ballard came and talked to the people of Europe about how to strenghten the church there. People from all over Moldova came, and the missionaries from the different branches. There are only 3 branches I think in Moldova, but they got to come and listen to him speak. It was also great because he speaks English (he is from Germany) but he doesn't speak Romanian or Russian so he had someone translate into Russian. I was happy I could understand though! He also talked to the people about the Pathway program. They tried to get the pathway program in Moldova but it was turned down for the time being. So they wanted someone here to come talk and see that these people need the program. We will see what happens in the future. He was also there on Sunday so we got to hear him talk I think a total of 4 times. It was just cool that we got to listen to a memember of the 70 talk here in Moldova :).

Everything here is great. Our 2 progressing investigators haven't been able to meet with us these last two weeks but hopefully they will be able to this week. If not we have a lot of contacting to do. I understnad now when people say this is a finding mission. Especially Moldova it has only been open for 10 years. It was opened then closed and is open again, so I'm not sure exactly how long in total it has been.

Love you all!! 

Miss you!!!

Love,

Sora Bynum

Funny line of the week:

So I go into the bathroom and notice it has a fruity smell but we don't have spray or anything then I look at the toilet paper and see it has some orange design on it. Out of curioisty I sniff it and it is SCENTED!!!! They have scented toilet paper in this country!!! I come out and I'm like "Sora our toilet paper is scented!! We may not have any baptisms or investigators right not but we have sented toilet paper!!!" It was a good day in our house haha

Christmas fun in Moldova

Well things here in Moldova are going great!! We taught some lessons. We were contacting in the park one day and started talking to this older lady that was interested and she TOOK a copy of the Book of Mormon and then said that she would be in the park the next day and we could come back and talk to her again. So we went back the next day and guess what... SHE WAS THERE!!! that was cool!!! We taught her a little about about the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. We were going to go back the next day but we had district meeting and so we got to the park a little late and she wasn't there and we haven't seen her since but we hoping to go back and see her again!

It has gotten pretty cold but it hasn't really snowed which I am happy about!!! We got a Christmas tree the other day from the store!!! It is so cute! It is little and sits on our table. We also got things to put on it as well! I love Christmas!! Makes it feel a little more homey having a tree up in our house. We also got to help put the tree up in the church after sports night. It is quite the tree with so many things on it haha. 

This week was our 1st week teaching English! We have the beinningers class After every class we give them a little spiritual thought and we only had 2 people there and we gave out 2 copies of the Book of Mormon!!! Plus we scheduled a 30/30 (we teach them 30 minutes of English and then 30 minutes of the Gospel) That was exciting for us!!

 

Moldova is great! I love just getting to walk around. Sometimes people don't really want to listen to us when it is cold outside but we still try and keep pressing forward with what we are doing. 

We also had zone conference last night. All the missionaries in Moldova and in Iasi came here to Chinsau. We had 4 sisters staying with us last night. Zone conference was so fun!! I got to see 3 of the people from my MTC district. It was like seeing family after a long time, even though it was really only 2 weeks :P. Actually during our conference the power decided it wanted to go off. We did our scarf and tie exchange in the dark, with the light of our phones. As missionaries we also decided that it would be a good idea to say a prayer for the power to come back on. Without the power the food couldn't be cooked. After the prayer it didn't come on but we countinued with what was planned. We sang hyms. After a while the power did come on and we were able to do everything that we needed to do. Our mission president even performed a number from fiddler on the roof. Costume and ALL!!! He is just the best!!! It was a great experience with great friends and food!!

In our mission when someone goes home we say they are dying. So the "dying" missionaries gave their testimonies it was a cool to hear. Also in our mission my trainer is my "mom" and my 1st district leader is my "dad" My dad is the one that is actually "dying" so it is sad to say bye to him but it is exciting that he gets to go home!!! 

All is well here!! 

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

-Sora Bynum

That is NOT the language they taught me in the MTC... No but really...

Buna Familie!!

I FINALLY made it to the field!!! After a long time traveling I made it to Romania!!! Once we got here 3 of us were wisked away to doctors appointmments, which was just them taking out blood pressure and age. I'm not sure what the point of that was. That 1st day was such a long day!!! I'm not sure if I remember all of it. I was SOOOOO jet lagged. I remember us all sitting in the mission home with papers and Sora Hill going over the rules. At one point she made us all stand up and move around. I remember holding my packet sitting down then the next minute I remember it is on the floor somehow. like I said LONG day!!!!! They wouldnt let us go to sleep until it was the right time to go to sleep either. To top it all off the day we got there was the 1st day it decided it wsanted to snow... my favorite....not. That night we went to a Nashes house. Which is the word for Godparent or something. Sora Bird and I went to the sister training leafers house to sleep.

The next morning my MTC district all meet up with President and Sora Hill at the place where the land was dedicated for mission work and we read the dedicatory prayer. It was really cool, FREEZING but a cool experience. After we has to go apply for visas.... SOOOO FUN... It really was just us sitting there while the assistance took care of it for us :) nothing to bad. Wednesday was also the day we all found out where we will be serving and who our trainers were going to be!!! It was like the 1st day of school!! Are you ready to hear where I am??????? 

My companion is Sora Case and I am serving in CHISINAU, MOLDOVA!!!!

So actually I am not even in Romania :P To get here thogh we left Wednesday night and took a sleeper train for 14 hours!!! I kind of felt like I was in harry Potter but not as cool, no one came around asking if I wanted chocolate frogs and it wasn't as clean. So that was an experience!

My companion is great!!! The second day we taught a lesson, WE have actually taught 4 since I've been here and the golden number is only one. I get a headache eveyday though trying to understand what people are saying... 

We also have Russian speaking elders in our mission that only stay in Moldova so I thought that was interesting, On Sunday we went ot church and guess what language all the church things were in(sacrament, sunday school, relief society) RUSSIAN!!! yeah so really they didnt not teach me that lanuage in the MTC... A LOT of people here speak Russian. So sometimes people say things and I'm not sure if I should understand them or not. Sometimes they mix Romanian and Russian... I'm not a big fan. I really just need to master Romanian before Russian gets into this. I love it here just not the two languages it is making it harder than I would like haha. The Lord put me here for a reason though so I just have to find what that reason is and go with it!! 

Love you all!!!

Everything is great!!

Love Sora Bynum

P.S.--sorry for any spelling mistakes my whole letter is underlined so IDK what is wrong and what is right. Plus my keyboard also has all these russian symbols on them :P

P.S.S --Oh I forgot to tell you!!! We celebrated Thanksgiving on friday here. Which was my birthday so we went to the senior couples house and ate with all the missionaries in Moldova and got to watch Fiddle on the Roof. Our mission president is AWESOME!! We also get to watch an animated movie of our choice for Thanksgiving as well. We have yet to watch it but we will decide soon! :)

A letter from the mission president's wife!

Dear Brother and Sister Bynum,

President Hill and I were thrilled to meet Sister Bynum as she arrived in the Bucuresti airport with her MTC group. She seemed very happy finally to be in the mission field after her weeks in the MTC. She was surprisingly awake after her long flights. President Hill had an enjoyable interview with her, where he learned more about this young woman, and I got to spend some time with her too. We were both pleased with her ability and the ease with which she fit in. Thank you very much for sending her to us.

After some time doing preliminaries for her visa, we all had dinner at the mission home with her MTC group, after which, she was whisked away to spend the night with the sister missionaries.

The next morning, in the cold and snow, we met at Cismigiu Park where, in 1990, Elder Russell M. Nelson dedicated the land of Romania for teaching the gospel. Together, we snapped a picture of the group. I'm attaching the picture for you to see.

Then, all the incoming missionaries continued their visa processing, after which they worked hard to stay awake through our orientation meeting and then met their first companions. Sister Bynum is now with her initial companion, Sister Case, in Chisinau, the capital city of Moldova.  Sister Case is an excellent missionary and Sister Bynum will learn "Moldovan" there, which is really just Romanian with an accent. She will probably pick up a little Russian too! Sister Case will give her an excellent start. 

Thanks again for sending us such a wonderful young missionary. We could tell she will be a very good, faithful, hard-working missionary.

With much appreciation,

Sister Hill

Romania/Moldova Mission

Busting out of here!

Buna Familia!!!

I think that maybe this week has gone by even faster than the previous week!! We got our travel plans the other day and we leave bright and early on MONDAY!!! AHHH only 4 more days!!! We fly to New York, Amsterdam, then to Romania. I AM SO EXCITED!!! Nervous of course, I don't feel like I am as far in the language as I want to be, but I guess I can get by :)

Me being me...& enjoying TONS of veggie straws! Thanks Dad!! 

This week has been great just like all of our other weeks. We do this activity called TRC where we talk to all these returned missionaries in Romanian, then leave them with a little spiritual thought. It is cool to get to ask these missionaries about the mission. One class period though we got to do it with out teacher so we could ask him all these questions and got to know him a little more. It was really awesome!! Probably one of the coolest experiences we had as a class. It is hard to explain in a letter. It was great though!

Me, Elder Brown, & Elder Bonner studying! ..this was not posed..

Today we got to host the new missionaries. I got to host one of the foreign missionaries who is actually in our zone now going to Italy and she is from ENGLAND!!! She actually came Tuesday so I met her then. I got to take her around to her hall and class. It is actually cool. This week we are over lapping with other people. Usually new people that are going to your mission come a week after you leave. Now we have a few days with the new kids going to the Romanian/Moldova Mission!! We are all excited to see them!! We tried to see them today but we couldn't. We will start our classes with them though so we will get see them later. 

I forgot my journal so I don't remember too much that has happened this week. I just know that we have so much to do before we leave! I have 5 suro in my room so all of us trying to pack is going to be a disaster!!! 

We all wore blue one day!! 

Sometimes.. we like to have food parties in our room :)

Ohh we have had some pretty great speakers this week on Sunday and Tuesday! The one on Sunday was SOOOO funny!!! We were all laughing so hard!!! It was great she was like "We believe in meetings, we hope for meetings, we have endured many meeting, and hope to endure all meetings" She was great!

Sorry I should have more next week! I will be in Romania in 5 days!!!

Love you all!!! :)

-Sora Bynum

Two weeks left!! :)

WOAH!!!

The weeks here are just flying by!! I only have 2 weeks left till I leave for Romania!!! We leave on November 25th as far as we know. We don't have to worry about getting visas either. We got some paper saying we didn't need them or we get them there. Either way a visa is not going to delay our departure which is great!!!

I have so much laundry!!

We are still teaching our simpatizants (Cristian and Ion). Tuesday we have 2 lessons in the AM class period which is usually stressful but they went SOOOOOO GREAT!!! I think they were our best lessons so far! Usually we bring in notes on what we need to say and kind of write it out, because we don't really know everything in Romanian, but this lesson we made it really simple and didn't write down word for word what we wanted to say!!! It was great! We were also able to understand what they were asking and could give them an answer!!! The BEST feeling in the world!! We actually looked in the dictionary less this lesson than any other lesson! It was just a great feeling!! I had one of those moments that was like "okay, maybe I can do this!!!" I also had individual coaching (coaching is just where our teacher will take us out in companionship's and talk to us about what is going on and what not) This time it was individual. It was nice just to talk to Fratele Boynton one on one. We just talked about how I felt that I was so focused on the language and the lessons that I didn't have enough time to focus on the doctrine as much as I wanted to be doing. We just came up with a plan to separate my time. Also to actually have personal study when it says to and not focus on the language at that time. I did do that Monday and Tuesday was the day we had our lessons that were great! I think I should keep it up!!! :) 

Romanian grammar rules

Decorations in our classroom

Our devotional last night was GREAT!! Elder L. Tom Perry came and spoke to us! It was so cool to be in the same room as an apostle!! I joke with Sora Bird every week that Elder Holland or President Monson is going to be the speaker but she just always tells me "That's a negative." Elder Perry was close though!!! He talked all about companionship and the importance of them. The devotional was broadcast to about 4 other MTCs. I also learned that our MTC has 2700 missionaries here right now. 300 senior missionaries!! WOAH!!! It is so cool that we are all different and come from different backgrounds but we all have the same purpose!!

I would just like to say that say that I now have the 1st Vision memorized in Romanian!!! It took me a few language study classes but I now have it!!! I would type it but I don't know how to spell sometimes :P I also have the purpose, but I've had that down for a while haha. 

Best seat in the WHOLE class!!

My district is still great! Elder Anderson apparently wasn't writing his mom enough so she sent him a fill in the blank letter for him to fill out and send back (she is a kindergarten teacher) so we made a mad gab out of it :P.... My stomach hurt so much from laughing!!! It was hard to breathe!!! So if Meredith wants to"Dear Elder" me one, you will get a funny response!!!  We decided that we wanted to play some language games during language study. One rule though is that we had to whisper so we wouldn't disturb others in our room. We made it like a game show. Elder Anderson was the Host. We just combined a lot of game shows. We sometimes used the "What is.." form when we answered. It was a Suro vs Elders. We ended up tying at the end. We are playing again today to see who wins!! I asked when I would get to spin the wheel (like the wheel of fortune) but they never answered me. :(

Our zone.. Romanians & Iltalians

All is well here! Some days are freezing and some are really nice! Utah is weird!!! Love you all!! Hope all is well for everyone!

Love, Sora Bynum

Funny line of the week:

*Elder Brown and Elder Bonner have an investigator (Fratele V.) who just asked these ridiculous questions so this is what happened after one of their lesson*

Me: How did your lesson go?!?!

Elder Brown: He asked if we had plural marriage.. When I said no not anymore he got really disappointed....

Me: *I just laugh*

Elder Brown: *while semi laughing* Then he starts asking us this question and I'm in my dictionary trying to figure out what the world it is....It was Dinosaur.... then he went  to the computer and pulls up this picture of Hristos (Christ) holding a dinosaur...*the picture where Christ is Holding a sheep but it was replaced with a dinosaur* I didn't know how to react... The plus side I now know the word for dinosaur!

I am so glad none of my investigators are like that!!!! 

Bună Familie!

This week seems to have gone by in a blur. On Halloween one of the Sisters Aunt's sent her a lot of goody bags. It was so nice of her! Later that night we decided that we wanted to have a "party" which was just the sisters bringing all the candy and things that they were sent. We put it all in our class and the whole zone came in and ate food and hung out during our language study time.

My companion and I got both of our investigators to come to church. We asked our teachers if they really came and THEY DID!!!! SUCCESS!!! They are on the right path to baptism. It is still kind of weird though because they are our teachers, so we will go teach them as investigators and then they put their tie back on and become our teacher.

We also have this thing called TRC. I don't know what that stands for, but we go and talk to these volunteers in Romanian and are supposed to share a message with them.  The 1st week we did it was  AWFUL!!! Our teacher told us to prepare a lesson, then this guy came in who is in charge of TRC and told us not to teach a lesson. We were so confused! This week was so much better though!!! We had one lady from last time. The people we talked to were all return missionaries that served in Romania. It was cool to ask them questions and learn more about the mission and what it is like. All our teachers and  missionaries that go to Romania get these cool covers on their scriptures from this one place. We are all excited to get our scriptures covered!!

We honestly haven't done anything too exciting this week. We went to the temple this morning and on the way back to campus I ran into Elder Garrett who reports today!!!! It was nice to see a familiar face!!! I forgot he reported today. That was pretty nice. 

For some reason our zone has come up with an obsession with riddles. They give some hard ones! We used a whole language study trying to figure some out!! I know not the best way to spend time but we just HAD to know!!! We got them eventually :-P It is mostly the Elders who come up with them.

Classes are all the same, teach investigators, grammar,  then somethings else depending on the day. One day we had to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in cince (5) minutes, then 1, then, 30 seconds!! It was so hard!! Especially in Romanian because you have to think what to say and if you can say it.   We changed leadership positions last night. It isn't effective until Sunday though. Everyone in my district has a calling now except 2. We have the zone leaders, the sister trainers, and a district leader. My companion and I are now in charge of picking music for sacrament and priesthood meetings.      Everything is great here! Still busy as ever! Sometimes the days catch up with you and its a hard to focus and stay awake.

Love you all!!!! Have a Great Week!!

Sora Bynum